Class Notes

Elma Kanefield, SW76, wrote and self-published Hamlet’s Mirror: Reaching Your Performance Potential Onstage and Off(September 2022), designed to help empower performers and restore their mental health. In the book, Kanefield recounts fictionalized anecdotes of real performers and experiences of hundreds of performing artists to explain why some fail to reach their performance potential and others succeed.

Ellen Barker, LA76, published her first novel, East of Troost (She Writes Press, September 2022). The book tells the story of a fictional narrator who after personal tragedy moves back to her childhood home in the Kansas City, Mo., East of Troost neighborhood. The 50ish woman finds her old neighborhood, which she left to attend WashU in 1972, radically changed, and she must deal with crime, home repair, self-doubt and the skepticism of her neighbors and relatives. Barker writes that, unlike the protagonist, she and her husband, Tom Shoup, GR77, GR81, are “sort of retired and living in Northern California.”

Rick Welker, EN75, is leading an active retired life of traveling, dining, cycling, hiking and caring for and enjoying his pets.

Richard Smith, GB73, wrote and self-published Within the Ivory Tower(September 2022), a satirical look inside institutions of higher education.

Albert Ip, EN73, was appointed to the court of City University in Hong Kong in January 2022 and the court of Hong Kong University of Science and Technology in September. His three other 2022 appointments were as senior adviser to the dean of the School of Business and Management, chairman of the business school’s Career Development Advisory Council, and adviser to the Finance and Strategic Planning Committee of Eagle Asset Management.

Lawrence Altman, EN73, was part of a successful grant application to the United States Department of Education to prepare and increase the number of mental health professionals in Oklahoma’s rural schools. Altman was also appointed a legal consultant to the board overseeing the grant.

Bruce Levenson, LA71, was named chairperson of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum’s 30th anniversary commemoration, to be held April 20 in Washington, D.C.

Joseph Heyman, GR71, GR75, in 2022 was inducted into NASA’s Langley Research Center Hall of Honor, a prestigious accomplishment. The 105-year-old center has had more than 10,000 employees, only 60 of whom have been tapped for this recognition. Heyman’s visionary work as an inventor and leader in nondestructive evaluation to test aircraft and spacecraft materials and structures made an impact on NASA Langley and helped the space shuttle fleet safely return to flight after accidents. He retired in 2002 as Langley’s senior technologist.

Michael Weiner, LA69, LW73, authored In My Expert Opinion: Becoming an Effective Expert in the Financial Services Industry (Luminare Press, 2018). The book, his first, followed his long career in securities, futures and derivative law that began in 1973 at the now-defunct Commodity Exchange Authority. Prior to his retirement from Bates Group, LLC, Weiner served as an expert witness in state and federal courts. A frequent traveler in search of scuba opportunities, he lives in Portland, Ore., with his wife, Kathy.

J. Clay Singleton, LA69, was honored by Rollins College in Winter Park, Fla., with the endowment of the Singleton and Orchid Chair in Finance. Now retired, Singleton taught at the college’s Crummer Graduate School of Business, where he was the George D. and Harriet W. Cornell Professor of Finance from 2002 to 2020. Singleton and his wife, Kathy, live in Ocoee, Fla.