ZooBits Fall 2024

Click a button to jump to that decade’s class notes.

Edgar Praus ’70 writes, “After graduation from Kalamazoo, I received my M.F.A. in still photography at the Rochester Institute of Technology in Rochester, New York. For the past 20-plus years, I have been documenting Mississippi culture for the present dialogue and for future generations to study. My work is now in the permanent collections of the Mississippi Museum of Art and the Ogden Museum of Southern Art in New Orleans.”

A group of alumni reunited for a 30-mile bike ride in Venice, Florida, in March 2024. Enjoying some gracious living are, from left, Haley C. Neef ’03, Penny (Sington) Neef ’72, David Neef ’72 and Marti (Larzelere) Campbell ’72. Marti is a member of the Board of Trustees for Kalamazoo College.

Members of the class of 1974, Michael Kane, John Mussman, Harry Graber, John Petrakis, Charlie Kelliher and Elliot Shapiro recently gathered for the wedding of Elliot’s son Danny in Tampa, Florida.

Jim Heath ’78 recently joined the board of directors of NeoLight, a medical device and technology provider. Jim’s distinguished career in the medical device industry spans three decades, holding various leadership positions and driving innovation and growth. He served as president of Stryker’s Instruments Division, overseeing a global business with sales exceeding $1.8 billion. Additionally, he served as COO of Flexfab LLC, a privately owned manufacturer of silicone, elastomer and composite materials. Jim currently serves on the board of directors for several companies, including C2Dx, AA Medical, Imperial Beverage and CSM. He is also a former member of K’s Board of Trustees. He holds an M.B.A. from the University of Notre Dame and an M.A. in education from The Ohio State University.

After a life-altering car accident 10 years ago, Nancy (Sherman) Becher ’79 found herself bound to a wheelchair and unable to do the things she loved doing before. That did not stop her, however, and she founded a nonprofit organization called Invisible Warriors that supports women with chronic illness, autoimmune diseases and invisible disabilities, including veterans with MST/PTSD. Providing medical support, training, networking, friendship, advice and counseling, Invisible Warriors is a safe space for women who feel like they are alone to come together and be heard in a world of gaslighting, stigmatizing and fear. One out of every three women in the U.S. has some form of invisible disability, yet it is often not discussed, addressed or supported. To learn more, visit invisiblewarriors.org.

Robert M. Weinstein ’79 was recently honored with the Fragrance Creators Association’s 2024 Eric Bruell Distinguished Service Award. Bob received his B.A. in chemistry from K in 1979. He earned his Ph.D. at MIT, where he completed doctoral work in organic synthesis with Professor Dietmar Seyferth. Bob started his career in the flavor and fragrance industry in 1987, in research and development at Firmenich S.A. in Geneva, Switzerland. In September 2012, he joined Robertet S.A. in his present position as president and CEO of Robertet North America. Bob has served on the Research Institute for Fragrance Materials’ board of directors twice, from 2000–04, and again from 2015 to the present, currently as chairman.

Kevin Howley ’81 has been named vice president for finance and institutional planning at Lake Forest College in Illinois. Kevin oversees business affairs; serves as treasurer of the College; manages facilities, accounting, budget, business services, human resources and student financial services; serves as a strategic advisor to the president, the senior leadership team, and the Board of Trustees; and develops procedures for multi-year financial forecasting and budget planning. Kevin brings a broad and diverse background in financial business affairs and in higher education. He was a member of the Board of Trustees and served on the investment, finance and development committees at Kalamazoo College, where he earned his B.A. in political science and economics. He has been active with his alma mater’s admissions office and has served as an adjunct professor in the business department. Kevin earned his master’s in public policy in international trade from the Harvard University Kennedy School of Government and his master’s in business administration from the Harvard Graduate School of Business Administration.

Steven C. Latta ’81, director of conservation and field research at the National Aviary, was recently elected a fellow of The Explorers Club. Fellows have made documented contributions to scientific knowledge through field expeditions aimed at exploring unfamiliar or poorly understood locations or phenomena, with the goal of acquiring knowledge for the benefit of humanity. Founded in 1904, The Explorers Club has counted as fellows some of the most renowned explorers of the Earth and beyond. Steve is a field ornithologist who has pursued research and conservation projects across Latin America and the Caribbean, including Hispaniola, the Amazon basin, and the High Andes. Most recently, he is credited with leading a small team that has provided the first evidence since the 1940s that the iconic Ivory-billed Woodpecker still survives in remote forested old-growth swamps of Louisiana.

