• Hugh Douglas Connell II, July 3, 2026

    ByWayne Willis

    Doug Connell passed away on July 3, 2026.  Doug was likely the longest-serving member of our class in the U.S. Armed Forces, having spent 28 years as a Naval Aviator.  Doug came to Yale on a Navy ROTC scholarship, was a varsity lacrosse player, a member of DKE and did New Haven community service work with a troop of inner-city Boy Scouts as a member of Alpha Phi Omega.  Following our graduation in June 1969, Doug had two very busy weeks – after Commencement, he was commissioned in the U.S. Navy, married the love of his life, Kathy Dodge Connell, and left for flight school in Pensacola, FL.

  • |

    James Douglas Woolery, June 13, 2026

    ByWayne Willis

    Editor’s Note: this is “in process,” so we’d welcome people either adding remembrances as a “comment” field (below, login first) or sending thoughts, stories, tributes, etc. to the Editor (Wayne, support@Yale1969.org) for inclusion.  Pictures, especially, are  \welcome. In addition to the formal obituary (see text pasted below), I think the most telling summary of Jamie’s life is found on the “About” page of his personal website – jamieirons.com. From About Jamie Woolery was born in…

  • Class Notes, Jul-Aug 2026

    ByDaniel Seiver

    From Calvin Mew: “Here is a note, maybe the second one I’ve submitted since 1969: I am ending my 2-year term as President of the Harvard Business School Club of New York on June 30. HBSCNY is the largest HBS alumni club in the world, about 15,000 alumni live and work in New York. It has been an interesting task to manage a volunteer driven nonprofit. (Some HBS alumni have significant egos.)

    [Also news about Bill Stanisich, Reed Hundt and Avi Soifer.]

  • Class Notes, May-Jun 2026

    ByDaniel Seiver

    Lots of sad news. Please go to the full article for more information and pictures about:
      * Bill Stanisich,
      * Rick Lannamann, and
      * Jim Wright

    “William John Stanisich died December 29, 2025, after a brief but complicated illness. At Yale, Bill studied with Vincent Scully and Charles Talbot. He was accepted into the Yale Architecture Department but had to return to San Francisco to attend to his ailing mother. Bill continued his studies at the S.F. Art Institute, but turned to teaching high school art…

  • Mick Kleber ’69: From Marines to Music (via Nixon’s White House)

    ByWayne Willis

    Editor’s Note: This is a new kind of class-zoom … not a Class Colloquium with purposeful academic goals, but rather the sort of informal learning we all enjoyed over dining hall discussions, evening bull sessions or simply enjoyable storytelling.  Our inaugural event will be a conversation on April 9th at 5 PM Eastern with Mick Kleber … about the many different worlds he’s inhabited and influenced.

    What do Richard Nixon’s resignation, Tina Turner, Andy Warhol, Rodney Dangerfield, Frank Sinatra, MC Hammer, Timothy Leary, Ollie North, Pope Francis, The Beach Boys, John Wayne, Bob Hope, and the Mickey Mouse Club have in common?

    They’re all part of the life of Mick Kleber — a long, strange trip from Marine combat missions in Vietnam to the Watergate White House to the golden age of music video to celebrity-driven advocacy campaigns for healthcare’s biggest brands.

    Be sure to register now for the Zoom hangout with Mick.

  • Refounding America: Is This a ‘Project 2029’?

    ByWayne Willis

    Classmates Reed Hundt and Avi Soifer are on the barricades again, this time organizing and advancing a new democracy-reform project called Refounding America. 

    You may remember Avi from his leading role in Coed Week (see That Was The Week), and more recently serving as the dean of the Richardson Law School at the University of Hawaii.   You know Reed as the FCC Chairman during the Clinton years (see his recent talk to AEI re: the 30th anniversary of the 1996 Telecom Reform Act) and other democracy-reform efforts like the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact.

    Refounding America is in its early stages of mobilizing a broad civic conversation about what fundamental changes we might need to address the challenges of the 21st century while staying true to our American values.  According to the website, “We intend to produce a compendium of ….

  • |

    William John Stanisich, December 29, 2025

    ByWayne Willis

    William John Stanisich (Bill) 78, of San Francisco, died peacefully, on December 29, 2025, after a brief but complicated illness.

    Born in Cheyenne, Wyoming, on March 15, 1947, Bill attended Yale University (1965-69), majoring in English Literature and History of Art. He studied with architecture historian Vincent Scully and Charles Talbot, the Northern Renaissance scholar. Bill graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in History of Art in 1969, and was accepted into the Yale Architecture Department but had to return to San Francisco to attend to his ailing mother.

