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Class Notes

News for this section may be submitted online through the class notes submission form or by email to vanderbiltmagazine@vanderbilt.edu. Please include your current name, name at registration, degree and class year. You also may send us news or update your address and other biographical information electronically through Vanderbilt’s online alumni community, VUconnect, at vuconnect.com. Your submission will be posted in Vanderbilt Magazine, print and online, unless otherwise specified, though we only use photos online due to space limitations in the print magazine. We reserve the right to edit for length, style and clarity.

These class notes were sent for inclusion in Vanderbilt Magazine between Dec. 1, 2025, and May 1, 2026. They will be included in the print fall 2026 issue.

Class Notes by Year

Class Notes: 1950s-1960s

  • ’57

    Richard B. Johnston Jr., BA, MD’61, emeritus professor of pediatrics, University of Colorado School of Medicine and National Jewish Health, and collaborators Sir Nick Wald and the late Godfrey Oakley were recognized on March 10, 2026, by Research!America with the Outstanding Achievement in Public Health Award. This award recognizes one or more individuals whose discovery played a pivotal role in advancing public health. Taken together, the complementary work of the three honorees showed that folate deficiency is the principal cause of neural-tube defects, and their work was instrumental in achieving mandated folic-acid fortification of the U.S. grain supply. This FDA-approved fortification prevented 33,000 U.S. neural-tube-defect pregnancies in its first 23 years with a $9 billion economic benefit. Over 80 countries have now mandated food fortification, with prevention of an estimated 206,000 neural tube defects yearly.

  • ’58

    Euclid Isbell, BA, in addition to publishing a 5-star joke book, The Very Best Pearls of Humor and Wisdom, Euclid has written 13 albums of music using AI. These are of multiple genres, including jazz and big band, and have been recently released as Copacetic Music by Sonny on streaming music services. 

  • ’61

    Rollin Russell, BDIV, DMN ’62, is retired and living in Asheville, NC. He served as Conference Minister of the Southern Conference of the UCC after 20 years of parish ministry. He also served on the faculty of Lancaster Theological Seminary in Pennsylvania until retirement. Rollin has written 16 (and counting) op-ed articles in the Asheville Citizen-Times. He published a book, Pulling Back the Curtain: A Memoir of Christian Ministry (Santos Books, 2025). 
     

  • ’65

    Edward P. Wasserman, BE, was recently named to the Inaugural Class of Fellows of the American Institute of Steel Construction. The AISC Fellows program celebrates those who have made enduring contributions—hundreds of hours over many years—to the steel design industry and to AISC, as committee members. The inaugural class of 20 individuals included structural design academicians, consulting engineers and fabricators who have made significant contributions to the art of steel building and bridge design and construction. 

  • ’66

    Nancy Jennings Allen, BA, of Dallas, debuted her short fiction collection, A Method of Reaching Extreme Altitudes and Other Stories, published by the University of New Mexico Press (2026) as part of its Lynn and Lynda Miller Southwest Fiction Series.

  • ’68

    Michael Giltner, BE, self-published his fifth novel, "Den of Wolves" (2025). He discovered writing when he joined a writers’ group. The book helped him develop skills and learn more with each session. 

Class Notes: 1970s

  • ’73

    William Colvin, BA, was awarded the Jac Chambliss Lifetime Achievement Award for 2025 at the annual meeting of the Chattanooga Bar Association. “This award is presented to a member who has demonstrated the highest standards of excellence for the legal profession; facilitate access to the justice system; served and supported the community; stimulated a feeling of respect, esteem and good fellowship among the members of the profession; maintained a high standard of ethics; represented the highest tradition of personal and professional excellence in Hamilton County; and has devoted significant amounts of time, efforts to activities that benefit the community and enhance the image and esteem of attorneys in Hamilton County.” Bill served as president of the Chattanooga Bar in 2017. He was recognized with the President’s Award in 2018 and the Albert L. Hodge Volunteer of the Year award in 2020.