Kalamazoo College is well-represented in Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s cabinet. Anita (Raby) Fox ’81 serves as the director of the Michigan Department of Insurance and Financial Services, and Natasha Bagdasarian ’99 serves as the chief medical executive for the state of Michigan. In their respective public service roles, they work to advance the administration’s efforts to ensure that anyone can “make it” in Michigan. Both were honored to join the governor for her sixth State of the State Address on January 24, 2024. Pictured there, from left, are Natasha, Lt. Gov. Garlin Gilchrist II and Anita.

Claire Grover Nehring ’91 received the Catherine Hershey Educator of the Year award at the 2023 Coalition on Residential Excellence Conference. Claire is the librarian at St. Joseph’s Indian School in Chamberlain, South Dakota. Claire, who has a master’s in counseling, was first drawn to work at St. Joe’s in 2008, as a houseparent. When offered the librarian position in 2018, she immediately pursued certification as an elementary and secondary school librarian, qualifying her as a teacher of library skills. Simultaneously, she updated the library’s out-of-date system, migrating to an automated catalog system. She had experience with the automation process from her time as a reference assistant at K’s Upjohn Library, working with Carol Smith and Paul Smithson. Her nomination notes the “imaginative spirit she brings to making the library a community of learning” as well as her willingness to support staff in any capacity and to collaborate for the greater good.

Designed by renowned New York-based contemporary artist Julie Mehretu ’92, the 20th BMW Art Car was presented to the public for the first time in May and competed in the 24 Hours of Le Mans endurance race in June. Julie used the color and form vocabulary of her monumental painting Everywhen (2021–23) as a starting point for her design, imagining what would happen if the car went through the painting and was affected by it. The collaboration between BMW and Julie also includes a joint commitment to a series of PanAfrican Translocal Media Workshops for filmmakers, which will tour various African cities in 2025 and 2026 and will culminate in a major exhibition at the Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa in Cape Town.

Mark Durbin ’94 and Pete Avis ’95 made the annual Belfast Ice Festival & State of Maine Ice Carving Championship even more handsome in February 2024. “It just looks like we have gray hair and unkept beards,” Pete writes. “Those are only props.”

Full-service intellectual property law firm MBHB recently announced that Christopher P. Singer ’94 has joined the firm as an equity partner strengthening the firm’s Chemical, Biotechnology & Pharmaceuticals Technology Practice. Christopher started his career as a technical advisor at MBHB, working his way to partner during his nearly 10-year tenure with the firm, before joining another Chicago-area intellectual property firm. After nearly 14 years, he rejoins MBHB, bringing extensive experience prosecuting patents and managing portfolios for clients in the life sciences industry with a focus in chemical, biotechnology, and pharmaceuticals. Christopher earned his J.D. from University of Illinois Chicago Law School, his M.S. and Ph.D. in biochemistry and chemistry from Northwestern University, and his B.A. in chemistry from K.

Elizabeth (Low) Washington ’94 was named executive director of the Northside Association for Community Development in Kalamazoo in December. Beth has worked in various leadership roles in Kalamazoo, including with Derek Jeter’s Turn 2 Foundation and as a member of the Kalamazoo College Board of Trustees. From 2015 until the end of 2022, she was vice president of Community Health, Equity and Inclusion at Bronson Healthcare. Born and raised in Kalamazoo, she graduated from K with a degree in human resources and relations, and a secondary certificate in social studies and English. She worked for 18 years as a teacher in Niles, Holland and Kalamazoo public school systems.

Jeffrey Talbert ’97 recently joined the Newark and Boston offices of law firm Arnold & Porter’s environmental practice as a partner. A fellow in the American College of Environmental Lawyers, Jeffrey is a nationally recognized trial attorney and environmental lawyer who advises clients on environmental litigation, permitting, due diligence, risk management, and the allocation and mediation of liability among parties at Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act or Resource Conservation and Recovery Act sites. Jeffrey earned his J.D. from the University of Michigan Law School.

Inventiva recently nominated Andre Turenne ’97 to its board of directors. Andre has more than 20 years of global experience in the pharmaceutical industry. He is currently president and chief executive officer of the Boston-based biotech Matchpoint Therapeutics and advisor to Atlas Venture. Andre holds an M.B.A. from the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth. Inventiva is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on the research and development of oral small molecule therapies for the treatment of patients with metabolic dysfunction-associated steatohepatitis, also known as nonalcoholic steatohepatitis, a common and progressive chronic liver disease for which there are currently no approved therapies, as well as other diseases with significant unmet medical need.

