Occupation: Retired United States Navy Nurse Corps

Comment:
Pictured above is a photo of the Costello Clan, Dick (DHS 69) and Jim (DHS 72), taken in March at my youngest daughter's wedding. We have seven children between us and eight grands to date. Dick is retired from the Navy and lives in Virginia Beach and Jim is still working but has a home on Kiawah Island. Clarke and I remain in Washington. He retired from the Federal Trade Commission ten years ago and is sorely disappointed with the NATS this season. I retired from the Navy Nurse Corps in 1995, took a year to breathe, and was recruited to help out as the school nurse at the independent school my daughters attended. Twenty five years later, I am still working (primarily as a volunteer) in the school nurse role. Covid was tough on school nurses and student health. There is much catch up required, especially with required immunizations. Since our last reunion, my most significant life event was the loss of my Mom in December, 2019. She moved to Washington in the fall of 2018 and entered a retired military nursing home. She declared, "Jeffrey Epstein could die here and they would never find him." Thus, she shared her sentiments on nursing homes after more than 65 years in her own kitchen. She was furious that she couldn't watch the Yankees on the YES channel in DC. The change was hard and lonely. It really made me think a lot about what lies ahead. I am sure many classmates have had similar experiences At 96, Mom had macular degeneration and was hard of hearing (those hearing aides always ended up in the laundry). Her social life diminished. She could no longer attend ST Thomas More or take in the sun at Pear Tree with the ladies. Fortunately, she died in December of 2019 right before the start of COVID and we did not have to endure the isolation that so many families faced. The Town of Darien honored my Dad and his Navy service on Veteran's Day 2019. Lucy Marshall West, a fabulous middle school teacher at Middlesex, organized a Street Naming Ceremony for select WW 2 Veterans and the Town placed a ceremonial sign on Moore Street (at the corner of West Avenue) that reads "Costello Way." The family gathered at the corner and celebrated Dad's combat service in the Pacific as well as to the community and my Mom's tour of duty in the Army Nurse Corps. It was a memorable day and I thank the Town for the honor. Our two daughters, Lucy and Rosie, remain happy and healthy. Lucy, always the artist, transitioned to a counseling role and earned her license in DC. She was interning downtown on January 6 2021 and the memories of the troops, the riots, the helicopters, the curfew, the confusion, and the fear are vivid. Fortunately she safely emerged as a skilled and patient mental health care provider and has benefits and sick days that the fine art world never offer. Rosie finished law school, teleworks from Charlottesville as Senior Corporate Counsel for a privacy firm, and eloped in March. In a unique twist, she married the son of my school colleague and a neighbor, so we have a boy next door kind of situation. I have so enjoyed catching up with many of you over the past two years as we plan our upcoming 55th. The memories come flashing back. The hardest part has been the compilation of death notices. Too many. Please add your updates to our website. We love to hear from you. We will soon be in Falmouth on the Cape. Would love to connect with anyone who happens to be around this summer. I know, it's a long way to drive for rocky beaches and cold water, but it's our happy place. AND, WE DRIVE THROUGH DARIEN and stop at PALMERS.

Occupation: Retired VP Human Resources

Comment:
I’m so sorry to miss our reunion. 

My husband and I are at our home in Dallas and not able to be back on the east coast this weekend. 

Life since high school has been wonderful - graduated from Mary Washington College and then lived in Richmond for several years. 

Upon returning to Connectucut, I began a long and successful career at GTE (which merged with Bell Atlantic to become Verizon).   I met my husband, Tom, while working at GTE and we’ve been married for almost 38 years. 

Before I retired (after 35 years), we were fortunate to live in several different parts of the country. We moved from Darien to the Chicago Area, back to Darien, then to Dallas, back to Darien and ultimately to Madison, NJ. 

We we spend our time going between NJ, Texas and St. Martin. 

 

Occupation: Sales & Operations Manager

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It just doesn’t seem that 50 years has passed…

 

In 1968, I started at Columbia in New York City; what a different world from Darien. Had some classes with John Konrad, and we lived on the same dorm floor as seniors. Besides an education in the Classics, I quickly learned the realities of political violence and urban unrest. I continued my running career for 4 years, in major meets in NYC, Philadelphia. Along the way, I broke a 35 year old record for the 880 yd., recognized as an All-Ivy athlete, and was captain of the Cross Country Team and Co-Captain of the Track Team.

