| 1979Fred Wheeler continues to farm in the Sacramento Delta while raising three children. |
| 1982Joel Mullennix, M.F.A., is an actor who recently performed in Strangers We Know, a production in San Francisco by Word for Word, a theatre company co-founded by fellow UC Davis alumna Susan Harloe, M.F.A. ’83. • Richard K. Irvin, M.S., died in March 2006 from prostate cancer at age 75. After teaching high school mathematics for over two decades, Mr. Irvin returned to graduate school, earning an M.S. in ecology. Subsequently, he led climbs and treks for Mountain Travel Sobek, educating many travelers about the ecology and culture of mountain peoples in Asia. After his retirement from trekking, Mr. Irvin continued to travel worldwide to see birds. At his death, his “Life List” of observed bird species numbered 6,002. Survivors include his wife, Kris Carter ’78, D.V.M. ’82, M.P.V.M. ’01, his four children and their mother. |
| 1983Susan Harloe, M.F.A., has co-founded a San Francisco-based theatre group, Word for Word. The company has been transforming short stories into performance works for the stage since 1993, performing literary works by over 80 authors, and has been awarded numerous honors by the Bay Area Critics Circle since 1997. • Michael Spears, who is currently serving in Iraq as an adviser to the Iraqi Security Forces, was recently promoted to lieutenant colonel. Spears is based out of the Washington D.C. area, where his family currently lives. He can be reached at michael.spears@us.army.mil. |
| 1984Bonnie Bassler, professor and director of graduate studies in the Department of Molecular Biology at Princeton University, was recently featured on the PBS program Nova. Bassler’s bacteria communication research has opened up the possibility of new strategies for combating important world health problems. She won a 2002 MacArthur Fellowship (popularly known as the “genius” award) and was chosen as the 2004 Inventor of the Year by the New York Intellectual Property Law Association. • Bo Eason continues his acting career in Hollywood where he also gives inspirational speeches. He lives with his wife, Dawn, and two children, Eloise and newborn Axel. |
| 1985Kristi Brown-Montesano recently published Understanding the Women of Mozart’s Operas (University of California Press). She has presented papers at Stanford University, UCLA and New York University. Brown-Montesano is also a vocal soloist singing in operas and with choruses, with recordings on Koch and New Albion labels. • Kevin Joe has become a fish and game warden after 20 years of public service as a California state park ranger. His new patrol area includes Lake and Mendocino counties. Joe says he finds much satisfaction in having a profession that protects California’s natural heritage and serves the public. • Mark Rutheiser, a board member of the Davis Chamber of Commerce, was recently installed as its chair. He is also a real estate developer who is currently building infill residential projects and mixed-use buildings in the Davis area. |
| 1986Lori Bettison-Varga, M.S., Ph.D. ’91, was appointed provost and dean of the faculty at Whitman College in Walla Walla, Wash. Before her appointment, she served as president of the Council on Undergraduate Research, director of the Keck Geology Consortium, professor of geology and associate dean for research and grants at the College of Wooster in Ohio. Her husband, Robert Varga, Ph.D. ’80, is Shoolroy Chair of Natural Resources, associate professor of geology and chair of the geology department at the College of Wooster. The couple has three children.
