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    Michael Stuart Smernoff, July 7, 2026

    ByWayne Willis

    from Tallahassee Democrat Michael Stuart Smernoff, 79, passed away peacefully on July 7, 2026, in Fernandina Beach, Florida. Born on March 9, 1947, Michael lived a life marked by dedication, love, and an easy-going nature that endeared him to all who knew him. Michael’s academic journey began at The Williston Northampton School in Easthampton, Massachusetts, where he graduated as Valedictorian. He continued his education at Yale University earning a Bachelor’s Degree in English Literature and…

  • Our Class Listservs Turn One

    ByWayne Willis

    A little over a year ago, the Yale Alumni Association pulled the plug on the class listserv. Rather than go silent, we built our own. We launched three lists in June 2025. A year in, they have become the closest thing our class has to a shared common room.

    Here is a quick review of some of the good conversations from the last year, and a refresher on how best to join in. The three lists, in brief:
    * Everyone@Yale1969.org is our town square for announcements. Class news, personal milestones, remembrances, obituaries, event notices. It is for broadcast, not debate. Nearly everyone is on it, about 672 of us at last count.
    Discussions@Yale1969.org is for conversation, discussion …

  • Hugh Douglas Connell II, July 3, 2026

    ByMichael Plishner

    Doug Connell passed away on July 3, 2026.  Doug was likely the longest-serving member of our class in the U.S. Armed Forces, having spent 28 years as a Naval Aviator.  Doug came to Yale on a Navy ROTC scholarship, was a varsity lacrosse player, a member of DKE and did New Haven community service work with a troop of inner-city Boy Scouts as a member of Alpha Phi Omega.  Following our graduation in June 1969, Doug had two very busy weeks – after Commencement, he was commissioned in the U.S. Navy, married the love of his life, Kathy Dodge Connell, and left for flight school in Pensacola, FL.

  • Class Notes, Jul-Aug 2026

    ByDaniel Seiver

    From Calvin Mew: “Here is a note, maybe the second one I’ve submitted since 1969: I am ending my 2-year term as President of the Harvard Business School Club of New York on June 30. HBSCNY is the largest HBS alumni club in the world, about 15,000 alumni live and work in New York. It has been an interesting task to manage a volunteer driven nonprofit. (Some HBS alumni have significant egos.)

    [Also news about Bill Stanisich, Reed Hundt and Avi Soifer.]

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    Seltzer: Voices of the Owned

    ByAdmin

    Prolific classmate Richard Seltzer has delivered another important work: Voices of the Owned. It draws on more than 2,000 firsthand accounts of former slaves, collected by the Works Progress Administration in the 1930s. Most collections like these chase what was typical. Selzer instead focuses on the individual: distinctive lives, unexpected moments, vivid scenes, and unforgettable turns of phrase.

    Richard is making the PDF available free to classmates.  Just download it here. He encourages you to read it and share it with others.

    Click through and see the details of how Richard used AI to winnow the 2 million words of the original transcripts into this book, while keeping his own editorial control, as well as a surprising discovery of his own family connection to one of the former slaves!

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    James Douglas Woolery, June 13, 2026

    ByAdmin

    Editor’s Note: this is “in process,” so we’d welcome people either adding remembrances as a “comment” field (below, login first) or sending thoughts, stories, tributes, etc. to support@Yale1969.org for inclusion. Pictures, especially, are welcome.

    In addition to the formal obituary (see text pasted below), I think the most telling summary of Jamie’s life is found on the “About” page of his personal website – jamieirons.com.
    Jamie Woolery was born in rural Ohio and educated at Yale. He veered from molecular biology and biophysics to medicine, where he settled down.

    After a psychiatry residency at UCLA’s Neuropsychiatric Institute, where he was a student of Robert Stoller, and a year as a Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholar, Dr. Woolery eventually made his way to Kaiser Permanente in 1990. In the summer of 2005 he was appointed Chief of Psychiatry.  He retired in 2014 …

  • Class Notes, May-Jun 2026

    ByDaniel Seiver

    Lots of sad news. Please go to the full article for more information and pictures about:
      * Bill Stanisich,
      * Rick Lannamann, and
      * Jim Wright

    “William John Stanisich died December 29, 2025, after a brief but complicated illness. At Yale, Bill studied with Vincent Scully and Charles Talbot. He was accepted into the Yale Architecture Department but had to return to San Francisco to attend to his ailing mother. Bill continued his studies at the S.F. Art Institute, but turned to teaching high school art…

  • Mick Kleber ’69: From Marines to Music (via Nixon’s White House)

    ByWayne Willis

    Editor’s Note: This is a new kind of class-zoom … not a Class Colloquium with purposeful academic goals, but rather the sort of informal learning we all enjoyed over dining hall discussions, evening bull sessions or simply enjoyable storytelling.  Our inaugural event will be a conversation on April 9th at 5 PM Eastern with Mick Kleber … about the many different worlds he’s inhabited and influenced.

