ALUMNI NEWS
NOVEMBER – DECEMBER 2009
ATTEND THE BRANFORD SPORTS HALL OF FAME AS THEY INDUCT KIERSTIN NEWELL AND ERIC GOLIA ON NOVMBER 20TH
We hope that Branford Alumni Swimmers and Divers will show their support for Kierstin and Eric by attending the Branford Sports Hall of Fame Induction Dinner on Friday, November 20th at Woodwinds. Cocktails are at 5:30 and Dinner at 6:30. Tickets are $45 and the dinner choices are prime rib or chicken. Checks should be made out to BSHOF and reservations should be sent to PO Box 987, Branford, CT 06405 by November 9th. Request seating at the tables reserved for either Kierstin or Eric. You can call O’C at 203 488-5683 or Andrea at the Rec. Department 488-8304 with any questions. This event is always a good time and the food is great.
GIRLS TEAM FINISHES DUAL MEET SEASON WITH 10-2 RECORD
The Branford Girls Team completed another successful dual meet season with a 10-2 record. The team has been helped by a very strong freshman class that bodes well for the future. They are now preparing for the SCC and state championships where they have a number of swimmers and divers that should score well. Congratulations to Scott and the entire team on their dual meet season. Go out and support the Girl’s at the SCC Championships at SCSU on Wednesday, November 4th at 6, at the state trials in Branford on November 14th at 2, finals at SCSU on Tuesday, November 17th at 6 and Opens at Yale on November 21 at noon.
BOYS PRACTICES START NOVEMBER 30
The boys have had a large number attending Stingray practice for the last month which indicates that they are also poised to have a successful season.
ALUMNI MEET SCHEDULED FOR MONDAY, DECEMBER 28TH
We are giving all male and female alumni plenty of notice that the Alumni meet will be on Monday, December 28th at 11 a.m. That gives you plenty of time to get in shape but just in case you don’t all races will continue to be just one half their normal distances.
ALUMNI UPDATE #12
2009 Nicole Peruso – Freshman at University of Vermont. Her first swim meet was at West Point where Vermont defeated Army and Boston College. She swam well for this early in the season.
2008 Meghan Fay – After a year away from swimming has joined the Southern CT State University team. She is in her second year at SCSU and is excited to be back in the water.
2008 Jessica Herms – Has transferred to SCSU and is now diving for the swim team. Her positive attitude will be a welcome addition at Southern.
2008 Owen Rood – Led his triathlon relay team to their second victory at Hammerfest in mid September. Owen did the swimming, his brother in law Jeff O’Connor handled the biking and Owen’s brother Asa Wildermann was the runner. Just started practice in his second year at Tufts. Owen reports that he has had to give up blue cheese dressing and French fries at every meal in an attempt to get back in shape. He is majoring in History.
2007 Fran Kennedy – Fran is a junior at Anna Maria College
2007 Evanica Radovich – President of her water polo team at Emory University in Atlanta. They had their first match and defeated the University of Georgia which is a major win. In her spare time she works at a school for infants up to pre-schoolers and lifeguards at the Emery pool.
2007 Suzanna Slater – Studying Anthropology this semester in Sydney, Australia at the University of New South Wales. When the semester ends she will be traveling around New Zealand and Thailand and plans to be back home in June.
2006 Mike Loftis – Now in his senior year at Providence College. As usual making a total commitment to the swim team and wants his senior year to be his best.
2006 Lauren Aupi – Spent the summer in Spain and is now back for her senior year at the University of New Hampshire.
2006 Tom Radovich – In his senior year at UCONN majoring in art. Was a participant in the Hammerfest triathlon.
2005 Stephanie Giordano – Graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in May and is now in the medical school at UConn.
2005 Whitney Herzog – Graduated from Boston University in May and is now getting her advanced degree in Speech Pathology at SCSU. She has been seen attending the girls meets.
2005 Jenna Lupi – Graduated from Marist College in June majoring in Biomedical Science. She has started a year of service with Americorps VISTA. She is working in New Haven with Neighborhood Housing Services which rehabilitates homes and then sells them to low income families.
