| 1941John “Jack” Underhill ’41— a longtime farm advisor in San Joaquin County and an Aggie alumni leader—died last December at age 91. A Mayflower descendant and great-grandson of a ’49er, he was born in San Francisco and grew up in Davis. At UC Davis he majored in vegetable crops, was a member of Alpha Gamma Rho fraternity, Alpha Zeta Agricultural Honor Society and ski team, and was track team captain, Block CA Society president and 1941 Picnic Day chair. He received the Activities Award key and the Lindsey Trophy for activities, athletics and scholarship in 1940. During World War II, he served as a communications officer in the Pacific on the USS Stephen Porter. He spent 33 years as a farm advisor for the UC Agricultural Extension Service, specializing in asparagus and tomatoes and serving 1960–74 as San Joaquin County director. During a 1955 sabbatical, he earned a master’s degree in agricultural science from Cornell University. After retiring from Extension, he became an agricultural consultant locally and abroad. He served as president of the Cal Aggie Alumni Association in 1960–61 and helped launch the Cal Aggie Alumni Scholarship Program. He received the Jerry Fiedler Memorial Alumni Award in 1983 and was among the first inductees into the San Joaquin County Agricultural Hall of Fame in 1986. He was also an Eagle Scout and scoutmaster. Survivors include his wife of 61 years, Helen, children Julie Underhill Elam ’71 of San Anselmo (husband Jon Elam ’72), Ken Underhill ’91 of Livermore, Liz Underhill-Jue of Elk Grove (husband Jack Jue); and grandchildren Rob and Kristin Elam, Jace Underhill-Proctor, and Robert (wife Kelly), Leah and Jordan Jue; and great-grandchild Jackson Jue. Daughter Barbara and her husband, John McBrian, preceded Mr. Underhill in death. |
| 1948Joe and Jean (Mytron) Antognini, who met in a UC Davis botany class, celebrated their 66th wedding anniversary in January. After earning his doctorate in vegetable crops from Cornell University in 1951, Joe spent 37 years developing pesticides with Geigy, Stauffer, Zoecon and BASF chemical companies, and another six years after retirement working as the nation program leader for weed science with the USDA Agricultural Research Service. The Antogninis live in North Charleston, S.C. |
| 1951Jalil Karim Abulhab, M.S. ’51, Ph.D. ’60, a pioneering entomologist of the Arab world, died of a heart attack in January in his home in Baghdad just hours after a retirement ceremony honoring his 50-year career as a professor, scientist and mentor to thousands of students. He was 83. During his career, he was a faculty member at the University of Baghdad during 1960–78, headed an entomology unit in the office of preventive research in Abu Ghraib, Baghdad, during 1978–90 and was on the medical entomology faculty at the Mustansiriya University in Baghdad from 1991 until his retirement as a distinguished professor in late 2009. The recipient of a 1999 Iraqi medal of science, he published more than 16 books and booklets and hundreds of articles on entomology, and several books and articles in the field of Arabic and Islamic scientific literature. He is survived by his wife, three sons, four daughters and 16 grandchildren living in Iraq, the U.S. and England. |
| 1955Jean Barton of Red Bluff was among six Northern California women to receive a 2010 Common Threads Award in March for contributions to agriculture and their communities. She is a fourth-generation cattle rancher who owns a commercial cow/calf operation with her husband, William. She has been active in local, state and national cattle organizations, writes a weekly agricultural column for the Red Bluff Daily News and helps youth in agriculture through 4-H and other groups. Common Threads awards are sponsored by the California Agricultural Leadership Foundation, UC Davis College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, California Women for Agriculture and various county farm bureaus. |
| 1962Roy Saigo, president emeritus of St. Cloud State University in Minnesota, was recently selected in an online poll by the St. Cloud Times as one of the region’s “10 most influential people of the decade.” Following his 2007 retirement as university president, he spent a year as a distinguished academic fellow for the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities System. He currently writes, speaks and consults for higher education institutions. |
| 1963Howard Glaesner, D.V.M., has written a memoir, They Have Feelings Too, with true stories of animals he treated over 36 years, beginning in veterinary school and at his practices in Los Gatos, San Francisco and San Diego. Now retired, he lives in Henderson, Nev., with his wife, two dogs, two cats and a tortoise. |
| 19651965 Jane Stewart and her husband, Neil Burkhardt, debuted a new solar electric power system at their nursery, McComb Gardens, during an Earth Day celebration in April in Sequim, Wash. Now, 70 percent of their business is powered by the sun. The couple has operated the nursery since 1998. |
| 1967Eric Grissell, M.S. ’69, Ph.D., ’73, had his book, Bees, Wasps, and Ants, The Indispensable Role of Hymenoptera in Gardens published in June (Timber Press). It was his fourth book related to gardens. He retired in 2006, after working for 26 years as a research entomologist for the USDA at the National Museum of Natural History, Washington, D.C. He is currently a Smithsonian research associate and spends much of his time gardening, collecting and observing insects, and writing. He lives in Sonoita, Ariz. • John Wedemeyer Jr. ’67, a San Diego social worker who co-founded one of the country’s first shelters for homeless teens and helped draft federal legislation to aid runaways, died in February at his home after a three-year battle with prostate cancer. He was 64. Born in Olympia, Wash., he grew up in Sacramento, where his father was director of the California Department of Social Welfare. After earning his bachelor’s degree in political science from UC Davis, he got a master’s degree in social work from San Diego State University in 1969. In the 1970s he was the founding director of San Diego Youth Services, which created the homeless teen center. He testified before a U.S. Senate subcommittee about the need for services for troubled teens and helped draft the 1974 Runaway Youth Act. He also served as a San Diego State social work field instructor, and received the university’s 1974 distinguished alumni award. In 1976, he became the founding chair of the National Network for Runaway and Youth Services. After directing a youth counseling program in Santa Cruz, he returned to San Diego and in 1985 became director of the June Burnett Institute for Children, Youth and Families. He retired in 2009 and became an adjunct faculty member in the San Diego State School of Social Work. Survivors include his wife of 40 years, Marianne, ’67, whom he met in a Shakespeare class at UC Davis; daughter, Anne of San Diego; mother, Helen of San José; sister, Karen DeLong of San José; and niece, Kandy of San José. |
| 1968A school founded five and a half years ago by Martin Rist and his wife, Bonnie Brunet, in one of the poorest neighborhoods in Managua, Nicaragua, is now providing free education and nutrition to more than 250 students. Working with local educators, the couple started the school, Centro Escolar Hermanos Dunklee, with their own funds in late 2004. In 2007, they formed the nonprofit Foundation for Social Responsibility (www.FoundationForSR.org) in Santa Cruz to provide continuing financial support for the school. The foundation’s directors include Rist and Brunet—who own the Galloway Group commercial real estate company—and their son, Erik Rogers Rist ’00, an attorney in Colorado. • Cecelia (Halbert) Tichi, Ph.D., has written Civic Passions (University of North Carolina Press) about innovative leadership in periods of crisis in American history. It is her 11th book. She is an English and American studies professor at Vanderbilt University and the winner of the Jay B. Hubbell Medal for lifetime achievement in American literature. |
| 1969Mary (Murphy) Richardson, Cred., co-anchor of Boston’s WCVB-TV’s news magazine Chronicle for more than 25 years, received an award from the Boston Health Care for the Homeless Program in April for her work raising public consciousness about issues of health and homelessness. In May, Richardson stepped down from the station, where she had worked as a reporter and anchor since 1980. She started her broadcast career at KCRA-TV in Sacramento in 1973, after having taught English at Encina High School in Sacramento. She is the mother of three and lives in Belmont, Mass., with her husband, WCVB producer Stan Leven. |
| 1970Steven Levi received a grant from the Alaska Humanities Forum to produce an 8 ½-minute video of one of his poems for use in English classes in Alaska. The presentation, “The Phantom Dogsled,” and a teacher’s manual are available for free on his website, www.parsnackle.com. Levi, an Alaska resident for more than three decades, has had more than 30 books published including Boom and Bust in the Alaska Gold Fields (nonfiction), Cadzow (fiction), Committee of Vigilance (scholarly) and Derelicts, Bummers, Scoundrels and Doves (literary). |
| 1971Paul Chamberlin, assistant vice president for energy and campus development at the University of New Hampshire, was quoted in an April 18 article in Parade magazine, “A College Powered by Garbage,” about the campus’s landfill gas project. Chamberlin led the project team that put in place a system to use methane from a nearby landfill to power up to 85 percent of the campus. “Who says you can’t turn trash into treasure?” he says in the article. His quotation followed one by UC Davis environmental science and policy professor Joan Ogden. Chamberlin joined the University of New Hampshire in 1997 after serving 26 years in the U.S. Navy Civil Engineer Corps. He and his wife, Susan (Rutter) Chamberlin ’70, live in Dover, N.H. • Lynette Schweigert is co-founder and director of a new nonprofit organization, Moments of Memory, which offers free visual art classes in Northern Nevada care facilities for people with Alzheimer’s and related forms of dementia. More information about the program and a July art exhibition at the Arbors Memory Care in Sparks, Nev., can be found at momentsofmemory.org. • Larry Long was featured in the 2010 summer edition.
Larry Long by Ben Moroski ’10
It was not his first love. But Larry Long ’71 eventually found winemaking—and the match changed the course of his life. After graduating from UC Davis with a bachelor’s degree in biological science with a minor in chemistry and earning two masters’ degrees—one in biochemistry from Ohio State University and the other in healthcare administration from George Washington University—Long spent 20 years as a hospital administrator, the last 13 years as the CEO o Tahoe Forest Hospital in Truckee.
After he and his wife Linda ’72 settled in Truckee, Long discovered the art and fun of winemaking at home. “I loved the idea of taking grapes, making them into wine and enjoying the fruits of that labor. It was a great adventure for the whole family.”
Long enjoyed his newfound hobby so much that he began taking viticulture and winemaking classes through UC Davis Extension to fine-tune his skills. Those courses ultimately inspired him to retire early from healthcare administration in order to pursue his passion.
Around 2000, the Longs purchased a vineyard in Amador County, an area where they used to buy grapes for making wine at home. They soon began building winery facilities, and in 2004 Amador Cellars was born. The small, family-owned-and-operated winery is thriving today, and Long still remembers where it all began. “UC Davis gave me the tools I needed to pursue all of my interests and dreams in life,” he said.
Amador Cellars is a member label of the Vintage Aggies Wine Club and will be included in the club’s November shipment. “It is a great way to remain a vital part of the UC Davis family,” Long said. “I now have an opportunity to share my wine with fellow Aggies.” For more information about Vintage Aggies Wine Club, visit www.alumni.ucdavis.edu/vintageaggiewineprogram.
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| 1972Cynthia Charters, M.A. ’81, was the featured artist at the Los Rios College Federation in Sacramento in February. She displayed more than 20 pieces, including miniature paintings, etchings and larger prints spanning the 20 years of her artistic career. • Scott and Cathy (Horne) Leiber have established the Leiber Family Foundation in memory of Scott’s cousin, Judith Krug, a librarian and anti-censorship activist who co-founded Banned Books Week. Seeking to promote “freedom through literature,” the foundation has helped establish a children’s library in a hospital and mobile libraries for battered women’s shelters in Pennsylvania. The foundation also shipped books for American soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan. Scott is a Wells Fargo financial adviser in Bethlehem, Pa., and Cathy has been working part time with him since her retirement from Philip Morris International six years ago. They have two sons, David and Daniel. |
| 1973Brad Bates, who was twice elected mayor of Turlock during 1982–90, has had a two-acre city park named for him. The city dedicated the new Brad Bates Park in north Turlock last October. Bates says, “This helps, in part, to answer the question of what you do with a degree in rhetoric.” • Margaret Bentson has joined CompAnalysis, an independent employee compensation and performance management consulting firm in Oakland, as a principal. Previously a principal in the San Francisco office of Hewitt Associates, she is the author of several articles and book chapters for WorldatWork, an association of compensation and benefit professionals, and the Society for Human Resource Management. Before becoming a compensation consultant, she worked in labor relations. After graduating from UC Davis, she earned a master’s degree in industrial and labor relations from Cornell University. |
