CLASS NOTES | SUMMER 2024 | 65 also serves as the operation director for Start School Later (startschoollater.net), which aims to push schools to open up later in the day to enable a better night’s sleep for students and to deliver greater real-world readiness amidst higher test scores. Let’s put it this way: We could have used Maribel to chase away those Tuesday/Thursday classes that began at 7:55 a.m. Keep it going, Maribel! In February, in what is thankfully becoming an annual tradition again post-COVID, popular haberdashery proprietor Jim Giddon hosted a Lehigh baseball team reunion. The event featured 27 Lehigh current/former ball players and nonball players, led by Jim and longtime head coach Sean Leary ’93. In attendance from our class were Mary Kelly (married to former assistant coach Tony Peters MBA ’90), Howard Butterman, Steve Saul (side note: He bumped into Alisa (Edelson) Friedman in Tampa in March.) and Michael Lewis. But that’s just the nonball players! Who can forget the lethal battery from our junior and senior years: “On the mound for the Lehigh Engineers … Greg Fritz (cue applause). And behind the plate … Jim Giddon (more applause).” Moving from real sports to fake football—better known as fantasy football—the following guys just completed their 33rd consecutive season in the Fiji Fantasy League (FFL): Butterman, Giddon, Lewis, David Monson, Jacques Rousseau, Saul and Tim Svanson. Tim— whose son Matt ’21 pitched for Lehigh and recorded a save in a 2024 spring training game as a member of the St. Louis Cardinals’ system—took home the 2023 prize. Jacques is our most decorated champion over the years, leveraging all the tools and resources he’s acquired as a financial analyst. As for a hazing event for last place? Let’s be clear: There is NO hazing in the international fraternity of the FFL. We, shall we say, “educate” the loser. ’91 Diana Zoller Perkins, dianazoller@gmail.com Hello, all. It feels strange to be writing this amidst a war that is raging in Israel. Thankfully, we are all safe at the moment, just fearful of what is happening not only here, but around the world as well. As of this writing, my daughter, Zelda, has a good friend who is still a hostage. I pray that she is released safely back to her family and friends by the time this is published. Nikki Fish Nudelman was just in Israel on a solidarity mission with Friends of the Israeli Defense Forces (FIDF). I was lucky enough to get some time with her at the beginning of her trip. We had a great time catching up over some much-needed good music, and it felt like we were right back at Lehigh. Jill (Merriam) Dulitsky has also been back to Israel several times in her new role as board chair of the Jewish Federation of Greater Hartford. She is also on the National Women’s Philanthropy Board. Her son, Brady, is enjoying his sophomore year at Tulane and daughter, Carly (whom I met in Tel Aviv a few months ago and is just lovely), just completed a gap year traveling throughout Southeast Asia, Israel and Ghana. She will be a freshman at the University of Arizona in the fall. Cori (Mason) Berger moved her family to Aspen during COVID. Her daughter, Alexis, goes to Aspen Country Day, and her sons have graduated from college. Cori was recently honored by the AJC (American Jewish Committee) for 25 years of extraordinary service. The AJC is the global advocacy group for the Jewish people. Thank you for your service, Cori, especially at this time. You’re doing such important work. John Perry Morris was kind enough to share some news from his recent visit to Lehigh for the Princeton Dual and Coach Turner’s celebration. Thad Turner was Lehigh’s fourth wrestling coach from 1970 to 1988 and led the team to a 171-104-5 record during that time. He recruited John and fellow wrestlers Cliff Chapman, Solomon Fleckman ’92, Lane Pendleton, Pete Yozzo ’88, Rei Suzuki ’89 (who flew in from Tokyo for the event), John Epperly ’89 and Rick Hartman ’89. John and his wife, Kelly, live in Frisco, Texas, outside of Dallas. He’s been working for Ferguson (a distribution business primarily in construction with $30 billion in revenue and 35,000 associates) as a director of business development for 31 years. John and Kelly have three kids: J.P. is 25, Emma is 23, and Kara is 20 and studying at UT-Austin. Cliff is the co-founder and CEO of Syncarpha Capital, founded in 2009 to capitalize on the tremendous opportunities in the alternative energy sector. He and his wife, Cynthia (Roccaforte) Chapman ’92, live in New York. Andrea Strong is writing for Fast Company, reporting stories on the intersection of food and business and is the New York restaurant writer for Open Table. In her spare time, she continues to enjoy running marathons. Melissa (Peller) Eydenberg, Jennifer (Neiman) Gottlieb and Amy (Silver) Kramer were all together for the solar eclipse at Amy’s family lake house. Susan Lanter Blank has been in the thick of college applications and visits with her daughters, Sage and Scarlett, who are seniors. They met up with Steve Frankel’s son at Colgate and Kim (Hausman) Athan’s daughter at Lehigh. Maybe they’ll run into the kids of Andrea (Wiesel) Weissman, Devin Gross, Brooke Delfini and Lisa (Duch) Delfini, Janine Azriliant, Heather (Sange) Mahland ’92 and any of the many legacies who are carrying on the tradition! ’92 Melissa (Gitlin), Jacoby, mgjacoby@gmail.com; and Rachel (Beck) Diamond, rachelmbeck@hotmail.com Suddenly, the cold northeast winter turned to spring, and we began our search for Class of ’92 content! Thank you to the few people who heeded our calls! As we look to future columns, please send info our way. We want to hear from people across our class! We were thrilled to hear from Eric Perlmutter! After selling his three restaurants in NYC in 2019 (talk about timing … the pandemic wasn’t far off!) and a work hiatus that included the birth of his third child and a move to the suburbs, Eric has two projects brewing: a feature-length boxing documentary and a food-related docuseries. We’re excited to see where these projects go! Eric would love to hear from Lehigh classmates–perlmutter.eric@gmail.com. Another Eric in our class also chimed in! Eric Boyle and his wife, Stacey, reside in Haslet, Texas. Eric has been working for Lockheed Martin’s Sikorsky Division for 17 years now, leading an engineering team designing, building and testing experimental aircraft. They have three children. Daughter Kaydence is studying astrophysics at Embry Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach, Fla. Daughter Taylor is studying political science at University of North Texas, and son Jackson is currently a junior in high school and planning his college future in engineering. Might he go to Lehigh? Stacey is a program manager at Collins Aerospace, building F35 landing gear. The entire family visited Lehigh a few years ago during a summer trip to the northeast and checked out all
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