Van Skilling '55 was honored at a special ceremony at Homecoming 2012, in which many letters from past Skilling Award recipients and some of Van's students were presented.

Read the letters

Crestina Martinez ran for the seat in Colorado State Senate District 35. In a close race, she was defeated by Larry Crowder in the general election on Nov. 6. As a Costilla County Commissioner, she helped found and run CarePoint, which expands access to affordable healthcare for working families in the San Luis Valley. She took on water and irrigation issues on the boards of the Colorado Acequia Association and the Ditch and Reservoir Company Alliance. She raises grass-finished natural cattle and hay at the South Ute Mountain Ranch in San Acacio Viejo with her family.

2006

Reed Duecy-Gibbs finished his masters in architecture from the Rhode Island School of Design. He also received a Fulbright grant to study urbanism in Istanbul, Turkey. He’s beginning to develop a new project, a public user-generated web map and forum on urban development (OpenUrban.com)

2007

Nate Crocker is the writer/producer of the film, “The Incident(s) at Paradise Bay.” Nate describes the film as “a fictional interpretation of what happened at a lot of the WWASP reform schools in the 1990s. They were highly controversial private reform schools.” He says his film is a thriller set in that background. A video teaser of the film can be viewed on Nate’s Kickstarter page. Nate has been working in film and television for four years, and attended grad school at the American Film Institute. He has worked for Bill Mayer, “Workaholics,” and the producers of “Requiem for a Dream,” “Hard Candy,” and “Half Nelson.”

2012

Emmanuel Chan was selected to participate in the Coro Fellowship in Public Affairs, an intensive nine-month public affairs program. Emmanuel was one of 16 fellows in St. Louis and 64 chosen nationally for the program. The Coro program offers exposure to the nonprofit, government, business, electoral politics, and organized labor sectors with hands-on training in project management and communication.

Caroline Hannah was interviewed by Clare Bowes Sheridan ’87 about the life and work of Henry Varnum Poor, an American painter, sculptor, potter, and architect. The interview aired on “Crossroads of Rockland History,” a program sponsored by the Historical Society of Rockland County, N.Y.

1993

Jeff “Monster” Lovelace is wrapping up 15 years of working in the Head Start community and now works for the Peace Corps in Washington, D.C. On Feb. 4, he married Marisol Miranda of Circuata, Bolivia. The couple met years ago, while Jeff was serving as a Peace Corps volunteer in Bolivia. They live in Reston, Va., with Mauricio, 11 and Ailin, 4.

1998

Whitney Sedwick Meister has been named a director of the law firm Fennemore Craig, P.C., which has offices in the Southwest, including Phoenix and Denver. Whitney’s practice focuses on employment litigation and counseling clients on labor and employment issues.

1999

Shawn and Laura Sears ’99 were featured as “Difference Makers” in the Christian Science Monitor for their outdoor education camp. The camp, Vida Verde Nature Education, is located on the coast of northern California. It’s a free camp for children from low-income families and has served more than 7,000 kids from the inner cities of Oakland, East Palo Alto, San Francisco, and San Jose. • Conceptual artist Scott Gleeson, and artist Dane Larsen are the creators of a controversial new Dallas-based public art project. “Las Manos Negras” (The Black Hands) is a grassroots initiative designed to highlight the epidemic of wage theft in the Texas construction industry. The project is designed to facilitate communication between exploited day laborers, contractors, and labor advocates, and to empower workers to assert their legal and moral rights to social justice. The artists were awarded a 2012 Idea Fund Grant from the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts.

The Colorado College “chain of office,” presented to President Jill Tiefenthaler at her inauguration this year, was created by Harry Hamill ’84, a geology major while at CC. He is now an artist and a well-known creator of jewelry and medallions. Susan Smith Burghart ’77 provided the funding for the piece. The chain of office is one of the oldest symbols of authority. It is intentionally a heavy collar, to represent the weight of office. Its links, forming a circle, symbolize unity, wholeness, returning cycles, and infinity. The chain links past to present, and the CC presidential chain of office features the names of all of its presidents. The chain is meant to be worn by the president at all official academic events.

1974

Tony Barnosky returned to CC in October to present a lecture, “Approaching a Tipping Point for Planet Earth.” Tony is the author of “Heatstroke: Nature in an Age of Global Warming.” He is a professor in the Department of Integrative Biology, University of California-Berkeley, and curator at the Museum of Paleontology and Research Paleontologist at the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, both at UC-Berkeley. • Bob Parmenter and Ellen Stein ’87 met recently at the Valles Caldera National Preserve in the Jemez Mountains of Northern New Mexico. Bob serves as that preserve’s director of science and education. Ellen recently joined the staff of the Great Old Broads for Wilderness, a Durango, Colo.-based national environmental group that uses the voices and activism of elders to preserve and protect wilderness and wild lands. The Albuquerque chapter of the Broads organized a workday in May at the Caldera, building fences to protect streams from cattle grazing. The Caldera is one of five original 1860 Baca family properties that include CC’s San Luis Valley campus. The Caldera is a geologic, ecological, and scenic wonder. Under Bob’s supervision, it has hosted many CC students and faculty for field studies and class conservation projects.

