Community News

Bangladesh, Cape Verde, Dominican Republic, Fiji, Honduras, Liberia, Malaysia, Mali, Micronesia, Nicaragua, Nigeria, Senegal, St. Lucia, Yemen

By JoAnna Haugen on Monday, August 20th, 2007

BANGLADESH

Thomas McMahon (61-63) has been the mayor of Reading, Penn., since 2004. He will be running for a second four-year term later this year. McMahon is known for his civic service leading hospital, college and community economic development agencies and also launched and headed Friends of Bangladesh. He was a professional electrical engineer for many years and has started both an environmental engineering consulting firm and a software engineering enterprise.

CAPE VERDE

Though she recently finished her Peace Corps service, Casey Maugh isn’t done with her work in Cape Verde. She has decided to stay in the country and open English Unlimited, a school where Cape Verdeans can learn the English language to better their job skills needed in global communication. Maugh hopes development of Cape Verde’s resources and education of its people will help the country move off of the United Nation’s list of the world’s poorest countries. She also volunteers at a local orphanage where she works with 12- and 13-year-old boys.

DOMINICAN REPUBLIC

Matthew Lauer (94-96) has joined the Department of Anthropology faculty at San Diego State University as an assistant professor. Lauer is a sociocultural anthropologist specializing in environmental, populations, indigenous rights and sustainability issues in Latin America and Oceania. He is currently working on two research projects in the area. One in Lowland South America involves the Ye’kwana people of southern Venezuela. The other is a multidisciplinary effort in Western Province, Solomon Islands, which studies human resource use and develops sustainable coastal zone management programs using GIS, remote sensing and ethnographic methods.

FIJI / HONDURAS

Tim Will (Honduras 77-79, Fiji 79-80) has created an Internet project that serves as a brokerage to connect farmers with the 1400 local chefs in the Charlotte, N.C., area. He is executive director of Foothills Connect Business and Technology Center, an Appalachian rural economic development program that promotes and sustains local entrepreneurship through technology. His Internet project, launched in June, is a virtual place for farmers to post their seasonal fruits and vegetables and for chefs to buy them online. There are currently twelve farmers utilizing the site, but Will hopes to have 20 farmers by year’s end as well as a refrigerated truck to enhance the delivery of the many and diverse perishable regional products created and harvested in the highlands of North Carolina.

LIBERIA

The National Association of Scientific Materials Managers (NAOSMM) recently recognized Philip A. Waite with its Outstanding Scientific Materials Manager of the Year Award. Waite is a stockroom supervisor and chemical hygiene officer at Denison University. He graduated from Bowling Green State University in 1975 with a bachelor’s degree in chemistry and biology. The honor is given to managers who have distinguished themselves on the job and in their service to NAOSMM.

MALAYSIA

Most people avoid mosquitoes. Theodore Wolff (65-67) embraces them. He is co-author with Lewis T. Nielsen of The Mosquitoes of New Mexico, a new book published by The University of New Mexico Press. Wolff has worked as a science teacher and for the New Mexico Health Department in medical parasitology. He currently works in community outreach at Sandia National Laboratory.

MALI

Wilkie D. Ferguson Jr. Bar Association (also known as the Black Lawyers Association) has elected Alexander Rundlet (93-95) as treasurer of the organization. A litigation attorney with Podhurst Orseck, Rundlet is admitted to the Florida, Georgia, Alabama and District of Columbia bar associations. Prior to joining Podhurst Orseck, Rundlet worked as an assistant public defender for the 11th Judicial Circuit of Florida in Miami-Dade County. He earned his undergraduate degree in history from Dartmouth College in 1992 and a law degree from the University of Pennsylvania Law School in 1999. The Wilkie D. Ferguson Jr. Bar Association is dedicated to increasing enrollment, retention and graduation of black law students in South Florida.

MICRONESIA

Wes Glebe’s (69-71) ring-making skills were recently honored at the 2007 Central Pennsylvania Festival of the Arts where his display of handcrafted rings won Best in Show. The prestigious prize is given by five jurors who have a variety of artistic backgrounds. Glebe has been crafting rings for several years; he started his business, Wes & Gold, in 2001. He works with titanium and 24-karat gold. Glebe’s line of jewelry has 650 models.

NICARAGUA

Carley Lovorn (99-01) is the director of El Centro, Tupelo’s only Hispanic resource center. The non-profit agency seeks to integrate Spanish-speaking residents into the American culture by providing a host of services to immigrants and lifelong residents. Although the organization existed prior to Lovorn’s acceptance of the director position in August 2006, she set high standards and goals for the program and has been instrumental in El Centro’s success.

NIGERIA

Bob Englund (64-66) spent much of his career in the medical field. For 31 years he has been a physician with the Dartmouth Hitchcock/Cheshire Medical Center in Keene, New Hampshire. A graduate of University of Vermont College of Medicine, Englund did post-graduate training in internal medicine at Upstate Medical Center in Syracuse and the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center. Now semi-retired, he is involved in many community activities.

SENEGAL

Tostan, a U.S. 501(c)(3) nongovernmental organization founded in 1991 by Molly Melching (76-79), won the 2007 Conrad N. Hilton Foundation Humanitarian Prize. Based in Senegal, Tostan received the $1.5 million award for its work fostering a grassroots movement for the abandonment of harmful practices such as female genital cutting and child marriage in West Africa. Tostan’s mission is to empower African communities to bring about sustainable development and positive social transformation based on respect for human rights. Tostan achieves this through its non-formal education in local languages known as the Community Empowerment Program which has been implemented in over 2,600 communities in nine African countries. Melching received the award on behalf of Tostan in September in New York.

ST. LUCIA

Michael Daignault is a student at the Medical School for International Health, an institution in Israel that is a collaboration of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev and Columbia University Medical Center. It is the only medical school in the world where future doctors learn to provide health care for a variety of populations around the world. As a student of the school, Daignault will spend four years learning an American-based medical curriculum as well as cross-cultural communication, nutrition in developing countries and disaster relief. Daignault received his undergraduate degree in international health at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service. He has worked for Doctors Without Borders and its Campaign for Access to Essential Medicine.

YEMEN

Susan Neumann (80-82) was recently recognized as Kentucky Conservation Teacher of the Year in the high school category. The award is given by the Kentucky Association of Conservation Districts. Neumann teaches life science, anatomy, environmental science and photography at Model Laboratory High School in Richmond, Ky. She also volunteers her time with Envirothon and the Community Problem Solving Team, two extracurricular events that help young people become interested and involved in environmental issues.

Add a Comment

167 queries in 4.621 seconds.