REGIS

REGIS HIGH SCHOOL | page 14 SPRING 2007 | page 15
me with an offer to give and ship all four of
Bob’s Class Yearbooks to any member of the
class who might have lost or mislaid them. Bill
Storz, happily, took Charlie up on the offer. Bill
in an E-mail noted: “In our 14 Navy moves (with
4 kids) my Regis year books never made it to
the 14th move so I haven’t had them for some
28 years. I called Charlie Schneider … and he
is going to send me the year books.” Dave
O’Keeffe received a wonderful 25 th wedding
anniversary present in January, a letter from The
Eugene O’Neill Theater Center in Waterford,
Connecticut. His play, Just A Few Pennies Down,
has been selected from 600 submissions as a
semi-finalist for consideration in this summer’s
National Playwrights Conference. If his play is
one of the eight chosen, he will receive a stipend,
travel, room and board for the month of July
where a director and cast will work on developing
the script. Dave writes: “I’m still pinching myself
to see if this is some wild imagining of mine, but
even if I don’t get to the finals I feel that I have
at least written a half way decent comedy.” Rest
assured, Dave, we are all pulling for you. Claudia
and Joe Garon spent February and March in
Florida after returning from a cruise on which
they circumnavigated Cape Horn. Al Pinado
and his wife Pat in September and October
cruised the Greek Isles. On December 15 th Al
observed his 75 th birthday but the celebration
was deferred until the first week of January when
three of his four children joined in the festivities.
Ken Keating sent the following glad tidings: “On
January 9, 2007 my wife Connie and I became
grandparents for the third time. Our daughterin-law,
Ingrid gave birth to a healthy baby girl,
Isabella Keating. Our son, Raymond, is the proud
father. For Raymond and Ingrid, Isabella is their
first child.” Raymond last fall was promoted to
the position of Director of Project Organization
at the New York Mercantile Exchange and
Ingrid is a Vice-President for Sales, Marketing
and Trading in the Banknotes Department of
the international bank HSBC. Rolanda Keene,
daughter of Ed Romary has done it again – she
has located another of our missing classmates,
Richard Geruson. To contact Rich, you can
write to him care of his son Gregory Geruson,
1008 Cypress Rd, Jenkintown, PA 19046-3806.
1950
William Allingham, 5 Jill Drive,
Holmdel, NJ 07733, allingb2@yahoo.com
Marie and Warren C. Nolan celebrated their
50 th wedding anniversary on Nov. 24, 2006. Their
8 th grandchild, Emily Marie, was born in Virginia
on Jan. 19 th . Tom Farrelly has been in Seattle
four years now. It’s far from NYC, but he’s seen a
number of Regians come through including Jack
Corrigan. Donald O’Brien writes: “On 5/28/06,
St. Eleanor and I celebrated a dual anniversary-
50 years of marriage and my 23 rd anniversary of
ordination to the Diaconate. Present were 6 of
our 8 children and all 16 grandchildren. So too,
Laura and Rich Donovan. It was a glorious day.
God is good.” We are sad to report the passing
of Richie Hughes on February 24, 2007. We
offer our deepest condolences to Roberta, and to
Richie’s 10 children and 23 grandchildren. May
he rest in peace.
1951
Donal McCarthy, 22 Shorehaven Ln., Manhasset,
NY 11030-1826, finbarr@optonline.net
Joseph D. Saccio’s first year of retirement
has been less than satisfactory. Surgery on his
left foot has terminated his mountaineering at
least for the time being- the eventual outcome is
uncertain. Still, he’s able to work at his sculpture
studio everyday and that goes well. He says he
misses caring for patients but his second career
as a sculptor makes up for that loss. The 55 th year
party, sponsored by an anonymous benefactor,
was held in December. Attending (most with
spouses) were Rich Meyer, Tom Fahey, Don
Butterfield, Joe Saccio, Don McCarthy,
Jack Higgins, John Lawler (retired from
engineering, but teaching math at St. Thomas
Aquinas College), Bill O’Connor, Bob Walsh,
Don DeMarco, Jack Reilly, Jim O’Rourke,
Bill Foote (recently retired), Peter Mullany,
Dave LaBelle, Hank Kensing, Bernie Tracey,
John Ryan, and Ken Hellwig all of whom
are located in the greater metropolitan area.
Chris Connell ’67, John Dunleavy, chairman of the NYC St. Patrick’s Day Parade, and Greg D’Alessio ’62
at Gadsby’s Tavern in Alexandria, VA
This year’s cooperative weather also brought
Bill Hanrahan and Bob Cavalier from their
upstate haunts. (This account is from memory;
apologies to anyone we left out and, as usual,
apologies to all the unnamed wives.) Where was
everybody else? Herewith a few items that your
preoccupied reporter omitted from previous
Prowlings: Agnes and Sal Rand celebrated their
50th wedding anniversary last summer. (Agnes
was Sal’s date for the Regis senior prom.) Their
children surprised them with a week at the
Jersey Shore, and all five children, their spouses
and nine grandchildren attended. One highlight
of the week was a mass celebrated at a church
in Wildwood Crest, during which they were
presented with a scroll signed by Pope Benedict.
