Class Notes

Will Overman (Col ’17) releases his second record, Stranger, September 26, and will tour Virginia with the band Holy Roller in November, making stops in Roanoke, Harrisonburg, Norfolk and Charlottesville. Singles on the album include “Virginia is for Lovers,” “Held Up by a Woman” and “Landlocked Heart.” Much of his record was inspired by and written in Virginia during a tumultuous time in his life. Overman, a working singer-songwriter, is currently based in Nashville, but he grew up in Virginia Beach and spent many years in Charlottesville, giving him a lifelong love of both Virginia’s coastlines and the Blue Ridge Mountains.

Jena Crisler (Col ’86) is running for the Virginia House of Delegates, District 35. She is campaigning against assaults on civil rights, the repeals of women’s rights to bodily autonomy, the lack of due process, and budget cuts designed to eliminate basic health care. Crisler has a 25-year career as an internal medicine physician and seeks to use her experience and knowledge of the inner workings of the healthcare landscape to make a difference. She has been endorsed by the Virginia Democratic Women’s Caucus and the Democratic Party of Virginia Rural Caucus. Virginia District 35 includes large swaths of Augusta County and Rockingham County, as well as parts of Bath County and Highland County.

Peter M. Page Jr. (Col ’88 CM) and his daughter, Anne Page (Col ’17, Darden ’23 CM) celebrated their 60th and 30th birthdays at Grand Teton summit August 10. Joining them were fellow ‘Hoos Lyons Brown (Col ’82, Darden ’87 CM), Kayde Schwabacher (Col ’19 CM), Emma Whelan Page (Grad ’22, ’26), John Hughes Page (Col ’20), Valerie Newton Page (Col ’88 CM) and Turner Bredrup (Col ’88, Darden ’94 CM).

Deborah E. Sheetenhelm Hammond (Arch ’82 CM) has been selected as the regent of the William Henshaw chapter of the National Society Daughters of the American Revolution (NSDAR) in Martinsburg, West Virginia. Hammond traces her ancestry to Peter Mantz of Frederick, who aided independence efforts in the Revolutionary War. She has also recently become a member of the Captain James Gibson chapter of the United States Daughters of 1812, being descended from soldiers who fought in the War of 1812.

Hammond continues her second career as a novelist, with a new novel, Death in a Perfect Village, due in the autumn. Her previous novel, Death in Lewes, is a murder mystery set in Lewes, Delaware. All of her novels are available on Amazon.com in both Kindle and paperback versions.

Lewis “Sandy” Rock (Col ’66, Med ’70, Res ’72 CM) published a memoir, The ADHD MD — A 70’s Memoir. Written over a period of thirty or forty years, the book begins with the author’s honorable discharge from the Medical Corps of the U.S. Navy as a conscientious objector before covering his decade as a physician in a U.S. Navy hospital, a rural Virginia pediatric mobile clinic, the Lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans, and ultimately the Appalachian portion of Southwest Virginia. Along the way, he built a house, raised two sons and twenty-two Great Danes, made house calls on horseback, got divorced, got married, got divorced again, and picked and grinned on guitar and banjo with a group of locals and “local outsiders.” Central to the book is the author’s experience with ADHD, as he gradually realizes how the disorder both benefitted and challenged him throughout his journey.

Daniel Cooper (Col ’00, Law ’05) has joined Sterlington as a partner and head of its private wealth practice. Cooper is known for his deep experience advising clients on wealth preservation, estate and gift tax planning, family business succession and philanthropy. He is recognized by the Chambers High Net Worth Guide for private wealth law in Pennsylvania.

Kenneth Malcolm Holland (Grad ’71) was awarded a Fulbright Specialist Program grant by the U.S. Department of State. He will travel to Tashkent, Uzbekistan, in fall 2025 to complete a four-week project at the Institute for Advanced International Studies, an institution that trains diplomats, supports curriculum development in American studies and fosters institutional partnerships. Holland is an adjunct professor of political science at the University of Utah and previously served as president of the American University of Afghanistan. He had previous Fulbright Awards in Japan and Burma (Myanmar).

