Wanted to let you know about a new book I co-authored, “The Elder Wisdom Circle Guide for a Meaningful Life,” Penguin/Plume Oct. 30, 2007, available for pre-order on Amazon.com. More info available at www.ElderWisdomCircle.org. And for New York based alums, please join us Nov. 7 6-8 p.m. for a signing/reading at:
Bottlerocket Wine and Spirit
5 West 19th St.
New York, NY 10011!

Dominic Rocco, son of Pat Rocco (Rackham ’92)and his wife Sue, shows his “true blue” colors, even while he sleeps. Go Blue!

On August 29, 2005, Hurricane Katrina came ashore along the Gulf Coast. It proved to be one of the most destructive storms in U.S. history.

Although cleanup and rebuilding efforts are underway, much work remains. Martha Retallick saw this firsthand during reconstruction trips to Mississippi in November 2006 and July 2007. During both trips, she was part of International Relief Teams’ (IRT) effort to help repair and rebuild homes for displaced poor and elderly families.

Retallick, a designer and photographer, has documented the progress of this effort in a web-based presentation called “Gulf Coast Rising.” In order to be available to as wide an audience as possible, “Gulf Coast Rising” is in the Flash multimedia format. It can be viewed at:

http://www.westernskycommunications.com/website-design-gcr.html

Kyra Hicks (MBA, 1991) recently had her first children’s book published, “Martha Ann’s Quilt for Queen Victoria” (Brown Books, 2007). This is the TRUE story of a young girl to pursues her dream of meeting the Queen of England for fifty years! Kyra also hosts an African American quilting news blog, www.BlackThreads.blogspot.com .

In September, Eric successfully defended his PhD dissertation at the Drucker-Ito School of Management in Claremont, California. He remains employed at Oracle Corporation in San Francisco as VP & Treasurer, and lives in Redwood Shores with his wife Sheryl and three-year-old son Spencer (with another boy expected in November).

Laura Keyes was recently elected Vice President of Chapter Services of the Georgia Chapter of the American Planning Association. Laura now resides in Decatur, Georgia with her husband Kevin and three children.

My book, Silent City on a Hill: Picturesque Landscapes of Memory and Boston’s Mount Auburn Cemetery, was just released by University of Massachusetts Press in collaboration with the Library of American Landscape History. Information is available on both of their websites.
As Blanche Gemrose, I received my B.A. in French at Michigan in 1968. Then I completed an M.A. in history from the University of Cincinnati in 1976 and my doctorate in History of American Civilization from Harvard in 1981. The building blocks for all of my research and publications came from my U-M coursework. I took early retirement in 1997 from a career in teaching History and American Studies for two decades at several colleges and universities, most in the Boston area. I am now writing and consulting full time.

Along with fellow LSA graduate Matt Roy (1988) I recently launched a new company in the Ann Arbor area: Wolverine Beer, LLC. We are the proud makers of – wait for it – Wolverine Beer. We like to call it Michigan’s Premium Lager. We make the beer according to our own recipe and we are having a blast marketing it in and around Ann Arbor. Go blue!

has been promoted to Commercial Design Group Director of Cole + Russell Architects, Inc., a national firm headquartered in Cincinnati, Ohio. As Group Director, Hollenkamp will focus on the design of custom commercial/retail buildings, lifestyle centers, corporate office buildings and mixed-use developments.