  • ’79

    Robert E. “Bob” Beard, BA, of Ivy, VA, won election to the Albemarle County School Board in November 2025 in his first run for elected office.

Class Notes: 1980s

  • ’80

    Carolyn Allen Bern, BA, of Montgomery, AL, was awarded the American Academy of Pediatrics 2025 Child Advocate Award in recognition of her outstanding contributions to the health and well-being of children in Alabama. 

    Chris Phipps, BE, is semi-retired. He stays active with an AI startup, mentor/advisor startups, contract work for TAMU Health Science Center, being a board member of a foundation and work as an actor with three agents across the U.S. He splits his time between Dallas and Santa Fe, NM.

  • ’82

    James Siburt, MLS, published his debut novel, Murder Most Public: A U.S. Marshal Ward Wilkinson Murder Mystery Adventure, in 2025.

  • ’84

    Edward Lee Anderson, JD, published his first book, Help! There's A Fire: Reflections on Nashville's '80s New Music Scene, in 2025.

  • ’85

    John Crehore, BA, moved from Charlotte to New Bern, NC, at the end of January 2026, after finding a retirement spot on the shores of the Neuse River. Crehore runs SIS Inc. remotely from Charlotte, returning periodically for on-site work. The Crehores are now much closer to their daughter, Mary Carlisle McMahan, BS'16, and her husband, Casey, and their son, John.  
     

  • ’88

    Annemarie Mullan Whilton, BA, has become a vocal advocate for substance use disorder treatment and breaking the stigma of silence. She has been featured nationally on PBS’ Stories from the Stage; has had essays published in WBUR’s Cognoscenti and The North American Review; is a Boston MOTH StorySLAM winner and a future Moth GrandSLAM contestant. “I feel that our family’s journey with addiction has been long and confusing—and I hope that my words can be of use to other alumni. I was chair of a local drug prevention organization for many years, so I know how prevalent the problem is, and how comforting it is for families to know they are not alone—and that resources do exist beyond the confines of their insurance cards.”

Class Notes: 1990s

  • ’90

    Stephanie Barger Conner, BS, loves living in Nashville and marvels at the tremendous growth. Her work is at the intersection of government and arts funding. Stephanie serves on the Tennessee Arts Commission, which grants arts funds across the state, and on the board of Tennesseans for the Arts, which works with the legislature to protect that funding. Her two older children have moved back and are working here in Nashville. Stephanie’s high school junior will leave the nest next year.

  • ’93

    Lisa Uiberall-Noble, BA, is coming up on working for Teladoc Health remotely for four years. She enjoyed seeing so many from the Class of 1993 at the Bowl Game in Tampa and at the SEC tourney in Nashville. What a sports season it has been! Lisa will be at the baseball games—if you go, look for her. 

    Holly Helmling Dinkel, BS, and Scott Dinkel, BE’95, became grandparents for the first time in February 2026 to a sweet baby boy, Keaton Scott. 

  • ’96

    Kelly Crawford, BS, was awarded the Trade Member of the Year for 2025 by the Retail Design Institute, an accolade she also earned in 2023. Since 2002, she has been the president and CEO of Visuality Inc., a visual merchandising brokerage firm based in Huntington Beach, CA. 

     

    Myra Dingman Vandervelde, BS, has received three prestigious awards for creating Dilemma, Deloitte's internal ethics and compliance TV-streaming-style training series: 
    the 2025 Cannes Corporate Media and TV Award: Gold Dolphin (Internal Communication) and Silver Dolphin (Webisodes); a gold in the 2025 Brandon Hall Group HCM Excellence Awards under the Best Compliance Training category; the New York Festival’s TV & Film Bronze Award in the Corporate Image Attitudinal Training category. These awards highlight the innovative and impactful work Myra has accomplished in strengthening Deloitte’s unwavering commitment to ethics, integrity and transformative learning experiences. Dilemma, launching season three in 2026, continues to spark meaningful conversations across Deloitte and to help foster a strong culture of ethical decision-making.

