Tom Walsh died on September 22, 2020 of pancreatic cancer. A full obituary, with pictures and a memorial by Tom Hine, appears online on the class website, yale1969.org. Here is an excerpt from that memorial: “When he called one day last summer, his voice was as always, soft and even. ‘It looks as if you will be the last of us left,’ he said. I knew he was referring to the four of us who…
The Class Notes published prior to 1995 were never digitized by YAM. We wanted them available to you, so I drove down to the Reference Library at Sterling with my scanner and physically scanned back issues of YAM, from 1969 to 1995.
I then ran those scans through an optical character recognition (OCR) program to convert the images to searchable text. And then I converted all those pages to one, very large PDF file, available below!
From Tulsa World: “Gene Carson Buzzard passed away on July 21, 2020 from complications related to brain cancer. He will be remembered by his family and many friends for his intellect, humor, curiosity, generosity, loyalty, general gusto, and for living his life with joy. He loved sailing, baseball, fly fishing, the American West, photography, birding, cycling, the Blues, and almost anything that allowed him to be outside or with his family. He once ran the…
Your scribe has been notified of four more deaths of classmates: Jerry Schnitt, Gregory Kampalas, Morrison Bonpasse and Gene Buzzard.
Steve Bemis forwarded this New Haven Register obituary: “Jerome M. Schnitt, MD (“Jerry”), 73, of Guilford, CT passed away peacefully on Tuesday morning, June 9, 2020 after a decade-long battle with cancer….An academic by nature, Jerry graduated from Yale University (Trumbull College) in 1969 before attending Medical School at West Virginia University. He subsequently completed his psychiatric residency […]
Our class now has its own Class Colloquia on ZOOM! All classmates are welcome to attend the presentation, Q&A, and breakout sessions afterward. Our first presenter was Ken Davis, who gave us a full update on Covid-19 from Mt. Sinai Hospital. Our second presenter was John Yarmuth, (D-KY), who gave us his views on politics in Washington and the upcoming elections. Next up was Reed Hundt, former FCC chairman, who will talk about the “Future…
Three more times the bell has tolled: Dick MacKay, Jim Steffenburg, and Terry Miller are gone. Howard Newman reported Dick’s death on March 26: “Dr. Richard MacKay died today after a life of service to others and a cruelly unfair illness.” Howard and others are working on a full memorial of Dick’s life which will appear in my next column and, much sooner, on the class website. Jim Steffenburg died peacefully on February 27 at…
Ted Van Dyke remembers John Nelson: John Eric Nelson died of colorectal cancer on February 5, 2020. He fought it bravely, tenaciously and optimistically. When I last saw him on January 24, we parted with a long-held fist bump and his saying, “It’s not looking good, but I’m not giving up.” John was an excellent athlete, winning the class of 1969 intramural athlete of the year award and leading the JE Spiders football teams to…
Jim Grew writes: “I was inducted into the International Waterski & Wakeboard Hall of Fame this year, the International Governing Body of all Towed Water Sports recognized by the IOC to go along with my 2013 induction into the U.S. Water Ski & Wake Sports Hall of Fame, the national governing body recognized by the USOPC.” Related story. Mike Schonbrun (mks@balfourcare.com): “Loved seeing everyone at the 50th. My appreciation for Yale gets stronger every year,…
What follows is a large (245mb, 453 page) document holding the scanned copies of Class Notes columns for the Class of 1969 which have appeared in the Yale Alumni Magazine between the 1969 and 1994. Depending on your browser, either click or right-click and open a local copy of the .pdf file. Use page-search (control-F / command-F) to find the text you are interested in. Be patient: It might take a minute or two to…
Ralph Swanson reports: “It is with a great deal of sadness that I inform you of the passing today (9/26/2019) of our good friend and classmate, Eric Prosnitz. I just learned this from his long-time girlfriend, Kathi Willis. As you know, Eric was being treated for cancer, but he was very upbeat about the prognosis (I spoke with him last in August). Apparently, he developed a fast-moving blood infection and there was nothing they could…
Martin Hoffmeister, an American architect, died several years ago. Your scribe, in spite of much searching, has not found much about his life. Here is what we have from prabook.com: Martin was born on August 27, 1942 in Prague, Czechoslovakia to Vaclav Rohlik and Milena (Hoffmeister) Klikova. He came to the United States in 1966. After getting his Yale BA in 1969, he earned a Master of Architecture from Yale in 1972. He did postgraduate…
Edward Jay Ferraro died on January 3, 2019. Terence Lenahan writes: Ed was my oldest friend. We met in the summer of 1962 at the end of ninth grade. We went the same way, so we often walked home together talking though his trip was much longer, all the way to Yankee Stadium, about four miles or more. After that we were debate teammates for three years and traveled all over the country together competing….
You can go home again!
Your scribe and nearly 400 classmates, with 300 spouses and family members, returned to Yale for a fabulous 50th. My limited word allowance cannot do justice to the rediscoveries of old friends, and, yet again, the making of new ones. Add in nonstop intellectual stimulation, animated conversations day and night, a steady supply of libations and tasty comestibles, all topped with two servings from our gentlemen songsters, the superb 1969 Whiffenpoofs.
Madeline Hoffman holds the Class of 1969 Scholarship for 2018-19. Yale reports that: “Maddie gained valuable experience as a high energy physics intern at Lawrence Livermore National Lab, in Livermore, California.
Back on campus for her senior year, this …
Your scribe has learned from Barbara Plyer that her husband Bruce Plyer died on November 15, 2018. In an email to your scribe, she reports that “He had just finished lifting weights and came upstairs. His death was a sudden catastrophic event and took only minutes. He loved his time at Yale. He was a member of the Dramat; he rowed for four years; he was an architecture major.” “Bruce was also a talented artist who…
Ken Brown writes: “Over the weekend of October 20th, 6 members of our class with 3 spouses attended a weekend in Charleston, SC. Last November, Ben Slotznick and Ian Glenday from the class of 1970 approached me with the idea of a joint class of 1969, 1970, and 1971 off- site mini-reunion. The thought was that, given the relatively few Yale alumni in the southeast, getting 3 classes to participate would ensure a good crowd. …