 

I’d expected to be drafted after graduation. In 1972, no notice from Selective Service arrived. I didn’t have a particularly high or low Lottery number. Thought about graduate school to study architecture, but after realizing I wasn’t excited over another 4-6 years of school, I turned down acceptance from Georgia Tech.

 

I became a salesman. This, while I thought about what I wanted to be when I grew up.  First cars, then computers. IBM and a couple others. The greatest part of my experience at IBM was meeting my wife. We met in the spring of 1976 and married that fall.

 

In 1980 I went to work for GE Credit in tax leveraged equipment leasing. I surrounded by people with vast knowledge in finance and tax, but I was the only one in the office who knew the difference between a refrigerator and a tape drive. I thought it would be fair deal for three years if I solved their computer leasing challenges, and I learned some of what they knew about finance. It went for five years and I learned a lot more, about finance, tax, contracts and strategic planning. A lot more that I learned at IBM or anywhere else.  By 1985 I’d put together a $220 million acquisition of a San Francisco based leasing company, an 18 month project, concurrent with my primary job of managing a sales force and a computer portfolio. The downside was that the work style of 70% travel and late night negotiations in Wall Street law firm conference rooms was taking its toll. American Airlines loved me. But often the only family time started  9 am Saturday, after an overnight red eye flight, and ended with a Sunday night departure. Not conducive to raising two young boys.

 

In 1985, we relocated to the Annapolis, Maryland area, and I went into government contracting. Initially I managed the Federal Division for US Leasing. Then did 14 months commuting to Syracuse, but didn’t relocate there because I wasn’t comfortable with that company’s future. I thought they’d only last three years.  I was wrong about the timing: Chapter 11 was filled 9 months after I left. Later, I co founded a leasing and marketing business which I worked at for seven years. Had an office in Annapolis with a view of the Academy and the dock. This gave me the opportunity to participate in father/son things like Cub Scouts. Since both of our sons are musically talented, we were quite active in community and high school theater. My wife, Beth, did production, and I learned how to be a stage manager and lighting tech. It gave us a lot of time spent with our teenage boys.

 

After the boys went to college, I went to work for a systems integrator/IT reseller in DC, for 17 years, where I started a State and Local business targeting enterprise data centers.  The first 14 years my office was in Georgetown, so I drove by the White House and the Washington Monument, when I wasn’t out of town. It adds some perspective to a work commute.  If there is a city that is a State capital, I have probably been there.

 

Our two boys are grown and married now. Jon is a professor teaching math and computer science at Lafayette College in Easton, PA. Got to do some wine collecting when we’d visit him at Berkeley,  and stop by Napa Valley.  Chris is a lawyer specializing in litigation, in downtown Baltimore. He and his wife, Anne, have a two year old son, James, the latest addition to the Dahl family.

 

Today I do some free lance work. Including work on a startup software business and consulting for State and Local marketing.  Still married to the same woman I have loved since 1976. Still  on the outlook for some more work, something different or interesting.

 

 

Occupation: Engineer, ship repar

Comment:
Fifty years.  It has gone all too quickly.  I feel lucky to be able to enjoy and marvel at each sunrise; I am saddened learning of our classmates (and their families) who have passed. I’d love to share some of my experiences with all of you; hopefully you will reciprocate and I can catch a hint of what has been important in your life.
Perhaps three varied concepts have defined my life: family, the sea and bicycles.
Studying physics in college provided me an opportunity to perform research on Federal oceanographic ships in both the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, including eighteen months as a captain.  While sailing I discovered the joy of bicycling.  What better way to explore a new port than to roll your bicycle down the gangway and set out to discover?  Local buses can help extend your reach.  The desire to spend more time on land brought me to Seattle and graduate engineering school.  I’ve been involved in the management, repair and modification of ocean-going vessels at a shipyard for over forty years.  For many of those years the cyclical nature of ship repair was a bonus, allowing extended summer vacations while the vessels were busy working.
I met my wife Betty at a local bicycle club meeting.  We have been sharing this love of travel on two wheels since then.  We were blessed with two sons whom we raised cycling: trips in trailers, and then graduating to the back of tandems, and then their own bicycles.  As a family we independently toured for 5-6 weeks each summer through most of central and Eastern Europe.  The boys are grown, but continue to explore the world at 15 MPH.  Retirement has allowed us to extend our time cycling and exploring diverse cultures.  We leave in April to spend two months making a large loop tour of Morocco.  It will mark the twenty sixth country we’ve cycled through.  We have also crisscrossed North America five times. 
A common element we experience with each bicycle excursion, no matter what the destination, is how generous and helpful people are.  Any travel you undertake involves risks and unexpected problems.  Broken parts, weather delays, roads impassable for bicycles, or exhausting your food and water.   Whenever that has happened, we have been blessed with the intercession of a “guardian angel.”  A young Mexican man presenting a brand new critical part, a Turk offering a ride around the obstruction or a place to sleep, Chileans stopping their car and suggesting a ride over a pass before a storm comes and a shared meal with them. The list is long and reinforces my opinion that most people are good.
Some personal high-lights:

