Life, noted

For more than a century, Phillips Academy and Abbot Academy alumni have stayed connected through Class Notes. In the pages of Andover magazine—which many veteran secretaries still affectionately refer to as The Bulletin—a remarkable record unfolds: first jobs and final careers, weddings and reunions, growing families, cross-country moves, artistic pursuits—and, inevitably, the losses that become part of every story.

Behind every column is a hard-working class secretary. Sometimes it’s one devoted volunteer. Sometimes it’s a small team. Some alums have been doing the work for 15 years, others have collected news for more than half a century. Together, they’re the Academy’s quiet chroniclers—part reporters, part historians, part keepers of the flame.

The work begins with small moments: a quick email, a postcard, a chance conversation at Reunion Weekend. But over decades, those seemingly ordinary updates become something extraordinary. One classmate becomes a parent, then a grandparent. Another launches a career, changes direction, publishes a book, travels the world, or celebrates a milestone anniversary. Piece by piece, class secretaries weave thousands of individual stories into a fascinating and often laugh-out-loud shared history.

It’s meticulous work, sustained by curiosity, generosity, and an unwavering belief that even the small moments in life are worth remembering. Most volunteers never seek recognition. They simply keep showing up, issue after issue, ensuring that no matter how many years—or miles—separate classmates from Andover, they never drift too far apart.

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20 YEARS | Terri Stroud ’88 

Not a day goes by that Terri Stroud doesn’t talk to a classmate. “Being a class secretary is the gift that keeps on giving,” she says. The role, she adds, has become something of a “ministry of connection”—conversations with old friends, shared memories, and check-ins that can always lead to something more. Through times of celebration and profound loss, those friendships have only deepened, reminding her that the people who know you best expect to share every chapter—not just the happy ones. She hopes her column sparks a little good nostalgia and reminds Andover friends to reach for one another long after they’ve turned the page.

Q: After chronicling classmates’ lives for two decades, what’s one piece of advice you’d give to today’s students?

“Prioritize your connections. People often let friendships drift because life gets busy or they think they’ve grown apart. Fight for those relationships. Life is difficult, and your friends will carry you through the hardest seasons. My Andover classmates certainly have. Ambition matters, but so do joy, contentment, and the people who remind you who you are.”

11 YEARS | Cliff Crosby ’46

A legend among class secretaries, Cliff Crosby turns 98 in September, making him the Academy’s oldest-serving volunteer in the role. He hasn’t missed a column since his friend, Dick Phelps ’46, asked him to become class scribe in 2015. Today, just 10 members from his class of 280 graduates are still living, and Crosby makes a point of calling each one for Class Notes updates. “Waiting for people to send news isn’t much of a strategy,” he says with a laugh. “I’d rather pick up the phone and ask, ‘How the hell are you doing?’”

Q: What does being the keeper of your class’s stories mean to you?

It’s fun. Being class secretary gives me an excuse to reach out and ask personal questions. It’s fascinating to hear how people who shared the same education handled life afterward. We all made choices—college, careers, marriage, raising children. Most of us worked those choices out pretty well. We’ve had some dark spots too, but what I hear most when I call classmates isn’t moaning and groaning. It’s confidence. It’s people reaching for the good times. You see, it doesn’t make a difference whether you’re 28, 48, or 98. The difference is in how you face the day. I think that’s one story our class has in common: Our education gave us a recipe for success that includes weathering life’s storms.”

Fun Fact: Crosby also writes class notes for Harvard, where, as an undergrad baseball star, he stole home five times!
 

30 YEARS  | George Rider ’51, P’86, GP’22

George Rider has spent three decades proving that good class notes rarely arrive by accident. When submissions slow down, he writes classmates’ names on slips of paper, drops them into a teapot, and draws random names to start making calls. The same curiosity that keeps him chasing news also keeps him coming back to campus. After wrapping up his 75th Reunion Weekend in June, Rider still marvels at one of the first sights that greeted him when he arrived at Andover in 1947: the Memorial Bell Tower. “I was in awe then and I still am now.”

Q: After all these years, what makes being class secretary still worthwhile?

