Domers in the News

Author: Notre Dame Magazine

One of the 88 people killed in the crash of an Alaska Air jetliner off the California coast in February was Stephen Wilkie ’84, ’86MBA, an executive with Levi Strauss & Company in San Francisco. The news recalled the sad sequence of events in 1996 when a Notre Dame junior, Patricia Kwiat, died along with her older sister in the explosion of TWA Flight 800 near Long Island; a business alumnus, Leonard Pieroni ’60, was among those killed, along with Commerce Secretary Ron Brown, when the plane carrying their trade delegation went down in Croatia; and former Irish football captain Rodney Culver ’92 and his wife, Karen, died in the ValuJet crash in the Everglades. . . . Lawrence J. Dolan ’54, ’56J.D. purchased the Cleveland Indians for a reported $320 million. . . . John C. Lungren ’38, former president of the Alumni Association and longtime personal physician to President Nixon, died in February at age 83. Survivors include son Dan Lungren ’68, a former U.S. congressman and attorney general of California. . . . Nick Radkewich ’93 made the USA Triathlon Team that will compete in Sydney in September at the 2000 Olympic games. . . . Amien Rais ’74M.A. was elected speaker of the Indonesian parliament. . . . This year’s Pulitzer Prize for beat reporting went to former ¬ Notre Dame Magazine intern George Dorhmann ’95 of the Saint Paul Pioneer Press . He was the lead reporter on a series of stories published in the spring of 1999 that exposed academic academic fraud within the University of Minnesota men’s basketball program. Two other Notre Dame alumni have won the Pulitzer: author Edwin O’Connor ’39 (The Last Hurrah) for fiction in 1962 and sports columnist Red Smith ’27 in 1976. . . . Carrie (Isabel) Dummer ’94 went home with a thousand dollars instead of a million when she appeared on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire in late February. Cheering her on in different ways were her husband, Joseph Drummer ’93, and, of course, host Regis Philbin ’53. The question she missed was, “Which supermodel was valedictorian of her high school class?” She went with Claudia Schiffer. The correct answer was Cindy Crawford. Jim Faggiana ’78 did a little better on the show in late May. He left with $32,000 after slipping up on a $125,000 question about a child prodigy violinist. . . . Harvey P. Newquist III ’80 edited Yahoo! The Ultimate Desk Reference to the Web, a new paperback that highlights more than a thousand of the most useful and entertaining websites and explains the fundamentals of web surfing. . . . Harold “Hal” Moore ’80J.D., an attorney in New York City, made the Chambers Global 100 Lawyers list of lawyers who stand out from their colleagues and are recognized internationally. Only 26 American lawyers made the list. . . . Ronalth Ochaeta ’94M.L. has been appointed Guatemala’s ambassador to the Organization of American States. He was named one of the “Global 100” young leaders of the future by Time magazine in 1998. . . . Sarah K. Mustillo ’96, a graduate student in sociology at Duke, was one of 15 students — out of 257 candidates nationwide — to receive a Woodrow Wilson-Johnson & Johnson Dissertation Grant. The $2,000 grants go toward the expense of research for doctoral dissertations. . . . The New York Times carried an extensive, positive review of Places Left Unfinished at the Time of Creation, a memoir by John Phillip Santos ’79 about growing up in San Antonio and searching for his Mexican roots. Santos is a prize-winning poet and producer of television documentaries. . . . The Associated Press in Florida distributed a feature story about retired aeronautical engineer Carroll B. Butler ’67M.S. of Shalimar, Florida, and his efforts to revive memories of the naval stores industry, a forgotten part of Southern history. The term naval stores refers to a range of products made by processing pine resin, including turpentine, rosin and pitch, once used to seal the wooden hulls of ships. North Carolina took its nickname, “The Tarheel State,” from naval stores production. . . . Joseph L. Cashore ’71 has been drawing rave reviews for his touring Cashore Marionettes shows in the United States and Canada. Wrote a reviewer in Saskatchewan, “It was hard to believe they were not truly alive.”. . . David Worhatch ’79J.D. of Hudson, Ohio, between Akron and Cleveland, is running for state representative. . . . Charles R. Wilson ’76, ’79J.D. was sworn in as a judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Judicial Circuit, and former U.S. District Judge Ann Claire Williams ’75J.D. of Chicago has joined the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. There are now seven Notre Dame graduates serving on federal appeals court benches. . . . Brian T. Fitzpatrick, who earned his bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering, summa cum laude, from Notre Dame in 1997, is keeping up the good work in a different field. Last year he won the Joshua Montgomery Sears Jr. Prize from Harvard Law School. The prize is awarded annually to the two first-year and two second-year students with the highest averages in the famous law school. He was one of the second-year honorees and is the first Notre Dame grad to win the prize. . . . Richard Nussbaum II ’74, ’77J.D., former city attorney of South Bend, was appointed to succeed Jenny Pitts Manier ’82, ’85J.D. as general counsel to Indiana Lieutenant Governor Joe Kernan ’68, the former mayor of South Bend. Manier was appointed to the Saint Joseph Superior Court to replace retiring Judge Jeanne Jourdan ’75J.D. . . . The Wall Street Journal last year followed Larry J. Puglia ’82 through a day at his office, where he manages T. Rowe Price’s giant Blue Chip Growth Fund. . . . In 1998 Gregg Behr ’95 brought together 50 of his fellow twentysomething achievers from around the country for a meeting in Durham, North Carolina, to “develop a vision for ethical leadership.” Their resulting ideas are