Charlene Wang (Law ’15) will publish her debut novel, I’ll Follow You, in October through Mindy’s Book Studio, actress Mindy Kaling’s book and development imprint with Amazon Publishing. Wang’s psychological thriller explores the complex and dangerous friendship of two young women looking to escape their dead-end town.

Desmond Cormier (Col ’73) has retired from a 26-year career as an art teacher in Charlottesville City Schools. He and his wife are spending their retirement raising sheep, chickens and bees on their farm in Keswick, Virginia. Along with working on the farm, he is also working on a children’s book and teaching at the Center at Belvedere, a senior community in Charlottesville. Last year, he published a memoir, My Summer Vacation on the Cambodian Border, which explores his years as an adolescent in Vietnam.

Stephen C. Mercado (Col ’84 CM) recently published his second book, Japanese Spy Gear and Special Weapons: How Noborito’s Scientists and Technicians Served in the Second World War and the Cold War (Pen & Sword Military, 2025). He is also the author of The Shadow Warriors of Nakano: A History of the Imperial Japanese Army’s Elite Intelligence School (Brassey’s, 2002), a dozen articles and several dozen book reviews on intelligence and other subjects.

Olyvia R. Christley (Col ’11, Grad ’17, ’22 CM) joined the faculty of Washington State University’s School of Politics, Philosophy, and Public Affairs as an assistant professor. She previously held a tenure-track line at Florida Atlantic University. Her research focuses on the intersection of nationalism, xenophobia and gendered attitudes and their influence on public opinion and political behavior across Europe and the United States.

Andrew Lee (Col ’85, Med ’89 CM) recently published his 14th textbook, Ophthalmology of Sports. Additionally, Lee’s daughter, Virginia Lee (Col ’26), an Echols Scholar, will be graduating next year.

Maxwell Greer (Darden ’21) joined the Institute for Defense Analysis (IDA) as a research staff member in the Science, Systems and Sustainment Division of IDA’s Systems and Analyses Center in Alexandria, Virginia. IDA is a nonprofit corporation that operates three federally funded research and development centers in the public interest to answer challenging U.S. security and science policy questions. Greer, before studying at UVA, earned his bachelor’s in computer science from James Madison University in 2011.

Trey Cox (Law ’95) has been named a finalist for Texas Lawyer’s Texas Lawyer of the Year. So far in 2025, he has helped secure over $3 billion in verdicts and dismissals on behalf of clients. On the plaintiff side, he led two high-profile trial wins: a $667 million jury verdict for Energy Transfer against Greenpeace and a $46 million compensatory award for Gala Capital Partners. On the defense side, Cox obtained two major summary judgment victories, defeating over $2 billion in securities claims against Energy Transfer and securing dismissal of $400 million in fraud claims against GE Vernova.

Daniel Barnes (Col ’92 CM) was nominated by New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy to serve as a judge of the New Jersey Superior Court. The New Jersey Senate confirmed the nomination on June 30, 2025. Barnes began judicial service on July 21, 2025. He is assigned to the Law Division, civil part, where he will hear primarily civil litigation matters.

Michael J. Hightower (Grad ’07) has written two biographies since 2021, both released to critical acclaim by the University of Oklahoma Press. At War with Corruption chronicles the career of former U.S. Attorney Bill Price, who spearheaded prosecutions of Oklahoma county commissioners in what became the most extensive case of public corruption in FBI history. Hightower’s subsequent book, Justice for All, tells the story of Dick T. Morgan, a frontier lawyer in Oklahoma Territory, six-term congressman (1909-20) and father of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), who was ahead of his time in promoting fairness for all Americans. Hightower lives with his wife, Judy, in Charlottesville and Oklahoma City.