2005 Kim Arpaia – Sad to report that Kim’s mother passed away in September. Our thoughts are with Kim during this difficult time.
2005 Nina Fattore – This is her senior year and she is president of the swim club at Northeastern University. She is presently on COOP where she is working with handicapped animals providing physical therapy.
2005 Dan Ormrod – Dan and Steve Ferriera were lifeguards again this summer at Hammonassett. They were featured on a story on Fox News at the end of August, demonstrating their lifeguard skills. Dan was the one giving CPR while Steve was on the radio.
2005 Rebecca Reichart – Graduated from Vanderbilt in June is presently working for a magazine in Washington, D.C. but giving strong consideration to graduate school.
2004 Helen Juden – Has been seen in the water at Stingray practices. It is like a flashback from 10 years ago.
2004 Kevin Miles – Has graduated and is now living in Los Angeles, California working on feature films and commercials.
2004 Katie Ryan – Since graduating from Providence Katie has been working at a psychiatric hospital in Brookline, Mass. She is applying to nursing schools around Boston and taking courses at the same time.
2003 Ashley Papuga – Still enjoying working in New York City.
2002 Stephanie Abbati – Steph is a nurse at Yale and coaching the 9 and 10 year olds with the Stingrays along with Jeff O’Connor.
2002 Alesha Amendola – Has been seen at Stingray practices and out running. She has to be one of our best conditioned alumni.
2002 Emily Slater –Was home for Labor Day. She is working in Boston for Jenny Craig.
2001 Shuang Guo – Graduated four years ago from NYU majoring in Psychology and Pre-med. She is now a 4th year medical student at New Jersey Medical School. She just took her Board Exams and is now applying for Internal Medicine Residency (3 years) with hopes of pursing a Hematology/Oncology fellowship thereafter. This means over 6 more years of study. Shaung has been doing sprint and Olympic distance triathlons and finds that her swimming background is a great advantage.
2001 Lisa Kennedy – Lisa is at Columbia University in her third year of her PhD studies in Genetics. She is studying neuronal development using C. Elegans as a model organism (This is definitely more than the old coach could ever understand). Lisa reports she has 3-4 more years before she is finished.
2001 Meredith Killion – Graduated from Yale, working in New Haven but still helping out with the Yale Sailing program in Short Beach.
2001 Erika Newell – Still stationed in Kuwait. She ended up winning the Army 45 day swim challenge by completing the equivalent of the English Channel Swim 5 times for a total of 105 miles. Looking forward to getting home for Christmas and hopefully competing in the alumni meet.
2001 Mary Beth Palomaki – She is an MD in her first year of residency in Pediatrics at St. Barnabas Hospital in the Bronx.
2000 Grace Turman Damien – Their daughter Maple just turned two and now Grace is getting her Masters in Library Science at SCSU. Grace also teaches swimming at the Madison Y and tries to make as many BHS girls meets as possible especially since younger sister Anna is a senior captain this year.
1999 Michelle Buchek - Married on September 6th to Eli Gonsalves. They went to Alaska for their honeymoon and now live in Maryland. The entire family was in Maryland for the wedding.
1999 Teri Ciancola – Teaching elementary school in Westbrook.
1999 Katie Glynn – Seen at “Lenny’s” with former teammates Sarah and Debbie. She looks great.
1999 Debbie Hally – Is working full time for the Guilford school system as a School Psychologist at Guilford High school. She made the mistake of telling her friends that she does the same thing I did at Branford but the problem is no one knew what I did. It is a great field and congratulations to Debbie on her new position.
1999 Sarah Hayes – Working as a nurse at St. Raphael’s in the Oncology ward. Sarah has the right attitude to be a real help to those living with Cancer.
1999 Matt LaPrino – Matt is the aquatics director at the Milford Y and helps Sue Lecza with the 11 and 12 year olds with the Stingrays.
