BY ELISE KNABLE ’09

In mid-October, the cam­pus was abuzz with activ­ity as many who once called Wes­ley home returned to their old stomp­ing grounds. Alumni who attended the annual Home­com­ing fes­tiv­i­ties rep­re­sented numer­ous gen­er­a­tions of for­mer stu­dents whose hearts still have a place for Wes­ley. Among them were mem­bers of the Class of 1960 cel­e­brat­ing the 50th anniver­sary of their grad­u­a­tion from Wes­ley Junior Col­lege. Hav­ing trav­eled from all direc­tions to attend the reunion, class mem­bers brought with them unique remem­brances of their Wes­ley expe­ri­ence as well as sto­ries of their indi­vid­ual jour­neys since they departed the cam­pus 50 years ago. Reunited for this spe­cial event, they rem­i­nisced about the cher­ished mem­o­ries they made together at Wes­ley. Prior to cel­e­brat­ing this impor­tant mile­stone, a hand­ful of them shared per­sonal reflec­tions on their alma mater and how the Col­lege was instru­men­tal in their lives.

Dar­ryl McCabe

“Wes­ley was impor­tant to me because it was the step­ping stone to a new life of friend­ships and expo­sure to the world out­side a small town,” explained Dar­ryl McCabe ’60. “Many friend­ships and good times were enjoyed there.” After attend­ing Wes­ley and play­ing foot­ball and intra­mural sports there, he con­tin­ued his school­ing at Delaware Val­ley Col­lege in Doylestown, Penn­syl­va­nia, where he received a degree in agronomy.

In 1963 he mar­ried Deanna and began to pur­sue a career in golf course man­age­ment while work­ing at var­i­ous courses on the east coast. After gain­ing expe­ri­ence through sev­eral posi­tions, McCabe returned to Delaware to work for New Cas­tle County. He was the super­in­ten­dent of Del­cas­tle Golf Club until 1986, when he became a part­ner in Delaware Golf Club Man­age­ment and took over the lease for Del­cas­tle for the next 22 years.

When the con­tract with the club ended in 2008, McCabe and his wife retired to Lewes, Delaware, where they cur­rently enjoy the acces­si­bil­ity of the beach and the surf fish­ing that has become a favorite pas­time for them. He and Deanna have three children—Clarke, Cindy and Todd. “Between them, we have seven beau­ti­ful grand­chil­dren.” Although retired from the golf busi­ness, McCabe still has a pas­sion for the game. He is very active in his com­mu­nity of Bay­cross­ing and Sus­sex Pines Coun­try Club and he and Deanna spend a lot of time on the course. They also look for­ward to trav­el­ing the coun­try in the years ahead to take in the numer­ous sights they have yet to see.

Jim Lan­dis

“I never had any inten­tion of going to col­lege after high school,” expressed Jim Lan­dis ’60, “but my time at Wes­ley proved to me that I could do the work that was put out for me to do.” With this les­son learned, Lan­dis grad­u­ated from Wes­ley Junior Col­lege and con­tin­ued with another year of school at Amer­i­can Uni­ver­sity. After secur­ing a job in the finan­cial sec­tor in Wilm­ing­ton, Delaware, he mar­ried his long-time high school sweet­heart in Sep­tem­ber 1962.

Lan­dis joined the Delaware Air National Guard dur­ing the draft a year later and spent 26 years as a part-time aeromed­ical evac­u­a­tion tech­ni­cian until retir­ing from the Guard in 1989. In addi­tion to his part-time role, he worked in the finan­cial indus­try in var­i­ous posi­tions, such as credit and col­lec­tion man­ager, mort­gage banker and real estate appraiser, until Octo­ber 1973 when he joined K&D, Inc., a local insur­ance firm in Wilmington.

“My time and expe­ri­ence [at Wes­ley] helped me in my insur­ance busi­ness as far as tak­ing courses and pass­ing required tests which led to sev­eral pro­fes­sional des­ig­na­tions I received,” Lan­dis noted. He began his work in the firm as a pro­ducer and fin­ished his career as a part­ner up until his retire­ment in 2009. “It turned out to be the best job I could ever find.”

He and his wife, who cel­e­brated their 48th wed­ding anniver­sary in Sep­tem­ber, have two chil­dren, Bar­bara and James, and each has two daugh­ters. In addi­tion to enjoy­ing time with their grand­chil­dren, the cou­ple enjoys boat­ing, golf­ing or ski­ing when not attend­ing to their retire­ment invest­ment, a Christ­mas tree farm off Route 5 in Sus­sex County, Delaware. “In our early years of mar­riage when our kids were small, we would make an annual visit to a local Christ­mas tree farm. We always had so much fun that we thought hav­ing a Christ­mas tree farm would be a neat retire­ment project,” he said.

Liv­ing in Delaware, Lan­dis enjoys the ben­e­fit of see­ing the Col­lege as he dri­ves by on occa­sion, and read­ing about Wes­ley grad­u­ates and their achieve­ments in Wes­ley mag­a­zine, the news­pa­per or on the news. The 50th reunion of his class has spurred him to appre­ci­ate even more his own Wes­ley edu­ca­tion. “We seem to always look for instant grat­i­fi­ca­tion and just don’t stop to reflect on past life expe­ri­ences that have got­ten us to the point of that all impor­tant decision.”

Joan (Lefever) Bennett

While grow­ing up on a dairy farm in Not­ting­ham, Penn­syl­va­nia, Joan (Lefever) Ben­nett ’60 hoped to go to school to learn about hor­ti­cul­ture and design­ing flower gar­dens but found that there were no oppor­tu­ni­ties at nearby schools to fol­low her dreams. “When I learned about Wes­ley and the spe­cial pro­grams it had to offer, there was no look­ing back,” she recalled. After grad­u­at­ing from the Col­lege, she stayed in Dover for a year while work­ing for the Bank of Delaware in its stocks and bonds depart­ment. There she got a “first taste of being on my own and becom­ing a part of the busi­ness world.”

Armed with an Asso­ciate of Arts degree and some valu­able work expe­ri­ence, Ben­nett moved to Wash­ing­ton D.C. in 1961 and entered night school at George Wash­ing­ton Uni­ver­sity, even­tu­ally earn­ing a bachelor’s degree in psy­chol­ogy. While attend­ing school, she worked at Exec­u­tive Inte­ri­ors, an office fur­ni­ture show­room, where she worked with many dec­o­ra­tors who designed the city’s offices and hotels. While work­ing there she met Richard Vigueire, who helped her to become famil­iar with Young Amer­i­cans for Free­dom, “a small polit­i­cal orga­ni­za­tion with a strong col­lege chap­ter program.”

She worked within the orga­ni­za­tion, learn­ing how to pro­duce direct mail fundrais­ing for polit­i­cal cam­paigns, muse­ums and mon­u­ments. “It all cen­tered around adver­tis­ing, mar­ket­ing and cre­at­ing donor mail­ing lists which is where I am today at Atlantic Mail­ing Lists in Arling­ton, Vir­ginia,” Ben­nett explained. She noted that Wes­ley influ­enced her in many aspects of her life, includ­ing when she “joined and became a board mem­ber of the Direct Mar­ket­ing Asso­ci­a­tion of Wash­ing­ton (DMAW) Edu­ca­tional Foun­da­tion with its goal to edu­cate and inspire col­lege stu­dents to enter the field of direct and inter­ac­tive marketing.”

While work­ing in D.C., Ben­nett met her hus­band John, a mem­ber of the Met­ro­pol­i­tan Police Depart­ment, and the cou­ple made their home in Annapo­lis, Mary­land and have been “on the water ever since.” In addi­tion to enjoy­ing coastal life at their home, Ben­nett spends her free time gar­den­ing and going to auc­tions for dec­o­rat­ing pieces. “I enjoy orga­niz­ing events pro­mot­ing DMAW to col­lege stu­dents in the mid-Atlantic region,” she added.

One of Bennett’s fond­est mem­o­ries at Wes­ley was being one of six stu­dents who, dressed in their white dresses, would drive to a church in New Jer­sey to rep­re­sent Wes­ley at its Sun­day sup­per. It was “a mem­o­rable event that summed up what the Wes­ley expe­ri­ence was all about,” said Ben­nett. She also enjoyed the chance to be one of the first disc jock­eys for WSLY, the Wes­ley radio sta­tion on cam­pus, and hav­ing her own show, called “Sooth­ing Sounds of WSLY,” broad­casted evenings dur­ing the week.

