March April 2007

CLASS OF 1959 – March/April 2007 Classmates attending the annual meeting of the Cornell Assn of Class Officers (CACO) included George and Bobbie Greig Schneider, Barbara Hirsch Kaplan, Bill Day, and Alan Rosenthal.  “We were small in number but we had a great time,” writes Barbara. “We had a class meeting Saturday morning and then heard President David Skorton at lunch.”

Barbara is to be congratulated for being named a Frank Rhodes Alumni Award winner for 2007. The award is given in recognition of extraordinary service to the university, in both length and quality of contribution by the individual, through activities within the broad spectrum of Cornell’s various alumni organizations, associations, and related groups. Barbara and her husband Leslie also are to be congratulated on the birth of their first grandchild, son of daughter Emily ’91.

At the CACO meeting it was noted that the Class of ’59 Scholarship now stands at more than $63,000. This year we presented a scholarship award of $2,645 to Miranda Uzoma ’09. Also on the agenda at CACO were several topics related to our 50th reunion, including fund raising and attendance. Our class continues to hold the attendance record for the 25th reunion, with 428 attendees. The co-chairs for that reunion as well as for our 50th reunion, Dave Dunlop and Harry Petchesky, have a major goal for 2009, says Harry: “to be the first class in Cornell’s history to hold the attendance record for the 25th and 50th reunions at the same time!” The current attendance record for a 50th reunion is 360, so we want at least 361. “I’m confident that our class is up to the challenge,” says Harry.

Harry recently was in Miami visiting one of his Cornell roommates, Mike Simonhoff, whose son David has been named a Division 1-AA All American as a punter for the third straight year. “David played for South East Missouri State and is a bona fide NFL prospect,” notes Harry. “This has been a good year for roommates’ sons named David. Steve and Barbara Benioff Friedman’s son David married actress Amanda Peet last September. David, a film writer who uses his mother’s maiden name professionally, has a long list of credits, including the screenplays for “25th Hour” (based on his novel) and “Troy.”

Harry and his wife Jill were off to Australia in February to visit friends and Jill’s family. Then in March Harry planned to join several other Cornellians as they competed in the National Crossword Puzzle tournament. The following weekend Harry and Jill planned to visit Ray Handlin ’53 in Georgia for some golf at Reynolds Plantation and the NCAA Final Four. In April they were going to a Tau Delt reunion that Joel Birnbaum and Alan Klein were putting together in the Bay Area. But, stresses Harry, “lest you get the wrong idea, I’m still working full time [for Scheichet & Davis in NYC] thanks to, among other things, the Internet.”

In January, Barbara Friedman began her term as the first woman to chair the board of governors of the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion. Barbara joined the board in 1993. The Jewish Week noted that Barbara “has been very involved in Jewish volunteer work for the last three decades. She has been a lay leader of the Jewish Braille Institute, CLAL, the Jewish Outreach Institute, Central Synagogue (where she is a member), and UJA-Federation of New York.”

Joining the Cornell Board of Trustees in the 2006-07 year is Ratan Tata ’62, our classmate who is chairman of Tata Sons, the holding company of India’s largest and most successful industrial conglomerate, the Tata Group. Earlier this year Ratan was responsible for one of the biggest acquisitions in Indian corporate history when the Tata Group acquired Corus Group, an Anglo-Dutch steel and aluminum producer.

Barbara Curit Thorp, formerly a project manager at Triangle Steel, recently retired after 15 years at Ithaca’s Sciencenter. “During her tenure, she directed the museum’s operations department, scheduled and welcomed thousands of field trip groups to the museum, coordinated facility rentals, and was affectionately known as ‘The Snake Lady’ for her enthusiastic, hands-on introductions of Candy and Ruby (our corn snakes) to thousands of visitors,” notes Sciencenter NEWS.

Paul E. Read continues to teach and conduct research and extension programs as professor of horticulture/viticulture at the U of Nebraska. His role as the resource professional for Nebraska’s developing grape and wine industry remains a primary part of his university responsibilities. Following a 2005-06 semester in Tasmania, where he learned about that state’s grape and wine industry—and marveled at its “incredible variety of geophysical attributes”—he led a group of students from his university on a Study Abroad tour of Tasmania. Paul is currently in his third and final year of serving his professional society, the American Society for Horticultural Science, as president-elect, president, and chair of the board of directors. Along with his professional endeavors, he keeps busy taking—with the help of his wife Christine—their children, Emma (now 14) and Peter (11) to sports, music, and other activities.
* Jenny Tesar, 97A Chestnut Hill Village, Bethel, CT 06801; tel., (203) 792-8237; e-mail, jet24@cornell.edu.