Class Notes: 2000s

  • ’00

    Elizabeth Chamblee Burch, BA, recently published a narrative nonfiction book titled The Pain Brokers: How Con Men, Call Centers, and Rogue Doctors Fuel America's Lawsuit Factory.  The Pain Brokers centers on a scheme to lure women with pelvic mesh to south Florida to have it removed at seedy chiropractors’ offices to jack up the value of their settlement and benefit the plaintiffs’ lawyers, doctors and medical funders—but not the women. Had women used insurance and a real hospital, it would have cost them somewhere between $600 and $1,000. A spin through the removal mill ran $69,000 to $120,000.

  • ’03

    Jordan Pettit, BS, MEd’04, joined Big Loud Records in February 2026 as co-president. The Nashville label is home to Morgan Wallen, HARDY, Ernest, Stephen Wilson Jr. and many others. This is a return to the record industry after spending eight years at Opry Entertainment Group and the Grand Ole Opry, where he played a critical role in expanding the organization’s programming strategy in his role as vice president of artist and industry relations. 

  • ’04

    David Garcia, BS, has joined Hyatt as AVP RM & Distribution Analytics. 

    Julia Mortyakova, BMU, pianist, was awarded the 2026 Performing Artist Fellowship from the Mississippi Arts Commission. The fellowship is a prestigious award of merit and honors Mississippi artists who demonstrate the ability to create exemplary work in their chosen field. Julia also received the 2025 Kossen Faculty Excellence Award from the Mississippi University for Women (The W), where she serves as professor and chair of the Department of Music. The Kossen Award honors a meritorious tenured faculty member who has exhibited excellence in teaching, scholarly or artistic achievement and service, and demonstrated a commitment to student success. 

    Julie J. Park, BA has published a new book on college admissions following the 2023 Harvard Supreme Court case: Race, Class, and Affirmative Action: College Admissions in a New Era. 

  • ’06

    David Dault's first book, The Accessorized Bible, was published in January 2026. The recent rise in Christian nationalism and religious violence demands new approaches to scriptural interpretation that are rooted in nonviolence and moral seriousness. In The Accessorized Bible, Dault, MA, PhD’09, explores the ethical implications of how people use scripture as an accessory, whether as an accessory to fashion choices or as an accessory to crimes and violence against one another.

  • ’07

    Kate Kordek, BS, her husband, Ben, BE’12, and Miles, age 4, welcomed Ruby Elizabeth in April 2025. They are enjoying life as a family of four in Marin County, CA. 

    Craig Pope, MTS, earned a doctor of education degree in curriculum studies from Georgia Southern University in May 2025. Craig’s dissertation was titled "Walking on the Grey: An Existentialist Exploration of the Possibility of the Self in the System of the School." He and his wife, author Ashley Herring Blake, and sons Benjamin and William live on St. Simons Island, GA, and he teaches English at Brantley County High School.

Class Notes: 2010s

  • ’11

    Joseph Wahl, JD, has been named partner at Barnes & Thornburg LLP. 

  • ’15

    Lee Hall-Perkins, BA’12, MDV, was quoted in The Washington Post regarding new protest laws affecting political demonstrations. Recently, Hall-Perkins led a demonstration against cuts to SNAP and Medicaid signed into federal law.

  • ’19

    Justin DeMello, BA, has been appointed to a new position: learning specialist at Brooklyn Prospect High School.

Class Notes: 2020s

  • ’21

    Stephanie Jones Makowski, MBA, and Markus Makowski, MBA, announce the birth of their daughter, Morgan Makowski. Born in July 2025, she was a good luck charm for Vanderbilt's historic football season. Anchor Down!

  • ’25

    Jack Pitts, BS, launched a new podcast, The Making Of. Gary Dennis, MBA’89, was the first guest. In the episode, Gary reflects on his path from earning his undergraduate degree at Georgia Tech and MBA at Owen to working on Wall Street and later co-founding and building Mammoth Holdings, a multi-state car wash platform. He shares lessons on entrepreneurship, leadership and scaling an operating company over more than two decades.