“It’s as good as a postgraduate course. Andover has so many interesting people from every background and profession you can think of and by staying in touch, it’s a lifelong education in the study of people. I love hearing what classmates are up to and keeping track of it all. It keeps me busy—and curious. Picking up the pen to write our class notes also had an unexpected dividend. I went on to publish my first book at 82, and I have two more in the works!”

Fun Fact: A standout athlete, Rider earned eight letters and captained the varsity hockey team.

52 YEARS | David Othmer ’59

More than five decades writing Class Notes will teach you a thing or two about your friends. David Othmer shares the distinction with Marcia McCabe ’73, of being the Academy’s longest-serving class secretary. He left Rio de Janeiro’s Copacabana Beach for Andover at 14—a move he jokes wasn’t entirely his decision, but one that changed the course of his life. Keeping classmates connected has never really felt like work to Othmer—it has simply been one of life’s great joys. Each time he sends out a request for news, PA friends “come out of the woodwork” with updates, reflections, and memories. It’s a reminder, he says, that while much has changed on campus since graduation, the bonds formed as high schoolers remain the strongest relationships of his life. 

Q: What wisdom comes from chronicling hundreds of lives over 50 years?

“I’m still trying to get it right! Andover had a lasting impact on all our lives. We’re all very different people, but the shared experience during a time when we were all learning and growing together is something that stays the course of time. There are the years before Andover and the years after Andover, but the years we were in it together—we all remember that.”

34 YEARS | Blake Hazzard Allen ’66

At her 60th Reunion in June, Blake Hazzard Allen was up all night in Bartlet House with her Abbot besties, eating junk food, laughing, and having the kind of unfiltered conversations only friends with deep history can share. “Life is a crooked line,” she says. “When we’re young, it’s easy to imagine a straight path. Then reality teaches us otherwise.” 

After decades of chronicling her classmates’ stories, she believes the strongest communities are made up of people who continue showing up for each other, no matter where life leads. With her longtime friend and class agent, Ruth Weiner ’66, Hazzard Allen intentionally fosters a class culture where people feel valued, heard, and supported. “Everyone needs pick-up-the-phone friends,” she says, “the ones who will answer anytime—whether it’s good news, bad news, or anything in between. For me, those are my Abbot classmates.”

Q: The thing my classmates never stop doing is…? 
“Lifelong learning. That is the Abbot catchword—and Andover’s, too. I’d add giving back. When I think about the women in my Abbot universe, that’s true of every one of them. We’re still curious, still contributing, and still finding ways to lift others up.”

35 YEARS  | Ray Healey ’66

On the drive to his 25th Reunion in 1991, Ray Healey’s Class Notes predecessor, Skip Freeman ’66, made an unexpected pitch from behind the wheel of his sports car: “Raybo, I’ve been doing

this for 25 years. It’s time for a new scribe at the helm.” Thirty-five years later, Healey is still chronicling the lives of the Class of 1966, convinced the greatest reward isn’t writing the notes—it’s the privilege of following his classmates’ remarkable journeys long after graduation.

Q: What has surprised you most about being a class secretary? 
“What a privilege it's been to spend decades chronicling the extraordinary lives of my classmates. Through Class Notes, I’ve followed their educations, careers, travels and adventures, successes and families—and the many ways they’ve shaped their communities and the wider world. It’s a front-row seat to the impact an Andover education can have over a lifetime. 

Fun Fact: Members of the Class of 1966 have authored more than 100 published books spanning fiction, nonfiction, and scholarly works—including several best-sellers.

40 YEARS | Joe Kahn ’67, P’14

After a distinguished career in journalism at The Boston Globe, Joe Kahn has found that some of the most meaningful stories aren’t front-page news. For decades, he’s brought a reporter’s curiosity to his class notes, where he and co-secretary Ray Bird ’67 remind readers that every life is worthy of a byline. “Being a class secretary,” Kahn says, “has connected me to the broader school community, leading to opportuni-ties to serve on Alumni Council, the Class Secretaries Committee, and contribute to Andover magazine—an unexpected and delightful gift. 

Q: What’s something that people assume about class secretaries that isn’t true?

“That we’re inundated with class news and don’t need to hear from them. Or that their own lives and connections to the class aren’t column-worthy. They are.”

Fun Fact: The Class of 1967 boasts more alumni with works in the Addison Gallery of American Art than any other.

