Becoming more and more in love with our new Nevada environment, this correspondent is happily adjusting to a new life and eagerly anticipating snow on the surrounding hills and looming mountains.

John (Jack) Neafsey ‘61, M.Eng. ‘62, MBA ‘63. and his wife Rilla, have endowed the top academic leadership position at Cornell Tech, currently held by Dean and Vice Provost Daniel P. Huttenlocher.

“The opportunities for Cornell Tech are boundless, and it has done extraordinarily well in getting underway, “ said Neafsey, a retired Sun Co. executive and investment consultant “I’m delighted that Cornell Tech is at the forefront on the East Coast rivaling Stanford on the West Coast, and that we are emerging as a recognized world leader in the field of technology.”

The gift to establish the Jack and Rilla Neafsey Deanship provides an endowment to fund the position in perpetuity The announcement goes on to identify our classmate as a Cornell trustee emeritus, presidential councillor and foremost benefactor, and as a believer in the integration of business with technology and engineering fields and in the need to blend study with practice - principles that inspired him to help drive milestone achievements in Cornell’s business, engineering and computing education over decades

Neafsey said he owes a debt to Cornell which “was very good to me and gave me support. I held a lot of jobs on and off campus to pay my room and board, but Cornell gave me a full tuition scholarship for six years. That’s part of the reason why I give back.”

Ken Blanchard has written catch-up news: “I am cofounder with my wife Margie McKee ‘62, and chief spiritual office of the Ken Blanchard Companies, an international management training and development company. Also cofounder with Phil Hodges of Lead Like Jesus an international ministry helping faith-based people lead from their heart, head, hands and habits like Jesus. I am also writing at least one book a year. My latest is entitled Servant Leadership in Action and will be released in March 2018. In June Margie and I celebrated our 55^th year of marriage. Our son Scott (Cornell ‘88), our daughter Debbie, and Margie’s younger brother Tom (both University of Colorado graduates) are doing the heavy lifting in our training and development company. Tom who is our chairmen and CEO was born when Margie was a freshman at Cornell.” When asked what he would wish to be doing, Ken responded “I’m having a ball being head cheerleader for our company and for Lead Like Jesus, plus writing and giving speeches around the world. So I’m re-firing not retiring.”

We received this press release regarding classmate Mark J. Witkin. “Boston law firm Davis, Malm &D’Agostine, P.C. announced that alumnus, Mark J. Witkin, has joined the firm as a shareholder. Mark practices in the Real Estate area and personal property taxation, and advises public, private and nonprofit companies, investors and individuals on a wide range of municipal taxation issues. Mark also has extensive experience negotiating property assessments with municipal assessing authorities and valuation companies, real estate development municipal tax incentives, and payments in lieu of taxes for nonprofit tax exempt entities.” Congratulations, Mark!

Anthony R. Loinaz of Cornell Adult University reported classmates who participated in 2017: Marcia Field enjoyed photography workshops, Samuel Greenblatt studied architecture and Theodore Bier joined the NYC Spring Theater Weekend.

From Ernie Feleppa: “Edith Milhorat Boothby, John Boothby, Frank Cuzzi and I got together at our 60^th, class of ’57, high-school reunion in September. Edie, Frank and I attended and graduated from Pelham Memorial High School in 1957 before our four terrific years at Cornell. About a quarter of our small class of 100 or so students attended the 60^th reunion with us. The reunion kicked off with a brief, Saturday-morning ceremony at the high school to remember Mickey Shwerner, who also was in our 1957 Pelham High class as well as our 1961 Cornell class. A bust of Mickey and a plaque summarizing Mickey’s heroic efforts and sacrifice in the civil-rights movement of the 1960s have been placed in the alumni room at the high school to commemorate his accomplishments. The bust was commissioned by the late Douglas Morton, a fellow, class of 1957, high-school classmate.”

Gustav Kappler mentioned earlier in class columns wrote “I’ve been busy in my Quixotian quest to dampen the occurrence of substance abuse, PTS, PTS(D) and suicide in active and military veterans. May have made a breakthrough having been invited to be the keynote speaker at the symposium sponsored by the Dept. of the Navy (Marines) in Feb ‘18.”

He also mentions eBook access to his aforementioned book “Welcome Home from Vietnam”, and a podcast interview based on the book and his quest to affect PTS. He finishes his message “Thank you for your interest …it was our war … for the good or bad that resulted”