Class Notes

Peter Coy (Col ’71) published a book of plays, A House In The Country and Other Plays. The collection, by the award-winning playwright, includes A House in the Country, Will’s Bach, The Gift of the Magi, Poe & All That Jazz and A Shadow of Honor. Coy’s plays explore chaos and emotional depth as his characters confront disorder, wrestle with love and struggle with the effects of trauma and loss. He tackles these issues with a mixture of psychological realism, offbeat humor, musicality and theatrical inventiveness. Currently based in Nelson County, Virginia, Coy has directed more than 60 productions and written or adapted more than 45 plays. His plays have been produced in Washington, D.C., New York City, across Virginia, and beyond, including at the Charter Theatre, Barter Theatre, Capital Fringe Festival, D.C.; Theatre at Saint Clement’s, Keegan Theatre, Lime Kiln Theater and more.

Mark Apelt (Col ’00), a stay-at-home dad in Richmond, Virginia, recently invented a new gadget during COVID to help bring back a little normalcy for everyone. The Blowzee preserves the tradition of blowing out birthday candles without involving germs. It was recently aired on several news outlets: https://wjla.com/news/local/blowzee-henrico-dad-blow-out-candles-not-germs. Apelt writes: “The Blowzee keeps your cake clean while bringing back birthday joy and wishes. Kids love it. Parents love it. Guests appreciate it. How does it work?  Blowing into the open end of the Blowzee activates a battery-powered fan. The device blows clean air to extinguish the candles while redirecting your breath away from the cake. Spread joy, not germs!”

John Weckerling (Col ’54 CM) lives in Frankfurt, Germany, after serving 30 years in the U.S. Army, during which he received the Legion of Merit, and graduated from the NATO Defense College in Rome, Italy. He also received the Federal Cross of Service of Germany from the president of Germany. He spent eight years as manager of the Steuben-Schurz Society for eight years, which includes 850 members from several cities in Germany.

Frank B. Connolly (Arch ’72 CM) has published two books on local government after a career in Connecticut local government as a town planner, town manager and school business manager. Local Government in Connecticut, 3rd Edition, has been used as textbook in the state, and Hidden Agendas: Inside Town Hall, is novel about the shenanigans that take place in local government. He was recently featured in Bow and Stern, a publication of his flotilla in the U.S.Coast Guard Auxiliary for his work as a certified instructor teaching boating safety. He attended UVA’s Senior Executive Institute. 

Jay B. Marcus (Law ’66) published The Coherence Effect: Tapping into the Laws of Nature Governing Health, Happiness, and Higher Brain Functioning. The book, which he wrote with Chris Clark and Robert Keith Wallace, is about the daily health routines followed for centuries by yogis and sages and what these routines can do for health and clarity of mind today. He also published an article adapted from the book and produced a short podcast promoting the importance of brain wave coherence. This is his fifth book on this topic. 

Kendall Jones (Col ’89) has been named vice president of legal and risk at the global headquarters of California Pizza Kitchen Inc., based in Costa Mesa, California. 

Jordan Gilliam (Col ’16) was listed as a Top 40 Under 40  lawyer by National Black Lawyers. Gilliam is an attorney based in Stites & Harbison’s Lexington, Kentucky, office. He is a member of the real estate and banking service group. Gilliam assists clients with wide-ranging real estate needs, including land acquisition, zoning, development and leasing matters.

JoAnne Marie Mancini (Col ’90 CM) was awarded the 2020 Peggy O’Brien Book Prize for the best book in American Studies 2017-2019 for Art and War in the Pacific World: Making, Breaking and Taking from Anson’s Voyage to the Philippine-American War. Mancini is also the author of Pre-Modernism: Art-World Change and American Culture from the Civil War to the Armory Show and, with Keith Bresnahan, is the co-editor of Architecture and Armed Conflict: The Politics of Destruction. She lives in Dublin, Ireland.

