July 2026
Dear Classmates—
My annual letter is earlier than usual this summer mainly so that the memories of our wonderful 55th reunion are still somewhat fresh. Reunion chair Carol Mills and co-chairs Beth Boland and Lisa Oberreuter did their usual superb job with dealing with the huge number of details involved. While rain did fall on Saturday morning’s parade, it didn’t seem to dampen anyone’s spirit. Our website coordinator Kathy Bendo has done a great job in updating our website, and you can see a lot of photos and get a sense of the weekend’s activities by clicking on the 55th Reunion menu above.
Sixty-eight classmates and seven guests enjoyed Wilder as our home base. It was an ideal setting for socializing as well as for some of our class activities, which included our book swap and a Qigong session led by Val Bryan. Linda Keown led an illuminating interactive presentation to a packed room about the book The Worst Hard Time. And Friday evening’s a cappella group of Helen Brown, Vicki Casarett, Annie Freeman, and Sallie Welles, along with Wendy Bauer on guitar and Donna DiPaolo on bongos, were a big hit (and encouraged to reappear in 2031!) Also, Jenny Masur began conducting interviews for her oral history project, in which classmates talk about their career experiences in fields that were largely male-dominated, the results of which will go to the MHC Archives. She is still looking for a few more classmates to interview, preferably from the areas of science, engineering, tech startups or business ownership. Anyone willing should contact Jenny at jenmasur@verizon.net.
One class event was held at the Miller Worley Center for the Environment, where staff member Angie Gregory gave a very well attended presentation about the geothermal project and sustainability at MHC. This was the idea of the class Climate Change Group and spearheaded by Becky Cutting, who is stepping down after five years of keeping that group together.
Much of the rest of this may continue to sound like a list of thanks, but it’s all deserved because so many classmates pitched in to make this reunion and this past year so rewarding. Along with the above names were others who met often as part of the Reunion Planning Committee: Anne Brandon, Alice Capson, Meg Harris, Andrea Lange, Adrienne Maykow and Ann Robson.
Another thanks to Alice Capson, who has continued to organize the tributes of our deceased classmates and provided an updated booklet of them at the reunion. Updating this important project is a combined effort, with scribe Linda Keown’s notes in the Alum Magazine providing much of the material and Kathy Bendo making necessary changes to the website, where the tributes can be seen under In Memoriam. At the class meeting, Alice read the twelve names of those whose deaths we have heard about since our last reunion in 2023. Since my letter of a year ago, we have unfortunately lost Cynthia Scannell Ebert, Margaret Vieira Flouton, EllenLongsworth, and Jacqueline (Jackie) Miller Rosenthal. And we also learned of the death of Shirley Stein Mizrachi (2023).
This past year we had three Sphinx Salon Zoom sessions organized by Beth Boland and Lisa Oberreuter:
November—recommendations for binge-watching TV shows
January—discussion about defining the parameters of Jenny Masur’s oral history project
March—glass ceiling stories shared by classmates
Beth and Lisa deserve great thanks for coming up with interesting and varied topics and organizing discussions a few times a year for the past five years. Going forward, a committee chaired by Sallie Welles, with help from Val Bryan, Becky Cutting and Jane Mayo, will carry on and plan to have about four Sphinx Salon Zoom gatherings each year.
Andrea Lange and Catherine Conover Covert did a wonderful job as the leaders of our class fundraising team this past year. We won two awards for the Reunion II classes: the Sphinx Award for the highest participation (61%) and the Pegasus Award for the most raised this year for immediate use ($330,466). And thanks to so many of you who participated in the March4MHC Challenge, we earned bonus funds of $15,000. Andrea has again put together a large team for this coming year: Carol Armstrong, Liz Berens, Anne Brandon, Judy Brownstein, Mary Clark, Linda Chu, Becky Cutting, Meg Harris, Barbara Kelly, Jane Mayo, Phoebe McBee, Lisa Oberreuter (new to the group), Jeremy Pierce, Ann Robson, Joyce Schlesinger, Marian Strobel, Meredith Tennent, and Marjorie Zunder. As well as great appreciation to Catherine’s work this past year, thanks also go to Anne Fields, Kathy Milar, Emily Robbie, Marcy Wilkov Waterman, and Emily Young for their part in the fundraising effort.