Meeting Betty, the love of my life, my best friend, partner and wife.
Birth of our sons Luke (’86) and Adam (’89)
Spending a year exploring North America on a tandem bicycle with Betty in 1983
A near death industrial accident that occurred when our boys were very young re-arranged my priorities; I sure appreciate every day you are given.  There are ten people I worked with on a daily basis for over twenty years that saved my life.  If you are interested, some of the details are here:  http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=19920606&slug=1495741 
Travelling to the village in Romania where my father was raised, with my family (we bicycled there from Germany in 2001)
Bicycling across Tibet to Mount Everest base camp, spending several weeks at or over 17,000 feet. (2016)
Still swimming most mornings when I’m in Seattle.

September, 2023

Dear classmates.  What an anniversary; I will miss visiting with all of you.  Big news for me is becoming a grandfather.  Marc is nearly two and a source of joy.  He and his parents live in Houston which has become a destination for many of our trips.  Our younger son seems to have perpetual wanderlust.  He has managed to work and travel (including during the pandemic) through some of the more remote countries in Asia and Africa.   

Betty and I continue to enjoy long distance, unsupported bike trips and the beauty of the Pacific Northwest.  We are currently on an extended ride through western British Columbia, celebrating the early fall.  
 
I wish you all the best.

Occupation:
Real Estate Broker, Insurance: All Lines, Para-Legal, Semi-Retired

Occupation: Digital Stategy

Comment:
I hitchhiked to California in the summer of 1968. We all know what happened there. I ran into Tirza Latimer on a street in Berkley where she eventually became quite well known as an artisan and bit of a cultural icon. Yea Tirza! Wish you were here!

DePauw University let me build an area major around Marshall McLuhan and his influencers. That work became a lifelong academic and business obsession that paid off when the Internet blew all the media gaskets.

After college I worked as a cinematographer in New York, burned out, moved to Boulder and joined the carpenters’ union. Dave Improta was there. I returned to NY for a job with a VenRock founded media think tank doing early multi-media and technology work with Apple computers and TI programmable calculators. What fun!

Steve Fairchild and I founded a multi-media company that had series on Discovery/BBC (America’s Wilderness Heritage) and PBS (Journeys). We did a nice film on Teach For America’s first year that received an Emmy nomination. At the same time we were packaging multimedia courseware for Grolier, Hachette and Time Life Books.

When the internet came along (I startle youngsters with that notion) I became EVP of two digital agencies and then started my own consultancy helping large companies unwind their web-related conundrums which was fun until all my clients got really young. I helped my brother, Derek, build consumersearch.com. I now have a little company, 501square, that helps nonprofits around the country with their usually terrible technology.

All of this worked out albeit with a lot of ups and downs when technologies changed and things crashed. 

I married Pat Drew in 1982. She was (still is) smarter than I am with three masters degrees and a real job at the New York Times.  She now has her own firm, Pat Drew & Company, coaching people and organizations. She spends an inordinate amount of time with her beloved Steinway (shout out to piano artisan Terry Flynn).

We live in Bronxville, NY (we see Debbie Simpson Folsom on the street) have two children, Jon and Kim, and a grandchild on the way. I was named Westchester County Parks Most Valuable Volunteer in 2010. I am an avid tennis player and did a solo 100 mile coastal trip in my nifty ocean kayak last year.
 

Occupation: Piano dealer and technician.

