Class Notes

Arthur Kahn (Col ’69 CM) is in his third season screening arthouse and repertory films at Thetford (VT) Academy’s Martha Jane Rich Theater.  Thetford Arthouse Cinema hosts residents and visitors in the Vermont/New Hampshire Upper Valley twice weekly for twelve weeks of free films, refreshments and discussion, with support from The Jack and Dorothy Byrne Foundation and Vermont Humanities.

Myron Santos (Col ’01 CM) has been nominated for a Primetime Emmy for his work on The Amazing Race in the category of Outstanding Picture Editing for a Structured Reality or Competition Program. It is his second nomination; his first came for RuPaul’s Drag Race: All-Stars in 2019. Santos and his wife and their 9-year-old daughter live in Los Angeles. He is a member of the Motion Picture Editors Guild (IATSE Local 700) and The Academy of Television Arts and Sciences and is on the board of the U.Va Entertainment Club of Los Angeles.

Andrew G. Lee, M.D. (Col 85, Med 89 CM) published the second edition of his textbook, Emergencies in Neuro-ophthalmology. Dr. Lee served this year (2023-2024) as president of the Houston Ophthalmological Society and president of the Houston Neurological Society.

John Allis (Col ’75) and Cathy Allis (Educ ’77) have received organic certification for Kennebec Oat Farm.  The farm is located in eastern coastal Maine and grows milky oats, wild raspberry leaf and lady’s mantle leaf.  John continues as a licensed engineer in Maine, Colorado and Virginia, although most of his time is spent on the oat farm.

R. Webb Moore (Engr ’80 CM) has joined the Sands Anderson law firm as counsel in the Richmond, Virginia office.  Sands Anderson is a full-service, multi-disciplinary law firm with offices in Virginia and North Carolina.

www.sandsanderson.com

Steve McCullough (Col ’94 CM) recently published through LexisNexis a treatise on the Virginia Constitution entitled Virginia Constitutional Law.  McCullough has served as a Justice on the Supreme Court of Virginia since 2016.

Don Slesnick (Col ’65 CM) received the Henry M. Flagler Community Builder Award at the Greater Miami Chamber of Commerce’s Annual Goals Conference banquet in June. The award, which acknowledges lifetime contributions to South Florida, was given to Slesnick and his late wife Jeannett, who was honored posthumously.

Mark Eid, M.D., M.B.A. (SCPS ’22) and Stephen Chang, M.D., M.B.A (SCPS ’22) have founded Acts Financial Advisors, a wealth management firm in McLean, Virginia that recently surpassed $100 million in assets under management. They started their company after graduating from UVA’s Certified Financial Planning program, and now provide comprehensive financial advising with an emphasis on tax strategy and asset protection for high-net-worth physicians and entrepreneurs.

Becky Krystal (Col ’05) has been named recipes editor at The Washington Post. Krystal has worked at the Post since 2007 and recently completed a six-year stint as a staff writer and recipe developer. She also worked for the TV Week, Sunday Source and Travel sections.

Nayna Agrawal (Col ’98) received a commission from the Bechdel Project in Brooklyn, New York for her play, Brad Pitt’s My Bitch. Her play, Slut, will be produced this October in Arkansas.

Ben Rosenthal (Com ’05 CM) has been named an Entrepreneur of The Year 2024 Southwest award winner by Ernest & Young LLP. Rosenthal is co-president and CEO of Standard Meat Company in Fort Worth, Texas. Entrepreneur of The Year is a competitive awards program for entrepreneurs and leaders of high-growth companies.

Sabrina du Pont-Langenegger (Col ’04 CM) has founded Good Friends of The First State, a non-profit all women’s organization whose mission is to inspire hope and provide financial stability to struggling women and girls in Delaware, her home state. Good Friends provides one time, limited financial assistance in times of crisis to prevent women on the brink from falling into a downward spiral that can be nearly impossible to recover from when living month to month, for example.  Women are referred through social workers and healthcare professionals. The organization helps with needs such as housing, transportation, medical expenses, utilities, childcare and more.

