CLASS NOTES | SPRING 2025 | 59 Mary Beth and George Young ’76 met while at Lehigh and eventually married. George was born and raised in Cumberland. His dad, who went to Lehigh, opened up a furniture business there, and Mary Beth and George are running it. The little store that started it all in the fall of 1977 is now Eaton Young Furniture Galleries, a much larger store. Their son is now running the store as George is mostly retired. Mary Beth still runs the office and does the books. Mary Beth and George are blessed with three children and three grandchildren. Mary Beth gets to Bethlehem regularly to see her mother, who resides at Kirkland Village right next to Mary Beth’s old high school, Bethlehem Catholic. In response to other class columns about women’s athletics at Lehigh, Wendy Brouwer wrote that, during our freshman year, there were few opportunities for women’s team sports. Wendy recollects that there may have been a tennis team our freshman spring, but wouldn’t be surprised if it wasn’t until our sophomore year. Lehigh hired a female coach during our first semester, and when Wendy tried out for the volleyball team, the coach told her that she wasn’t going to choose any seniors because she wanted to build the team for the future. Being the superior athlete that she is (my comment, not Wendy’s), Wendy made the team: “I don’t think we won any of the few games we played against more established teams.” By our senior year, women competed in field hockey, swimming, volleyball, basketball, lacrosse and tennis. Wendy ended up serving as captain of the women’s tennis and volleyball teams. Thanks for this bit of Lehigh history, Wendy. I also recall the women’s powder-puff football team which played our senior year. I assisted in coaching the team with Phil Williams, Harry Stephens and others. Players on the team included Nancy (Lattin) Davis, Kathy Liss Drew, Judy (Manns) Kirkwood, Michele Stoudt-Wright and Holly (Van Wiemokly) Sachs (apologies to those I missed). The women took the game very seriously and played fiercely, defeating Lafayette 46-0. If you have more information about the powder-puff team, please send it my way. As for Wendy, she retired from the FBI 20 years ago with a law degree. For the last 11 years, she has been traveling the world, primarily to exotic destinations like Fiji, Nepal and Bhutan. She has traveled the Silk Road, including through five of the “Stans”—from Almaty to Ashgabat. She spent most of the past August in Gabon, many days without electricity and running water. She had an up-close experience with a silverback gorilla at a preserve. Wendy intends to attend our 50th in “mystical” Bethlehem. Especially as we approach our 50th Reunion, please do send me an email about your journey after Lehigh and what you are doing these days, so I can include you in the next class column. ’76 Paul Laschiavo and Jamie Holbrook, Lehigh76correspondents@ gmail.com. Paul Loschiavo and I (Jamie Holbrook) will be reaching out to the Class of ’76 with a “What’s up?” email. We’re hoping to hear a few words about what’s been happening in your life over the past 50 years—or even just the past year. If you receive one of these emails, we (and your classmates) would greatly appreciate it if you could share a brief update or biography. I had a busy summer finishing leg three of bicycling the West Coast (San Francisco to San Diego) in June. That completes the 1,600-mile trek (Seattle to San Diego). Of course, an electric assist bike helped peddle up some pretty tall hills. For the Lehigh-Lafayette football game, I hosted the Seattle telecast at Bad Albert’s in Ballard. We had 23 Lehigh alums watch our football team easily win 38-14 (finally). I received a note from Bill Stecker (B.S. MechE). He reports that he retired in early 2020 from a small engineering consulting company in which he was a 25% partner. The Energy Corporation consulted with utility companies on design, construction management and commissioning of power plants. He started out with PP&L at the Susquehanna Nuclear Plant in Berwick, Pa., and went on to work with United Engineers and Constructors, Stone and Webster Engineering Corp., and independent power producer Calpine prior to forming a consulting company in 2006. Bill is currently single, but has two kids; his son is in Boulder with his wife and two girls, and his daughter currently lives in Boston. He still skis, golfs, bikes and rafts the western rivers outside Denver, where he has lived since 1990. Retirement has been good, but sometimes he misses the action. Don Baskin (B.S.B.U. in finance and member of Phi Kappa Theta) and his wife of 44 years, Barb, live in Naperville, Ill. They have been blessed with three great sons, a wonderful daughter-in-law and two beautiful grandchildren, all now residing in the Chicago area. Their oldest son played football for Northwestern, their middle son played rugby for Purdue and their youngest son played rugby for Iowa. All three were four-sport athletes at Naperville Central High School, where Don had the joy of coaching them on their high school rugby team. Don spent his entire career in the machine tool and robotics industry, pursuing his passion of increasing U.S. manufacturing productivity, including many years of service as president of Ellison Technologies in Chicago. Since retirement he has enjoyed more time with his family (especially his grandkids), done some consulting work, chipped away at an endless list of personal projects and stepped up his involvement with his longtime, local rugby club, the Chicago Blaze. ’77 Ann Louise (Werley) Price, 2 Colton St., Farmington, CT 06032. (860) 677-1295 (H); prokemo@comcast.net I am super grateful whenever one of you takes the time to drop me a note! While I didn’t get to Lehigh this winter, I am eager to see the transformation of the Clayton UC when I am in the area next summer. Bob Facente worked in engineering for years after graduation. But, 27 years ago he went back to school and became a physician’s assistant. He worked for 26 years with a regional hospital establishing and building their PA program. He also dusted off some skills learned at Lehigh when they implemented a new medical records system, and he became a super-user and trainer for surgical services. He retired June 1, 2024. He has worked a few days here and there but reports that “we are finally able to travel. We went to Alaska for two weeks (a bucket list trip for Mary Ann (Inslee) Facente) and to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame (Bob’s bucket list). Cleveland was a pleasant surprise with interesting architecture, good food, beautiful parks and museums, and great community spirit. Mary Ann took a few other bucket list trips, including Japan and California, with girlfriends after she retired from 47 years of banking while Bob was still working. “We have been lucky enough to catch up with Doug Tashjan and his wife, Chris, a couple of times. They hosted us and John Papazian ’78 and his wife, Carol, at their stunning lake house on the same lake where Doug vacationed as a child. “We spent a day filled with
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MTA0OTQ5OA==