LIFE AFTER THE CD
Walter Bardenwerper (’73, Executive Editor) continues in his 24th year as vice president and general counsel of Towers Watson & Co. and recently began teaching as an adjunct professor at Georgetown University Law Center. He and his wife, Tricia (who wrote for the CD's literary supplement "Penny Dreadful" in the 1970s, have raised five children, one of whom got her M.D. degree at UVa.
Carroll "Bo" Berndt (’56, advertising) after graduation served in the U.S Navy as a gunnery officer before being transferred to Washington D.C. He married Margaret “Marnie” Cook and moved back to the Baltimore area where he was employed by Xerox Corp. for over 30 years. The couple had three children, two of whom graduated from U.Va.. Lucy is a math/computer science teacher while Dorcey is a lawyer for Legal Services. Their son, Pete, a New England College grad, is celebrating his 25th year as the Coup de Ville restaurant owner/operator at Martha's Vineyard. Bo and Marnie now enjoy living in Ivy, Va. and enjoying attending a variety of U.Va. sports.
P.J. Boatwright (’78, Sports editor) reside in Fairfield, Conn., with his wife, Cathy (a UNC grad -- they call it a mixed marriage) and three children. P.J. says they have a pretty ho-hum suburban/rat-trap life except that a year ago he took the leap from playing guitar for his own amusement and went to an open mic. He travels a lot on business and has now played open mics in San Diego, San Francisco, Chicago, Boston, Washington, Austin, Philadelphia as well as his hometown. “Someday, someone is going to pay me to perform -- even if it's just $1 at the Bayonne New Jersey Holiday Inn happy hour. Wish me luck,” he says.
Esther Brown (’06, News reporter) is the Manhattan community manager for Google Places, a personalized local search tool that helps people connect with the places they love. In her spare time, Esther writes about learning to cook the foods of her childhood at www.YallHungary.com (a project that recently led her to a farm in New Jersey where she learned to slaughter, clean, butcher and make delicious sausages out of Hungarian Mangalitsa hogs). You can find her on Twitter @estheribrown and @yallhungary.
Lauren Caldwell (’09, Life editor) will serve as a Fulbright English Teaching Assistant in Yilan County, Taiwan from August 2011 to June 2012. When she returns to the United States, she will begin her M.A. in China Studies and International Economics at the Johns Hopkins University Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies.
Dave Cockley (’66, reporter) sends greetings to his U.Va. buddies. He was an English Major who wrote articles for the paper, played on the soccer team, and was a member of the Jefferson Society. Following a career in advertising and arketing he is now a marketing professor in the College of Business Administration at the University of Akron. Dave lives in Cleveland and says grandchildren are even better than children because you can wind them up and when they get ornery you can simply deposit them back with the parents.
Eric Cunningham (’06, Life columnist) has been named campaign manager for the "Brian Williams, Please Run for President" campaign. In this new role he will urge the NBC Nightly News anchor to run for president one day, because it'd be cool. (Campaign logos and other material available at BrianWilliamsForPresident.com.)
Katie Dalton (’02, Assistant Managing Editor) relocated to New York City and works as the Director of Marketing for Audience Rewards, the official rewards program of Broadway.
Jerry Ferguson (’84, Executive Editor) married 1985 U.Va. grad Teresa Carroll Malyshev at the American Cathedral in Paris on June 24, 2011. Chuck Culpepper (’84, Editor-in- Chief), who introduced the couple, spoke in the couple's honor at the wedding. Also attending were John Morris (’84, Features editor), Joe Evangelisti (’85, News associate editor), Bob Deilly (’85, Shop Manager), Mary Ellen Phelps Deilly (’86, Projects) and Kathy Jourdan (’86, Features editor). Alicia Glekas Everett, who was the Editor-in-Chief of the University Journal 1987 also attended. The couple lives in New York City, where Jerry is a partner at Baker & Hostetler LLC, specializing in new media and privacy law.
Mitch Frank (’96, Executive Editor) and Catherine Shnaider Frank (’99, Assistant Managing Editor) moved with their two-year-old son, Spencer, from Brooklyn, NY, to New Orleans, La. in December 2010. Mitch remains an Associate Editor at Wine Spectator, while Catherine has founded Catherine Frank Editorial Services, LLC, a consultancy specializing in children's books: editedbycatherine.com.
Whitney Garrison (’05, Health & Sexuality editor) is director of development at The American Spectator Foundation, which publishes the American Spectator magazine. She married non-Wahoo John Athayde on Aug. 13, 2011, in Berryville, Va.
