Resolve to Return

Desktop Calendar for January

Welcome in 2011 by signing up for Alumni Weekend 2011!

Scheduled for May 12-15, the event is for the classes of 1961, 1966, 1971, 1976, 1981, 1986, 1991, and 1996. The Alumni Office has blocked hotel rooms and will notify alumni when these rooms are released for reservation. At the end of January, alumni will receive the Alumni Weekend information packet and will be notified of online registration .

In the meantime, you can whet your appetite for the activities by visiting the Alumni Weekend website, where you’ll find the schedule for the weekend and can participate in a straw poll to let people know you’re coming (and to see who else from your class is planning to attend).

And as long as you’re turning the page on a new year this weekend, don’t forget the W&L desktop calendars featuring photographs from the campus. You can have new computer wallpaper for every month of 2011. Just go to the Desktop Calendar page to download the images.

Have a safe and happy New Year!

Temple Cone’s New Book of Poems

Temple Cone

Temple Cone, of the Class of 1995, has published his second collection of poems. The Broken Meadow, which was published this fall, won the 2010 Old Seventy Press Poetry Series Contest. We wrote about Temple’s first collection, No Loneliness, in 2009.

Three of Temple’s poems have also been nominated for the Pushcart Prize by the magazines in which they were published: “Cleansing,” nominated by Off the Coast; “Offertory,” nominated by Poetry Kanto; and “Oneliness,” nominated by Beloit Poetry Journal

Temple is an associate professor of English at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis.

You can read some of Temple’s poems on his own website, Temple Cone, where he also blogs occasionally about topics ranging from Troy Polamalu’s Hair to Hip-Hop & Homer.

Farmer Matt

By day, Matt Strickler, of the Class of 2003, puts his Washington and Lee public policy major to work as the legislative assistant to Virginia State Senator Ralph S. Northam, a Democrat who represents District 6: the counties of Accomack, Mathews and Northampton and parts of Norfolk and Virginia Beach.

But in his spare time, Matt has become an oyster farmer on Virginia’s Eastern Shore. The Virginian-Pilot featured Old Plantation Oyster Company LLC, which Matt owns with a friend, Clark Mercer.

As the Pilot’s story relates, Matt studied aquaculture and sustainable development at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science, a branch of the College of William and Mary. The oyster farm venture is putting that academic background into practice on Old Plantation Creek near Cape Charles, at a site on his grandparents’ estate.

Although Matt has taken a few samples of the oysters to special events in the area, Old Plantation has not sold any of its oysters yet. They anticipate that the 150,000 oysters in their first batch should reach market size this spring.

The short video below by Brian Clark of The Virginian-Pilot features an interview with Matt about his hobby. Have a look.

Vodpod videos no longer available.

All in the Family

Hank '51, left, and Andy '91 Waters

In a time when many daily newspapers are closing their doors, the Columbia Daily Tribune in Columbia, Mo., is staying open, and in the family. First published in 1901, the paper has been owned by the Waters and Watson families since 1904 and is currently owned by W&L alumnus Hank Waters, of the class of 1951. Earlier this month, the paper announced an agreement that keeps its ownership  in the Waters family for the foreseeable future.

Under the agreement, Andy Waters, a 1991 W&L graduate, and his sister, Elizabeth — Hank’s two youngest children— are buying out four other family members to take full ownership of the newspaper and publishing company on Jan. 1, 2011.

Hank will become publisher emeritus and continue writing editorials while his wife, associate publisher Vicki Russell, will become publisher. Andy Waters gives up his current title as vice president for interactive media and becomes president and general manager. Hank’s two other children will retire.

Family newspapers don’t always stay in families. That fact was noted by the executive director of the Missouri Press Association in the Daily Tribune’s article on the ownership change. Doug Crews noted that “There are times when families, several individuals, can’t agree what to do in the future. The temptation is to throw up their hands and say, ‘Let’s sell the newspaper.’ ”

The decision clearly pleased Hank. In his column on Dec. 22, he wrote: “As the current reigning patriarch, I am proud of my descendants for working out a mutually agreeable transfer of Tribune ownership.” He went on to note that his columns will continue: “Through all of this, the owners have not been able to get rid of their aging meddler, the prolific if not always brilliant writer of this column.”

Andy, a journalism and mass communications major at W&L, had been a reporter with Associated Press prior to joining the family business in 1995.

Stories of the Semester

Iowa Connection

Sam Langholz '02

As new Iowa Governor-elect Terry Branstad fills positions in his new government, it’s clear that we’ll need to establish a Washington and Lee alumni chapter in the state capitol in Des Moines.

First, Gov.-elect Brandstad announced that he is retaining Donna Mueller, a 1979 graduate of the W&L School of Law, as chief executive officer of the giant Iowa Public Employees’ Retirement System. Gov.-elect Brandstad is keeping Donna in the post she has held since 2003. The IPERS system is a public pension fund for state and local government workers. It has more than 300,000 members, 2,200 participating employers, and assets in excess of $21 billion. The director of the independent agency is responsible for overseeing operations, investments and benefits paid through the program. Donna previously headed the Boston Retirement Board. In addition to her W&L law degree, she is a graduate of the John F. Kennedy School of Government’s Program for Senior Executives at Harvard University.

Then, one day later, the governor-elect named Sam Lanholz, a member of the Class of 2002, as the Iowa State Public Defender. A politics major at W&L, Sam received his law degree from the University of Iowa, where he was managing editor of the “Iowa Law Review.” He is the Founding President of the Iowa Lawyers Chapter of the Federalist Society and an active member of the Iowa State Bar Association. He has previously served as a prosecuting intern in the Muscatine County Attorney’s Office and judicial law clerk based in Des Moines for Judge Steven M. Colloton in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit. Prior to law school, Sam served as Chief Floor Assistant for then-U.S. House Majority Whip Roy Blunt (R-MO). He is currently an associate attorney at Davis, Brown, Koehn, Shores & Roberts, P.C. in Des Moines.

The Iowa State Public Defender coordinates legal representation for those who come under arrest and cannot afford their legal representation. Either the State Public Defender’s offices or private attorneys who are contracted by State Public Defender’s office provide the representation for these individuals.