Class Notes

Bob Wickizer, MA ’75, runs a commercial winery that he started in Muskogee, Oklahoma. He grows his own grapes, winning awards in San Francisco and in other competitions. Wickizer plans to publish a book this year titled Lies We Tell Our Children. It is science fiction wrapped around a fictionalized memoir. He remembers WashU literally leaving its mark on him when he played touch football in front of the Compton physics lab. He went out for a pass and slipped on the ice and hit his head on the building, spending the winter day at the emergency room.

Barbara Langsam Shuman, AB ’74, had her second documentary, Mr. Z: What Happens Early in Life Lasts a Lifetime, premiere at the St. Louis International Film Festival in November 2023. The documentary has been awarded a Social Impact Award from another film festival and is entered in several other film festivals.

John Weston Parry, JD ’74, wrote The Burden of Sports: How and Why Athletes Struggle With Mental Health (Rowman & Littlefield, February 2024). He has been the host and primary content provider for the website and blog Sportpathogies.com since 2016. He also is the author of The Athlete’s Dilemma: Sacrificing Health for Wealth and Fame (2017) and Mental Disability, Violence, Future Dangerousness: Myths Behind the Presumption of Guilt (2013).

Sam Graefe, BS ’74, is a proud father of four, grandpa of nine, and the 10th WashU grad in his family, dating from 1935 to 2008. He is retired from careers in engineering, management, consulting and health care in industries of oil refining, gas pipeline, pharmaceuticals, internet and telecom technical, respiratory therapy, and real estate, and from teaching STEM in grades 5-12 and other classes at community college

Linda Showalter, MSW ’71, though officially retired, continues her social work interests via volunteering. She’s served on several community nonprofit boards, including currently as board president for Interfaith Assistance Ministry, which provides food, clothing and financial assistance for needy neighbors in Hendersonville, North Carolina. She’s also volunteered with the Girls Empowered program, a collaboration with Women United/United Way and Henderson County Public Schools to boost self-confidence and skills for young girls. These endeavors and world travel are her passions.

John Sheridan, AB ’70, had his piece “Broken on the Rocks of War” selected for the nationally juried exhibit Our True Heroes at the Gilroy California Center for the Arts last November. Sheridan’s sculpture consists of 12 small stools painted red, white, blue and black and placed in arcs around a block of Sierra granite strewn with broken bits of stone and a hammer. The installation invites visitors to use the setting for meditation, contemplation and discussion about what should be done to assist military veterans.

John Berra, BS ’69, published Turning the Giant: Disrupting Your Industry With Persistent Innovation (Forbes Books, March 2024), in which he shares his life’s journey: a shy, uncertain university student who becomes the chairman of Emerson Process Management. In the book, he also reveals the giant challenges he faced along the way. Berra has received a Distinguished Alumni Award from the McKelvey School of Engineering. He is an emeritus member of the engineering school’s national council and has served on the Austin Regional Cabinet.

Lawrence Millman, AB ’67, published another book, Outsider: My Boyhood with Thoreau (Coyote Arts LLC, March 2024), his 22nd title.

Julie Wosk, AB ’66, is curating the exhibit Imaging Women in the Space Age on view at the Berkshire Museum in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, through Sept. 8 (and was previously at the New York Hall of Science). Wosk, a professor emerita at State University of New York, Maritime College, lives in Manhattan. She also has a summer home in the Berkshires, where she once enjoyed concerts with her late-husband, Bill. Her newest book, Artificial Women: Sex Dolls, Robot Caregivers, and More Facsimile Females, was published in April 2024 by Indiana University Press.

Robert J. Levy, MD, AB ’66, delivered the first Robert J. Levy Basic Science Lecture at “CARDIOLOGY 2024, the 27th Annual Update on Pediatric and Congenital Cardiovascular Disease,” in Scottsdale, Arizona. Levy, who is the William J. Rashkind Endowed Chair in Pediatric Cardiology at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, presented “The Role of the Serotonin Transporter in the Progression of Heart Valve Disease.” Levy is also professor of pediatrics and professor of systems pharmacology at the Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania.