1983

Joy! (The emotion felt by a Class Notes secretary who has received correspondence.) I'm so happy to see that some of you are working on this "sharing thing!" This month, we have three classmates who are writing with news of themselves for the first time. One is Paul Salamanca. After Dartmouth (A.D.), Paul was a veritable pinball, moving up and down the eastern half of the country, working in various legal capacities in Concord, N.H., Washington, D.C. and New York City. He then started a teaching career at Loyola University in New Orleans, and has now landed in Lexington, Ky., where he teaches law at the University of Kentucky. Paul married native Kentuckian Cynthia Marks, and has two stepchildren, a 1-year-old daughter and another child on the way.

Kevin Connolly was "guilted" into writing after my last column. Kevin announces some major life changes for him this past September. The birth of his (second) son Nicholas coincided with Kevin's re-entry into the "real world." After 13 years of slugging it out in the music world as a full-time singer/songwriter, Kevin has joined the ranks in advertising sales for WBCN radio in Boston—"the No. 1 rock station in Boston." No travel, weekends with the family and not working for himself is a welcome change. He is still making CDs, playing, and writing, just not as his main gig. One of Kevin's songs was recently played on an episode of NBC's "Third Shift." Anyone interested in his music can check it out at www.kevinconnolly.com or e-mail him kc@kevinconnolly.com.

Another confession arrived from a reclusive '83 who is coming out of his shell for the first time. Justin Rudelson was inspired by the sight of Lisa Feinberg Densmore as a commentator during the Goodwill Games broadcasts. Justin is now an anthropologist (Harvard-trained, please forgive him) and Uyghur (ethnic Turkic, Muslim minority of China living in Xinjiang Province) expert. He encourages "beloved classmates" to hit the biweekly Central Asia and CaucasusAnalyst Web Journal, for which he is editor, at www.cacianalyst.org. Prior to his current position as the deputy director of the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute Johns Hopkins, Justin worked as an anthropology professor at Tulane until he met his wife, Chelle. They married (Elke Kruse read a Pablo Neruda poem during the neoHassidic ceremony conducted by Rabbi Michael Paley, the former Dartmouth Hillel director), and toured the world for a year. Justin has written three phrase books for Lonely Planet Publications—one in Hebrew, one in Mandarin and one in the 16 languages of the Silk Road—and another on the Uyghurs. He is living in Baltimore and reports that "life is sweet."

In addition to these three brave souls, I found news of other classmates this past month-in the Boston Globe, the Herald...and while flying from Boston to Toronto, I opened my complimentary Silicon AlleyReporter to peruse their Top 100 Internet companies. There, staring up at me from page 142, was Dave Friedensohn, who's Big Star.com was rated 60th. No stranger to this column, we told of Dave's launching Big Star a year or two ago. He has now taken the company public, and faces the big guys like Amazon.com. Check out www.bigstar.com or catch up with david@ bigstar.com.

A recent headline found in the BostonGlobe: "True Believer Massachusetts Teacher Ellen Olmstead Named Community College Professor Of The Year." In the profile Ellen discusses her decision to become a teacher. "When most of her Dartmouth classmates were spending a junior year abroad, Ellen decided to spend that year in Jersey City, N.J., teaching in an alternative high school for troubled teenagers." In addition to her Jersey City semester, she draws from her personal experience at Dartmouth, with professors who reached out to her. Congratulations to Ellen on her successful endeavors at making a difference. (Read more on page 47 of this magazine.)

Another classmate in academia is WhitSmith. Berkshire Country Day is expanding with a secondary division next year, and Whit is taking charge. This summer, he moves to Lenox, Mass., from Tarrytown, N.Y., where he had been chairman of the English department at the Hackley School since 1995. From the Cincinnati Enquirer, one of the "people on the move" is MarkVan Zant, who has been named manufacturing division manager for Micron's Plastics technologies group.

Thanks to all who've been in touch. Keep it up!

585 Main St, Suite 206, Melrose, MA 02176; jennross @mindspring.com; Kenneth M. Johnson, 6 Carriage Lane, Cherry Hills Village, CO 80121; kjohnson@marsicocapital.com