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| 1987Paul Haakenson was recently appointed Superior Court judge in Marin County. He had served since 1993 as a deputy district attorney for the Marin County District Attorney’s Office, where he prosecuted consumer fraud cases, headed the child abuse and sexual assault unit and the domestic violence unit, and supervised and prosecuted major felonies. • Darnell Cooley died in October 2006 at age 42 from complications related to knee surgery. Mr. Cooley was a staff member for California Assemblyman Mervyn Dymally and had worked with a number of elected officials, including speakers Herb Wesson and Willie Brown Jr. He was also director of the Legislative Black Caucus and was vice president of the California Conference of the NAACP. Mr. Cooley is remembered as an enthusiastic supporter of the Pittsburgh Steelers football team and a proud owner of the complete collection of Sanford and Son videos and DVDs. Survivors include his children, Darnell Ellis and Kaylah Nikol. |
| 1988Stacie Clary recently received her certification as a life coach from the Institute for Professional Empowerment Coaching. She has since opened Coaching Toward Change, a practice that helps clients achieve positive change in their lives. • Paul Raftery was slain in Helena, Mont., in December 2006 at age 41, the victim of a random robbery. After working several years with the park service and at the Sublette County Sheriff’s Department in Wyoming, Mr. Raftery entered law school at the University of Montana. In July, after graduating with honors and passing the bar exam, he began working as a law clerk for the Montana Supreme Court. Mr. Raftery is survived by his parents, Bob and Mary Kay Raftery, two brothers, two sisters and his beloved dog, Thelma. |
| 1989Elizabeth Long, M.S. ’00, received six awards from the 2006 Washington Newspaper Publishers Association Better Newspaper Contest, including first and second place for breaking news stories, first place in health and medicine, first place in government reporting, second place in comprehensive coverage and third place for investigative reporting. She is a staff/environmental writer for the Chinook Observer, a weekly paper that serves Pacific County, Wash. • Karen (Bezdek) Whipple was elected in November to the Moreland School District board of trustees. The Moreland School District serves kindergarten through eighth-grade students from West San Jose, Campbell and Saratoga. Whipple lives in San Jose with her husband, Jeff Whipple ’90, and their three children, Jake, Zach and Ann. |
| 1990Karla Oliveira, M.S., has opened her own international private chef–nutrition consulting business. She has also written a book, The Tassajara Lunch, Picnic, and Appetizer Cookbook (Gibbs Smith Publishing Co.), due out in July. Three additional books with the same publisher will follow in the future. • Rob Turner by Anna Hennings
Occupation: co-editor-in-chief of Sacramento magazine
Coast to coast: Rob Turner’s passion for journalism bloomed after he took a magazine writing class at UC Davis and wrote a few articles for the Aggie. The 1990 graduate interned and worked for various Sacramento publications, including the Sacramento News and Review, until several years later when he was drawn to New York City. His prestigious internship with Harper’s magazine jump-started his successful writing career. He went on to work as a staff writer for SmartMoney and Money magazines before becoming a full-time freelance writer in 2000. Turner has since written for The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and among many others. He moved back to Sacramento in 2004 with his wife, also a journalist, whom he met at Money.
A Sactown hit: Having grown up in Sacramento and loving it, Turner always knew he would come back, despite a successful journalism career in New York. “What I was hoping by going to New York was to get tons of magazine experience so I’d be able to come back here and hopefully start a magazine that was the kind of magazine that reflected the Sacramento that I love and the Sacramento that I hope it can be.” Creating a magazine for the Sacramento area, an aspiration of Turner’s since his days at UC Davis, finally became reality in late November when the first issue of Sactown hit newsstands. Currently published bi-monthly, the lifestyle magazine targets a large audience, from 25- to 49-year-olds, but “[it] is more of a youthful mindset than an actual age,” Turner says.
Meet the team: Turner works alongside his wife, Co-Editor-in-Chief Elyssa Lee, who is also a contributing writer for InStyle magazine, having worked as a staff writer in the magazine’s New York office for five years. Their combined magazine experience is making Sactown a success despite the low odds. The two of them, their art director and two interns constitute the editorial staff, so it’s not uncommon for Turner to work long, hard hours. “For this last close, we came into the office on a Wednesday, and we left on a Friday. We caught about an hour or two of sleep on the floor.”
“Our back-up plan, well, we’re planning on succeeding. People love to read their hometown.”
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| 1991Tiffany Hedgpeth was named a partner at law firm Bingham McCutchen LLP. She is an attorney in the environmental group in the firm’s Los Angeles office, focusing on environmental counseling and litigation. She represents both private and municipal entities in a variety of matters, including Superfund hazardous waste cleanup cost recovery, Clean Water Act issues, common-law tort actions and environmental contract disputes. |
