Class Notes, Jul-Aug, 2025

Lives well-lived: Tom Stanko, who was in our class right up until final exams senior year, died April 7, 2025, from an extremely rare set of cancers. His son reports that he stayed active until the end, skiing with his sons in March, 2025.

Although Tom did not keep in touch with 1969 classmates (he actually graduated with, and was affiliated with, the class of 1970) a number of us did know him during our undergraduate years, especially wrestlers. From John Weber:

“He was in TD and frequently played bridge with Dave Bannard, another TD undergrad.  His drinking exploits were unparalleled – when he and I (and others) pledged Beta, Tom won the martini drinking contest at somewhere between 22 and 26 and then made it through wrestling practice the next day. I believe he was also on the Tang cup team (beer drinking contest between TD and Silliman) a number of years.

Tom entered Yale in a cast. He broke his right femur very close to the hip in a motor bike accident in Jamaica his senior year at The Hill and wasn’t fully healed until at least mid-semester freshman year.

As I recall, Tom just said to hell with it during exam week second semester senior year, packed up and went to Alaska. My understanding is that he returned to Yale for the fall semester of ’69 and got his diploma in January. He was reported to have lived in the woods of Maine for a while before moving to Colorado.”

From Terry Light:

“During wrestling season, Tom and I both dieted strenuously (starved) to make weight before matches. A week or two after the season ended, Tom called me late one night. He instructed me to come to his room in Timothy Dwight at midnight. He and another accomplice had the keys to the TD Dining Hall and the basement meat locker. We snuck in without turning on any lights and gathered a veritable feast – consumed with glee when we returned to his room.  More than a half century later, Tom’s sense of adventure and fun throughout our clandestine raid was far more memorable than whatever we ate that night.”

Your scribe reports:

“At an away wrestling match (1967 Cornell) Tom and I got in a chocolate-milk drinking contest in the cafeteria. The empty cartons were piled high, as others came over to watch the epic battle. I eventually conceded to Tom after a heroic effort, of course followed by emesis. Those were the days. I had no idea I was up against the Michael Jordan of liquid refreshment.”

On a more serious note, Ted Snow alerted us to the Harrington-Stanko Construction Company website (https://www.harringtonstanko.com/) which shows his decades-long work as a successful builder (with his sons) of beautiful homes in the Boulder area. There are photos of Tom and his family on the class website. He was one-of-a-kind and will be missed by all who knew him.

Karl Peter Ameriks died of rapidly progressive pancreatic cancer on April 28, 2025, as reported by Hughes Norton, his senior year roommate and good friend.

Karl had a distinguished career as a Professor of Philosophy at Notre Dame. Karl got his Ph.D. from Yale in 1973, and joined the faculty at Notre Dame the same year. He taught there for more than forty years. From Wikipedia: “He was regarded as one of the foremost scholars of the philosophy of Immanuel Kant and has written widely in the history of late modern and Continental philosophy. Karl co-edited the series Cambridge Texts in the History of Philosophy. He was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2009.”  Your scribe has also discovered that Karl wrote or co-edited more than 10 books on Kant’s philosophy.

One of his Ph.D. students wrote: “But I hope it will also be highlighted just how much fun it was to talk to him…The breadth of his curiosity was intoxicating, and he was the life of every party I ever attended with him.”

From legacy.com: “Karl was also a devoted teacher and supporter of young colleagues. Several of his former students have gone on to become prominent scholars too.”

It was recently discovered that Gregory Gorelik died in 2014 in a one-car automobile accident in San Diego. At this time, we have very little information on his life at Yale, other than that he was a resident of Ezra Stiles, and had an older brother in the class of 1964. We have no information on his life after Yale.

Lives still being lived well: Harry Wise reports: “‘The Bluenotes,’ a pop-up musical group of classmates that entertained at the class dinner at the 55^th reunion had their own reunion on a Saturday in March. Group members John Adams, Terry Benson, Jay Castelli, Tom Guterbock, Mat Kastner, Eliot Norman, Dick Williams and Harry Wise, joined by a real, professional, musician from the class, Norm Zamcheck (a/k/a “Real Stormin Normin”) spent the day jamming at a church in Harrison, New York, where Jay is Minister of Music, hosted by Jay and his wife, Carolyn.  (Jon Hoffman, a group member who couldn’t make it, was there in spirit.)”

Bess Chakravarty, widow of Subrata Chakravarty, reports that on May 3^rd,  “We had a lovely day of celebration yesterday with his friends, colleagues and family. The Walkabout Clearwater Chorus, originally started by Pete Seeger, came and played 15-minute sets.  Many people came forward during these short breaks to tell us all about how Subrata influenced their lives for the better. I look forward to continuing to receive the Yale Alumni Magazine.”