Class Notes

Karen Fairbank, LA71, LW75, GR84, retired in May 2022 from Thomas Jefferson School, a coed day and boarding college prep school in St. Louis, after 38 years as director of college counseling, an advanced placement U.S. history and English teacher, and director of student activities. Nearly 200 alumni, parents, current students, staff and friends attended her retirement party. Fairbank plans to help with costumes for theater productions at the school, where she started the drama program. She is also volunteering as a St. Louis Zoo ambassador, serves on the volunteer board at The Rep, and is a substitute teacher in the Clayton school district and John Burroughs School, where she was a student teacher in 1984.

Norman Pressman, LA70, LW74, an attorney at Goldstein & Pressman PC, Clayton, Mo., wrote an opinion piece on the Great Resignation that appeared in the St. Louis Business Journal (https://bizj.us/1qdg5r). In the piece, he suggests a rising-tide-floats-all-boats solution: provide a living wage for all, universal health care and affordable housing.  

George Johannes, AR70, GA73, is a practicing architect and teaches professional practice in the Graduate School of Architecture & Urban Design in the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts at WashU.

Ron Adair, FA70, had his illustrated artwork, “America’s Favorite Pastime — The Art of Ron Adair,” on display at Ebsco Fine Art Gallery, Columbiana, Ala., from May-June 2022. The exhibit featured a collection of museum production prints of Adair’s baseball portraits along with the baseball cards they appeared on, as well as several oil paintings and a portrait of Hank Aaron that Adair painted for the exhibit.

Frederick Scott, GA68, retired in December 2020 after 45 years at HBE Corporation, St. Louis, where during his career he worked on some 2,000 health-care, financial and hospitality projects across the country.

Charles “Chuck” Ortner, LA67, retired as a partner at Proskauer Rose LLP after 50 years representing leading music creators such as Lady Gaga, Madonna, John Legend and Michael Jackson, as well as major recording and music publishing companies. He remains a board member of several nonprofits and will continue as an executive producer of film and TV projects. Ortner is the husband of the late Jane Gold Ortner, LA67, and the father of Amy Ortner Mandell, LA94, and Eric Ortner, a 1998 graduate of the University of Rochester.

Perci Chester, FA67, had an exhibition of his new sculptures and works on paper, “Othering Mothering: Detonation of a Notion,” on display at the Traffic Zone Center for Visual Art in Minneapolis, September-October 2022.

Charlotte McDaniel, LA65, received a grant from the U.S. Department of State’s Citizen Diplomacy Action Fund to assist Tunisian olive plantation owners in enhancing production and marketing of their crop. Tunisia’s economy depends heavily on olive oil, which accounts for almost half of the country’s food exports. McDaniel, who held a Fulbright appointment to Tunisia in 2012, serves as faculty scholar at Emory University’s Center for the Study of Law and Religion.

Ivan Sherick, GR64, published Development, Psychopathology, and Treatment Techniques Across the Life-Span, A Psychoanalytic Perspective (IP Books, 2020). The book is for students and professionals. It explains the psychoanalytic issues involved in language accessible and available to all. Clinical examples are provided, and recommended readings are included at the end.

Robert D. Brooks, LA59, has taken up full-time residence in Connestee Falls, near Brevard, N.C., after the passing of his wife, Kathleen Swann Brooks.