The Summer/Fall 2006 edition of the St. John’s
University Alumni Magazine recognized Rich
Meyer with a cover story that briefly discussed
his career but focused on his good works,
specifically his substantial help in funding some
of the capital costs and operations of Boys Hope
Girls Hope, a unique residential program for
promising students from bad neighborhoods or
unstable family situations. (Rich’s generosity has
had a far wider sweep than what was mentioned
in the St. John’s article; as we know, he has also
done a lot for Regis and for Calvary Hospital.)
In October, Don McCarthy received the Silver
Beaver award from the Theodore Roosevelt
Council of the Boy Scouts. This is the highest
award a scout council can bestow on a volunteer
leader. Don has been in Scouting for all but ten
of the last 62 years, having originally joined
as a boy in 1944. Dick Backe sent an email to
the class requesting prayers for John Burke. I
have since spoken to John. After an operation a
couple of years ago, he had a recurrence in 2006
of two chordomas. If they do not grow in size, he
won’t need an operation. He goes in for an MRI
periodically, and – thus far – has had no growth.
He is nevertheless in some pain and is unable to
travel. I join with Dick in urging your prayers.
Kudos to Bill Foote, who has been doing a
nice job of keeping up and circulating the everchanging
email address list of ’51. Many of us
depend on him quite a bit. (This marks the end
of McCarthy’s class notes.)
1952
James McGough, 12 Highland Ave., Sleepy Hollow,
NY 10591, jamcgough@optonline.net
Charles A. Lynch writes: “I retired from the New
Jersey Commerce Economic Growth & Tourism
Commission on January 31, 2006 after eight
years as Account Executive for the NJ chemical
industry. Marilyn, my spouse, retired on 3/31/06
from the NJ Dept of Health & Senior Services
after 23 years as Program Manager in the US/
DA-funded WIC programs.” John Keutmann’s
first grandson, John, was commissioned as a 2LT
in the Army at Arizona State in August. He’s at
Fort Rucker, Alabama learning to fly helicopters.
His dad, John, is a Captain with SWA and his
uncle, Kevin, flies the airbus for FedEx. Ed Kelly
is still working full-time at the Way Group, an
international human resources management
consulting firm. Unfortunately they have not sent
him overseas on an assignment. He’s also still on
the board of a concert/orchestra series. He and
Kathy enjoy their grandchildren (all nearby) and
overseas traveling (Salzburg and Ireland this
year). George Lardner is working on a book
as an associate at the Center for the Study of
the Presidency. He was awarded a residency in
August at the Rockefeller Foundation’s Bellagio
Center. May the 16th marks the 55th anniversary
of our graduation from Regis. It is more than
appropriate that we come together once again
to celebrate that auspicious happenings in our
young lives and the happy friendships that
evolved at 84th Street. The 16th of May (no
matter what day of the week!) has become our
tradition, under the leadership of Gerry Loftus,
to gather for dinner in Manhattan. The venue for
many years was the Back Porch restaurant, which
over time some felt was rather compressed and
not very conducive to easy mingling. Last year,
we met at DoTomasso - excellent Italian cuisine,
private room, BUT expensive when New York
prices for wine and desserts were factored into
the final tab. I’ve floated the idea with some of
the Class about having this year’s commoration
at my home in Sleepy Hollow, Westchester
County. It’s about a 50 minute train ride from
Grand Central Station. Rose and I would be
delighted to be hosts. Our house permits an easy
flow for folks to move about. If Mother Nature
cooperates with warm weather, we could enjoy
our comfortable back porch (no reference to the
restaurant) or spread into the back yard. Dinner
would be catered, along with whatever form
of sarsaparilla folks might prefer. It’s an easy
format, and certainly less expensive per person
than DaTomasso or most other restaurants in
Manhattan. Because our 55th is literally a oncein-a-lifetime
special event, the feeling has been
expressed that wives and significant others
(including children and grandchildren, should
they be interested) definitely join in the evening’s
festivities. Some guidance is sought, please:
1. May 16th is a Wednesday. Should we advance
the gathering forward to the Friday, Saturday
or Sunday of May 11, 12 or 13? Or, perhaps slip
it back to May 18, 19 or 20? What might prove
easier for travelling considerations versus other
commitments? 2. Who might be interested
in carpooling from Long Island, Manhattan,
Jersey. Westchester, Hudson Valley? 3. Who
might be interested in driving? 4. Who might
prefer to come by train (Harry DeMaio and
Frank Neeson have volunteered to Run a “taxi”
service fom the Philipse Manor train station to
our home for those who are unable or prefer not
to walk the five-minute distance) Incidentally,
train service runs every hour from GCT and
back to GCT. Please let me know your interest
and your thoughts: jamccgough@optonline.net
1953
Thomas Hickey, 474 Kossuth St., Paramus,
NJ 07652, tjhickey@warpdriveonline.com
Bob Mulligan is busy enjoying his six
grandchildren- ages 6 ½ to 2 years, 4 boys
and 2 girls. He even finds time for tennis and
skiing. In addition to his teaching duties at St.
