Books
The Middle Place
There was standing room only in the Brown-Alley Room when Kelly Corrigan, W’89, brought her national book tour to the Richmond campus. One week off the press, her first book, The Middle Place, had debuted at No. 23 on The New York Times Best Sellers list.
The memoir hit stores in January under Hyperion’s Voice label. Barnes and Noble is featuring the book in its Discover Great New Writers Program, and the January issue of O, The Oprah Magazine called it “funny, scary and irresistibly exuberant” in a full-page plug. The Middle Place also was recommended by Elle, Good Housekeeping, and Glamour magazines.
Corrigan was diagnosed with stage-three breast cancer in 2004, an experience that altered her perception of what it means to be a daughter and a mother at the same time. Feeling more like a child than an adult, she instinctively called home to her parents. The plot thickened when her father was diagnosed with his second recurrence of cancer.
Richmond Alumni Magazine published portions of Corrigan’s story in the spring 2006 issue in a feature called “The Circus of Cancer.”
Other alumni books
Ambassador to the Kingdom of Wal-Mart. Richard Gottlieb, R’69. A strategic look at the changing landscape of sales.
A Field Guide to Office Technology. Ed Sobey, R’69. Trivia and background on everything from water coolers to laser printers.
Deadrise and Cross-planked. Larry Chowning, R’72. A history of wooden deadrise boat building and its role in Chesapeake Bay culture.
Haunted Richmond, The Shadows of Shockoe. Scott Bergman, R’88, and Sandi Bergman. A compilation of the Bergman’s ghost tour tales.
The Landings at Suvla Bay, 1915. Michael Mortlock, G’94. An in-depth analysis of British failure in the Gallipoli Campaign during World War I.
Lucia: Where You Are. Daniel S. Keenan, R’78. A trans-Atlantic, trans-cultural love story set during World War II.
State Fair of Virginia: More Than a Midway. Wayne Dementi, B’66, and Lou Ann Meadows Ladin. An illustrated history of the State Fair of Virginia.
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Notables
Spider sailor bound for summer Olympics
Sarah Mergenthaler, ’01, of New York and Amanda Clark will represent the United States in 470-class sailing at the summer Olympics in Beijing after winning the U.S. Olympic Trials in Long Beach, Calif.
The trials were a tight competition through the first 12 races, but Mergenthaler and Clark turned it up a notch in their final three races to win the women’s division by 14 points. They also finished three points ahead of the top men’s team.
Qualifying for the Olympics was their first goal. Now they are focused on winning a medal. During the next three months, they plan to train and compete in Spain, Italy, France, and Germany, followed by one month of preparation in China leading up to the Olympic Games Aug. 8–21. They post progress reports at teamgosail.org.
While at Richmond, Mergenthaler played soccer and was a two-time conference champion in the javelin. She also won the Fannie Crenshaw Scholarship for excellence in the classroom and in athletics. She graduated with a double major in business administration and sport management.
Times-Dispatch honors Howard’s achievements
The Richmond Times-Dispatch recently recognized A.E. Dick Howard, R’54 and H’84, among its “Virginians of Achievement in the 20th Century.”
Howard was executive director of the commission that wrote Virginia’s current constitution and directed the referendum campaign to ratify it. He is the White Burkett Miller Professor of Law and Public Affairs at the University of Virginia and one of five Rhodes Scholars who are graduates of Richmond.
“A legendary professor in Charlottesville, Howard has also spent much time advising emerging democracies around the globe about how to write their own constitutions,” wrote Brent Tarter in the Times-Dispatch. “These countries include Brazil, Hong Kong, the Philippines, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Romania, Russia, Albania, Malawi, and South Africa. The structure of democracy was invented by Orange County’s James Madison, and it is fitting that neighboring Albemarle’s Howard continues the tradition.”
Lees wins top prize for steeplechase photo
Douglas Lees, R’72, of Warrenton, Va., won the 2007 Media Eclipse Award for Photography with a picture of jockey Will Haynes and his horse, Navesink View.
The National Thoroughbred Racing Association presents Media Eclipse Awards each year to recognize outstanding media coverage of thoroughbred racing. Lees previously won the association’s top photography award in 1978.
“I’m just blown away to win again,” Lees says. “The most important thing about this photo is that both the horse and the rider were all right after the spill.”
The photograph was first published in the Fauquier Times-Democrat.
‘Cat chow lady’ wins founders award
Patsy Garrett Kokinacis, W’41, of Rancho Mirage, Calif., received the 2007 Founders Award from the California Desert Chorale in Palm Desert, Calif.
Known professionally as Patsy Garrett, Kokinacis has enjoyed a long and prolific career as a comedic actress. For many years, she danced the cha-cha-cha with various cats in Purina’s classic cat chow commercials. People still ask her if she is “the cat chow lady.”
In addition to acting in commercials, Kokinacis has appeared in dozens of movies and television shows. She starred as Mary Gruber in the first two Benji movies and played Mrs. Fowler, the nosy neighbor in Nanny and the Professor.
She was nominated for an Emmy Award for a guest-star appearance on Sanford and Son, and she appeared briefly in many other TV shows in the 1960s and 1970s, including My Three Sons, Ben Casey, Maude, Columbo, The Waltons, All in the Family, and Room 222.
Loving receives medal for Vietnam mission
John Loving, R’67 and GB’71, of Raleigh, N.C., has received a Silver Star for gallantry in action during a covert military operation near the Vietnam-Cambodia border in 1969.
Loving accompanied a group of South Vietnamese soldiers with orders to attack a Viet Cong outpost in Cambodia. They were greeted at the border by heavy gunfire and mortar attacks, and the South Vietnamese troops ran for cover while Loving and another American, Mack Rice, helped evacuate four injured soldiers.
“Loving got three medals from the South Vietnamese, including one for the operation in Cambodia, but for years heard nothing about the Silver Star,” according to a recent story in the Raleigh News & Observer. The subject came up a few years ago when Loving interviewed Rice for a book. (Rice had received a Bronze Star.)
Loving inquired about his medal, and received it in January after getting support from members of Congress and a statement from a lieutenant colonel who was familiar with the mission.
Schuler lands role on CBS soap opera
Actress Chauntee Schuler, ’03, is back in the spotlight as Bonnie McKechnie, convicted killer turned helpful lawyer, in As the World Turns.
Schuler and Joshua Walker, ’03, were the runners-up in the wedding competition on NBC’s Today show in 2006.
After a quiet wedding in UR’s Perkinson Recital Hall, Schuler returned to playing the lead role of Nala in Disney’s touring production of The Lion King. Previously, she had starred in an international tour of The Producers.
Now she is a regular on a CBS soap opera that has aired since 1956.
“Some people look down on soap operas, but they have a great tradition on television,” she told The Free Lance-Star in her hometown of Fredericksburg. “These stories following families through time are a tradition dating back to Shakespeare.”