1999 Cindy Rock – Returned from her honeymoon and back as a guidance counselor in the New Haven school system.
1998 Sara Rothermel - Graduated from SCSU where she swam all four years and now is attending graduate school at Central Ohio University.
1998 Suzy Turman – Lives in the financial district in New York and works on Wall St. Has just started a new job as project manager of client relations at Adecco.
1998 Erin Kelley - Is engaged and will be married next October. She works at the Intermediate School and the Rec. Department.
1996 Chrissy Buchek Vigneault – She is now an MD. She has started at Yale where she has a fellowship in nephrology (kidney doctor). Note-(You have to be pretty smart to be a doctor in a field the old coach can’t even pronounce).
1996 Carrie Esposito - Carrie is presently on maternity leave from her job as guidance counselor at North Branford High School. Carrie and husband Dave welcomed son Luca into the world on July 31. Uncle Chris (91) is pretty proud also. Carrie plans on staying on maternity leave for the remainder of the school year.
1996 Courtney Santagata – Hospital Nutritionist at Yale.
1995 Jennifer Brooks - Had her son Jack christened in October and is enrolled full time in the UConn law school.
1995 Christine Coppola Perez – Will run in the New York marathon this week. She had a great summer as she got her MBA and went to Italy twice. Chrissy works at Yale.
1995 Gary Bliven – Rumor has it that Gary and his wife had twins last winter. Gary works at Quinnipiac University.
1995 Stephanie Lecza – has just gotten a job promotion and will be moving to North Carolina this month.
1995 Lindsay Marsh – Has had an unbelievable year as she has trained for marathons and started two new business ventures (a wholesale distribution company and a political consulting firm.)
1995 Kelly Nichols – Has a three year old daughter Grace and just recently had another child but do not know the details.
1994 Jessica Donaruma Foti – Jessica and her husband Tom are expecting their second child on February 18th which will be their daughter Amelia’s 5th birthday. Jessica is the Streamside Keeper at the North Carolina Zoological Park in Asheboro, North Carolina. One of her otters is also expecting in December.
1994 Kierstin Newell – Is now teaching reading at an elementary school in Hartford and living in Southington. Welcome back to Connecticut. She will be inducted into the Branford Sports Hall of Fame on November 20th.
1994 Jeremy Smith – Graduate of Lehigh University and for the last 10 years he has been living in Boulder, Colorado and working in Denver in software development. This past year he was married in Costa Rica which he said worked out great and is much cheaper then a wedding in Denver. Just celebrated his first anniversary and has now started a freelance website design business. Anyone that can use his services can contact me and I’ll send you his email address.
1993 Ed Remillard – Ed and his wife Melanie gave birth to their second child Gannon Fox Remillard on October 9. Their three year old daughter Piper welcomed home her new brother.
1993 Justin Infantino – Justin has been bringing his two oldest daughters (he has 3) to the girls swim meets. His oldest is in kindergarten at Tisko.
1992 Michelle Rock – Teaching in the Dade County (Miami) school system and is now living in Kendall, Florida. She still manages to coach part time for John Leonard at SwimFast.
1991 Scott Butler – Coached the Branford girls to another successful dual meet season with a 10-2 record.
1991 Elizabeth Coombe Wildermann- Busy taking care of her “guys” - Lee (9), Jack (7) and Asa (38).
1990 Tiffany Ariyan Omeragic – Tiffany, Edwin and their daughter have moved but just up the street in the heart of Pine Orchard. Tiffany reports that her three year old daughter learned to swim this summer without flotation devices.
1990 Maggie McGowan – Living in Branford, has three daughters and now has a seven year old on the Stingrays. Her youngest looks just like Maggie did at that age.
1990 Sean O’Connor – Just finished his seventh year coaching the Conard High School Girl’s swim Team to an 8-2 record. During a stretch of four tough meets that they could have lost, Sean told the girls he would swim his team’s best swimmer in a race that would be one lap for each of the four meets they won. Unfortunately for Sean they won three meets and his best swimmer (53 hundred freestyler) beat him on the last lap. He had 75 girls on the team with no assistant coach.