53 YEARS | Marcia McCabe ’73

Long before email, text messages, and social media, Marcia McCabe gathered class notes the old-fashioned way—through long phone calls and handwritten letters.

The process was slower, but it reflected something she loved about Abbot Academy: traditions like Tiffin, a daily tea break that encouraged students to pause and reconnect. More than five decades later, technology—and a reliable group of co-secretaries—has made compiling notes easier, but the purpose remains the same: “People are hungry for news about their classmates and keeping in touch.”

Q: What has your class taught you about the value of staying connected?

“We’re a real hodgepodge, but the chemistry just works. We were the last class to graduate from Abbot Academy, and I think there’s a deep sense of gratitude for that experience. We have artists, writers, business leaders—a wonderfully diverse group—and we still go out of our way to stay in touch. It proves to me that if you find a happy place when you’re young, it sets the stage for the rest of your life.”

Fun Fact: McCabe is keeping the Tiffin tradition alive by hosting tea gatherings for alumni and friends of Andover. The first one took place in New York City last year, with another in the works.

15 YEARS | Orie Idah ’11

Every issue of Andover magazine arrives with one section Orie Idah dives into first: Class Notes. Not just her own column—every one of them. Since becoming her class’s secretary immediately after graduation, she’s discovered just how much love her fellow secretaries pour into preserving stories that might otherwise be lost. “Class Notes is a place that holds the whole community in your heart,” Idah says. “You can feel the care and connection in all the notes. I don’t think there is another tool that can capture the community in this way.”

Q: Why do Class Notes still resonate with alumni in the era of social media?

“It’s algorithm-proof. Class Notes spark memories and connect you back to people who might not be on your radar in the moment. That’s powerful. It has taught me that evolution and change don’t mean the synapses that connect us break—they grow and evolve too. I’ve seen classmates—me included—become close years after graduation. Class Notes can be a driver of that.”

Fun Fact: Jim Ventre ’79’s appointment as Andover’s next head of school has the Class of 2011 buzzing with excitement. As assistant head of school for admission and financial aid, he admitted every member of the class—and, Idah says, made them feel they belonged from day one. 

The Seeleys: A Family Legacy in Class Notes

Parker Seeley Jr. ’54, P’84, ’90, GP’21 (15 YEARS) 
William P. Seeley III ’84, P’21 (17 YEARS)
Thomas W. Seeley Sr. ’90 (30 YEARS)

Long before Tom Seeley ’90 became a class secretary, Andover was part of his family’s story. As a young boy, he remembers arriving on campus in the family RV and wandering off with his older brother, Bill, to watch a movie in George Washington Hall while his father attended Reunion Weekend events. “Andover feels like it’s in my DNA,” Seeley says. The first Seeley to attend PA was Tom’s grandfather, William Parker Sr., Class of 1909, followed by his father, Bill Jr. ’54, and brother, Bill III ’84. “There was never another school I wanted to go to. Andover always had a pull on me.”

Thirty years into writing Class Notes, Tom says his dormmates from junior year remain his closest friends. Just as meaningful, classmates who barely knew one another at Andover have

found each other years later and built lasting friendships. “Our class has this incredible sense of community and family,” he says. “Class Notes creates a record of all these unique and special connections that you can’t find anywhere else.”

That sense of connection spans generations of class secretaries. Tom’s father, Bill Jr. ’54, finds that nearly every conversation he has with classmates circles back to the same touchstones: demanding academics, unforgettable teachers, lifelong friendships, and the quiet pride of having made it through Andover together.

“I approach Class Notes with the goal of writing something that makes everybody remember their connections to Andover,” Bill Jr. says. “It was an inflection point in all our lives.”

Fun Facts:

• Before Frank Stella ’54 became a celebrated American artist, he sat beside Bill Seeley Jr. in art class. On the first day, students had to select a piece of fruit to draw from a bowl. Seeley chose a banana because it looked simple enough to replicate, but “failed miserably.” Glancing over at Stella’s “perfect sketch,” he thought, “Wow, this guy could be an artist!”
• Tom Seeley is expanding his Andover family—he’s engaged to Hollis Fuller ’89.
• Bill Seeley III ’84’s daughter, Raines, is an alumna of the Class of 2021.