April 06, 2026
Class Notes
Find out what your Beloit friends have been doing.
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Submit your news and photos to classnotes@beloit.edu. Submissions will appear in Beloit College Magazine’s printed and online editions and are accepted on a rolling basis.
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1960-1969
- Don Fairfield ’60 completed 60 years with NASA as a space scientist at Goddard Space Flight Center. After retirement, he remained at Goddard as an emeritus scientist and continued his research on the magnetosphere of the Earth and planets.
- Janice Rae Wallenborn Lawson ’60 writes that she and Ralph have been living for nearly three years at Avery Point, a retirement facility. She lost her address cards and missed hearing from classmates at Christmas time.
- Frank Schwartz ’61 retired from computer programming in 2000, and lived on a sailboat for 10 years — a 40’ French-built aluminum centerboarder. He now lives in beautiful Green Cove Springs, Florida, 30 miles southwest of Jacksonville. Any classmates coming nearby are welcome to stop and say hello. The guest room is usually available.
- Beloit College friends for 63 years, three of whom have served as trustees for the college, enjoyed catching up in Scottsdale this winter: Gene Banucci ’65, retired founder and CEO of a semiconductor company, Phyllis Wolff Banucci ’65 who translated her anthropology degree to human resources where she focused on corporate cultural alignment, Steve Mahle ’67, retired president of a business at Medtronic, and Kathi Austin Mahle ’67, retired Full Elder of the Methodist Church in Minnesota.
- Charles S. Eson ’68 reports the birth of his grandson, Ze, in August 2023. On June 7, 2025 he performed his Bar Mitzvah of 66 years ago at Synagogue Temple Israel in Albany, New York. His siblings, their families, members of his wife’s family, and friends attended to celebrate this joyous occasion. In October 2025, he was elected Secretary of the Albany Area Chess Club, of which he’s been a member since 1982, holding other offices over the years, as well as acting as a tournament director.
1970-1979
- Frank Wright ’73 is still working full-time, as assisting pastor at San Miguel de Porres in southwest Albuquerque, ensconced deep in the Spanish-speaking community there.
- Marilyn Young Hayes ’74 writes, “After selling my small animal veterinary hospital in Massachusetts in 2019, my husband Steve and I have spent summers at our lake cottage in Milton, New Hampshire, and winters in our house in Tucson. We travel in our RV east each spring and west each fall, taking a different route each time. So far we have made 13 trips. We have visited Beloit friends in Nebraska, Illinois, and Wisconsin, as well as friends and relatives in many other states. There are so many beautiful places to visit in this country!”
- Michael Kitt ’76, after completing three successful business careers, has retired to Bangkok, Thailand, where he and his wife now live most of the year.
- Steve Raap ’76 and his wife Linda cruised around the world with a couple hundred other passengers on the small Oceania Cruise ship “Insignia.” From Jan. 6 through July 7, 2025, they stopped at over 100 ports and had offship multiday adventures in Africa, Nepal, China, and Thailand along the way. It was the trip of a lifetime and highly recommended.
- Henry Hall ’77 was elected to serve as a zoning commissioner for the city of Danbury, Connecticut.
- Adam Koons ’77 reports that in 2025, he retired from a very fulfilling, and often difficult and stressful, career in international and domestic emergency response and humanitarian programs. He has lived long-term in seven countries and worked in 40 countries in a wide variety of positions and for a range of agencies. At the end of 2025, he moved from Washington D.C. to Nagoya, Japan, where his wife, Yukari Horiba, grew up. He is staying active in professional endeavors in applied anthropology, and looking for other Beloit grads who live in Japan.
- Since retiring, Ken Oguss ’77 has continued to tap into his training as an anthropologist and children’s librarian. He facilitates storytelling and flash fiction writing groups on Zoom. He gets requests in October to tell ghost stories, including “The Wisconsin Trowel Murders,” set at an archeological field school in the Apostle Islands, and “The Origin of Black Cat,” a catfriendly pourquoi tale. His path to professional storytelling and writing accelerated at Beloit!
- Steve Rudnick ’78, Jody Pred ’78, Scott Hughes ’78, Kenny Lerner ’78, Mary DeFlaun ’78, Roger Howard ’78, Haris Orkin ’78, and Craig Michelsen ’78, former classmates, reunited in October for a weekend in Ashland, Oregon.