Comment:
I moved to Great Barrington, MA in 2012, but spent most of the years since 1968 living and working in Fairfield County: 1970s, musician and music teacher; 1980s, piano technology and grad school in political economy; then thirty years lecturing part-time in social science & humanities at Western CT State University in Danbury, while developing my business (Flynn Pianos) as a technician and dealer. Retired from teaching in 2012, focusing now on expanding piano work and training my apprentice to gradually take over.
 

In 1984 I married Gwen Glasser, a classical musician from Westchester. Lots of music in our home and community. Going strong. No kids. Two dogs. Life is good.

 

Occupation: Attorney

Comment:
OK ... long time and a lot of things.  After high school I earned a degree in business and took a job at Merrill Lynch in NYC as a stockbroker.  Not so much fun.   I married a terrific lady from Brien McMahon HS in 1976 (a whole lot more fun than ML) and we are still married.  We moved to Santa Clara, California for a few years in the late 1970s when I worked for a software company and then I got transferred to Stamford of all places.  How is that for wandering the globe in search of new locales and exciting adventures only to end up 10 miles from where you were born?

I decided I really wanted to be a lawyer so I left the workforce for three years and earned my law degree and spent the next 13+ years as an in-house General Counsel for two tech companies in CT and NJ.  I always wanted to have my own firm so I started a  boutique corporate law firm about 17 years ago, and still have it.   

We have two grown children.  Our son is a lawyer (not my idea!) in Denver and our daughter is a revenue manager for a start-up in Dallas.  After our daughter graduated from UConn we decided we did not have to stay in CT so we moved to beautiful St. George, Utah about 3 years ago.  We are about 2 hours north of Las Vegas in the high desert tucked in the SW corner of Utah between AZ and NV.  Utah has law license reciprocity with CT so once licensed in UT I moved my law practice out here.  

I am sorry I will not be able to attend the reunion next month, but I wish you all a great time renewing old friendships and making new ones!

 

Occupation: Education Administration

Comment:
I had a tremendous Wanderlust, even as a teenager and therefore applied to be an AFS exchange student during our Junior year. Off I went to Ulm, Germany. I lived with a lovely family and my German sister became a lifelong factor. We have seen each other regularly for over fifty years, meeting all over the world. 
When i returned for our senior year, I was somewhat like a ship at sea, as Tom Deming had just moved to Washington, DC and I had experienced such a different lifestyle in Germany with political discussions and a European lifestyle. I threw myself into the yearbook and sports. I played three sport seasons. Field Hockey was my favorite and I was a good swimmer, but back then, before Title IX, there was no girls swim team. I played Field Hockey, Basketball and Softball and practiced swimming before school. 
I met Mark Groesbeck through St. Paul's Young People's Fellowship and we were friends first and then a couple later. He went to St. Luke's in New Canaan. We went to the Prom together. 
My Dad worked in the City for Vogue Magazine and in the summer I was a lifeguard. David Watson and I were very close friends at that time. We both worked at Norwalk Shore and Country Club. He ran the concession stand and I ran the pool. I miss him. 
I went to Skimore College and I loved it. There were several of us from Darien '68. 
Mark and I married two years after graduation - 1974 - Megan Doney '68 was in our wedding. I had a Masters by then. We were living in Rochester, New York. 
Mark got an MBA and I got a Doctorate - we had two beautiful little girls. We struggled to make ends meet much of the time, but we camped each weekend and biked and skiied and had dogs and life was very good. 
I was a German and French teacher and Mark worked with Law Firms, in the business end of thigs. I traveled often to Germany and was even sent to the Berlin Wall by the Department of Defense when the Wall came down. 
In 1996, we moved to Atlanta, GA where I became the Head of a large Episcopal independent school. By then, our daughter Alicia was at Cornell, studying to be a Veterinarian and Christina attended my school as a high schooler. Both girls were athletes. Thereafter, I have had an exciting career of running schools around the world, including Toronto, Vancouver, Muscat (Oman) and NYC, NY. Now, I only take Interim appointments which are challenging and for one year.
Both girls married and are happy and successful. (Wisconsin and Georgia)
We have three grandsons whom we adore: Riley (11), Tyler (11), Mason (14)
We now live on Hilton Head Island, SC and in the North Georgia Mountains - Hiawassee, GA.  Life has been kind to us and we have tried to give back in fair measure. Mark is a very dedicated Rotarian. We have good friends and working on this Reunion Committee was a way to reconnect with classmates at a time of life when that feels important.