By John A. Wilkinson
For those who missed the 65th reunion, we have on our website (yale60.org) Chair Chuck Schmitz’s account of the proceedings, Dan Horowitz’s inaugural presentation, 43 vignettes by classmates about their undergraduate experiences, and 115 photographs from the weekend.
Ted Stebbins has forwarded the press release for his heralded new book, Rethinking American Art: Collectors, Critics, and the Changing Canon (Godine). Among the many accolades for this work “of keen insight and clear analysis” is praise for Ted himself, “in the center of every development in art collecting and exhibitions from 1960 well into the 2000s.”
Eleven new obituaries added to our website:
Martin Adelman. A native New Havener, Martin earned his MD at the University of Virginia, served as a major in the US Army, and had a long career in Tampa, Florida, as an otolaryngologist (ear, nose, and throat physician). Cantorial music, barbershop harmony, foreign languages, art collecting were among his many interests. Grady Poulard’s The Measure of Man was his measure.
Richard Bibb. Art major, medical student in Kentucky, psychiatrist, major in the Air Force, physician to Vietnam veterans, he retained his passion for both art and psychiatry. He helped found a psychiatric hospital and worked with the Department of Defense and Indian Health Services, while continuing to make prints, groom horses, play tennis and golf, even box.
Henry Lawrence Bogert III. Gymnastics, soccer, hockey, lacrosse, tennis (including paddle), sailing, dancing, spearfishing, Larry loved sport and the sea. He also was an attentive and beloved adviser to his Wall Street clients. At our 50th reunion he wrote that he “never believed that as much good fortune would be available in his life.”
Michael Bradford. Summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa and Sigma Xi, Mike was managing editor of our senior class book. After Harvard Medical School, he served as captain in the US Air Force before embarking on a career for over 40 years as a specialist in gastroenterology and internal medicine in Manhasset and Great Neck, New York.
Leslie Epstein. Laden with prizes and awards from his Yale College years, Leslie returned from a Rhodes Scholarship to earn an MA from UCLA and a doctor of fine arts from Yale Drama School, followed by a long career as professor of English and director of the creative writing program at Boston University. As revered educator, essayist, and novelist, he received international recognition for numerous essays in America’s best-known journals and for nine novels, especially the acclaimed King of the Jews.
Norman Klopp. Norm sang his way through Yale College, from the Freshman Glee Club to the Whiffenpoofs. As a founding partner of an investment firm, he had a long career in management and served as president of his local school board and the Achievement Center for Children. He was an avid boater, golfer, reader, and sunset enthusiast.
John Searight. Eagle Scout, bird watcher, Appalachian Trail hiker, child advocate, John built upon his MSW from Penn to a career at Stockton State College (New Jersey) in many roles, including professor, teachers’ union president, and dean. He co-founded a New Jersey program to recruit social workers to child protection agencies and helped develop a similar program for the Department of Children and Family Supervisors.
David Sellers. Among Dave’s many creations, as father of the design-build movement, were the Giamatti bench, Prickly Mountain, and Patch Adams’s West Virginia hospital. The New York Times obituary describes him as “a way-out Orpheus,” “a Zorba,” whose work was “Hippy Gothic,” a master of architecture as “a happening.” Dave’s irreverence, boisterous humor, good will, and devotion to our classmates will be long remembered.
Eugene Pysch Stevens. With a PhD in chemistry from the University of Chicago and postdoctoral fellowship at Harvard, Gene served for over 50 years as a professor at Brown and SUNY Binghamton. He sang with several choral groups, including the Yale Russian Chorus when, in 1958, it was the first private American group to tour the USSR.
Barney Stewart. Another Whiffenpoof, Barney continued singing, both with the Yale Alumni Chorus and the Shamrock Singers. He served with the US Marines on active duty and the reserves as a captain and practiced law first in his native Oklahoma and then in Charlotte, North Carolina. One of his proudest accomplishments was the founding of First Tee of Charlotte, an educational program for young people.
Arthur Weber. With a master’s degree from Yale in chemical engineering, Art started at DuPont, then studied architecture at Yale before becoming a Wall Street analyst and Boston broker, and, finally, his true love, a computer programmer with his own company. A lifelong runner and swimmer, he also played amateur piano for the young at school dances, for the middle-aged at country club parties, and the aged at a retirement community.
Tempus fugit, sumus hic.