1989 Alicia Grenon Lapham – Has three sons, the oldest two swim for the Trumbull Pisces. Lives in Stratford, husband Steve teaches at Greenwich H.S. where he coaches Volleyball and Rugby.
1989 Kelly Maher Sabbatino - Kelly looks great and was seen with her 22 month old daughter Summer at the recent meet the Stingrays hosted. They were there to watch Alicia Grenon Lapham’s son Garrett compete.
1988 John Demetre – John may be an attorney by day but this week (Oct, 29, 30, 31) he is in the “Rocky Horror Show”at the “Playwright” at 144 Whitney Ave. in New Haven. John is playing the role of “Riff Raf.”
1988 Steven Fryer – His sons Eric 6 and Jackson 4 have welcomed their latest addition Annie in July. Steve’s wife Janet and Annie are all doing well.
1988 Bob Grenon – Married, has been working at an Art Gallery in San Francisco for 17 years where he is a manager. Was back East this month on business and stopped by. He looks great and now that the statue of limitations has passed is telling stories of growing up in Branford with Phil Fisher (88) that I didn’t want to know about.
1988 Chris Nolan – In May, Chris and his wife Kelly moved to Fort Collins, Colorado. They bought a house and Kelly took a job as an admissions counselor at Colorado State University. Chris spent the summer as a full time raft guide on the Cache la Poudre River. Now that summer is over he is looking for a job as a project manager.
1988 Kristin Johnson Skuches - Has returned to coaching as an assistant at Foran High School. Her nine year old son, to no one’s surprise, has turned out to be a very good breaststroke swimmer.
1987 Dale Burkard Izzo – Assistant director of the Branford Rec. Department and 8 and under coach with the Stingrays. She reports that she is enjoying having Rowan O’Connor (youngest son of Jeff) and the daughter of Maggie McGowan swimming with the 8 and unders. Dale’s oldest son Eric is taking swim lessons at the Rec. Department.
1987 Eric Golia – Will be inducted into the Branford Sports Hall of Fame on Friday, November 20.
1987 Jeff O’Connor – Back coaching the Stingray 9 and 10 year olds for his tenth year. This year he has his 10 year old son Paul swimming for him while his six year old son Rowan is in the Stingray 8 and under group. There are 42 Stingrays in the 9 and 10 age group this year.
1984 Susan Lecza – Sue just purchased a new home in Branford. She is personally keeping the Florida Trip alive by doing all the organizing, chaperoning and coaching. She continues to coach the 11 and 12 year olds on the Stingrays and be the assistant coach of the Girls High School Team.
1983 Patrick Conroy – He still owns his own cleaning company in South Florida. He reports that he golfs once a week with Gary Bearhope (82) and Tony DiGuilian. I guess when you are 1,500 miles from home it’s nice to get together with others that have the same roots.
1982 Dave Andriole – Came home from California to see his mother (Pat) receive recognition from the town for her many years of service as Director of the Branford Counseling Center. After 20 years in California Dave is starting to talk about moving back to this area.
1980 Chris Conlin – Chris continues to remake himself. He is swimming several thousand yards every day and continues to lose weight. He now looks in better shape then in high school 30 years ago. His youngest son (Miles) is on the Stingrays and improving each season.
1979 Mark Loftis – Not only is he the oldest record holder in Branford but he is among the oldest bachelors but that record is coming to an end. Mark chose “Lenny’s” as the place to announce that he would marry Nadeleen Tempelman-Kluit. She is originally from Vancouver, Canada but now lives in New York and works at NYU. They met when she and Mark were cycling together.
1975 Jim Loftis – Set the standard as only former Branford H.S. swimming couple (wife Tina Redden Loftis - 76) to have son (Mike Loftis) also swim at Branford.
1974 Paul Loftis – Came home for his 35th Branford H.S. reunion and is helping us out on the early history of Branford swimming. Introduced me to Mike Miller and others who swam for Branford team in the first three years before I started coaching.
Welcome 