Newsmakers

In 1994 John Hueston '86 left his highpaying job with a prestigious Los Angeles law firm to join the Orange County branch of the U.S. Attorney s Office. Now he's on loan to Houston, helping to prosecute the governments case against former Enron chairman Kenneth L. Lay and Jeffrey K. Skilling, the company's former chief executive. Huestons record as a government prosecutor is impeccable, according to his Orange County chief, Wayne Gross. "He has never lost a case and, in fact, he has never lost a single count in any of his cases," Gross told the Houston Chronicle in late January. 'And he not only wins his cases, but he de stroys the other side." In his opening statement on January 31, Hueston told the jury: "This is a simple case. It is not about accounting. It is about lies and choices."... William C. Kirby'72 announced at the beginning of February that he will step down this summer after four years as dean of the faculty of arts and sciences at Harvard. The Boston Globe reported that Kirby was forced out by then-president Lawrence H. Summers, who announced his own resignation three weeks later. Kirby, who will now oversee Harvard's initiatives in China, said his departure was a mutual decision. "It would be fair and accurate to say that the president and I have very different personalities and approaches, "Kirby told the Globe of the controversial Summers....Peter Hutchinson '71, a public policy consultant and former Minneapolis school superintendent, threw his hat into the Minnesota gubernatorial ring in late January. Like former governor Jesse Ventura, Hutchinson is running as the Independence Party's candidate. Party chairman Jim Moore told the Associated Press that Hutchinson is impressing voters on the stump. "He balances policy expertise with Jesse Ventura's frankness."...The hip, twice-monthly adult spelling bees she co-emcees with their founder, singer bobbyblue, at Pete's Candy Store in Brooklyn are "kind of like going back to' junior high with better clothes and hair," Jennifer Dziura '00 told The New York Times last September. Featured on the front page of the Times' style section, Dziura and the bar-based bee were also filmed for a Good Moming America "Weekend Edition" segment. The New York-based comedian and writer is slated to host a spelling bee for the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C., in May....The Boston Herald last October described Curtis Kemeny '84, president and

CEO of the Boston Residential Group, as "a developer fast gaining the reputation for bold moves." Kemeny purchased the Red Cross building in Bostons South End last November for a planned condo/retail space, and his conversion of upper floor offices into luxury, loft-style condos in the former Tower Records building was featured in both the Herald and The Boston Globe last fall. The landmark Back Bay building underwent a famous Frank Gehry redesign in 1987, a renovation that Kemeny worked on as a young real-estate project manager. "I think that neighborhood is a little slice of Manhattan in Boston," Kemeny told the Herald....ln the Madison Repertory Theatres January production of lAm MyOwn Wife, David Adkins '85 earned rave reviews portraying German transvestite Charlotte von Mahlsdorf "with an understated grace bordering on greatness," according to The Capital Times & WisconsinState Journal. Even more impressive was the fact that the New York-based performer "masterfully" played more than 30 characters in this one-man play and mastered six accents ranging from Indian to German....For more than 20 years Sterling Klinck '55 has been restoring wooden boats in the East Hill Boat Shop at the Rochester Folk Art Guild in Middlesex, New York. While working on a particularly difficult restoration in 2002, he realized that it would have been easier to build his own boat from scratch. Using a plan from Wooden Boat magazine, Klinck got to work. The resulting Catspaw dinghy was named Best Sail Craft at the 2005 Antique & Classic Boat Show in Skaneateles, New York. "Its a nice fishing boat, it's good for rowing and it is sailable, "Klinck said in a recent issue of Lifein the Finger Lakes magazine. To see photos of the dinghy, go to: www.easthillboatshop. com....Last December Melvin Hall Jr. '91 and his wife, Damaris, opened Cafe Tamu

Sana, inside the Go-Go Mart in West Lebanon, New Hampshire. Hall, who hails from Memphis, Tennessee, whips up barbecue ribs and candied yams while Damaris, a trained chef from Kenya, prepares such dishes as Kenyan Swahili curry chicken. "She tells me that she's a chef and I'm a cook," Hall told the Upper Valleys daily, Valley News, in mid-January. See the menu at www.tastingtheworld.com. Hall's classmate Matt Landon '91 also recently launched a food business, Dinner Dudes.com, with Eric Jansen, the executive chef of The Wicked Oyster in Wellfleet, Massachusetts. For $5.95 a month subscribers to this recipe and dinner planning service receive a weekly enewsletter containing six nutritious and easy-to-prepare recipes. "The feedback has been fantastic," Landon told The ReminderOnline last December. More information is available at: www.dinnerdudes.com....he Trials of Darryl Hunt, a documentary directed by Anne Sundberg '90 and Ricki Stern '87, generated a lot of heat at the Sundance Film Festival last January. The film, about a North Carolina man who was wrongfully imprisoned for almost 20 years, was acquired by HBO, which will air it early next year. Sheila Nevins, the president of HBO Documentary and Family, told the Winston-Salem Journal, "I really feel that every kid and law student should see this film, which explores an inherent, residual, preposterous racism."...Adam White, Matt Heineman and Ben Grinnell, from the class of 2005, hit the road in a rented RV last summer for "The Young Americans Project, "a three-month, cross-country journey to learn the goals and dreams of their peers. Among the 18- to 25-year-olds they interviewed were organic farmers in Maine, a BMX biker in Nevada and an AIDS activist in Oregon. Their findings were chronicled in photos, videos and a blog (www.tyap.com). A documentary and book project are also in the works. Last January White told Maine's PortlandPress Herald they discovered that most young Americans want to stand apart from the crowd. "There are a lot of independent personalities out there, a lot of people trying to do their own thing." ...Andy Peay '92 is one of a small group of adventurous winemakers who produce wine in the challenging conditions of California's Sonoma coast, a foggy, isolated region that has produced notable pinot noirs since the late 1980s. Peay, brother Nick and winemaker sister-inlaw Vanessa Wong started planting their vineyard in 1998 on 48 of 80 acres they

