Presidents’ Winter letter

Dear Fellow ’69ers                                                                Winter 2020

To those of you who came to our 50th Reunion in May, thank you and what a great time! To those of you who could not make it, you missed a very special time. We surprised everyone, including ourselves, by raising a total of $11 million for the College. As most of you are aware, our class tends to make our own rules — and so we have again. You now have co-presidents of the class for the next five years (all other officers remain — bless you!): Sally Bliss Davis and Jingle Igleheart Hagey. Give us a moment to introduce ourselves.

Sally: I have been modestly involved in Mount Holyoke clubs in both Needham, MA and now in retirement in Rhode Island. Bob Davis and I married the weekend after graduation. I feel like we grew up together and in the blink of an eye we are growing old together! My post-MHC years include working at the Sloan School at M.I.T., master’s degree and then teaching history and English in high school (Needham, MA) and then years of participation in local and state government. After 40 years in Needham, we lived in Cambridge for 16 years. Now we have “retired” to our summer getaway in South Kingstown, Rhode Island. I have enjoyed getting back into the political fray a bit with campaign work for Governor Gina Raimondo and involvement with liberal causes trying to keep some sanity at the state and local level as we tremble about the direction of the country. My goals for the future: more travel, quality time with the people I love, finding ways to be “of use”, and peaceful acceptance of life’s brevity.

Jingle: (Officially Belle, but few in the class know that) I spent three years in New York City in the early ’70s. While there I co-chaired the Junior Group of the Mount Holyoke club of NYC. It was a great way to meet people (and find roommates). We hosted mixers (but didn’t call them that, of course) with other college clubs — even at such venues as FAO Schwarz toy store. After marrying my husband, we moved to Buffalo, where I was modestly active in the Mount Holyoke Club there. And then home to Evansville, IN, where there are about 4 Uncommon Women in total. For the past 20 years, we have sponsored a Mount Holyoke Book Award at a local independent school. It took a while, but I am proud to say that two of the recipients are current MHC students! I have been in urban design and advertising (NYC), owned a relocation business (Buffalo), been a dinosaur (volunteer/stay-at-home mom) and a development officer at a medical school (Evansville) — and am now retired and an active volunteer and happy grandmother.  

Enough about us — on to what we want the Class of ’69 to do in the next five years. According to the surveys you took before reunion, what you really want to do is:

  1. see one another locally/regionally
  2. travel (particular requests for short, domestic trips)
  3. stay connected

We are fortunate to have Trudy Levy as our newly-dubbed e-communications director. She did such a good job on the lead-up to reunion, and I know she will help us stay connected as we go forward..  

Message from your E-Communications Director

First, as you can see, I have changed my title. Don’t know if that’s kosher, but that is what I have decided to call myself as I think it more accurately reflects what I do. My goal for the next five years is to help us continue the good vibes of Reunion (i.e. to keep riding the wave). 

Our surfboard will be our website. Several of you voiced concern over using Facebook and I am not in disagreement. I believe I can bring Facebook postings to the website so that you don’t have to be a Facebook member to see these communications. The website structure that the College provides for us offers several interesting services: Forums and document sharing for two. 

  • In the forums, I see a possibility to develop online “Griffin Talks,” or setting up Cafe ’69s, which might involve travel — who all wants to meet me in…?
  • In the document sharing area, I foresee a collection of online Class Bios, including ones submitted now. 

Once it is set up, we will welcome any classmates who have a Griffin Topic in mind. For example, we just had a panel presentation at my Mount Holyoke alumnae club with the VP for equity and inclusion and chief diversity officer for MHC, Kijua Sanders-McMurtry, about the “Complexity and diversity of gender at Mount Holyoke.” It was a fascinating and slightly mind-bending topic.  

So those are my 2020 targets with which I would welcome any assistance from those tech savvy or interested in becoming tech savvy. The website platform is WordPress.

To those of you not already in the 50th reunion book, please share your bio pages on the website. Each classmate can print them out and stash them in their 50th Reunion book. Wouldn’t it be nice to have a complete set?!

Also, let us know where you might like to travel domestically — Williamsburg? New Orleans? Disney World?

Begin the new year by paying your tax-deductible (as allowed by the IRS) class dues. Remember, we voted to increase dues by $10 to $50, but it’s good until our next reunion. Our seasoned treasurer, Kitty Howell Cannon, has set up a Paypal account on our class website — an easy way to pay. If you are not sure whether or not you have paid your dues, email her to find out. If you would rather send a check, please make it out to MHC Class of ’69, and mail it to Kitty Howell Cannon, 2029 Bay Shore Circle, Sarasota, FL 34234. Dues support the class’s activities. The class is a registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization.  

We look forward to keeping in touch and doing some FUN things over the next 5 years.

    Sally Bliss Davis    Jingle Igleheart Hagey              Trudy Levy
      Co- President             Co-President             E-Communications Director
 

One Reply to “Presidents’ Winter letter”

  1. Hello Sally, Jingle, and Trudy,

    Bravo to all three of you for what you’ve accomplished and what you envision for our class, and a BIG THANK YOU!! Trudy, I love your idea of the Cafe 69 involving travel, though at the moment, we can only dream about that…

As they say online - Please discuss.