2009 – Spring ’21 Class Letter
Greetings, Class of 2009!
We hope this letter finds you, your family, and your friends healthy and safe. We’re excited to bring you some updates (and non-updates) from our classmates later in this letter. Class Letter time always reminds us of the awesome people we all had the opportunity to meet while at Ripon, and how some of those people have gone on to be integral members of our inner circles, and some we still keep in touch with occasionally. Once you read this Class Letter, we would like to challenge everyone to reach out to three classmates (or other Ripon connections) whom you haven’t been in touch with in a while. Say hello and take some time to catch up. Reminisce about the good times and the challenging times you went through together. Talk about what you miss most about Ripon, and what you’d love to be able to do again (maybe you can at the next Alumni Weekend, which will be this summer!)
Alumni Weekend 2021 will be unlike anything we’ve ever seen with two distinct summer weekends of Ripon alumni programming for us. No matter how you’d like to connect, virtually or in person, the Office of Constituent Engagement is developing a variety of activities to continue to follow CDC, Fond du Lac County and College guidelines in both June and August. Full schedules, lodging, and programming details will be posted soon to ripon.edu/alumni-weekend.
JUNE 2021
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In honor of our June Alumni Weekend traditions, virtual alumni programming will be held Tuesday, June 22 through Saturday, June 26, and will include: an alumni town hall, R Connections webinars, affinity socials, a summer book club, and special recognition of the 2020 and 2021 Athletic Hall of Fame Inductees.
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The only in-person event, the Doc Weiske ’50 Memorial Golf Scramble, will be held off-campus on Friday, June 25.
AUGUST 2021
A combination of virtual and in-person Alumni Weekend programming will be held the first week of August. We will continue to evaluate the state of COVID-19. If circumstances change at the local and national level and we need to cancel in-person programming, that decision will be made and communicated by July 1, 2021.
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Virtual programming will be held Tuesday, August 3 through Saturday, August 7 and will include: a reunion-focused alumni town hall that also previews the new academic year, additional R Connections webinars, the summer book club capstone, and the traditional “That Was Then” storytelling session.
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In-person, on-campus programming will be held Friday, August 6 through Sunday, August 8, and will focus on alumni awards recognition, 2020 and 2021 reunion celebrations, and other outdoor events such as Rally Run and prairie walk.
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Additionally, the Class of 2020 will officially be welcomed to our alumni community with a special commencement ceremony.
JOSH LEGREVE ’09 of Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, has been busy continuing to teach Spanish in Green Lake, Wisconsin. As we finish this Class Letter, he is attending an IB (International Baccalaureate) training “in” Singapore from the convenience of his dining room table.
EMILY MEYER ’09 of Fargo, North Dakota, has become a Hockey Mom, shuttling her five-year-old daughter to games and practices on the weekends. We’re truly embracing the North Dakota lifestyle!
Watch out for info on #OneDayRally, which will be on Wednesday, April 28. We understand this still may be a hard time for some, but if you are in a position to give we encourage you to give what you can, even if it is a little.
We cannot wait until we can all join together again at Alumni Weekend or other Ripon College event. Until then, stay safe and keep us updated about all the exciting celebrations and news in your lives.
Class Notes:
CHRISTINE ANHALT-DEPIES ’09 of Oregon, Wisconsin, is the DNR Snapshot Wisconsin Project Coordinator, which reached an impressive milestone in November: volunteers have collected 50 million photos since its launch in 2016. Snapshot Wisconsin is a citizen-science program that gets the public involved to help monitor wildlife. Volunteers host a network of trail cameras that take “snapshots” of wildlife as they pass by. Volunteers then classify the species from their trail cameras with help from the public using the Zooniverse crowdsourcing platform. The data helps the DNR understand where certain animal populations are around the state and make important wildlife management decisions.
PERFECTO DIAZ ’09 of Chicago, Illinois, shares that he is starting a new position as a Manager in a new department at the mortgage company he works for. Perfecto would like to credit his theatre professors for helping him pretend he knows what he is doing. Cheers!
MORGAN FLOM ’09 of Barcelona, Spain, is an entrepreneur at Pivot Analysis.
AMANDA KNUTSON ’09 of Gay Mills, Wisconsin, shares that she bought a house and finished her Master’s in Education.
CHRISSY SKODACHEK KORN ’09 and her husband, Ryan, of Ottawa, Illinois, welcomed their Rainbow baby, Bruce, in May of 2020.
ZAC MANS ’09 of Minneapolis, Minnesota, shares that in the last year, he has completed his teaching certification and is currently teaching 6th and 7th grade social studies at DaVinci Academy for the Arts and Sciences.
ALYSSA WRIGHT WOODS ’09 and ADAM WOODS ’08 of Oshkosh, Wisconsin, welcomed a baby boy, William Bennett Woods, on October 17, 2020.
Be well,
EMILY MEYER ’09
(920) 369-8707
JOSH LEGREVE ’09
(414) 839-7222
Your 2009 Class Agents