    Bill continued his studies at the S.F. Art Institute, but turned to teaching high school art and English to supplement his career as an artist. He taught at Lick-Wilmerding (1970-71), then at the Urban School (1972-1998), when he retired with disability.  Beginning in the mid-1980s Bill …

  • Class Notes, Mar-Apr 2025

    ByDaniel Seiver

    Editor’s Note:: The Class Notes this month contains some reports from classmates living in the Southwest, an update from Stewart Palmer (who finally got his degree in 2014!) and a “midway report” from the current recipient of the Yale Class of ’69 Scholarship, David Yun, Class of 2028.

    We also report on some reflections people sent in remembering Paul Wilkins and Bruce Jones. Click through to see more.

  • James Robert Wright, Jr. – January 2, 2002

    ByWayne Willis

    Editor’s Note: Some of our classmates passed away prior to the creation of Yale1969.org and, therefore, never received any “In Memoriam” reports or tributes here. This information was submitted by Dov Ospovat’s widow, Claudia Ospovat (Leopold). If you have information (and preferably some pictures) of classmates who died prior to 2017, feel free to submit the information here, and I’ll post it.

    James R. Wright, Jr. was born November 30, 1946 in Stillwater, Oklahoma to…

  • Reed Hundt Keynotes AEI Conference on the 1996 Telecom Act – Feb. 10th, 9 AM ET

    ByWayne Willis

    This AEI conference evaluates the Telecommunications Act of 1996 to extract governance lessons for today’s “tsunami” of disruption—from AI and quantum computing to bioengineering and deepfakes. By analyzing the “grand strategy” developed by the Clinton-Gore administration and former FCC Chairman Reed Hundt, the event examines how past regulatory successes and failures can inform modern public policy. [In this post, our class is invited to the live stream – Tuesday, Feb. 10th, 9:00 AM Eastern. Register Now

  • Richard Stuart Lannamann, January 6, 2026

    ByAdmin

    Published in Sarasota Herald-Tribune, January 15, 2026.    Richard S. Lannamann of Osprey, Florida, passed away peacefully on January 6, 2026, in Stamford, Connecticut, following a heart attack on Christmas Eve. His loving wife, Kate, was at his side. He was 78. Rick was a beloved husband, father, and grandfather and a distinguished leader in the executive search profession. hello. Born on September 4, 1947, Rick was raised in Cincinnati and graduated from Walnut Hills High…

  • Paul Cole Wilkins, November 13, 2025

    ByAdmin

    Dr. Paul Cole Wilkins, age 78, of Charlottesville, passed away on Thursday, November 13, 2025. Dr. Wilkins died peacefully at the Hospice of the Piedmont due to complications sustained from a stroke two weeks prior. Born on August 21, 1947, in Buffalo, New York, Dr. Wilkins was a medical psychiatrist who practiced in Charlottesville since 1976. He graduated Magna Cum Laude from Yale University in 1969, distinguishing himself by winning the Albert Angier award in…

  • Class of ’69 Scholar David Yun, midway report

    ByWayne Willis
    Editor’s Note: We like to keep abreast of what recipients of the Class of 1969 Memorial Scholarship are doing with their time as students.  Recently, we heard from the current recipient, David Yun.  We thought you’d be interested.  Hint: don’t challenge him physically!  Great leadewrship, too!

    Hello Class of 1969,

    My name is David Yun, and I am currently a sophomore in …

  • Bruce Neuhausen Jones, Octoober 17, 2025

    ByAdmin

    Bruce Jones’ daughter Stephanie reports:

    Bruce Jones passed away from metastatic melanoma October 17th, 2025. He is survived by his wife Victoria, his daughter Karen (Cornell & London Business School), his daughter Stephanie (Yale 2000), his son Christopher (University of Maryland) and Christopher’s daughter Chloe.

    After graduating from Yale, Bruce earned his graduate degree from Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson School …

  • Blue Power: The Remarkable Story Of Our Football Team

    ByWayne Willis

    Secretly, we all knew that we witnessed, in real time, the making of an incredible sports-based legend during those tumultuous years.  Now, there’s a book that focuses exclusively on that story.

    A freelance journalist with a Yale legacy past, Reg Lansberry (bio below), has written an affectionate biography of the Yale football team that went undefeated in the Fall of 1968.  He interviewed Brian, Calvin, and many, many other members of the team and has delivered a compelling narrative of the men, the coaches, Yale itself and the times, Blue Power: Brian Dowling, Calvin Hill, and Greatness at Yale.  Here is a summary: