“Retirement” Class Notes

Curtis Tomlin (Col ’70) served as the first director of personnel for (then) Virginia Telephone & Telegraph in Charlottesville. He later served 10 years as director of development for Athens Collegem, now Athens State University, in Athens, Alabama. Beginning in 1980, he served in the hotel industry in Florida until his retirement in 1999.

Bob Goodrich (Col ’78 L/M), Billy Bolton (Com ’78 L/M), and others hosted an April 2019 retirement party outside of Charlottesville for their classmate Charlie Blair (Col ’78, Educ ’91 L/M), who retired this spring after a 40-year career as teacher, coach and administrator at Collegiate School in Richmond, Virginia. Blair received a letter of congratulations from UVA President James Ryan. Goodrich retired in 2018 after practicing law for 33 years. An ongoing battle with acute myeloid leukemia is taking him and his wife, Sally Tanner Goodrich (Col ’78, Educ ’79 L/M), to Duke Medical Center for a second stem cell transplant.  

Cathy Carrell Teague (Educ ’80 L/M) retired Feb. 1, 2019 after 30 years with State Farm Life Insurance Company. She and Joe Teague (Col ’84 L/M) have been married 27 years and live in Bloomington, Illinois.

Arthur “Tucker” Miller (Educ ’74) retired from the University of Montana after 33 years as a professor and former chair of the Health and Human Performance Department. Miller spent 40 years in public and higher education, including positions in Crozet, Virginia, at Idaho State University and at the University of North Carolina, Wilmington.  

Ronald S. Warren Jr. (Col ’71 L/M) retired in July 2017 from the University of Georgia as professor of economics after 32 years of service. He was previously assistant professor of economics at the University of Virginia, economic policy fellow at The Brookings Institution, and economist at the U.S. Department of Labor. During his career, Warren published more than 40 articles in scholarly journals and served in numerous administrative positions at the department, college and university levels. He lives in Athens, Georgia, with his wife, Joanna. Their daughter, Rebecca Rainbow (Col ’16 L/M), lives in Charlottesville.

Irwin Shur (Col ’80, Law ’83) has retired after 35 years of law practice, the last 10 as vice president, general counsel and secretary for Snap-on Inc. In his last few years in practice, he received a Lifetime Achievement award from the Milwaukee Business Journal in 2014, and served as a member of the US Department of Commerce Manufacturing Council from 2015-2016. In addition to keeping a hand in the business world in some capacity, he intends to spend more time on his music, as well as that of his daughter, who recently released her first album, Ceasefire, recorded with her father in the fall of 2018.

Melissa Drisko (Col ’81 L/M) retired as deputy director of the Defense Intelligence Agency on Oct. 1, 2018, following 37 years in the intelligence community. She began her career as a Naval Intelligence officer, followed by assignments at the CIA and as the deputy director of Naval Intelligence.

Diane McCool Foos (Nurs ’74 L/M) retired from her career as a certified registered nurse anesthetist.  She enjoys returning to Charlottesville to watch her niece, Meghan McCool (Col ’20), play on the UVA women’s soccer team. Go Hoos!

Tom Corrigan (Col ’75) retired as executive vice president and CFO of Christiana Care Health System in Wilmington, Delaware. He previously worked for Anheuser-Busch Companies and Automatic Data Processing.

Clyde E. “Sonny” Ellis (Col ’75 L/M) retired as senior vice president, general counsel and secretary of Parsons Corp., an international design and engineering solutions provider. Prior to joining Parsons in 2006, Ellis was an in-house counsel to General Electric and before that was a partner in the firm of Bryan Cave, where he spent seven years as the head of the firm’s office in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. In 2016, Ellis was recognized by the Ethisphere Institute as one of the year’s “Attorneys Who Matter” in the field of corporate compliance and ethics.

Charlie F. Sutton (Col ’69 L/M) retired from ministry in the Episcopal Church in 2009 after 27 years. He was received into the Anglican Church in North America shortly afterwards. He now serves in the Anglican Diocese in New England as one of three bishop’s chaplains for clergy care and, after serving for a time as interim rector, is an assisting priest at All Saints Anglican Church in Attleboro, Massachusetts. He celebrates 43 years of marriage to Mary Meade Sutton in August 2018. They have two children, five grandchildren, and one on the way. They enjoy walking, biking, camping, and small boat sailing.

Byron S. Shenk (Grad ’90) retired after 28 years at George Fox University in Newberg, Oregon, where he taught health and human performance and athletic training. Over the course of his career, he taught at Goshen College, Woodstock School in India and Eastern Mennonite University, where he also coached soccer, wrestling, and track and field.

Christopher Goff (Col ’74 L/M) has retired as senior vice president and general counsel of HarperCollins Publishers in New York after 28 years. After graduating from the University, he received his law degree from Harvard Law School.

Tom Riley (Col ’72) retired in March 2018 from the University of Mary Washington, where he served as the director of student health and university physician for 11 years. Previously, he was a board-certified family physician in private practice at Midlothian Family Practice for 23 years. He and his son, Morgan Riley (Law ’12), live in Midlothian Virginia. 

Jamie H. Cockfield (Grad ’72) retired on June 30 after serving 45 years in the history department of Mercer University in Macon, Georgia, including three terms as chair. He occupied the Willis Borders Glover Chair of History for 20 years. He published several books during his tenure, including Dollars and Diplomacy (Duke 1981), With Snow on their Boots (St. Martins 1998), White Crow (Praeger 2005) and Black Lebeda (Mercer University Press 2010). Since his retirement, he has signed with publishers for two additional book contracts, one, for a biography of U.S. Senator Walter F. George of Georgia, the other, for a biography of the World War I Russian general A.A. Brusilov. Both are to appear next year. After Mr. Cockfield spearheaded the move to obtain a posthumous commission in the U.S. Air Force for Eugene Bullard, America’s first African-American military aviator, who was denied one during World War I, he appeared in a documentary that aired on French television and received a hand-written note of thanks from General Colin Powell. In the Mercer faculty, he has been elected to a number of offices including the University House of Delegates and faculty representative on the board of trustees. In the community, he served on the boards of the Macon Symphony, in which he played the violin, and the Macon Concert Association. He chaired the Macon Council on World Affairs, the Macon-Bibb County Board of Elections and the Bibb County Republican Party. He also served on the Georgia State Republican Party’s Central Committee. His support of the UVA Nursing School has gained him admission to the Compass Society, the Rotunda Society and the Dean’s Circle.

Joseph B. Howell (Grad ’79), a clinical psychologist in Anniston, Alabama, is retiring from his private practice after 35 years. Mr. Howell, who received his doctorate from the University, is the author of Becoming Conscious: The Enneagram’s Forgotten Passageway. He is also the founder of The Institute for Conscious Being and travels throughout the country teaching the spirituality of the Enneagram. In retirement, he will devote his efforts full time to the institute, which certifies students in the transformative and ancient body of wisdom. More information about him and his practice can be found here.

David Thurlow (Col ’80 L/M) has retired after more than 35 years of military service, the last five as senior fisheries analyst for the U.S. Coast Guard’s Maritime Intelligence Fusion Center-Pacific. Mr. Thurlow is a recipient of the U.S. Army’s Legion of Merit medal, the U.S. Air Force’s Award for Exemplary Civilian Service, and the Department of Homeland Security Secretary’s Meritorious Service Silver Medal Team Award. He and his wife, Kathy, reside in Mystic, Connecticut.

John S. Baird Jr. (Col ’66 L/M) has recently retired from private practice as a consulting psychologist with local police departments and the nuclear power industry. He is professor emeritus and former dean of the college of arts and sciences at Bloomsburg University in Pennsylvania.