1975

Mark Collins has moved to Florence, Italy, where he started a bicycle touring company, Riding With Cosimo. • Mark Johnstone is the first public art advisor for the state of Idaho. He administers workshops in public art around the state and educates city governments about public art. He lives in Hailey, 12 miles south of Ketchum/Sun Valley. He relocated there eight years ago, after 27 years in Los Angeles.

1978

James R. Gould graduated from the University of St. Thomas School of Law in Minneapolis with a degree in law in May. He had been clerking at Schwegman, Lundberg & Woessner, a patent law firm in Minneapolis since May 2011, and began working there full-time in September. He has been married to his wife, Barbara, since 1991, and they have one son, Joe, 12.

1979

Mark Stephenson was featured in an article in the Desert Star Weekly, which focused on his nature-infused art. Mark lives in Sky Valley, Calif., on six acres of desert land with views of the San Jacinto and San Gorgonio mountains. He is known for Orotone work, a process consisting of multiple layers of photography. “The images in my Orotone series are captured as black and white negatives on modern film cameras,” he says in the article.

1980

David Lester of Cleveland, Ohio, was selected as one of The Best Lawyers in America 2013. David is with the firm Ulmer & Berne LLP in Cleveland.

1981

Linda Benfield, a managing partner at Foley & Lardner’s Milwaukee office, has been elected to the American College of Environmental Lawyers. She was selected for her distinguished experience in all aspects of environmental law, including the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, Superfund and RCRA enforcement, air and water permitting and compliance issues, and waste disposal.

1983

David S. Buck, M.D., M.P.H., of Houston, was awarded the Public Health Award by the Texas Academy of Family Physicians during that group’s 63rd annual session and scientific assembly in Austin in July. The award recognizes people who are making extraordinary contributions to the public health of Texas. David is president and founder of Health for the Homeless-Houston (HHH). After graduating from CC, he traveled to Calcutta, India, to work with Mother Teresa, caring for the poor. In 1999, he founded HHH, a consortium of more than 30 community-based agencies, health care clinics, educational institutions, and public organizations. In 2011, HHH served nearly 10,000 people. • Janet Friedman-Pizzo and her husband, Joseph Lynn Pizzo, were named the 2012–13 Oregon State Speech Educators of the Year by the Oregon Speech League Coaches Association. They will be inducted into the Oregon Speech Hall of Fame upon their retirement from active coaching. They currently coach competitive speech and debate at Butte Falls High School in Butte Falls, Ore.

1984

Amy Cole has received an executive-level position at Kohler, Co., as the general manager of residential/light commercial products for the company’s power systems division. Amy recently served as senior vice president of channels for Hilti North America, where she served the residential and commercial markets and managed all revenue and costs. She has an MBA from the University of Tulsa.

CC friends gathered for a reunion and a celebration of the 100th birthday of Eleanor Hastings Griffith ’36. Eleanor has become the first member of the Colorado College Century Club, a newly established recognition group established by the Fifty Year Club. Eleanor, who grew up on Pine Street in Colorado Springs, remembers her grandmother suggesting she go to “the college” and talk with President Mierow about the possibility of a scholarship. After two years, she transferred to University of Colorado, where she completed her degree. Among those attending the celebration, from left: Jay Engeln ’74, Lee Clarke Clement ’46, Judy Pickle, Eleanor Hastings Griffith ’36, Judy Reid Finley ’58, Jule Hutchinson Haney ’39, Diane Brown Benninghoff ’68, and Barbara Neeley Yalich ’53.

1944

Carl Christ was presented the Heritage Award by the Alumni Association of Johns Hopkins University, where he taught economics from 1950 to 2005.

1948

The Owls’ Nest, the Estes Park home of Dorothy Scott Gibbs, was featured on the Estes Park Museum’s Ninth Annual Historic Homes tour in June. It had been the home of Dorothy Carnine Scott ’25, and contains the studio where she worked on her lithography from 1965 until her death in 1993. The house also contains many of her oil paintings, including two of Pikes Peak and Garden of the Gods which she presented to Dr. and Mrs. Charles C. Mierow in 1939. These two works were inherited by the Mierows’ daughter Dorothy, who returned them to Dorothy Gibbs and her husband George shortly before her death in 2000. The house also contains mementos of Dorothy Scott’s father-in-law, Charles F. Scott, whose descendants include many CC grads. Several of those were able to tour the home, including Angelo Lynn and Christy Lynn ’07. The house also holds mementos of Dorothy’s friends from her CC days, including Anna Jane Hitchcock ’24.

