1958

The P.B. Bell Companies of Scottsdale, Arizona, founded by our own Phil Bell, is celebrating its 25th anniversary by announcing the development of its next luxury apartment community, Ventura Vista, a 170unit project in Phoenix. Phil started the company in 1975 with four employees and managed 26 units in one property. Today the company's more than 150 employees manage 3,500 units in 26 properties across Arizona and the company is establishing a satellite office in Tucson.

Larry Weltin, a faithful correspondent, writes that he made contact with old Russell Sage friend Jay Davis Jay still lives in his hometown of Shaker Heights, Ohio, and has been married for 42 years to his wife, Jane, a Mount Holyoke graduate. They are blessed with three children, two living in Cleveland and one in Chicago. Jay continues to work as an independent insurance agent in the property and casualty fields. He sees Finny Bloomfield (recently retired from Progressive Insurance) and Pete Danford (one of Cleveland's premier jewelers) on a regular basis. Jay can be reached at jaydavis123@cs.com.

Mike Wygant sent an e-mail noting my move back to Hanover and said he had once considered that possibility. Portions of his letter bear sharing because of what Mike is doing and the fascinating career he has had: "We moved to Maine after I formally 'retired' from a 30-plus-year career in the U.S. Foreign Service. Since 19901 have done a string of assignments with the Department of State, for the past six years on secondment to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). This work has taken me successively from Georgia (Caucasus, not Peach Tree), to Moldova, then Ukraine, through a short tour in Estonia, to my current post as deputy chief of the OSCE Mission to Croatia, where I have been for the past six months. (My wife) Lee indulges me in these small pleasures, visits regularly, but prefers to spend most of her time on the Maine coast. A wise woman.

"An infinitely small number of Americans knows anything about OSCE. I was among the oblivious until that first tour in Georgia in 1994. Basically, the OSCE is the only all-inclusive European security agency, extending from Vancouver to Vladivostok the long way around. It is involved in conflict prevention, conflict resolution, promotion of human rights, election observation and the rule of law. A large order, but we have made progress in a number of the 20some missions the OSCE maintains in the former USSR and the Balkans.

"Zagreb is a lovely old city and Croatia ever fascinating. I have much enjoyed this assignment, but it is time to come home, so we will wrap things up and return to Maine in mid-October. Speaking of which calls football to mind and a possible trip to Hanover to watch the boys of fall."

Given Mike's schedule he should be back just in time to make the mini-reunion when we hope to see him and lots of other classmates.

4 Willow Spring Circle, Hanover,NH 03755; ralph.n.manuel@valley.net