spelled out in a “covenant” the participants call “The Content of Our Character: Voices of Generation X.” . . . Joseph A. Cari Jr. ’74, ’78J.D. was sworn in by Vice President Al Gore as chairman of the board of trustees of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, part of the Smithsonian Institution. . . . Gary Hall ’96J.D. and Army Maj. Peter F. Najera ’87 were among 16 White House Fellows selected for 1999-2000. White House Fellows serve as full-time, paid assistants to cabinet members and senior White House staff. They help read and review legislation, research public policy initiatives, respond to congressional inquiries and conduct policy briefings. . . . Joseph M. Scott Jr. ’68 was appointed judge of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky. . . . Double Domers Cyril A. Reilly ’52, ’54Ph.D. and his wife, Renée Travis Reilly ’67M.A., ’68MFA, published their fourth photo gift book on Ireland — An Irish Blessing. The book presents the text of an old Irish blessing with an illustration accompanying each phrase. . . . Jerry McKenna ’62, who sculpted the Frank Leahy statue next to Notre Dame Stadium and the Moose Krause statue in front of the Joyce Center, did the bronze busts for three players inducted into Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1999: Lawrence Taylor, Ozzie Newsome and Billy Shaw. . . . The successful defense of a Texas data processing contractor by a team of lawyers that included Thomas P. Melsheimer ’83 was named by _The National Law Journal _as the top defense verdict of 1998. The attorneys’ client was accused of fraud by the Resolution Trust Corporation, the organization set up to deal with the savings and loan crisis of the early 1990s. Melsheimer’s team not only repelled the claim but won almost $15 million on a breach-of-contract counterclaim. . . . The Seattle Times profiled Mary Yu ’93, chief of staff in the King County Prosecutor’s Office. She is the highest ranking woman and minority ever in the office. . . . Time magazine spotlighted Ben Allison ’97J.D. as a successful product of home schooling in the article “Home-School Report Card: Parents are teachers for a million kids. But does home schooling work?” The article appeared in the magazine’s September 13, 1999, issue. . . . John Cerone ’97J.D. was appointed a human rights officer with the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. . . . The September 10, 1999, edition of Forbes Digital Tool, the business publisher’s daily Internet magazine, told the story of David Morken ’94J.D., who while a law student read an article predicting that bandwidth was going to be big business. Knowing nothing about the technology, which transmits voice and data across international networks, he nevertheless immediately registered the domain name “bandwidth.com.” The site lay dormant for several years, but now Morken uses it to broker deals between businesses and Internet service providers looking for bandwidth and bandwidth suppliers like MCI WorldCom. He earns a commission on all deals struck. . . . A double CD from former Who guitarist Pete Townsend that was recorded live at Chicago’s House of Blues benefits Maryville Academy, the Catholic facility in Des Plaines, Illinois, that cares for wards of the state. The academy is headed by Reverend John Smyth ’57. . . . Hubert “Hub” Schlafly ’41 accepted a broadcasting and engineering company Emmy on behalf of TelePrompTer Corporation, which he helped found. The award honored the company’s Lens Line Prompting System, which optically superimposes a written script in an aperture positioned directly in front of a television camera lens. It was his second Emmy. The first, in 1992, recognized his work in broadband communications. . . . Samuel A. Rumore Jr. ’71 was elected president of the Alabama State Bar. . . . Florida Trend: The Magazine of Florida Business calls Jon Krupnick ’65J.D., founder of the law firm Krupnick Campbell Malone in Fort Lauderdale, one of the most feared lawyers in Florida and “the king of demonstrative evidence.” . . . Marty Loesch ’87, ’91J.D., ’92LL.M. traveled to Kosovo to help Catholic Relief Services assess the organization’s performance in responding to the refugee crisis. After practicing law in the Seattle area for several years, he has moved to an Indian reservation north of the city and continues to practice. . . . Law master’s student Wadi Muhaisen, enrolled in the Law School’s London Programme, was named spokesperson and legal counsel for the Palestinian Authority in London. He has served as a consultant to Yasser Arafat. . . . Margaret Ryan Collins ’95J.D. has been appointed to a Supreme Court clerkship for the 2001-02 term with Justice Clarence Thomas. . . . An article in Business Week Enterprise magazine explained how Moira Shanahan ’77 took the advice she often gives her clients and reorganized, revitalized — and renamed — her company. What was NewsLetters Plus is now Braindance. The company had grown beyond newsletter production into such enterprises as sales training and strategy and website development. . . . Jerry E. Reedy ’58, a long-time writer and gifted storyteller who helped Father Hesburgh compose his 1990 autobiography, God, Country, Notre Dame, died in January at age 63. . . . Donald A. Wich Jr. ’69, ’72J.D. was named 1999 Advocate of the Year by the Broward County (Florida) Legal Aid Society. . . . The New York Times profiled Mary Brosnahan ’83, who has been executive director of New York City’s Coalition for the Homeless for a decade. . . . Cincinnati attorney Edmund J. Adams ’63J.D. was named to the Ohio Board of Regents, which overseas the state’s public universities. Regents are appointed for nine-year terms. . . . John W. “Jack” Cooley ’73J.D., a former U.S. magistrate judge, published his first novel, Queen of Battle, a modern version of the story of the Greek goddess of war, Athena. He says he hopes the story will draw attention to the right of women to participate in ground combat.