At the class meeting during the reunion, we had more than the normal amount of business to address. We voted unanimously to pass two documents, the Class Merger and the Class Charter agreements, set forth by the Alum Association as part of the change to a new treasury system in which class treasuries will now be held by the Alum Association. The change should simplify the treasurer’s duties and transitions between treasurers, but classes still have control over how their funds are used. The Class Charter basically replaces the class bylaws and allows electronic voting, if necessary, between reunions. The board of class officers had agreed to the change in February, but it needed to be passed at the class meeting as well. As for our class funds, our treasurer Carol Mills has done an excellent job in managing them, and even after reunion expenses the balance is about $7500.
The slate of officers for the next five years was accepted as well:
President—Meg Harris
Vice President/Head Class Agent—Andrea Lange
Scribe—Linda Keown
Treasurer/Reunion Chair—Carol Mills
Nominating Committee—Jane Mayo, Sallie Welles, Emily Young
Web Coordinator—Kathy Bendo
Sphinx Salon Committee Chair—Sallie Welles
Contact information for all of them can be found on the class website under Class Information.
And congratulations to our classmate Becky Rom, who received a well-deserved Alum Association Achievement Award during the reunion weekend! She has worked for wilderness preservation since long before her MHC days and is now the national chair for The Campaign to Save the Boundary Waters.
Hoping you have an enjoyable rest of your summer—Meg Harris
September 2025
Dear Classmates—
The beginning of this letter will sound a lot like last year’s. Although it was another stressful year for colleges, I think that President Danielle Holley’s various interviews and statements have served Mount Holyoke well. And again, it was a relatively low-key year for our class. But this coming year will, of course, be different, with our 55th reunion to be held May 28-31, 2026.
We again had three well attended Sphinx Salon Zoom sessions organized by Beth Boland and Lisa Oberreuter:
November—book discussion, recommendations and non-recommendations
March—reunion brain-storming session
May—travel discussion led our classmate travel expert Nancy Novogrod
Beth and Lisa have done a wonderful job of providing us with interesting topics for Zoom events for the past four years, but beginning next fall they understandably would like to be replaced. So I hope that a couple of you will consider taking this on! There are a huge number of topics that would be of interest, including some that would gladly be revisited. And speaking of replacements, our class Nominating Committee will be coming up with a slate of officers for the next five-year term this coming spring. If you would like to suggest yourself or someone else for consideration, please contact Jane Mayo, Peggy Rotundo or Sallie Welles, whose email addresses are on the class website under the Class Information tab.
I hope that you check into our class website (https://www.mhcclassof1971.com) at least occasionally. Kathy Bendo continues to do a great job updating and enhancing it. The tab labelled Current News features some articles relating to MHC that you will probably find interesting. And the 55th Reunion tab will keep you informed about those plans.
Still on the topic of communications, you have probably noticed that the Quarterly has been replaced by the Alum Magazine. Now with only three issues, the word count for each issue has been raised. Our class scribe, Linda Keown, encourages us all to submit any interesting updates. Along with enjoyable activities she, of course, must report about deaths of classmates, and she always seeks memories from those who might have known the deceased. Since my letter of a year ago, we have unfortunately lost Janet Smith Dore and Barbara (Bobbie) Jeremiah Lingard. And we also learned of the deaths of Abigail Adler (2022) and Marianne McGrane Crowell (2020).
Thanks to so many of you, our class achieved a 56% participation rate in contributions to the Mount Holyoke Fund for a total of $255,763 (compared to goals of 55% and $275,000). For the March4MHC Challenge we had a class high of 81 participants, which helped us earn bonus funds of $11,500. Andrea Lange has done a wonderful job as our Head Class Agent for the past four years! And thanks to Catherine Conover for agreeing to be Andrea’s co-chair for this coming year. We greatly appreciate the ongoing work of others on this past year’s team: Carol Armstrong, Judith Brownstein, Linda Chu, Mary Clark, Bethany Craig, Becky Ritchie Cutting, Anne Fields, Meg Harris, Kathy Parker, Jeremy Pierce, Marian Strobel, Susan Weed, and Emily Young. And we’re grateful to those who will be joining the large team that Andrea and Catherine have put together for this reunion year: Liz Berens, Anne Brandon, Barbara Kelly, Kathy Milar, Jane Mayo, Phoebe McBee, Emily O’Dell Robbie, Ann Robson, Joyce Schlesinger, Meredith Tennent, and Marcy Wilkov Waterman.
Thanks to the good management of CDs by treasurer Carol Mills, our class treasury has grown a bit to $8900 despite a couple of minor expenses.
Now, of course, Carol and her fellow experienced reunion organizers Beth Boland and Lisa Oberreuter are concentrating on plans for May. You will hear specifics throughout the year, and we hope that many of you will be able to attend what is always a wonderful weekend.
