YHS '70 Profiles
YHS '70 Classmates
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Mary Offutt (Offutt)
| Marital status: | Married |
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| Children: | 2 |
| Occupation: | Nurse/paramedic |
| Comment: | Today I'm in a place that has become some sort of sanctuary for city dwellers excaping covid. I arrived 44 years ago to a much much different place. Even then, I was turned off by what Arlington was becoming, and I'm seeing the same sort of changes here. I've sampled a little of everything and ended up with lots of stories. I have no particular expertise. I've enjoyed travel, mother to two scient/math nerd boys and stepmom to a male, female and transman. Most of all I treasure the life I have which is full of all kinds of interesting people and beauty all around me. My brush with fame was eating lobsters with Archibald Cox and his wife Phyllis. They were 70 at the time. My best stories are from 18 years doing emergency medical work on a bridged island known for its lobster fishery. I currently work half time as school nurse and have taken up restoring a few 40s vintage refrigerators. |
Jay Orr
| Marital status: | Married |
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| Children: | 3 |
| Occupation: | writer / editor / curator for the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum |
| Comment: | Yorktown friends, I know great things were expected of me, but I gave my life to hillbilly music. Attended William & Mary 70-74. Spent one of those years in Brighton, England (was not a pinball wizard). Music director for college radio station WCWM; Got a master's degree in Library and Information Science at UNC-Chapel Hill; took courses in folklore while I was in Chapel Hill. Hosted a morning drive show (before Morning Edition existed) and a Saturday night folk music show, "Back Porch Music," on public radio station WUNC. Played "Mystery Train" on a classical music show the day Elvis died. Was stalked by an anonymous caller and listener who wanted to meet me at a "bistro" in Durham after my show. Asked me to play "Misty" for her. Told her it didn't fit the format. Signed on in 1979 to do summer fieldwork with singers and musicians and other "tradition bearers" in West Tennessee, documenting the local culture around two Tennessee State Parks. Connected with the Center for Southern Folklore, rode down to Como / Senatobia, in my native Mississippi, on Labor Day weekend, 1979, went to Othar Turner's house for fife and drum music and barbecued goat. Felt like I was in an exotic jungle. Moved to Memphis later in 1979 to work at the Center for Southern Folklore. After a little more than a year (during which I was a regular at shows by Tav Falco's Panther Burns, with LX Chilton on guitar--raise your hand if you know who I mean--at the Well, later known as the Antenna Club; and at appearances by the fabulous blues band the Fieldstones at Green's Lounge) I went back to old DC at the dawn of the 80s. Stevie Wonder had me tore up from the floor up, I had heard Prince (knew he would be a star) on famous Black radio station WDIA in Memphis, whose alumni DJs included Riley "Blues Boy" King and Rufus Thomas, while I resided in the Bluff City, and Michael Jackson was about to scale "the wall." In DC I shared a large house with four other kind folks on Capitol Hill, across the street from Library of Congress's Adams Building. I ate at the Tune Inn on Pennsylvania Avenue on a regular basis, mentioned the place in some Patsy Cline liner notes. I freelanced for the American Folklife Center--I would later be offered a permanent gig in the Archive of Folk Culture--and for the National Endowment for the Arts Folk Arts program. Offered a job at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum in Nashville, I took it, moved south and started writing local live music reviews on the side for a muzik biz publication. Tennessee was the featured state in the Smithsonian's annual Festival of American Folklife in 1986 on the national mall. Recruited a band of rockabilly artists to play as part of the Tennessee offerings. The group included Sonny Burgess ("Red-Headed Woman"), Stan Kesler (wrote songs for Elvis and Charlie Feathers and produced the hit single "Wooly Bully" for Sam the Sham and the Pharoahs) and J. M. Van Eaton, who played drums on Jerry Lee's "Great Balls of Fire," "Whole Lot of Shaking Going On," and Billy Lee Riley's "Flying Saucers Rock & Roll." They booked a gig at the VFW Hall that would become the "Twist and Shout" club in Bethesda, and Dylan came out to see them. I got to meet "His Bobness." Bassist Marcus Van Storey swore he had never heard of Bob Dylan, That's country. Corner me at the reunion and I will tell you a funny story about another time when a rockabilly artist, Billy Lee Riley, and I were thwarted by Dylan. On Ju ly 27, 1986, I married Judy Komisky, a Nashville native who is now head of Catholic Charities of Tennsee and a whole lot smarter than me. The mathematicians among you can see that that totals THIRTY-FIVE YEARS. I got mentioned in Rolling Stone a couple of times for liner notes I had written, and after several tries, landed a job as a music writer at the afternoon paper, the Nashville Banner. Needed money, though, so I tried to quit to go out to cable channel TNN as a flack. Newspaper publisher wouldn't hear of it. Matched the TNN offer, and I worked at the Banner until Gannett forced the shut down of the Banner in February 1998. I was one of four Banner columnists hired to move to the Tennesseean. Twice voted Best Music Writer in Nashville by readers of the weekly Nashville Scene. Country Music Association Media Achievement Award in 1997 (which might mean they' had me in their pocket). Diagnosed with Parkinson's disease eight years ago and don't give a damn. I won't be hard to corner at the reunion, and when you talk to me, I may just drool. There are many other stories. It has been a full life. I am going to quit and submit this now. I may come back to it. Oh yeah, I have three wonderful boys. The oldest, my stepson Daniel Green, is married and lives with his family in Simpsonville, SC. The other two boys live here in Nashville. Patrick is a musician. I can hook you up with some music if you're curious. And Will was a hockey all-star and captain in high school and works at a music venue where the old Marathon Car Works used to be. I interviewed Carl Perkins in front an audience years ago, and he cried. I say, quoting Carl in an earlier era, "rave on children, I'm with ya, rave on, cats, he cried, it's almost dawn and the cops are gone, let's all get dixie-fried." |