- Jim Witte ’79 retired as professor emeritus of sociology and founding director of the Institute for Immigration Research at George Mason University. He will split his time between Fairfax, Virginia, and Vero Beach, Florida, and continue his consulting work on immigration with George Mason and the Immigrant Hall of Honor in Austin, Texas.
1980-1989
- Jaikrishna Balkissoon ’80, Adam Keehn ’80, Jay Sames ’80, and Rich Sheinberg ’80 reunited at Beloiter Days last fall to represent the Class of 1980.
- Connie Burbage Motoki ’80, Michael Tarabulski ’81, and Howard Park ’81 caught up on Jan. 17 at the Boardwalk Café in Webster Groves, Missouri.
- Scott L. Pratt ’81 is professor and head of philosophy at the University of Oregon. He and his coauthor, Erin McKenna, recently published the revised edition of American Philosophies from Wounded Knee to the Present (Bloomsbury Press, 2025), a history of American philosophy. This is his eighth book.
- Bill Roman ’81 received the Outstanding Volunteer Award from the Board of Directors and Executive Council of the Association of Environmental & Engineering Geologists (AEG) at their 2025 Annual Meeting in Chicago for his service as content editor of AEG News, the Association’s news magazine. He also received AEG’s Outstanding Volunteer Award in 2020 and was awarded Outstanding Reviewer for Environmental & Engineering Geoscience, a joint publication of AEG and the Geological Society of America, in 2018 and 2021.
- Valerie Keys Trabaris ’83 is slowly retiring as a solo practitioner in real estate law to continue her passion for travel which began with her study abroad program in Rennes, France. Both of her kids will be married by the end of 2026, so it is time to spend their inheritance!
- John Dion ’88 has been named dean of the School of Management at Russell Sage College.
- Tim Jacobson ’89 was featured in the November 2025 issue of Super Lawyers magazine.
- John Mingus ’89 retired in July 2025 following a 34-year career at the Government Accountability Office. In December, the agency presented him with the Grand Finale Award “For a career of extraordinary service punctuated by technical excellence, unmatched productivity, steadfast institutional stewardship, and unwavering dedication to GAO’s mission.”
1990-1999
Credit: J.Olson Weddings
- Eric W. Jensen ’91 is a special projects commercial title examiner working for First American Title Insurance Co. He insures large commercial real estate transactions across the country, mostly in the Midwest. It is challenging work, researching public records to trace ownership and land use through the years. The history major came in handy! He still plays guitar and has amassed a pretty nice collection of them.
- Jamey Brumfield ’92, Tammy Paul ’92, Christina Melanson King ’92, and David Birdwell ’94 had a mini-Beloiter get-together in Elgin, Illinois in December.
- Brian Cox ’92 took a trip from his home in Hawaii to Beloit last December to support and watch the winter athletes, men’s and women’s basketball (where student engagement had all sorts of giveaways and activities to encourage attendance and fun), and men’s and women’s hockey. He also attended a UW-Madison basketball game with other alumni, including Charles Westerberg ’94 (Beloit College professor of sociology) and Tim Bubon ’94, and caught up with Lance Randall ’94, who is on the Badger’s coaching staff). He was even able to catch a dance performance and participate in Last Call, a new event on the last day of classes that was developed by a marketing class taught by Matt Laszlo and David Rhoades ’94. The students had a blast, exchanging wristbands and enjoying interactive photo screens, a DJ contest, and homemade beer and cider. “I left after my five-day visit even more proud to be a Beloiter,” Brian says. “Go Bucs!”
- Dave Stevenson ’93 and Val Perry Rendel ’95 met up in September in tropical climes to discuss the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow.
- Charles Westerberg ’94, Anita Swartwood ’94, Kirk Owens ’96, Craig Robertson ’96, J.J. Swartwood ’96, Patrick Vining ’96, Brian McCarthy ’97, and Laurie Robertson ’99 gathered in December at Craig and Laurie Robertson’s house in Madison, Wisconsin.
- Kevin Griffis ’96 resigned as the director of CDC’s Office of Communications in March, and soon after began working with the University of Minnesota’s Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy (CIDRAP) and its Vaccine Integrity Project. Currently, he’s the Director of Media Relations and Public Affairs for CIDRAP, leading communications for the Vaccine Integrity Project and its efforts to safeguard vaccine use in the U.S. He lives in Atlanta with his wife and their daughters.