Nebil Husayn (Col ’04) published his first book, Opposing the Imam. Husayn is an assistant professor of religious studies at the University of Miami. His research broadly considers the development of Islamic theology, historiography and debates on the caliphate. Husayn earned his doctorate in Near Eastern Studies from Princeton University and a master’s in Arabic and Islamic studies from Harvard University. He is the recipient of a Fulbright award and the University of Miami Fellowship in the Arts and Humanities. 

Lyndsay Anderson (Nurs ’07 CM) has been accepted into the Nursing Science and Health-Care Leadership doctorate at University of California, Davis. She plans to continue research in cancer and health disparities. She serves as part-time faculty at California State University, Sacramento, in the College of Health and Human Services. She lives in Sacramento with her husband, Steven D. Anderson (Col ’96), and two sons, Thomas and Henry. 

Phil Garn (Col ’82 CM) and his old master chief, Jim Gray, wrote Warboats: 55 Years of Naval Special Warfare Combatant Craft History for their veteran’s nonprofit organization, the Combatant Craft Crewman Association. This is the first history of “The Silent Ones” and traces the history of what is now known as Special Warfare Combatant Craft Crewmen (SWCCs). They have been part of naval special warfare since their inception late in the Eisenhower administration and deployment early in the Kennedy administration. Initially the largest individual component of the former Naval Operational Support Group during the Vietnam War, SWCCs currently compose more than a quarter of the operators in naval special warfare, including the Naval Special Warfare Development Group. Heavily illustrated with many never before published photos, documents, insignia and veterans recollections, it is available through the Combatant Craft Crewman Association Website.

Carolyn DeMain Pipitone (Engr ’94, ’96 CM) self-published her first book now available on Amazon. Based on her personal experience, Make Your Boomer Parents Do This Now!: A Generation X Guide to their Boomer Parent’s Estate Plans, provides a short and manageable list of the critical documents and accounts every Gen Xer needs their Boomer parents to make immediately. Convenient “Gotcha Tips” provide hints for how to avoid pitfalls you would never know about until you live through them.

Golara Haghtalab (Col ’17) published Immigrant, a book about change and adaptation and explores the personal and professional identities of a 30-year-old immigrant woman. She writes: “I wrote this book because I believe everyone can learn something about accepting what is, letting go of what is not working, and starting anew from immigrants.

I hope that, in reading this book, you will discover the resilience of a 30-year-old immigrant woman and her journey to self-realization in a new country. In this book, I hope to instill in you the same sort of passion and excitement I have for immigrants and the lessons of enduring change and achieving adaptation. Ultimately, I want you to see this book as a tool to help you unlock your superpowers when faced with a new situation that is unknown to you.

Because of the current state of the world, I decided to build a community around the immigrant journey topic. The New Degree Press gave me the best shot at it, so here I am building a community, and I would love for you to join us too!

Your support won’t be for the book alone. It will be for immigrants in the U.S. to be heard and seen. After all, aren’t we all immigrants in the U.S.?

Please join me in my journey by pre-ordering my book.“

Wes Jackson (Col ’95) was elected to the board of trustees of the Brooklyn Public Library, which recently merged with the Brooklyn Historical Society. Jackson previously served on the board of the historical society and was featured on ABC’s Soul Of A Nation. He discussed the depiction of African Americans in film and media over the years as well as the importance and rise of sneaker culture in the Black community. 

Linda L. Fox Bryant (Col ’88, Darden ’21 CM) was elected to a six-year term as a judge for the general district court in Chesapeake, Virginia. She received her law degree from the College of William Mary Marshall Wythe School of Law in 1992, after which she served in the U.S. Army as a JAGC. Since leaving active duty in the mid-1990s, she has served Virginia in many different legal roles. She will receive her MBA from the Darden School of Business in May 2021. Her husband Scott, served in the U.S. Navy, and her daughter is Alexandra Connell (Col ’19, Batten ’20).