Lizanne Payne
| Marital status: | Married |
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| Children: | 2 |
| Occupation: | Library IT, now retired |
| Comment: | After Yorktown, I went to Smith College for undergrad. I wasn’t brave enough to try UVA in that pioneering class that accepted women, so I went totally the opposite direction to a women’s college. I loved it there and made life-long friends. My first job after college was at the American Revolution Bicentennial Administration, where they offered me a job as a trainee computer programmer. Hmm, English major, did not want to teach, they will train me in a marketable skill? Okay! This set me on the road to my entire career primarily in library IT. In 1979 I got an M.L.S. from the University of Maryland and worked in a progression of jobs including the National Library of Medicine and OCLC, culminating with 20 years as Executive Director of the Washington (DC) Research Library Consortium. During that time I also got an Executive MBA from George Washington University in 2005. For my final 10 years of working, I worked from home consulting and project-managing for university libraries around the country who were planning joint programs to share and preserve their print library collections. I retired in early 2019. I lived most of my life in Arlington until a few years ago. I have been married twice: first to Ken from 1980 to 2001, with whom I have two children who grew up in Arlington and also went to Yorktown (Brian YHS 2003 and Molly YHS 2006). In 2007 I married my second husband Chris, who has two daughters living in Philadelphia. In 2014 we moved here to Richmond (Midlothian) to stay close to Brian’s family of (now) 5 children. We love living here in Richmond (more than we expected to) but Arlington will always be home. My daughter lives in Ballston and had her first child in September 2020, so I know I'll be spending a lot more time in Arlington (after the pandemic, at least). I look forward to seeing all of you at the reunion! |
Roger Pratt
| Marital status: | Married |
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| Children: | 3 |
| Occupation: | Real Estate Consultant |
| Comment: | After Yorktown I attended the College of William and Mary where as a freshman in 1970 I met my wife to be, Claire Alderman (who attended McLean High School). At W&M I devised an interdisciplinary major in Urban Studies. Claire and I married in 1975 and she pursued a career in early childhood education. I went on to graduate school at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and received a Master of Regional Planning in 1976. Subsequently I worked in environmental and community planning at Cape Hatteras National Seashore and the State of North Carolina where I learned about the workings of government and the perils of political power from 1976 to 1980. I did pottery during this period as a form of work therapy. I subsequently returned to UNC to earn an MBA focused on commercial real estate finance. During the early years of our marriage, Claire and I had three children: David, 1979, Andrew 1982, and Mary 1984. After graduating from UNC again in 1982, I embarked on a career in institutional real estate investment management at Prudential Real Estate Investors (PREI) that began in their Atlanta regional office. Over the course of my 32 year career there, most of which was spent in the New Jersey corporate headquarters, I became a Senior Portfolio Manager and Managing Director and served on the firm's Global Investment and Management Committees. After I retired from PREI in 2014, Claire and I relocated to Washington DC where we live in a cooperative apartment building near Dupont Circle. Serendipitously, all three of my adult children and their spouses ended up living in Northern Virginia -- two in Alexandria, one in Falls Church. We are blessed to have seven grandchildren ranging in age from 1 to 6 years old (six boys and one girl). Fortunately everyone gets along, so it's wonderful to have the whole family nearby! I continue to work part-time as Senior Advisor to a Chinese real estate investment fund and as a Board Member for the Sila Realty Trust, which specializes in healthcare properties and datacenters. Claire and I enjoy traveling internationally and I am an avid collector of ethnic and tribal textiles which has provided me a way of learning about places and cultures around the world that didn't get much attention at Yorktown. I am also active in the museum world and serve on the Board of Directors of the George Washington University Museum and the Textile Museum, located on the GW campus. |
Marilyn Richardson (Taylor)
| Marital status: | Married |
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| Occupation: | Retired Early Childhood Special Education Teacher |
| Comment: | SEPTEMBER 1970...............Off to college at Kansas State University In Between: Graduated with BS in Early Childhood Education Graduated with MS in Special Education Preschool teacher in faith based preschool Educational Director at center for abused and neglected children Married Bill Richardson Early Childhood Disability teacher at Olathe Public Schools, Olathe, KS Curriculum Specialist at Olathe Public Schools, Olathe KS Pursued interest in: Travel......French Bulldogs........Cooking........Grandchildren.......Lots of Other Things Retired in 2011.....love the flexibility and freedom SEPTEMBER 2020...............Retired living in Olathe, Kansas |
