Class Notes

River Campus Undergraduate: Slater Society–1950s

1927
Ronold King ’29 (Mas) professor emeritus of physics at Harvard University, died last April. Ronold, who advised more than 100 doctoral candidates while at Harvard and who had his own fan club, celebrated his 100th birthday with a group of admirers and former students in Lexington, Mass.

1952
Dick Barker writes, “Looking through Class Notes in the Winter 2005–06 issue, I noted no entries for 1952, when both my wife, June Northrop Barker, and I graduated. There’s an interesting story in what happened after 1952, especially for June, with her research.” June was the first female professor at Jefferson Medical College, now Jefferson University, and later was a research physiologist at New York University, where she maintained a colony of rhesus monkeys. June studied cerebral palsy and sudden infant death syndrome. June and Dick lived in New Jersey with the rhesus monkeys, which they adopted. After she retired, June established the Barker Primate Study Center in Frenchtown, N.J. Dick taught history and was the department head at Montclair State University. He retired from MSU in 1991. After June died in December 2001, Dick established the June Northrop Barker Archives at the University of Wisconsin. . . . Norman Neureiter (see ’80).

1956
Don Schaet writes, “I have challenged myself to bicycle 1,000 miles this year to celebrate the 50th anniversary of my graduation from Rochester. I have planned to ride in 10 organized cycling century rides, two for each decade since graduating. The first was ‘Up the Creek Without a Pedal,’ along the Coosa River valley in Rome, Ga., in early May. The last will be the 109-mile ‘El Tour de Tucson’ in Arizona on November 18. I planned to do three of the rides—‘El Tour,’ ‘America’s Most Beautiful Bike Ride’ (Lake Tahoe, Calif., June 4), and the ‘Fletcher Flyer’ (Fletcher, N.C., June 11)—with the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society’s Team in Training. The goal is to raise $10,000 for the society, not to mention staying physically and mentally fit at age 71.” Don also notes that Helen Weiss Phelps ’78E is the music director at his church, the Lutheran Church of the Resurrection, in Marietta, Ga. “Her various music programs—traditional and contemporary Sunday choirs, Christmas pageants, youth choirs, and special seasonal music—have been largely responsible for the continuing growth of the congregation,” he writes.

1958
John Rathbone, class correspondent, writes:

Charleen Dorwald Drotning returned from an extended trip to New Zealand in March, then competed in bridge tournaments during the spring.

After serving 10 years on the University’s board of trustees, Jerry Gardner ’65 (Mas) has agreed to continue to serve as a senior trustee. Jerry is president of the Midtown Atlanta Rotary Club for the 2006–07 term. Jerry’s wife, Pat, continues to serve as a member of the Georgia House of Representatives.

Jane Allyn Piliavin has confirmed her July retirement and adds that she and Irv will move to Oxnard, Calif., in August. Their new house is just two blocks from the beach. Jane is coauthor of The Social Psychology of Prosocial Behavior, which was published in April. Jane has become a grandma again—Caroline, from Guatemala, was adopted by Irv’s son and daughter-in-law.

John and Val Evans Rathbone ’60W (Mas) took another cruise on the Rhine this past spring. After spending a few days in Bruges and Antwerp, they boarded their motor vessel and cruised upriver to Basel and then to Lucerne, with a side trip down the Mosel. Val says, “It’s nice to travel and unpack your bags only once!”

Spring 2006 was Joe Steinman’s last semester as a member of the faculty at the University of North Florida’s Coggin College of Business. Joe writes, “I always used to be the youngest guy in a meeting, and now I’m the oldest.” While pondering how that may have happened, Joe made his decision and has opted to do other things, “like work on my golf game.”

Dick Vidale writes that by the time you read this, he and Margaret will have visited their daughter, Laura, in Switzerland. Dick adds that their second grandchild, Joshua, was born in August 2005.

Dayton and Lola Vincent called to give an update on their activities, which have consisted mostly of travel “here and there” in the United States. Last September, they took their first ride on Amtrak, riding across the country to the desert Southwest, where they saw a Purdue–Arizona football game and the Grand Canyon and visited Las Vegas, one of their favorite destinations. In October, they traveled to Richmond to visit Dayton’s son, Kenny, their daughter-in-law, and two grandchildren. In November, they returned to Las Vegas for a few days and then, in January, went to Atlanta to attend the annual meeting of the American Meteorological Society, where they met many old friends. Dayton’s sister, Diane, and her husband, Mike, visited in February. Dayton also reports that they visited a casino on the shore of Lake Michigan, where he hit his first jackpot.

—Contact: John Rathbone, 2375 Brookview Drive, Hamilton, NY 13346; jrathbon (at) dreamscape (dot) com.

1959
Robert Scaer ’63M (MD) is the author of The Trauma Spectrum: Hidden Wounds and Human Resiliency, his second book. Robert, now retired, was an associate clinical professor of neurology at the University of Colorado.