2002

Hello fellow ’02s. This is Jordan Benke, bringing you the first edition of tag-team Class Notes.

Twice in the past few months I’ve had the sudden and firm conviction that the author of an article I was reading about drinking must have gone to Dartmouth. I was right. The first was a piece by Alex Morris in New York magazine about trends in the drinking habits of post-college women. I liked the article enough to pass it along to my girlfriend, who in turn passed it along to her mother. It was that kind of article.

Not too long after that I caught a second classmate’s name in a byline while forwarding a post from Proof, a blog about drinking on The New York Times Web site. This time it was Alex Nazaryan, writing about drinking and teaching or, more precisely, about drinking after teaching. His piece on the same site about drinking among the ancient Greeks made it as high as the seventh most e-mailed article on The NYT Web site.

Justin Barnard pointed me to an article on the Web site of the Boulder, Colorado, Daily Camera written by lawyer Andy Schmidt, who successfully defended a member of the notorious Pumpkin Twelve, a group of individuals who were charged with public indecency after taking off their clothes and running around Boulder with pumpkins on their heads.

I didn’t get to see Fela! during its off-Broadway run but my boss did, and he quite enjoyed it. I’ll go ahead and attribute my boss’ enjoyment to the handiwork of associate director Niegel Smith.

Anastasia Lambert and David Norman, MALS’06, were married July 12, 2008, at the Moosilauke Ravine Lodge on the exact spot where they first kissed two years before. In attendance were Carolyn Swan, Ben Doyle, Jake Jurmain ’08 and 30 or so others ranging from the classes of ’99 to ’08.

Seth Hill and Deanna Kasperski were also recently married. The wedding was outside of Chicago in August 2008 and the wedding party included Joe Cloyd, Sushila Dalal, Nathan De-Luke, Janice Kim and Erin Kinney. The couple lives in Los Angeles, where Deanna is finishing her internal medicine residency and Seth is getting his Ph.D. in political science, both at UCLA.

Libby Jones and Kermit Cook ’00 were married on October 4, 2008, in Palo Alto, California. Although they are both Dartmouth grads they didn’t meet until business school at Stanford, from which they both graduated in 2007. They now live in San Francisco. Myriad Dartmouth grads celebrated their big day, including Liz (Balanda) Baldwin and Carla Giugliano, who were bridesmaids.

In December 2008 Emilia Peraza and Ashley Dean established All Seasons Event Planning, a full-service hospitality company based out of Sun Valley, Idaho. They offer a variety of services and encourage everyone to check out their Web site at www.eventswithallseasons. com.

Katie (Goonan) Sussman and Jon Sussman just celebrated the first birthday of their daughter Grace, whom they adopted two days after she was born on February 10, 2008. She is a happy and energetic baby. The family lives in Baltimore, Maryland.

Finally, it is with great sadness that I have to inform you of the death of one of our most beloved classmates, Jay Kaplan. His family invites you to learn about what an exceptional and amazing husband, son, brother, friend, and film-maker Jay was by visiting the Web site made in his honor at http://jamesjosephkaplan.com.

229 East 21st St., Apt. 16, New York, NY 10010; jt.leaird@gmail.com