Class Notes

September/October 2026

Note: Classmates' names in gold font are links to a pre-addressed email form (if your browser is properly configured). Other links (underlined) take you to more information about the topic. These are the same class notes that are published in the Yale Alumni Magazine. If you would like to write a guest column, please let me know. Do we have your current email address in our website directory?

As you read this column in YAM in early September (it will be posted on our Class website in early July), the Yale football season will be underway with a new coach, Kevin Cahill, leading Team # 153. It’s the first time that Yale will play a 10-game schedule, to stay competitive in the Football Championship Subdivision (FCS) for post-season play. We met Captain Abu Kamara, Asa S. Bushnell Defensive Player of the Year, at our Class Council meeting last February. The Ivy season will conclude with The Game in Fenway Park on November 21. The last home football game of the Ivy season is versus Princeton, which is also the weekend of the YAA Assembly and YAF Convocation. In attendance will be Ralph Jones, our Class YAA Delegate, Ward Wickwire, our YAF Chair of Agents, and your Class Secretary, Tony Lavely.

Ted Jones organized the Spring 2026 golf outing on the newly refurbished Yale course on June 3. The outing was attended by 15 classmates and spouses with a dinner at Mory’s that night, where they paused to remember Don Edwards who was a longtime regular at the golf outings. Ted’s joyful report is posted on our Class website in News (see here).

Another group of 1964 classmates convened on a Zoom call on June 18 to listen to Chas Freeman talk about “The World in Turmoil – What’s Next?” With his expertise as a US Ambassador and career diplomat, Chas talked about the escalating diplomatic and military disruptions around the world, as well as the expanding technological and military superiority of China. Ward Wickwire moderated the 90-minute session that was attended by over 80 classmates, spouses, and friends. Thanks to Don Van Doren for organizing this Zoom call. If you missed this most informative session, you can view the video recording on our Class website in News (see here). Watch for upcoming Zoom sessions later this year.

In other news, John Moore was featured in a Yale pamphlet, “Partners Through Giving” (Spring 2026). Yale wrote, “After finding his calling as a teacher, an alumnus decides to give back.” Thank you, John!

The classmate luncheons in New Haven, organized by Ralph Jones, operated on an adjusted summer schedule, but will be back at Mory’s in the fall. Regional Zoom calls in the Bay Area (organized by Owen O’Donnell on second Wednesdays) and in the Boston Area (organized by Jerry Flannelly on third Wednesdays) will continue through the balance of the year. Chip Brennan emailed: “On May 6 Loring Knoblauch organized a Yale ’64 lunch for Chicago-area classmates which I hosted at the Racquet Club of Chicago. In attendance were Bill Bowe, Cole Oehler, George Covington, Ted Jones, Loring, and me. Loring gets all the credit for being the guiding force behind our get togethers.” Don Van Doren is planning a classmate lunch or dinner in Santa Fe in early October. If you would like to organize a classmate gathering in your area, please contact Tony Lavely and we can help.

Members of the Class of ’64 continue to write and publish more books. I believe our list of authors is over 100, with an aggregate list of over 300 books published since 2000 when we started keeping track and posting them on the Class website in Publications. Recent additions include:

Keith Stavely (with his wife Kathleen Fitzgerald), Northern Comfort: The New England Baking Tradition

Waldo “Spike” Forbes (with his co-author Reverend Erin Tyler), From We to I: Christianity and the Biblical Tradition

Timothy Breen, The American Revolution on Trial: A New Nation Confronts the Burden of Independence.

As a relief from the unusually high number of classmate obituaries we included in the previous issue, we have none to report in this column. This allows space to write about the beautiful memorial service in New Haven for Don Edwards that many classmates attended on June 13. Sam Francis drove up from New Jersey and picked up Tony Lavely at the White Plains airport on the way. The two bunked in Ralph Jones’ guest room the night before the service at St. Thomas Episcopal Church on Whitney Avenue. Other classmates attending were: Frank Basler, Kip Burgweger, John Evans, Bill Galvin, Toddie Getman (honorary), Bill Morse, Steve Norman, and Jim Whitney. The service was live-streamed and recorded, so it is available on our Class Website on Don’s In Memoriam page.

After reading the In Memoriam for Travis Meredith, who died earlier this year, John Aram added a touching remembrance. If you would like to add a remembrance to the In Memoriam page of any departed classmate, please send it to Sam Francis or Tony Lavely. You can also donate a Mory’s Memorial Brick in the name of any classmate by contacting Ted Jones.