Jennifer Schaum Harpole ('02, Executive Editor) and her husband, Daniel, welcomed their daughter, Grace Elise, on May 15, 2011. The family resides in Denver, Colo., where Jennifer is an associate at Jackson Lewis LLP.
Kristin Hawkins (’09, Managing Editor) joined the State Department Foreign Service in February 2011 as a public diplomacy officer. Her first tour is in Kingston, Jamaica from May 2011-2013. If you want a free place to stay in Kingston (or find yourself stuck in a Jamaican jail), contact her at kristin.k.hawkins@gmail.com.
Jeff Kerper (’82, Advertising manager) joined Koren Rogers Associates as vice president, senior practice leader for this boutique executive search firm based in White Plains, NY. Jeff continues to live with his wife, Barrie, and daughter, Alyssa, in Pleasantville, NY.
Danny Neckel (’06, Photo editor) works for a political media buying agency in Old Town Alexandria, Va., where he places ads, buys media and reconciles advertising budgets for politicians across the country. He recently mastered the real estate market after purchasing a house in the Old Town area. Danny also keeps busy as the author of a sports blog, dneckel.blogspot.com, and a TV advertising blog, adfineprint.blogspot.com.
Tim Proffitt (’86, photographer) is a managing director with WoodRock and Co., a boutique investment bank in Houston, Tex. His middle child (of five) will be attending the lacrosse camp at U.Va. this summer.
Michelle Ruiz (’04, Life reporter) is an entertainment news and gossip reporter for The Daily, the new national publication for the iPad. She reports to former New York Post Page Six editor Richard Johnson, and was part of the team that launched the News Corp venture in February. Michelle formerly wrote for ABC News, New York magazine online and Vogue.com.
Brian Southwell (’95, Opinion associate editor) has returned to the east coast and the ACC after almost a decade as a professor at the University of Minnesota. He is now Senior Research Scientist at RTI International in Research Triangle Park, NC, where he works in the Social Policy, Health, and Economics Research unit. He also now teaches at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill as a Research Professor in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication. He lives in Chapel Hill with his wife, Jessica, and his five-year-old son. You can reach him at brian.g.southwell@gmail.com.
Stephen Sweeney (’91, Opinion associate editor), his wife, Nathalie, and their three children live in Friendswood, Tex., not far from Houston. He serves as Chief Operating Officer of RSA Corp, a local IT services company. While saddened that he missed his 20th reunion weekend in June, he remains committed to his primary hobby: youth sports dad, fan, and transportation service. He is grateful for happy, healthy, and active kids; he shuttles them from tournament to tournament, steeling himself for their teenage years, which rapidly approach.
Sinan Ulgen (’87, photographer) joined the Turkish Foreign Service after graduation. After stints at the Turkish Mission to the EU in Brussels and the embassy in Tripoli, Lybia, he returned to Turkey to set up his consultancy practice, Istanbul Economics. He is also the chairman of the Istanbul-based think tank, EDAM, and a visiting scholar with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. His association with the press continues by way of op eds and commentaries in the international press.
Wendy Wagner-Smith ('87, Copy editor and reporter) is a plain language trainer for federal agencies. She's very busy since passage of the Plain Writing Act of 2010. On June 1, she taught the principles of plain language at the Office of the Chief Financial Officer of the Executive Office of the President. Wendy’s full-time position is writer-editor and graphics artist for the Federal Housing Finance Agency. Before going federal, she spent more than 10 years as a reporter at the Richmond Times-Dispatch. She also was managing editor of a suburban weekly and a book editor at a B2B publisher.
Isaac Wood ('09, Opinion associate editor) recently became a published author when his chapter on the 2010 U.S. House of Representatives elections was published in Pendulum Swing, edited by U.Va. Professor Larry J. Sabato. |
James F. Brooke, III (’58, News reporter) graduated with an education degree and a commission as a U.S. Navy Ensign. After full multiple careers, he retired from the U.S. Navy, retired from Bell Atlantic (now Verizon Communications), and last December closed his defense and management consulting company, The Coastal Planning Group.
Kate (Williams) Filoni (’96, Life associate editor) and her husband, Michael, welcomed our first child, Theresa Juliet (Tess) in June 2010. I was a Life associate editor and graduated in 1996. Kate is a pediatrician in Pittsburgh. 