1955

Ray Kandt ’57 sent us this photo of three CC alumni from the classes of 1957 and 1958, together in Highlands Ranch, Colo., in September 2011. From left to right: Jeanette Barton Kandt ’58, Ray Kandt ’57, and Mary Rogers Wullschleger ’58.

Van Skilling was honored at Homecoming 2012 at a lunch for alumni, parents, and students in the Economics and Business Department. Attendees honored Van for all that he has done for the department. In addition to teaching in the department for 20 years, Van has endowed the Van Skilling Award, which provides funds for student research projects. Past Skilling Award recipients and Van’s students wrote many heartwarming letters to thank him. You can read some of the letters by going “Web Extras.”

1960

Janice Jilka McElroy has just completed her term as Rotary district governor for southern Vermont and New Hampshire. She raised funds for a matching grant of $412,450 from the Rotary Foundation to aid in the recovery of Vermont from the devastation caused by Tropical Storm Irene last year.

1962

Abett Icks is retired from teaching French at the College of St. Scholastica and Central High School in Duluth, Minn., but she hasn’t slowed down. She recently completed her 20th American Birkebeiner XC ski marathon. She and her husband, Ron Capel, made a trip to Russia in April to see close friends and colleagues. She and Ron went to British Columbia in 2011 to participate in the Masters World Cup cross-country ski races, where she was the top U.S. skier in her age group events in classic and skate. In February 2012, she went to the U.S. National Masters competition and was named National Masters XC ski champion. She also serves on the Comprehensive Planning Commission for her township in northern Wisconsin.

1963

Ruth Richardson Richards accepted the Saidie Lifetime Achievement Award from the Association of Women in Communications, Tulsa Chapter, in May. Attending the ceremony were her daughter, Robin Richards ’85 and son Tim Richards, and many friends and colleagues. The award is named after Saidie Adwon, a pioneer in the television industry and the first female general manager of an Oklahoma television station. Ruth has led communications and fund development for many Tulsa-area nonprofits over the past three decades, including the Girl Scouts, Nature Conservancy, American Lung Association, Legal Aid, and Hospice of Green County.

1968

David Burnett was honored this fall for Achievement in Photojournalism with a Lucie Award. The award is presented by the Lucie Foundation, which spotlights outstanding photographers from around the world. David started his photography career in 1967 as an intern at Time magazine while he was a political science student at CC. He went to Vietnam as a freelance photographer in 1970. He worked for Life magazine, and over more than four decades has been awarded for work around the globe. Dave’s photo of Mary Decker’s fall was also recently selected as one of the best 100 sports photographs ever taken by Sports Illustrated.

This story of childhood on America’s farms in the late 19th and early 20th centuries is a journey back to America’s breadbasket. Fleshing out the contours of everyday life, the book focuses on what farm children saw, heard, smelled, tasted, and felt — and how they worked, played, and learned. Drawing upon rich primary sources from the Great Plains and Midwest, Riney-Kehrberg, a history professor at Iowa State University, combines biography and historical narrative to invite young readers into the nation’s rural past.

ISBN-13: 978-0-89672-692-5. Published by Texas Tech University Press, 2011.

Metcalf, a U.S. Marine Corps veteran, grappled with the demons he encountered in Vietnam and in his post-combat nightmares. The book is a memoir of war, journalism, and growing up in the Pacific Northwest. Stories of his four years in the U.S. Marine Corps — in Vietnam; Okinawa, Japan; the Philippines; Taiwan; South China Sea; and the Gulf of Tonkin — and how they affected the rest of his life form the core of the book. In addition to serving as the book’s title, “Rattlesnake Dreams” also is the name of Metcalf’s blog.

ISBN-13: 978-0578088099. Published by Metcalf Publications, 2011.

Ruby Mae Oliver and her donkey, Maude, are best friends. When Ruby and her Pa are stranded in Cripple Creek, Maude and Ruby’s carefree life changes. Pa has decided Ruby must go to school and, worse yet, she needs a “proper upbringing.” The book, set against the historic backdrop of the destructive Cripple Creek fires of 1896, makes for a compelling historical novel for younger readers. Oswald also is the author of two previous historical novels, “Nothing Here but Stones” and “Hard Face Moon.”

ISBN-13: 978-0865411098. Published by Filter Press, 2011.

Bradt is the granddaughter of Gail L. Ireland, who served as attorney general of Colorado from 1941-45. Bradt wrote this book in conjunction with her successful effort to carry on the work of her grandfather, who was convinced of the innocence of Joe Arridy, a mentally disabled young man who was executed in 1939. Ireland worked on Arridy’s case for years after the conviction, obtaining an unprecedented number of stays in his execution from the Colorado Supreme Court. Arridy was granted a posthumous pardon by Colo. Gov. Bill Ritter in January 2011.

ISBN-13: 978-1-4507-5043-1. Published by Kinetico Studios, 2011.