- Sarah Gross ’96 married Brian Torf on May 31, 2025, in Minneapolis. She started a new job in February 2025 as a program director for the City of Chicago Department of Housing.
2000-2009
- Kelly Green Fluharty ’00 attended an event in December in Saint Paul, Minnesota, featuring john a. powell, author, scholar, and internationally recognized expert in the areas of civil rights and civil liberties. She struck up a conversation with the person sitting next to her who, it turns out, was Catherine Reid Day ’75. It was a wonderful night made even more delightful with this connection. Kelly is married to Matt Fluharty ’99. They live in Winona, Minnesota, with their two boys, Hank and Will. Matt is executive director of the nonprofit organization, Art of the Rural, and Kelly is vice president of early childhood for the Southern Minnesota Initiative Foundation.
- Sara Stone-Sadek ’01 is currently a Fellow at Queen Rania Teacher Academy in Jordan. At a U.S. Embassy event in Aqaba, Jordan, she recently met Bess Long, mother of fellow alumna Jess Browder-Long ’18, when they presented at the same conference.
- Meghan Melloy ’05 recently assumed the position of staff attorney with the North Carolina Utilities Commission Public Staff. The Public Staff represents the interests and concerns of the using and consuming public in all public utility matters that come before the North Carolina Utilities Commission. Her focus is on natural gas and water systems.
- Grisha Grigoriev ’07, Bryan “Alex” Gordon ’07, and John Kato ’07 met at Convocation, and twenty years later reunited to celebrate each other’s achievements and kids in Chicago.
- Alexander Pratt ’07 began a new position as assistant professor of qualitative research methods in the Department of Counseling, Educational Psychology, and Research at the University of Memphis. His first book, Racism in the Enacted Curriculum, was published by Routledge last year.
- Nachiket Karnik ’08 left the Boston Consulting Group after a tenure of four years and a promotion to Project Leader. He’s excited to share that he has joined 3M’s Transportation and Electronics Business Group as a strategist.
- Jessie Pechmann ’09 and the Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team recently received the Kluz Prize for their crowdsourcing and other open tools to locate infrastructure and create baseline maps preconflict, helping to better track structural impacts of war, and inform recovery needs. The Kluz Prize for PeaceTech is an annual initiative designed to celebrate, recognize, and propel the innovative use of emerging technologies to foster peace, reduce conflict, and safeguard human dignity and universal human rights across the globe.
2010-2019
- Alex Brower ’10 ran a successful grassroots campaign and was elected alderman to Milwaukee’s District 3 Common Council seat in a special election on April 1, 2025, becoming the first open socialist elected to sit in City Hall since Mayor Frank Zeidler’s final term ended in April of 1960.
- Lori Rhoades Eatherton ’11 and her husband Brian welcomed their second child, Parker Marie Eatherton, on October 20, 2025. She joins proud big brother Miles, four, who is loving his new role.
- Mary Keister ’11 recently celebrated her one-year anniversary as a small business owner running a strategic communications consulting firm that supports higher education institutions and other nonprofits. It’s a turbulent time to work in higher education communications, but she is finding it incredibly rewarding to be able to contribute to institutions dedicated to expanding access to knowledge and opportunity.
- Kajva Armstrong ’12 and Christine Armstrong celebrated their first wedding anniversary on Dec. 21, 2025.
- Eric Hetland ’12 and his wife Lindsay welcomed their second child, Jamie Hetland, in April 2025 in Tacoma, Washington. Jamie is tall like his father — at his nine-month appointment, he was the average height of an 18-month-old.
- Nyasha Nyamhondoro ’17, after living in the United Kingdom for eight years, was awarded British citizenship this past November. Nyasha writes: “This could not have been possible without the help of Beloit College and the Global Experience Office. They helped me kickstart this journey back in 2016, when I spent my spring semester junior year studying at Goldsmiths, University of London. It was my first time out of the U.S., and to say the experience changed my life is an understatement! I loved London so much that I returned for grad school and eventually landed work in the field of market research. I strongly encourage everyone who’s thinking of studying abroad to do it — you never know where it will take you!”
2020-2029
- Kendra Grogan ’21 has begun a master’s degree program in educational leadership at the University of Virginia.
- Alexis Ross ’24 graduated with a master’s degree from Northwestern’s Medill School of Journalism, and is currently working with the Emmett Till Institute in Chicago.
Losses
Recognizing members of the Beloit College community we have lost.