Chris Ripper
| Marital status: | Married |
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| Children: | 2 |
| Occupation: | Forensic Accountant |
| Comment: | Graduated from East Carolina in 1974 Returned to D.C. and worked for Arthur Andersen Helped start Peterson & Co. in 1980 Helped start Barrington Consulting Group in 1990 Married Phyllis in 1986 Had Emily in 1990 Had Nathan in 1992 Moved to a farm outside Charlottesville in 1996 Raising kids, farming and recreation since I look forward to seeing everybody at the reunion. The reunions I’ve attended in the past were a lot of fun and our 50th will be bigger and better. |
Craig Sampson
| Marital status: | Married |
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| Children: | 2 |
| Occupation: | Retired |
| Comment: | I worked part time as a welder/mechanic building industrial refrigeration equipment while a student at North Carolina State University. I have lived in Raleigh, NC ever since. BS North Carolina State University 1974 I taught industrial arts, electronics and woodworking, in a Cary, North Carolina (a suburb of Raleigh) middle school for 2 years after graduation. I worked in a cabinet shop for 6 years after resigning from teaching. This started out as a summer job after my second year of teaching. But by the end of the summer, I was making almost twice what I was as a teacher so I resigned from Wake County Schools. I worked 2 years as a trim carpenter after leaving the cabinet shop while going back to NC State at night. I got my second degree from NCSU in Computer Science in 1981. I was hired by SAS Institute Inc. (largest privately owned software company in the world) in May 1982. I retired from SAS at the end of May 2018 after 35 years of writing code to support the publications division. When I first started at SAS, I wrote code to drive the typesetter for producing books, documentation and user’s guides and company magazines. As publishing technology changed over the years my support evolved resulting in me spending the last 10+ years producing online documentation. Married the first time May 1973. Divorced 1993. Married the second time, second time’s the charm, May 1999. Two children. Ben, first marriage. Jason, step son from second marriage. We're enjoying retirement with time to travel, work on hobbies, and visit the gym every day we’re not travelling. Since retiring we’ve visited Europe, cruised around South America, and cruised to Antarctica. |
Ray Sears
| Marital status: | Married |
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| Children: | 3 |
| Occupation: | retired |
| Comment: | Greetings- After receiving a BSEE at Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh I spent 8 years in the Army Signal Corps. The Army paid for MBA, Univ of Utah. Then 17 years with Halliburton Co. designing oil well cementing instruments. We had fun living on Cape Cod during the dot.com boom and bust 20 years ago while running a dial-up internet service provider. Then finished up my engineering career back in Oklahoma working for Northrop Grumman at Tinker AFB on mission planning software for long range flights. My wife and I are enjoying retirement living near our three daughters and granddaughter in Oklahoma City. |
Michael Smith
| Marital status: | Married |
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| Children: | 2 |
| Occupation: | Retired Airline Pilot |
| Comment: | I attended the USAF Academy for one year then transferred to UVa and graduated in January of 1975. Knocked around a couple of years, married Jeanne Wolfe (Yorktown '72) and started in the Air Force as an Aircraft Maintenance Officer living in Madrid, Spain. Got into Flight School and flew F-16's in Utah, Las Vegas, and Phoenix until getting on with American Airlines in 1986 flying 727's, DC-10's, 757's and 767's. Worked within the pilot union helping pilots with drug and alcohol problems before becoming Chief Pilot of our DFW crew base. 'Meanwhile I married Mrs. Smith #2 (Linda) and had two wonderful daughters, before Mrs. Smith #3 (Adrienne) who I continue to share my life with today. 'I'm retired now, favorite grandparent to 4 beautiful kids, working with some great friends on car and airplane restorations in Denton Texas. I still work in pilot recovery and recently celebrated 32 years of sobriety. |
Kenneth Straus
| Marital status: | Committed Relationship |
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| Children: | 1 |
| Occupation: | retired |
| Comment: | 1970-1974 Oberlin College, Oberlin Ohio, B.A. Major History Minor Political Science 1974-1979 Boston MA. Truck Driver, Insurance Rater, Shipyard Welder 1979-1980 UMass Boston, Russian Language and Norwich University Russian Language Program 1980-1982 University of Pennsylvania MA, History, Russian and European 1983-1990 University of Pennsylvania PhD, History, Russian and European 1990-1997 Binghamton University, Assistant Professor History, Russian 1997 Publication Factory and Community in Stalin's Russia; the Making of an Industrial Working Class (University of Pittsburgh Press, 1997) 1998-2003 Software QA Engineer, New England 2004-2007 High School Teacher, History, Lawrence and Winchester MA 2008-2016 Adjunct Professor History, UMass Lowell, North Shore CC, and NECC 2017 - Retirement in Exeter New Hampshire. Enjoying New England. Writing a second book, tentative title "The Dictatorship of the Proletariat; A Short History of Communism over the Long Twentieth Century" I get back to Arlington Virginia periodically. My brother Ira still lives there, but I have lost touch with most all of my Yorktown High School friends. So, I am looking forward to reacquainting myself in August 2021. |