bought in nearby Annapolis. Last January The New York Times' column, "The Pour," said, "Peay Vineyards is making wines of rare intensity and precision. Ms. Wong has turned out pinot noirs that combine lightness with intensity, and crisp attractive chardonnays." Peay Vineyards was also named one of the top 10 vineyards by Food & Wine Magazine last December, which cited the 2002 Renard Peay Vineyard Syrah ($35) as the vineyards top bottle... . "We had been raised urban Indians, never surfer boys, but inner city," Mateo Romero '89 told the Albuquerque Journal last January. He and older brother Diego were brought up in Berkeley, California, by their white liberal mother and father, a noted Conchiti Pueblo painter. At the urging of their late father, Mateo and Diego got more deeply in touch with their Conchiti roots as teens, and they now carry on their father s artistic tradition and the tribes dynamic culture. Dubbed the "Chongo Brothers" by a cousin, Mateo is an internationally known painter who works in his studio at Pojoaque Pueblo in northern New Mexico, while Diego is an award-winning potter in nearby Santa Fe. Mateo's paintings often focus on such themes as addiction and social injustice, and critics have compared his work to Italian Renaissance masters for his use of dramatic and suffused light. Mateo's paintings can be seen at: www.towa-artists.com....The Times CommunityNewspapers of Northern Virginia reported last summer that Charlie White 'O2 is con- tinuing Dartmouth's public service lega- cy as a staffer for Americorps' Volunteers in Service to America (VISTA). Working with Rural Action in Appalachian Ohio, White helps local farmers place their produce into more local restaurants and stores. "The grocery stores have to change their setup," White explained of store pur- chasing systems that are configured to order food from large distributors. "Some grocery stores are ready to buy from local farmers, some aren't." When his year of service ends this summer, White plans to do graduate work in soil science at the University of Maryland....After giving the blogosphere an irreverent yet sobering look at life inside big law firms for much of 2005, the anonymous blogger behind www.opinionistas.com was revealed last January to be Melissa Lafsky '00. Lafsky, who worked at three major New York City law firms during the last five years, left her position as an associate at Littler Mendelson in December and is writing a novel based on the characters in her popular Web log. "In five years I don't want to be known as a blogger. I'd like to be known as a writer," Lafsky told the New York Observer.... "Every day I saw starving children with bone-thin arms and bloated stomachs, "Sasha Earnheart-Gold '04 told Ode magazine of his hiking trip from Tibet to Nepal as a 16-year-old. That trip sparked the idea for Apple Tree International, which Earnheart-Gold launched with $5,000 and 1,200 starter apple trees while still a teenager. Over the past seven years his nonprofit has helped plant thousands of trees in Bolivia and Nepal, and the organizations workshops have taught villagers how to graft and grow their own trees. "Even as small an action as bringing some apple trees to a community is important," said Earnheart-Gold, who next plans to fund local nurseries in impoverished areas. "Sometimes the only way to change things is by these small, direct actions."... After fewer than six months as CFO and co-president of Oracle Corp., Gregory Maffei 'B2 departed the software giant last November to take over as chief executive of Liberty Media in Englewood, Colorado. Shortly thereafter he oversaw the spinoff of a new tracking stock for the company's interactive businesses, which include QVC, Expedia and Barry Diller's online retailer, IAC/Inter- Active Corp. Liberty chairman John Malone told the Hollywood Reporter that Maffei is "one of the most astute financial thinkers I have met."

Melissa Lafksy '00

QUOTE/UNQUOTE "He's the last person I would want cross-examining me. It would be like me playing Michael Jordan in one-on-one in his prime." —ORANGE COUNTY, CALIFORNIA, U.S. ATTORNEY'S OFFICE CHIEF WAYNE GROSS ON JOHN HUESTON '86, WHO IS EXPECTED TO CROSSEXAMINE KEN LAY IN THE ENRON TRIAL, TO THE HOUSTON CHRONICLE JANUARY 29

QUOTE/UNQUOTE "It is simply insane that someone as qualified as Diana Taylor ['77] would be prevented from serving our nation by the most reactionary and zealous force in Washington—the NRA„" REP. ANTHONY WEINER, ON CHARGES THE NRA BLOCKED TAYLOR'S APPOINTMENT TO HEAD THE FDIC AS REVENGE FOR BOYFRIEND (AND NY.C. MAYOR) MIKE BLOOMBERG'S "WAR ON GUNS," TO THE NEW YORK POST FEBRUARY 2

QUOTE/UNQUOTE "It's not a roman a clef. It's not The Devil Wears Brooks Brothers!" MELISSA LAFSKY '00, A.K.A. THE OPINIONISTA BLOGGER, ON A MANUSCRIPT SHE IS WRITING LOOSELY BASED ON HER LIFE AS A LAWYER-BLOGGER TO THE NEW YORK OBSERVER JANUARY 23