Delta Dental Plan of New Hampshire recently elected Whitney
Goode ’03 to a three-year board term which began on April 26, 2024. Whitney is chief dental officer and dentist at Greater Seacoast Community Health. Additionally, she serves as faculty at Tufts University School of Dental Medicine, University of New England School of Dental Medicine and Harvard University School of Dental Medicine. She received a Doctor of Dental Medicine from the Tufts University School of Dental Medicine and a Bachelor of Arts in chemistry from Kalamazoo College. Committed to public health, she has participated in numerous statewide oral health projects, most recently with the Medicaid Advisory Committee for the rollout of the new adult Medicaid dental benefits. Last year, she was recognized with the Bi-State 2023 New Hampshire’s Outstanding Clinicians Award.

Betsy Weakland ’03 was recently inducted into Marquis Who’s Who, which chronicles the lives of the most accomplished individuals and innovators from every significant field of endeavor, including politics, business, medicine, law, education, art, religion and entertainment. Betsy currently serves as the director of private brands at Pet Supplies Plus. In this capacity, she is regarded as an expert in vendor management, with a focus on building global relationships with vendors primarily located overseas in China, India and Europe. For her work, she was honored as the recipient of the Leading Executive in Retail Award in 2023. Betsy earned a Bachelor of Arts in political science and Chinese language and culture from Kalamazoo College. As a graduating senior, she received the E. Bruce Baxter Memorial Award for showcasing outstanding development in political science.

The nonprofit organization Central Oregon Trail Alliance (COTA) recently hired Kira Sandiford ’15 as its first development director. Kira’s addition to the team underscores the organization’s commitment to developing, protecting and enhancing the Central Oregon mountain bike experience through trail stewardship, advocacy, collaboration and education. Originally from Los Angeles, Kira is currently pursuing a Master of Science in digital media at USC Annenberg. She studied abroad in Thailand, solo hiked the Pacific Crest Trail and built her own tiny house on wheels. Before joining COTA, she spent eight years with REI, in roles spanning retail sales, outdoor programs, outreach, and most recently as the operations manager for the Bend store. After relocating to Oregon in 2018, she discovered her passion for mountain biking.

Duane DeVries ’55 has now published all seven volumes in his General Studies of Charles Dickens: An Annotated Bibliography. Publication of the seven volumes was a long process that began in 2004, with bibliographical and textual studies of Dickens’ works, and included biographical studies and general critical studies of Dickens and aspects of fiction. In a review, Professor Robert L. Patten, author of Charles Dickens and His Publishers, called the volumes “The single most important work in Dickens bibliography (in its broadest sense) ever published. Duane’s work is distinguished by completeness, fairness, good sense and accuracy. It is an astonishing achievement.” A reviewer of the final four volumes thanked Duane and his late wife, JoAnne (Keller) DeVries ’56—his fellow researcher and bibliographical companion—for “this wonderful gift.” Duane is a leading scholar and the internationally noted bibliographer of Dickens. He is a retired associate professor of English from Polytechnic Institute of New York University, where he served as head of the Department of Humanities and Communications.

Marci (Buchmueller) Cameron ’70 and Jim Cameron ’69 published the book, Tales Come Alive! The Meredith Bixby Marionettes: An Oral History. Oral interviews are the backbone of this book, capturing the voices of those who experienced the events. The Bixby Marionettes were created by Meredith Bixby of Saline, Michigan, who produced thousands of live performances of classic literature to school children in Michigan, the Midwest and the country. The Marionettes toured for nearly 50 years, entertaining over a quarter million children and adults. The stories “behind the scenes” come from oral interviews of the Bixby family and the puppeteers, who describe the artwork, crafting the characters, story development, the travels, and the performances, where “for one brief hour (the children) would be transported to an enchanted realm where animals talked, huts walked on chicken legs, and good overcame evil.” Copies are available from the Michigan Oral History Association.

Email info@michiganoha.org for more information.

Sadly, Marci Cameron died suddenly and unexpectedly on June 3, 2024, as the Fall edition of LuxEsto was in development. Her obituary will appear in the Winter 2025 edition.

Diane Seuss ’78 recently published her sixth book of poetry. The newest collection, Modern Poetry (Graywolf Press, 2024), takes its title from the first poetry textbook Diane encountered as a child and the first poetry course she took in college, as a rapt but ill-equipped student who felt poetry was beyond her reach. Many of the poems make use of the forms and terms of musical and poetic craft and contend with the works of writers overrepresented in textbooks and anthologies and those too often underrepresented. In poems of rangy curiosity, sharp humor and illuminating self-scrutiny, Modern Poetry investigates our time’s deep isolation and divisiveness and asks: What can poetry be now? Do poems still have the capacity to mean? “It seems wrong / to curl now within the confines / of a poem,” Diane writes. “You can’t hide / from what you made / inside what you made.” What she finds there, finally, is a surprising but unmistakable love.

Also, Diane was recently named to the Board of Chancellors of the Academy of American Poets. The 15-member board is composed of esteemed poets who serve as artistic advisors to the academy and ambassadors of poetry to the nation at large, select the recipients of major academy prizes and fellowships, and champion the organization’s programs for poets and readers. Diane will serve a six-year term on the board.

Rob MacCoun ’80 published a new book, Third Millennium Thinking: Creating Sense in a World of Nonsense (Little, Brown, 2024), co-authored with Nobel-winning physicist Saul Perlmutter and philosopher John Campbell. Based on a wildly popular University of California Berkeley course, the book breaks down how to use scientists’ tricks of the trade to make the best decisions and solve the hardest problems in an age of uncertainty and overwhelming information. “In a world filled with uncertainty and fractured by polarization, this guide to critical thinking couldn’t come at a better time,” writes Adam Grant,The New York Times bestselling author of Think Again and Hidden Potential, and host of the podcast Re:Thinking. “A Nobel laureate physicist, an influential philosopher and an expert on legal psychology reveal how you can use the tools of science in everyday life to make smarter judgments and wiser decisions.” Rob is a social psychologist, a professor of law at Stanford University and a senior fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute. He received the 2019 James McKeen Cattell Fellow Award for lifetime achievement from the Association for Psychological Science.

Julie Fudge Smith ’80 published her first novel, The Beast Keepers, August 1, 2023. It is the story of Jonathan F. St. Roche, a young veterinarian who takes a job in the rural Ohio town of Carrollton. He soon discovers it is a safe haven for a menagerie of mythical creatures (including a pregnant Pegasus, a flying monkey with a sprained wing, a centaur with Cushing’s disease and a unicorn with a sweet tooth) who rely on him for their medical care and shelter from the outside world. When a deadly basilisk threatens this bucolic hamlet, Jonathan and his new friends must balance the dangerous creature’s needs against the risk to the community. The Beast Keepers is available in paperback, Kindle and audio book formats, and has been nominated for an Eric Hoffer Award, an Ohioanna Award and a Wishing Shelf Award (UK).

Doug Haynes ’85 recently published his second book, Wisconsin GOP History: A Coloring Book. The format makes this illustrated history of the Republican party in Wisconsin accessible to young readers and fun for all ages. The history begins in 1854, with the founding of the Republican party in Ripon, Wisconsin, and continues to the present. The goals and actions of early Republicans make a striking contrast to those of the present. Recently, Doug met fellow art major Jean (Roberts) Guequierre ’88 at her art reception in Milwaukee, and she bought the first copy of Doug’s new book. Doug previously published the State Street Coloring Book.

Matthew Christensen ’92 recently published a new book, Anglophone African Detective Fiction 1940-2020: The State, the Citizen, and the Sovereign Ideal (James Curry, 2024). Providing a scholarly survey of Anglophone African detective fiction from the late 1940s to the present day, this study traces its history both as a literary form and a mode of critical exploration of the fraught sovereignties of the African state and its citizens. Matthew was an English major at K and went on to earn a Ph.D. in comparative literature at the University of California at Los Angeles, where he pursued an interest in African literature that he first developed at K, on study abroad in Sierra Leone. He is currently professor of literatures and cultural studies at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley. He is the author of Rebellious Histories: The Amistad Slave Revolt and the Cultures of Late Twentieth-Century Black Transnationalism (2012) and editor of Staging the Amistad: Three Sierra Leonean Plays (2019).

Jane Huffman ’15 won the American Poetry Review/Honickman First Book Prize and published her debut book of poetry, Public Abstract (Copper Canyon Press, 2023). “Public Abstract examines illness and recovery, loss and addiction: the ripples of influence an addict has on their family circle, and vice versa,” writes Dana Levin. “We watch as a private mind, devoted to its privacy, is laid out on the page and abstracted to become a public revelation. Building an aesthetic of compressed interiority, the speaker’s tension is clear—‘From one lung, I tell the truth. / From the other lung, I lie.’ Through intimate and meticulous poems, Public Abstract explores the operations of form, sewn together, and the failings of form, ripped apart. Crumbling under its own weight and folderol, form becomes an act of invention and in Huffman’s expert hands, revision becomes a genre. In Public Abstract, Jane Huffman demonstrates a steely commitment to an aesthetic vision. Form is feeling in these poems: tonally cool, their repetitions and hard turns express, passionately, uncertainty, anxiety, revelation, skepticism, and curiosity. Huffman’s lived experience—with a sick body, a sick brother, disturbances of psyche and society—are the pains from which the book’s formal feelings come…Public Abstract is a striking debut.” Jane is an M.F.A. graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and a doctoral student in poetry at the University of Denver. Jane was a 2019 recipient of the Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Fellowship from the Poetry Foundation. She is founder and editor-in-chief of Guesthouse, an online literary journal.