Peter’s College, Tony Aracich also acts as copastor
of a Jersey City parish that boasts not
one, but two churches. (John Sullivan, take
note.) The first, St. Patrick’s Church, was built
by Irish immigrants 140 years ago and is listed
in the National Register of Historic Places;
its parishioners are predominantly black and
Haitian. The second, Assumption and All Saints
Due to a faculty absence, Alumni Director Jack Prael ’63 fills in as homeroom advisor for an unsuspecting
group of Regians
Church, was created by an earlier merger of
two parishes bearing those names and whose
parishioners were originally Polish and Slovak
but are now predominantly Spanish-speaking
Central Americans. “Keeps me moving,” Tony
adds. Tom Hickey’s daughter, Rebecca Lainovic,
was recently elected to the Board of Trustees of
her alma mater, Providence College. Jim Shea
is an active member of the St. Charles (Arlington
VA) Advocacy Committee. The group sends
weekly e-mail newsletters on social justice issues
to 100 or so parish subscribers who are inclined
to advocate on behalf of these causes. Jim has
been concentrating on affordable housing and
homelessness issues but also contributes to
other areas of interest such as international
affairs. In a recent message, for example, he
wrote an article about the Buckingham Villages
affordable housing redevelopment in Arlington.
He also arranged for inclusion of an article on an
upcoming Just War Symposium sponsored by the
Arlington Diocese and arranged by a Georgetown
University group. Another affordable housing
project to which Jim has contributed is the
Clarendon Baptist Church’s Clarendon Views,
approved last month by the Arlington County
Board. The Views project will provide 70 badlyneeded
affordable apartments located close to a
Metro station, shopping, and restaurants as well
as convenient employment opportunities. The
mix of apartments will enable low-to-moderate
income disabled and working individuals and
families to have a safe, decent and affordable
place to live. The tenants will include teachers,
police, firefighters and other public servants who
have been increasingly priced out of the Arlington
housing market. Kathy and Brian Fitzgerald
celebrated their fifth anniversary recently. Their
combined family includes seven children and
eleven grandchildren. Kathy is recovering nicely
from knee replacement surgery and hopes to be
back, pretty close to normal for the golf season.
Brian reports, “Kathy has been teaching me to
golf, but I’m a slow learner. I’m hoping this will be
the year I break 100!” Pete Hamill’s new novel,
North River, will be released in early June by
Little, Brown and Company. The novel tells a love
story set on the Lower West Side with the City
in the grips of the Great Depression. In a panel
discussion sponsored by the Lower East Side
Tenement Museum in early March, Pete and
five other well-known New Yorkers discussed
the question of how the Irish shaped New York:
an appropriate run-up to our City’s St. Patrick’s
Day celebration. At the annual public meeting
of the Académie française in Paris on November
30, 2006, Ron Tobin was awarded the Grand
Prize for the promotion of French language and
literature throughout the world. The prize took
the form of a medal “en vermeille”, which (for
us non-Francophiles) means silver on the inside
and gold on the outside. The ceremony itself
was very formal, as befits an institution founded
in 1635 under the Bourbon monarchy. A total of
60 prizes were given, but only 25 were “Grands
Prix”. This is the first Grand Prize that the
Académie has bestowed on an American in ten
years and the first ever to a faculty member of the
University of California. While in Washington,
DC, for a meeting, Ron had supper with Phyllis
and Jim Shea at their home. He notes that “Not
only is Phyllis a great cook and Jim a connoisseur
of wine, but Phyllis entertained us with, among
other melodies, the Regis anthem, from memory,
on the violin. Her first musical love, the violin
has now reentered her life as she plays one of
the two that the Sheas own - and she is very
talented. Her passion [for the violin] warmed
us all on a cold northeastern night.” Ron also
alerted us to a national television appearance on
The People’s Court by Joe Barbosa as a friend
of the victorious defendant. According to Joe, the
whole thing “was a gas! My best pal runs a group
house and was sued because she did not carry
Direct TV.” The parties agreed to have the case
tried on People’s Court, instead of Small Claims
Court in Nassau County. “So instead of going
out there several times for nothing, we were
picked up by a limo, got made up, shot [with a
camera] etc. in about 3 hours, and Lila received
$500 for defending successfully. The limo drove
5 of us (including her witnesses) to lunch, at
which we spent about $250 of her award.” Our
most recent class gathering at Mario’s on Arthur