Hoping you have an enjoyable fall—Meg Gere Harris
September 2024
Dear Classmates—
Although this past year has been a particularly stressful one for most colleges (and for the world as a whole), Mount Holyoke did not receive the negative publicity that so many have. I credit President Danielle Holley’s statement in late October, “My position not to make institutional statements about national or international events is based on several considerations.”, in large part for that. For her succinct reasons, you can read at:
As for our class, things have understandably been somewhat more low-key than in the past couple of years. We had three well attended Sphinx Salon Zoom sessions organized by Beth Boland and Lisa Oberreuter:
November—new interests/passions embarked on in the past ten years.
March—classmates Val Bryan and Michele Sorenson, both Master Gardeners, provided a variety of excellent tips and insights about environmentally healthy gardening.
June—celebrating turning 75!
The plan for this coming year is to have four Sphinx Salon events; Beth and Lisa continue to welcome suggestions for upcoming topics.
A huge thanks to Andrea Lange and Christine Chastain-Warheit for leading our class fundraising team this year. And thanks to so many of you who contributed a total of $269,250 to the Mount Holyoke Fund for a 55% participation rate. Also, 80 of you contributed to the March4MHC Challenge, so that we earned an extra $13,000 to be added to our class total! We greatly appreciate the ongoing work of the others on this past year’s team: Linda Chu, Mary Corbitt Clark, Catherine Conover, Bethany Holley Craig, Meg Gere Harris, Marian Strobel, Susan Weed, and Marjorie Deitzler Zunder. And we’re grateful to six additional classmates who have agreed to be part of this coming year’s team: Carol Armstrong, Judy Katzenelson Brownstein, Becky Ritchie Cutting, Anne Marsh Fields, Kathleen King Parker, and Jeremy Pierce.
As for our class finances, treasurer Carol Mills has invested an appropriate amount of our funds in CDs so that our balance has grown by $300 to about $8800. Thanks to her for this work as well as all she does in other ways, particularly in starting to think about our next reunion.
Since my letter of last September, the loss of the only of our classmates is that of Joann Otto. I’ll expand on the news of her death for a couple of reasons. Hers was the first for which we received information about a Zoom offering of the celebration of her life, which we conveyed by email to the class this spring. I imagine that in this age of Zoom we’ll be conveying more notifications of this sort in the future. And Joann, who had been a highly respected biology professor for almost forty years, was a wonderful member of our class Climate Change Workgroup who contributed greatly to the Sustainability Stroll at last year’s reunion. Joann inspired and mentored many of her students, just as Professor Isabelle Sprague had done for her at Mount Holyoke. To honor Joann, members of the Climate Change Workgroup have decided to make individual contributions to an endowed fund honoring Professor Sprague. Anyone interested in honoring Joann in this way should direct a donation to Mount Holyoke College to The Sprague Research Fund, supporting undergraduate student research in the biological sciences.
And now, looking at some changes in the near future, the first to mention is that since the Alumnae Association is discontinuing hosting website services for classes, our class will be using Squarespace to create and maintain a new website. Our very competent and flexible webmaster, Kathy Bendo, has configured our new website. Great thanks to Kathy for all she has done and will be doing!
Also, our class scribe, Linda Keown, has let us know that The Quarterly will be redesigned and will have only three issues this coming year, with no winter edition. But the word count for each edition has been raised, so Linda especially continues to encourage us all to submit any interesting updates. She has done a great job in mentioning as many people as possible in her class notes and in reaching out to freshman and senior dormmates of any deceased classmates, but she would appreciate more contributions!
And, of course, in our future is our 55th reunion in May of 2026. We’re fortunate to again have our trio of terrific past reunion organizers Carol Mills, Beth Boland and Lisa Oberreuter take the job on again. On the class website, the 55th Reunion section has a list of potential activities. As that page indicates, any other ideas and comments are welcome and should be sent to Carol.
One other thought to mention concerns awards presented by the college. Many of our classmates have received awards for various levels of involvement and leadership that focus on volunteer work for Mount Holyoke. But there is one award that only one of our classmates (Laverne Berry) has received, while every class within five years of ours has multiple recipients, some just two but others more. The Achievement Award is “Presented to an alum for outstanding achievements and service to the larger society through salaried or volunteer fields of endeavor. Recognizes work that exemplifies the ideals of a liberal arts education; that demonstrates professional distinction, sustained commitment, and/or creativity; and that reflects the vision and pioneering spirit of Mary Lyon.” Surely our class has some worthy candidates who might qualify, so any suggestions could be directed to me or by replying to this class email address.
Hoping you have an enjoyable fall—Meg Harris
mgharris118@gmail.com