After graduating from U.Va. in 1951, former CD sports reporter Charles K. Coates attended graduate school in business at New York University, enlisted in the Army, took his discharge in Germany, went to the University of Madrid in Spain and worked in business in New York City before deciding to follow his heart and become a newspaperman. He spent four years at The Nashville Tennessean; he left in 1961 to join NBC News in New York, where he worked as a writer, reporter and producer on and off for 20 years. His assignments included The Sixth Hour News, Eleventh Hour News, Today Show, the Huntley-Brinkley Report and NBC Nightly News. He traveled extensively throughout Latin America and the United States on breaking news, background and investigative pieces, presidential campaign coverage, political conventions, and space shots. For family reasons, he joined the journalism faculty of the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque in 1972, working also as a stringer for The New York Times, a television news consultant, a consultant to the White House Office of Telecommunications Policy, and a free-lance writer and editor.

Former Managing Editor Larry Cohen (’81) now lives in Fanwood, N.J., where he is a computer teacher for the North Plainfield Public Schools. He says his life after the CD "revolves around my children, and I love it, though I miss my dear friends spread out all over the country."

Former College Topics staffer Charles R. Jacobs would have been in the University’s class of 1943, but World War II got in the way. Instead of returning to school after more than four years in the service, Charles and his wife moved to Meredith, N.H., where got a job for a small weekly newspaper, which he later bought with the help of the G-I Bill and owned for five years before selling it to buy a larger weekly in Wauseon, Ohio. He owned the Ohio paper for six years before moving to Sarasota, Fla. There he worked for the Bradenton Herald for several years before he obtained the Brookhaven (Miss.) Leader Times, a semi-weekly that he converted to a daily in 1968. Charles has recently retired, handing the paper over to one of his three sons, and he and his wife now split time between Brookhaven and Sarasota.

Cartoonist Geoff Johnson (’93) announces the birth of his first son, Benjamin Beverly Johnson, on Dec. 22, 1999 at 10:05 p.m. Ben weighed in at 8 pounds, 1.4 ounces, and was 20 inches long.

Last summer, former Focus associate editor Emily Kalejs (’93) married Kevin Qazilbash, whom she met while working in Baltimore, Md., for Teach for America. Emily and Kevin moved to Boston to get masters degrees from the Harvard Graduate School of Education, and are currently living in Somerville, Mass. Both now work for the Boston Public Schools; Kevin is a math specialist, and Emily runs mentoring programs for Boston teachers. The couple had a chance to move back to Charlottesville a few years ago and didn’t, but Emily says she hopes they’ll end up there sometime in the near future.

Diane DeBerry Krehmeyer (editor-in-chief, ’90-’91) has left PriceWaterhouse Coopers for a position as an executive search consultant in A.T. Kearney’s education practice, located in Alexandria, Va.

Former associate features editor Robert McManamy (’84) is now the editor-in-chief of Design-Build magazine, a bi-monthly construction industry journal published by McGraw-Hill, Inc. Started in 1998, the publication is the firm’s first start-up venture in the industry in over 100 years. Based in Chicago, Rob had been the Midwest bureau chief for Engineering News-Record, McGraw-Hill’s weekly news magazine. Before joining McGraw-Hill, he spent two years with the Times Crescent weekly newspaper in La Plata, Md. In 1992, he earned a law degree specializing in dispute resolution from the John Marshal Law School in Chicago. Rob and his wife, Dorris, have been married since 1989 and have two children, Elliot, age 4, and Glynnis, 1.

Will Morton (news editor, ’94-’95) has been married for two years to Kim Matthews, whom he met in southern France while spending spring semester of his second year there. After spending one year each at Dow Jones wire in Washington and at CNNfn.com in New York, Will worked as a town reporter for The Daily Record, 30 miles west of NYC. He is now attending Columbia Journalism School and is looking for a reporter job in the New York area.

In March, Matt Phillips (assistant managing editor ’94-’95) started work with Hockaday Donatelli Campaign Solutions, a Republican political consulting firm in Alexandria, Va. His job responsibilities include consulting with the campaigns that hire the firm, specifically advising them on their Internet and message strategy.

Former editor-in-chief Robin Pinnel (’98) is working in Arlington, Va., as an account executive for Z Communications, a public relations/communications/marketing firm.

Carin M. Smilk (associate editor, ’88-’89) and Michael Beaubien announce the birth of their first child, Ezra Alain Beaubien, on Dec. 11, 1999. The couple lives in Wayne, Penn.

Former editor-in-chief, Greg Trevor (’86) announces the birth of Lucas Cesare Salerno Trevor on Oct. 14, 1999, at St. Peter’s Medical Center in New Brunswick, N.J. Lucas was 9 pounds, 13 ounces.

Lexi Walker (assistant managing editor, ’92-’93) has joined the law office of Mason, Cowardin & Mason in Newport News, Va., concentrating on worker’s compensation cases under state and federal law. When she isn’t working, she spends her time belly-dancing. "I took my first lessons in Richmond," she writes, "and now, two years, several flashy costumes and three performances later, I am still going strong. My stage name is on my license plates, and I take special delight in shocking fellow attorneys with this wonderful hobby."