| 1954After raising four sons, BARBARA (ENGS) NAVIAUX, at age 76, raises, breeds and shows championship miniature horses at her Placerville ranch. Her sold-out book, Miniature Horses: Their Care, Breeding and Coat Colors (Raintree Publications, 1999) is still sought by miniature horse lovers, with used copies selling up to several times the book’s original price. |
| 1966Artwork by CLAIRIN UPTON (CLARA SAPRASA) was featured on the Art History Channel show Artists of the 21st Century in May. She has also been invited to participate in the Florence Biennale contemporary art fair in Italy in December. |
| 1967Hannah Biberstein, M.A. ’67, a Davis social justice activist and former university labor relations analyst, died in April of congestive heart failure at age 82. Born the daughter of a rabbi in Essen, Germany, she immigrated to the U.S. with her family in 1939 to escape Nazi persecution. She moved to Davis in 1956, when her husband, Ernst, joined the veterinary medicine faculty. She was a founding member of Congregation Bet Haverim, Davis Community Meals program and Community Mediation Services in Davis and Yolo County, among other organizations. She chaired the city’s Social Services Commission and served on the Affordable Housing Task Force. After completing her master’s degree in political science, she taught at community colleges and worked for UC Davis Extension and university labor relations. She retired in 1991. She and her husband received community awards for their service. In 2002, Congregation Bet Haverim established the Biberstein Social Action Fund, which provides grants to fight poverty, discrimination, abuse and neglect. She is survived by her husband of 61 years; son, Michael of San Diego; daughters, Helen Swanagon of San Luis Obispo, Anne Gieseke of Benicia, and Julie of San Francisco; and eight grandchildren. |
| 1971DONALD WINTERS, Cred. ’73, M.Ed. ’90, retired from teaching history and social science after 37 years with the Davis Joint Unified School District. He lives in Davis. |
| 1972DELIA (CARLSON) RALSTON retired from the John Deere Product Engineering Center after 32 years as an electrical engineer. She lives in Waterloo, Iowa. • Carmen (Castillo) Cody ’72 died at a Sacramento hospital in April after a brief illness. She was 60. After graduating, she enjoyed a brief singing career in Spain with the bands Zapata and Carnivales, then worked 33 years with the state Department of Social Services, Child Support Division. Survivors include her husband of 30 years, James; daughter, Melissa Cody Bell; son, Kellen Cody; brother, Ricardo Castillo. • Jane Straus ’76 of Mill Valley—a grammar expert, life coach and author—died in February after a two-year battle with brain cancer. She was 56. She wrote The Blue Book of Grammar and Punctuation, a best seller, which led to the creation of her award-winning website, GrammarBook.com; and Enough is Enough—Stop Enduring and Start Living Your Extraordinary Life. She also spoke at seminars, made guest appearances on ABC’s View From the Bay and other television shows, and hosted her own radio show, Ask Jane. She is survived by her husband of 23 years, Lester Kaufman; daughter, Zoe, 18; mother, Daisy; brother, Tom; and niece and nephew, Vivian Straus-Gehring and David Straus. |
| 1973JAN (BRIDGES) BARDSLEY co-edited Manners and Mischief (University of California Press, 2011), a collection of essays about Japanese society, etiquette, literature and behavior. She is an associate professor of Japanese humanities at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. • MARSHA PODD wrote Secrets of a Baby Nurse, How to Have a Happy, Healthy, and Sleeping Baby from Birth (iUniverse.com, 2010). She is a registered nurse and lactation specialist with more than 20 years of experience working with parents and young children. |
| 1974JULIET BENDER is serving in the Peace Corps in Querétaro, Mexico, with her husband, Charles Goldsmith. She previously worked as director of the U.S. Department of Commerce’s NAFTA and Southeast Asia offices, helping U.S. companies with exporting problems and negotiating various U.S. free trade agreements. |
| 1975After 10 years as a judge, PAUL ZELLERBACH took office as Riverside County district attorney in January. His 2010 election victory over one-term incumbent Rod Pacheco marked the first time in more than a century that a challenger unseated a Riverside County DA. Zellerbach had spent more than 22 years as a prosecutor before joining the Riverside Superior Court bench. He and his wife, Paige, a dentist, live in Riverside. |
| 1976MICHAEL HAGER recently wrote Just Beyond the Edge (Mill City Press, 2010), a novel set in Mexico and Texas during the 1980s. While writing the book, he lived in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, where he helped run a nonprofit organization for disabled children and briefly worked as the managing editor for one of Mexico’s largest English newspapers. In August, he is scheduled to give a reading at San Miguel’s noted Literary Sala. Hager has a son and two grandchildren. He and his wife, Christina, divide their time between the U.S. and Mexico. • MARILYN KRIEGER, a certified cat behavior consultant, wrote a cat behavior training book called Naughty No More! Change Unwanted Behaviors Through Positive Reinforcement (BowTie Press, 2011). She writes monthly and weekly cat behavior columns for Cat Fancy Magazine and Catchannel.com and was recently featured on Animal Planet’s Cats 101. Her website is http://thecatcoach.com/. |
| 1978RICHARD MORENO traces the colorful history of Nevada’s state capital in his latest book, Carson City (University of Nevada Press), published in March. A former publisher of Nevada Magazine, he teaches journalism at Western Illinois University. |
| 1979Jeff Johnson ’79 died in Woodland in April after a lengthy illness. After graduating, he earned an M.B.A. from the University of Southern California. Survivors include his sisters, Laurie Gagnon of Woodland, Susan Philip of Davis and Jody Bukavich of Pennsylvania. |
| 1980DAVID MILLER recently marked his 20th year as a staff attorney for the California Supreme Court in San Francisco. After 16 years working for now-retired Chief Justice Ronald George, Miller is currently a criminal central staff attorney for the court. The former California Aggie columnist and editor also wrote his first novel, Circus Before Dawn (iUniverse.com, 2011), a thriller set in the world of Formula One racing. He lives in Menlo Park, and has a daughter, Alexandra, a college student. |
| 1983NORMAN SCHAEFER’s book, The Sunny Top of California, was recently published by La Alameda Press. He spent 15 years writing the collection of poems and a story about the Sierra Nevada. Poet and Professor Emeritus Gary Snyder encouraged him to seek a publisher. Schaefer lives in Port Townsend, Wash., and visits the Sierra Nevada every year. |
| 1985JACK HARKEMA, Ph.D., a professor at Michigan State University, is leading the university’s new Clean Air Research Center, created with an $8 million, five-year grant from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Harkema’s team will research the role of air pollution in heart disease, diabetes and obesity. He is a professor of pathobiology and diagnostic investigation in Michigan State’s College of Veterinary Medicine. |
| 1987JOHN GALBRAITH was invited by the White House to attend President Barack Obama’s April “Winning the Future” town hall meeting in Reno, Nev., where he got the opportunity to ask the president about his commitment to green, renewable energy. Galbraith is the communications director of Geothermal Resources Council. He lives in Davis. |
| 1990DANIEL BLUMSTEIN, M.S, Ph.D. ’94, co-authored The Failure of Environmental Education (and How We Can Fix It) (University of California Press, 2011), his fourth book. It followed last year’s A Primer of Conservation Behavior (Sinauer Associates). He is a professor and chair of the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at UCLA. |