    What do Richard Nixon’s resignation, Tina Turner, Andy Warhol, Rodney Dangerfield, Frank Sinatra, MC Hammer, Timothy Leary, Ollie North, Pope Francis, The Beach Boys, John Wayne, Bob Hope, and the Mickey Mouse Club have in common?

    They’re all part of the life of Mick Kleber — a long, strange trip from Marine combat missions in Vietnam to the Watergate White House to the golden age of music video to celebrity-driven advocacy campaigns for healthcare’s biggest brands.

    Be sure to register now for the Zoom hangout with Mick.

  • Refounding America: Is This a ‘Project 2029’?

    ByWayne Willis

    Classmates Reed Hundt and Avi Soifer are on the barricades again, this time organizing and advancing a new democracy-reform project called Refounding America. 

    You may remember Avi from his leading role in Coed Week (see That Was The Week), and more recently serving as the dean of the Richardson Law School at the University of Hawaii.   You know Reed as the FCC Chairman during the Clinton years (see his recent talk to AEI re: the 30th anniversary of the 1996 Telecom Reform Act) and other democracy-reform efforts like the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact.

    Refounding America is in its early stages of mobilizing a broad civic conversation about what fundamental changes we might need to address the challenges of the 21st century while staying true to our American values.  According to the website, “We intend to produce a compendium of ….

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    William John Stanisich, December 29, 2025

    ByAdmin

    William John Stanisich (Bill) 78, of San Francisco, died peacefully, on December 29, 2025, after a brief but complicated illness.

    Born in Cheyenne, Wyoming, on March 15, 1947, Bill attended Yale University (1965-69), majoring in English Literature and History of Art. He studied with architecture historian Vincent Scully and Charles Talbot, the Northern Renaissance scholar. Bill graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in History of Art in 1969, and was accepted into the Yale Architecture Department but had to return to San Francisco to attend to his ailing mother.

    Bill continued his studies at the S.F. Art Institute, but turned to teaching high school art and English to supplement his career as an artist. He taught at Lick-Wilmerding (1970-71), then at the Urban School (1972-1998), when he retired with disability.  Beginning in the mid-1980s Bill …

  • Class Notes, Mar-Apr 2025

    ByDaniel Seiver

    Editor’s Note:: The Class Notes this month contains some reports from classmates living in the Southwest, an update from Stewart Palmer (who finally got his degree in 2014!) and a “midway report” from the current recipient of the Yale Class of ’69 Scholarship, David Yun, Class of 2028.

    We also report on some reflections people sent in remembering Paul Wilkins and Bruce Jones. Click through to see more.

  • James Robert Wright, Jr. – January 2, 2002

    ByAdmin

    Editor’s Note: Some of our classmates passed away prior to the creation of Yale1969.org and, therefore, never received any “In Memoriam” reports or tributes here. This information was submitted by Dov Ospovat’s widow, Claudia Ospovat (Leopold). If you have information (and preferably some pictures) of classmates who died prior to 2017, feel free to submit the information here, and I’ll post it.

    James R. Wright, Jr. was born November 30, 1946 in Stillwater, Oklahoma to…

  • Reed Hundt Keynotes AEI Conference on the 1996 Telecom Act – Feb. 10th, 9 AM ET

    ByWayne Willis

    This AEI conference evaluates the Telecommunications Act of 1996 to extract governance lessons for today’s “tsunami” of disruption—from AI and quantum computing to bioengineering and deepfakes. By analyzing the “grand strategy” developed by the Clinton-Gore administration and former FCC Chairman Reed Hundt, the event examines how past regulatory successes and failures can inform modern public policy. [In this post, our class is invited to the live stream – Tuesday, Feb. 10th, 9:00 AM Eastern. Register Now

  • Richard Stuart Lannamann, January 6, 2026

    ByAdmin

    Published in Sarasota Herald-Tribune, January 15, 2026.    Richard S. Lannamann of Osprey, Florida, passed away peacefully on January 6, 2026, in Stamford, Connecticut, following a heart attack on Christmas Eve. His loving wife, Kate, was at his side. He was 78. Rick was a beloved husband, father, and grandfather and a distinguished leader in the executive search profession. hello. Born on September 4, 1947, Rick was raised in Cincinnati and graduated from Walnut Hills High…

  • Paul Cole Wilkins, November 13, 2025

    ByAdmin

    Dr. Paul Cole Wilkins, age 78, of Charlottesville, passed away on Thursday, November 13, 2025. Dr. Wilkins died peacefully at the Hospice of the Piedmont due to complications sustained from a stroke two weeks prior. Born on August 21, 1947, in Buffalo, New York, Dr. Wilkins was a medical psychiatrist who practiced in Charlottesville since 1976. He graduated Magna Cum Laude from Yale University in 1969, distinguishing himself by winning the Albert Angier award in…