Class Notes Archive 1931-2014
Class Notes are searchable back to our spring 2000 issue. You can browse the notes by decade (click on a decade to view its class notes):
Class notes from the 1980s
| 1980Eli Simon, professor of acting and chair of the drama department at UC Irvine, is also director of Clownzilla, a professional clown troupe that performed in Orange County and at the International Theatre Festival in Arezzo, Italy, this summer. The troupe, whose mission is to spread laughter and reflect important social issues, was praised by the Los Angeles Times, which designated its performance as a “Critics Choice.” (appeared in the Fall 2007 issue) • David Sandino, Cred. ’81, of Davis has been appointed chief counsel for the Department of Water Resources of California. Sandino had served as acting chief counsel for DWR since 2006 and previously was senior staff counsel. He is a member of the Davis Police Advisory Committee and a former commissioner of the Davis Planning Commission. (appeared in the Winter 2008 issue) • Pam Fair, former vice president of customer operations with San Diego-based Sempra Energy Utilities, has assumed new duties as vice president of environmental, safety and facilities. (appeared in the Spring 2008 issue) • Thomas Jenkins, D.V.M., and Gail Sanders, B.S. ’06, D.V.M. ’08, have been hired by Banfield, the Pet Hospital, the largest private veterinary practice in the U.S. Jenkins practices in Apple Valley, while Sanders practices in Citrus Heights. (appeared in the Spring 2009 issue) • Jim Guida graduated with a Master in the Arts of Theology from Fuller Theological Seminary. (appeared in the Fall 2009 issue) • Calvin Mclean previously attended Ohio State University’s graduate communications and journalism program and graduate education programs in Oklahoma. He now lives in Albuquerque, N.M. (appeared in the Fall 2009 issue) • M.D. (Mo) Salman, M.P.V.M., Ph.D. ’83, was given an Alumni Achievement Award from the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine in June for his global contributions to animal population health and veterinary epidemiology. He is a diplomate of the American College of Veterinary Preventive Medicine, a fellow of the American College of Epidemiology and a professor of clinical sciences and environmental and radiological health sciences at Colorado State University. (appeared in the Fall 2009 issue) • Eli Simon, professor of acting at UC Irvine, has written The Art of Clowning Around (Palgrave Macmillan), about clowning techniques. He has also created Clownzilla, a clown show that toured in China and South Korea last summer. (appeared in the Winter 2010 issue) • Fumiomi Takeda, Ph.D., received the 2009 Federal Laboratory Consortium Mid-Atlantic Regional Excellence in Technology Transfer Award for developing the rotating cross-arm trellis and cane training system for blackberries. He has worked for USDA–Agricultural Research Service at Appalachian Fruit Research Station in Kearneysville, W.Va., since 1982 as research horticulturist and lead scientist for a small fruit research program. (appeared in the Winter 2010 issue) • Nancy Rupp Tibbitts, M.A. ’83, a coordinator and adviser at the UC Davis Internship and Career Center, took her own life near Auburn in October at age 51. She worked at UC Davis for more than 26 years, helping fellow Aggies find internships and careers in agriculture. She co-owned the Tibbitts Farming Co. with her husband of 22 years, George Tibbitts. Along with her husband, she is survived by her children—George, a sophomore at San Diego State, Alexandra, a freshman at San Diego State, and Carson, a sixth-grader at St. James Catholic School in Davis. (appeared in the Winter 2010 issue) • Lisa Friedman Dunbar, Cred. ’81, who has overseen the expansion of Head Start preschool programs for the El Monte City School District in Los Angeles County, received the 2010 Distinguished Alumna of the Year Award from the UC Davis School of Education in April. She has been director of the district’s child development programs since 1992. A preschool program she established to blend regular and special education has been hailed as a national model. (appeared in the Summer 2010 issue) • Mindy Pennybacker, J.D., wrote the book Do One Green Thing: Saving the Earth Through Simple, Everyday Choices (St. Martin’s Press), which came out in March. Her book, which gives practical and effective tips on how to save energy, conserve water and use less toxic materials, has a forward by actress Meryl Streep. (appeared in the Summer 2010 issue) • The late Nancy Rupp Tibbitts was honored posthumously in March with a Common Threads Award for contributions to agriculture and her community. She worked at the UC Davis Internship and Career Center for 26 years, helping thousands of students find internships and careers in agriculture. In 1993, she and her husband, George, founded Tibbitts Farming Co., which produces rice and other crops. She died last October. 