Ginny Bellinger Ollis
Do read the fall 2018 MAINE Alumni Magazine — add to your strut. Of course you love the University of Maine, but this magazine will puff even the biggest chest! Did you know that UMaine is featured as one of the best and most interesting colleges by the Fiske-Guide and the Princeton Review? Cited were the university’s safety, reasonable costs, strong academic programs and faculty, and welcoming environment. Stories told of outstanding students who passed on other perhaps more prominent schools to come to Maine, where they had the exposure and support to find their true passion and highest success. The Princeton Review pointed out that UMaine scored highest in several areas such as student engagement, political awareness, and quality of residence halls, as well as the Career Center — and the magazine produces page after page of excellent data, in sports, academic, and business and service pinnacles.
V. Paul Reynolds and his wife of 54 years, Diane Davis Reynolds, wrote a wonderful letter. They live on Branch Lake in Ellsworth, ME, and winter in Islamorada, FL, where during Hurricane Irma they lost their mobile home and now winter on a houseboat, which is docked in Islamorada. The Reynoldses have three children, six grandchildren, and one great-grandson. Their eldest son, Scott, is an American Airlines pilot and retired member of the Maine Air National Guard. Suzanne Reynolds Pauchey ’93, their daughter, lives in Islamorada with her husband, also an airline pilot. Joshua, their youngest son, lives in Wayne, ME, with his wife and family, as director of leadership giving for Kents Hill, a private preparatory school in Readfield, ME.
Paul was on active duty in the Navy during the Vietnam War era. Then they lived in Winterport and Hampden, ME, with Diane teaching and Paul working as an editorial writer and managing editor for the Bangor Daily News, then as a radio talk show host and journalism instructor at the University of Maine, then as information and education officer for the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife. Today he is editor and co-publisher of the Northwoods Sporting Journal, hosts a weekly Maine statewide radio program “The Maine Outdoors,” and writes an outdoor column for a number of Maine newspapers. He has written three books about the Maine outdoors. Diane, an award-winning amateur outdoor and wildlife photographer, has served as a director for many years for the New England Outdoor Writers Association (NEOWA) and, along with Paul, served on the NEOWA scholarship committee. Over the years, they have traveled, and hunted and fished as well, throughout North America. The Reynoldses would enjoy hearing from classmates. Their email addresses are: vdianer1941@gmail.com and vpaulr@tds.net.
John Hayes has retired after 54 years in the petrochemical industry, so will again summer at Sand Pond Campground in Sanford. During the rest of the year he officiates track and field at LSU and local Baton Rouge high schools. He mentioned taking an October trip to Italy, and hopes to see classmates at the 55th Reunion.
John and Betsy Howard have been bouncing from Atlanta to Minnesota for family visits, drove three hours to Omaha for a city tour, enjoyed a July cruise of some New England islands, saw four plays in NYC (raved about Come from Away and the 911 Memorial). Now John is back in his shop making wooden toys, having taken nine months to recover from shoulder surgery, and they are regular exercise class members and high-energy walkers!
Linda Beam Clapp is now happily ensconced in Boothbay Harbor, and enjoyed their first “Mainers-again” Thanksgiving with their three wonderful daughters and six “above average” grands. You may contact her at lbclapp@comcast.net.
I am recently retired after 42 years of 24/7 as a realtor in central San Diego, and finding the shift from “someone” to “me” a sunny move. Write and share YOU with us all, and happy summer!