The organization raised over $60,000 at its inaugural fundraiser in April and since then has helped 12 women in crisis, with plans to help many more. Vera Gerrity (Col ’04, Law ’08 CM) serves on the board of directors.

Russ Petrin (Col ’00 CM) has been promoted to Executive Director at Morgan Stanley Wealth Management and also recently attained the additional title of Alternative Investments Director, which recognizes his team’s proficiency in and commitment to investments that go beyond traditional stocks and bonds.  Russ, his wife Carrie, and son Sam (12) live in Highlands Ranch, Colorado.

Frank Garmon Jr. (Grad ’10, ’17) has published A Wonderful Career in Crime: Charles Cowlam’s Masquerades in the Civil War Era and Gilded Age, a book uncovering the shadow world of one of America’s most enigmatic and cunning criminals.

Charles Cowlam was in prison in Richmond, Virginia when the Civil War began. He was serving a ten-year sentence for mail robbery after he stole $4,000 from the mails while working as a post office clerk in Portsmouth. His trial took place on the second floor of the Norfolk City Hall, in what is now the MacArthur Memorial. Friends and family petitioned Abraham Lincoln on his behalf, noting that Cowlam was only nineteen years old when the thefts occurred. Lincoln agreed to pardon him on May 27, 1861.

Unfortunately for Cowlam the pardon from Lincoln arrived just over a month after Virginia had seceded from the Union. The governor of Virginia refused to recognize Lincoln’s authority, and Cowlam remained in prison for two more years until he convinced the President of the Confederate States, Jefferson Davis, to grant him a pardon.

Cowlam is the only person known to have received pardons from both Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis. He possessed an extraordinary ability to blend into new surroundings. He spent much of his life on the move, and he changed his name almost as frequently as he changed his story. One contemporary newspaper noted that Cowlam “has as many aliases as there are letters in the alphabet.”

When the war ended Cowlam conned his way into working as a detective investigating Lincoln’s assassination. He later parlayed this investigative experience into jobs with the Internal Revenue Service and for the British government in Ireland. In each case his employment as a detective was short lived, and his shady past always seemed to catch up with him.

Upon returning to the United States Cowlam set his sights on a political career. He convinced President Ulysses S. Grant to appoint him U.S. marshal for the northern district of Florida shortly after arriving in the state in 1872. Grant rescinded the appointment after nearly every local Republican wrote to Washington complaining that Cowlam was a fraud.

Cowlam then launched a congressional campaign on his own. He printed deceptive broadsides designed to trick voters into thinking that he had the support of a major party. Behind the scenes he worked to manipulate the selection of county election commissioners in a last-ditch effort to steal the election. The plan failed when Cowlam received only ninety-two votes across the state.

With his frauds in Florida exposed, Cowlam moved to New York where he started a fake secret society designed to appeal to urban workingmen. He spent his evenings flirting with wealthy eligible bachelorettes, neglecting to mention that he was already married. In short time he became a serial bigamist. The newspapers reported that Cowlam had married half a dozen women in a span of six month, each time disappearing with their money.

Cowlam left New York in the spring of 1874 and spent the next twelve years on the run. He reappeared in the summer of 1886 in Dayton, Ohio. This time he claimed to be a Union colonel who suffered from dementia. He could not remember his own name, where he had fought, or who he had served with, but he was certain that he was a Union colonel. The local papers described him as appearing “about forty years of age” with the initials “C.C.” tattooed on his forearm. After a three-month investigation the War Department discovered his true identity and revealed that he had never fought in the Union army.

Published by Louisian State University Press, A Wonderful Career in Crime sheds light on Cowlam’s remarkable exploits, a true story reminiscent of Catch Me If You Can. It is a must-read for anyone interested in deception, fraud, and ambition in American history.

Garmon Jr. is an assistant professor of American Studies at Christopher Newport University.

Email: frank.garmon@cnu.edu