Mom (So) Fleischer (’01, Photo associate editor), was married on Sept. 18, 2010 at the Thomas Jefferson Memorial in Washington, DC. She recently left the insurance business after 10 years to begin a new career in the bio-tech industry. She currently works as a Clinical Trials and Administrative Assistant for Cytheris, Inc. Her hobbies still include going to U.Va. basketball games and photography. 
Meg Scheu Sacks (’00, News editor) is director of marketing at the Episcopal School of Jacksonville, where she is responsible for all marketing and communications for the school, including the 90-page biannual alumni magazine. Her daughter, Mattie, is two and a half.
Mike Sampson (’96, Editor-in-Chief) and Leslie Wiggins (’96, Assistant Managing Editor) welcomed their second child, Talia Grace Sampson, on Feb. 14, 2011. Talia weighed in at 8 pounds 6 ounces and arrived exactly on her due date. The only person more thrilled than Mike and Leslie with Talia's arrival was her big brother, Jordan, who just turned four. Mike, Leslie, Jordan, and Talia continue to live in Pittsburgh. Mike still works Reed Smith LLP, and Leslie still works for IBM. Everyone is doing great! 
Molly Seltzer (’07, Tableau editor) published her first book, "All Downhill from Ivan Puffenbarger" this spring. The book, a collection of humor columns about living in New York City, has been backordered on Amazon since it was posted in May and has received great critical acclaim, mostly from Molly's mother. 
Carin Smilk (’89, News associate editor) and Michael Beaubien welcomed their fourth child and son, Asa Emile, on June 1. Their two-on-two basketball team lives in Wayne, Pa., where Carin has been managing editor of the Jewish Exponent in Philadelphia for the past 13 years.
Holly Smith (’72, reporter) spent a week in China in June accompanying her husband, Neil Osborn, on a business trip. She said the highlight was being allowed to sit next to a baby panda bear at the panda breeding center in Chengdu in western China. She said, "He really is a real bear, even though he looks like a stuffed toy in the photo! He's about 10 months old, and as you can see from the picture, all he is interested in is his bamboo stick. It had been dipped in honey to make it especially attractive to him so he wouldn't bail off the bench. Luckily he was very gentle and calm."
George T. Snyder (’85, Advertising Manager) of the Stonecipher Law Firm, Pittsburgh, PA, was inducted as a Fellow of the American College of Bankruptcy on March 18, 2011 in Washington, D.C. The ceremony took place at the U.S. Supreme Court in the Great Hall. George was one of 40 nominees from the United States and abroad to be inducted. The American College of Bankruptcy is an honorary professional and educational association of bankruptcy and insolvency professionals. The College now has 758 Fellows.
John Stout (’86, Photo editor) lives in Williamsburg, Va, with his wife, Molly, and their two boys, Jeff, 14, and David, 9. John is the business development manager with Metro Productions, a full service video and interactive media production company. In his 24 years with Metro, John has worked as a writer, producer, director, videographer and editor for Metro. He has traveled across the U.S. and to numerous foreign countries in support of video shoots for various clients. The photo shows John on location in California with R. Lee Ermey, known for his role in “Full Metal Jacket” and his show “Mail Call.”
Heidi (Waters) Thorsen (’93, Graphics editor) and her husband, Terry, announce the birth of their son, Maximus, who was born at home on June 18 and was 8 pounds 4 ounces and 21 inches long. His older brother, William, is now two years old. Both parents work at home on their farm in western Albemarle County. PHOTO cdaathorson
Jason Watson (’08, photographer) in 2009, relocated to Palo Alto, Calif., for the position of chief technology officer at Stanford Law School. He has continued my sports photography, covering Bay Area professional and collegiate sports for US Presswire. Recent photography highlights include the 2010 World Series, Super Bowl XLV and the 2011 Stanley Cup Finals.
Dave Werner (’02, Graphics editor) married April Shimshock, a fellow ’02 grad, at the V. Sattui Winery in Napa Valley on July 4, 2010. Their first son, Cameron, was born in April. They currently live in Redwood Shores, Calif. For more photos, videos, and drawings, Dave's website is okaysamurai.com.
Lindsay Wise (’01, Managing Editor) married David Hanlon on Oct. 10, 2010, on a farm in Virginia. Many CD alums joined the celebration.
Mary (Rekas) Wood (’00, Life editor) had her second child, Charlotte, on Aug. 27, 2010. Big brother Sam, 3, isn’t too jealous. (vertical)