I've recently learned of the deaths of two classmates. Don McGovern, a teacher, poet, and playwright who had taken up permanent residence in Englandin 1975, died September 4. Otis Gustafson, who had recently moved back to Mill River, Mass., after a career as a professional theatrical and costume designerin New York City, died October 22.
As we grow older, the increased frequency with which we must hear such sad news and face the loss of friends and loved ones forces a painful recognition that the unbridled optimism and perceived "invulnerability" of our youths can no longer be relied on to protect us from the one thing more certain than even taxes. My personal hope is that those of us who are hurt by these events find the strength to focus on the meaningful things in life and to cherish the friends and family who remain with us.
Institutional Investor named Jon Osgood, a principal at Alex Brown & Sons, to its "1993 All-America Research Tearn" (Medical Technology category), citing "both his scientific knowledge and his talent for imparting that knowledge to clients."
Bob Cordy, whose law career has been primarily in the public sector, and who had until recently been Massachusetts Governor Weld's Chief Legal Counsel, wrote to announce that he has joined die firm of McDermott, Will & Emery in Boston. In his "spare time," Bob teaches a first-year seminar on criminal litigation at Harvard Law and is "very busy" preparing a financial strategy to enable him to pay for the educations of his four children, now aged six through 19. He also mentioned spending "some serious time playing golf' with Murray Bowden as a side benefit to his trip to the Republican Convention in Houston (back in '92), and he hopes that his new, more private, life will permit him "to reconnect with classmates with whom I have lost contact over the years."
Wedding bells rang out in Westport, Conn., on November 20 for Dick Wooster and his bride, Debbie Franz. After a trip to St. Lucia and Petit St. Vincent, Dick and Debbie consolidated households at their new address in Greenwich. Dick continues with Oppenheimer & Cos. in New York, where he is a senior vice president in Institutional Equity Sales.
In closing, let me thank those of you who have written with your news. Now, I want the rest of you to dust off your pencils, keyboards, or other implements of communication and inundate my mailbox. Otherwise I may be forced to emulate a class secretary from another school I read about not long ago who resorted to making up news about classmates, and eventually became so desperate that he began to invent classmates about whom to make up news. Regards.
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