Class Notes – Nov/Dec 2020

Our Class Colloquia continue: Reed Hundt and Mike Medved have presented, with more sessions planned for the future. Contact Art Segal (asegalplus69@gmail.com) for details and instructions on how to join. You can also visit our website for more timely information.

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 decadelong 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 at UConn Health Center in 1976 as Chief Resident. During his career, Jerry served as Medical Director of the addiction outpatient services at the West Haven VA Hospital for 11 years, spent 33 years teaching and supervising at the Yale Medical School, and was the Medical Director at the Stonington Institute for 7 years. Jerry was the President of the CT Psychiatric Society in 1996-97 and was a founding member of both the International Traumatic Stress Society and the American Academy of Addiction Psychiatrists. Jerry also maintained a private practice throughout his entire career from which he retired in 2015. In 1970, he met his future wife Diana on a ferry from Copenhagen to Malmö. They married in 1972 and eventually settled in Guilford where they raised two children, Rebecca and Michael. Whenever he was not working, Jerry was spending time with his family, cooking, gardening, or getting out on the water on his sailboat ‘After Hours.’ Jerry is survived by his wife of nearly 50 years, Diana.”

Steve also wrote: “Jerry and I were sophomore roommates in Trumbull and we kept in touch over the years. His determination to become a doctor was memorable. His compassion and effectiveness, and his early foresight and initiatives in addiction and PTSD veterans’ counseling, were renowned. His courage and strength in battling cancer for ten years were simply breathtaking. He prevailed through one cancer-related medical crisis after another, yet joined us to celebrate our 50th in 2019.  Visibly exhausted by his effort, he nevertheless promised to our dinner table, “See you for next year’s reunion.”  He dropped me a brief email on June 7, 2020 that he was entering hospice. He died two days later on June 9, thereby fulfilling his promise to make the 51st.”

Terry Light added: “Jerry was a kind individual who was a good listener, patient and kind with a wry sense of humor.   He turned me on to Bob Dylan, an affliction that I have never shaken.”

Yale has relayed the following: “Gregory P. Karampalas, 73, of Haverhill, MA  passed away Tuesday, May 26th. Gregory was given a special award for achievement as a Secretary at Branford College. He was also a member of the fencing team and was instrumental in bringing women into Yale. He would later teach in the Haverhill School System at the Alternative Schools and also dedicated much of his time at the Holy Apostles Greek Orthodox Church where he served on the Board of Directors. He taught GOYA and coached the basketball team, which won many awards. Gregory was also a member of the church choir and sang with many well-known singers for a fundraiser for the Boston Diocese. He was also in the choir that sang for the Patriarch. He was the recipient of the 2020 Parishioner of the Year Award that is given by the Greek Orthodox Metropolis of Boston. Gregory’s survivors include his loving wife of 26 years Marita L. (Butterfield) Karampalas.”

JP Jordan sent the following from the Lincoln County News: “Morrison Bonpasse died at Maine Medical Center on June 7, 2019. He was born to Frances and Morrison Bump on Nov. 22, 1947, the day of the Harvard-Yale football game….

At Yale University, he was inspired by his studies in the global consequences of population growth and the work of Professor Lincoln H. Day and his wife Alice T. Day. Morrison became a lifelong member of Zero Population Growth (now The Population Connection), chair of Yale’s chapter and later of the Massachusetts chapter, and in 2015, the author of “Too Many Humans: The Imperative to Return to a Human Population of One Billion.”

From 1968 to 1970, he served in the United States Army, Tenth Special Forces Group (Airborne). He held advance degrees from Boston University School of Law, where he met the love of his life, Leah Sprague, and from Northeastern University and Babson College. He worked for a number of years for Digital Equipment Corporation. After leaving DEC, he established a temporary services company, moving it to Maine in 1999 as Maine Staffing Services. With his wife, he found tremendous satisfaction in the life and community of historic Sheepscot Village…

He reinvigorated the moribund Lucy Stone Society, dedicated to preserving name choice freedom, particularly for married women. In 2003 he founded the Single Global Currency Association….Beginning in 2008, he published “The Single Global Currency: Common Cents for the World,” with eight editions. For the past 15 years, he devoted his life to the exoneration quests of a number of individuals whom he believed to be unjustly convicted. He was the author of “80 Proposals to Stop Wrongful Convictions;” “Perfectly Innocent: The Wrongful Conviction of Alfred Trenkler;” and “Eye Contact: The Mysterious Death in 2000 of Kassidy Bortner and the Wrongful Convictions of Chad Evans and Amanda Bortner.”

He was a loving and attentive “Bonpa” to his three granddaughters, Madeline, Cameron, and Sophie, in whom he nurtured a commitment to intellectual curiosity and the need to live a life of purpose.”

More information on these classmates may be available on the class website. Gene Buzzard’s memorial will appear in the next issue of the Class Notes.

“Three grand essentials to happiness in this life are something to do, something to love, and something to hope for.” -Joseph Addison