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. (appeared in the Summer 2010 issue) • Margaret Washington, Ph.D., a history professor at Cornell University, received the inaugural 2010 Darlene Clark Hine Award from the Organization of American Historians in April for her book, Sojourner Truth’s America (University of Illinois Press). The award is for best book in African American women’s and gender history. (appeared in the Summer 2010 issue) • Kum “Dan” Wong accepted a three-year scholarship from Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane, Australia, where he will be working on a doctorate in transportation planning. His proposed dissertation will focus on surface-based transportation modes and systems pertaining to airports and their surroundings. He recently retired as senior transportation planner with the San Francisco Airport Commission. (appeared in the Summer 2010 issue) • Michele (Simmons) Konnersman, D.V.M. ’80, died at her home in McKinleyville last December after suffering a stroke. A goat specialist, she consulted with large-animal owners and wrote several goat-related short stories and scholarly papers. In addition, she worked for Humboldt County nurseries and the U.S. Forest Service and was known for her skills as a farm equipment operator. She traveled the world with her husband, Brian, and is remembered for her intellect and curiosity as well as her love of animals, especially goats and cats. In addition to her husband, survivors include her stepdaughter, Jolene; brother George Michael Simmons and his wife, Ellen; and sister-in-law and her husband, Carol and John Turner. (appeared in the Summer 2010 issue) • H. Range Hutson was featured in the 2008 summer edition. H. Range Hutson by Rachael Bogert Occupation: Emergency medicine physician at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston and assistant professor at Harvard Medical School. Commitment to community: H. Range Hutson, M.D. ’80, was raised by his grandparents in segregated Nacogdoches, Texas, and then attended college at Stanford University and the UC Davis School of Medicine during the civil rights movement. From these experiences, Hutson developed an attitude of self-reliance, perseverance and extreme social awareness and dedicated his career to the betterment of inner city communities nationwide through his work teaching in hospitals from Los Angeles to Boston. Abating trauma: Hutson’s career began at the Martin Luther King Jr./Charles Drew Medical Center in south central Los Angeles where many of the patients he saw were from the impoverished areas of Compton and Watts. Here, Hutson was exposed to incident after incident of trauma caused by street gang violence. “I saw things that would make me afraid to walk to my care,” Hutson said. “People would sometimes drive up and roll seriously injured people out of their cars in front of the ER. Sometimes we could save their lives, and sometimes we couldn’t.” Hutson said that what he was treating in the trauma unit was the result of three social problems: too many firearms on the streets, poverty and the obstacles to upward mobility in a larger inner city community, irrespective of ethnicity. The pen is as mighty as the scalpel: After working at MLK, Hutson began to write about his findings to create awareness of problems in marginalized communities. He has published in the respected New England Journal of Medicine and the Journal of the American Medical Association. “I went into medicine to medically manage patients and to research some critical issues affecting inner city communities nationwide…. Solid research helps to touch people locally, nationally and internationally.” “Writing goes everywhere and can reach anyone, and as a physician I am serious about stopping the violence.” (appeared in the Summer 2008 issue) • Walt Harrison by David Owen Occupation: President, University of Hartford, and chair of the NCAA committee on academic performance and the NCAA executive committee. Baseball beginnings: As a Ph.D. student at UC Davis, Walt Harrison ’80 went to see adviser Jack Hicks to discuss his dissertation on 19th-century novelist William Dean Howells. “Jack knew I was a baseball fan,” Harrison says. “Finally he said, ‘You know, the world doesn’t need another dissertation on William Dean Howells, but everybody would like to read one about baseball.’ I ended up writing my dissertation about baseball literature, and in a long and involved way, that’s one of the reasons I’m involved in the NCAA.” Chairman of the board: As member and then chair of the NCAA committee on academic performance, Harrison has been instrumental in establishing the Academic Reform Initiative, which will phase in stronger academic requirements for universities and student athletes. Harrison estimates that under the new rules, 10 of the 65 teams in this year’s NCAA men’s basketball tournament would have faced some form of penalty. Notre shame: In November, Notre Dame ignited a controversy by firing head football coach Tyrone Willingham after just three seasons, citing only the team’s on-field performance as explanation. “I think it was a terrible black eye for all of college football.” “What we’re interested in here is not penalizing people, but getting them to act so that students graduate.” (appeared in the Fall 2005 issue) • Richard Hanson, Ph.D., became the president of Bemidji State University and Northwest Technical College in Minnesota in July. He previously served as interim president of the North Dakota State University and president of Waldorf College. Allan Johnston, M.A., Ph.D. ’88, wrote Northport (Finishing Line Press), a collection of his poetry. He received first prize for poetry in the 2010 Outrider Press Literary Anthology poetry contest. (appeared in the Fall 2010 issue) • Greg Dawson of La Crescenta died of a heart attack in July at age 52. He was the director of audio for Age of Learning, a voice-over artist, master of ceremonies for the Pasadena Pops Philharmonic and the creator and performer of the Greggy Dee shows viewed throughout Southern California. He is survived by his wife, Melanie Holstra Dawson; their son, Connor; his parents, Patricia and Robert; and his siblings, Linda Dawson Elkman and Steven. (appeared in the Fall 2010 issue) |