“My two years at Wes­ley opened the door to oppor­tu­ni­ties I would never have real­ized, both aca­d­e­m­i­cally and per­son­ally,” Ben­nett expressed. “There’s a spe­cial nature of a Wes­ley edu­ca­tion and those who make it hap­pen, for which I’m very grate­ful.” She con­tin­ued, “I’m sure that my class­mates share that feeling.”

Clarence Mar­tin

An Air Force vet­eran who served eight years as a sergeant in admin­is­tra­tion, Clarence Mar­tin ’60 found Wes­ley Col­lege to be a place to “con­tinue becom­ing a more knowl­edge­able per­son.” Upon his grad­u­a­tion in 1960, he enrolled in West Chester Uni­ver­sity where he received his bachelor’s of edu­ca­tion in biol­ogy, Eng­lish and health in 1963.

Martin’s edu­ca­tional jour­ney didn’t stop there, as he con­tin­ued his stud­ies to receive a master’s of edu­ca­tion in socialsciences at West Chester Uni­ver­sity and earned a doc­toral equiv­a­lency from Uni­ver­sity of Wis­con­sin and Penn State. He attrib­utes his desire for life­long learn­ing to Wes­ley Junior Col­lege where “receiv­ing an out­stand­ing solid base to con­tinue my fur­ther pur­suits in edu­ca­tion” drove him to share his knowl­edge as a life sci­ence, geog­ra­phy and his­tory teacher for 35 years.

Mar­tin mar­ried Carla-Donna Holm­gren in 1966 and their fam­ily grew through­out the years with three chil­dren— Daryl, Bethany and Joel. Although Mar­tin and his wife are now retired from full-time careers, he is employed part-time as an edu­ca­tional ther­a­pist at a behav­ioral mod­i­fi­ca­tion cen­ter in Mt. Gretna, Lan­caster and York in Penn­syl­va­nia. He vol­un­teers reg­u­larly and is an active mem­ber of his church, hav­ing served through­out the years as an elder and trustee. Mar­tin also has the dis­tinc­tion of receiv­ing the 33rd degree in Free Masonry, an honor of which he is very proud. In addi­tion to stay­ing busy with com­mu­nity activ­i­ties, Mar­tin and his wife enjoy spend­ing time with their five grand­chil­dren, trav­el­ing and also fish­ing and hunt­ing on their three acres of property.

Look­ing back on his Wes­ley days, Mar­tin recalled “the excel­lent, car­ing pro­fes­sors” who guided him through the begin­ning of his post-secondary pur­suits. He felt that com­ing back to Wes­ley this fall allowed him “to share my start­ing point in higher edu­ca­tion with my wife and recall the mem­o­ries of Wes­ley and the out­stand­ing class­mates.” Express­ing a com­mon sen­ti­ment of many grad­u­ates who return to their alma mater, he added, “Mem­o­ries in life are impor­tant to share with others.”

Jane (Kear­ney) MacDonald

“It was always my hope to return to Wes­ley one day and give back some of the rich expe­ri­ences I received as a stu­dent,” explained Jane (Kear­ney) Mac­Don­ald ’60 as she described her con­tin­u­ing con­nec­tion with the Col­lege. After grad­u­at­ing from Wes­ley, Mac­Don­ald enrolled at Tow­son Uni­ver­sity, earn­ing a bachelor’s degree in ele­men­tary edu­ca­tion. She went on to com­plete grad­u­ate work at Loy­ola Uni­ver­sity. “Most of my career was spent teach­ing first grade and rais­ing a fam­ily,” she explained. She mar­ried Bob Mac­Don­ald in 1979 and together they shared three sons, Bobby, Ken­neth and Ronald, and a daugh­ter Jaque­lyn. After teach­ing for 37 years, Mac­Don­ald retired from the Tome School in Cecil County, Mary­land and has stayed active in vol­un­teer activ­i­ties. When she is not vol­un­teer­ing with her church or other com­mit­tees or hav­ing fam­ily time, she and Bob enjoy trav­el­ing. For the past 10 years, Mac­Don­ald has served on Wesley’s Alumni Asso­ci­a­tion Board of Direc­tors. She and Bob return to cam­pus sev­eral times a year to par­tic­i­pate in board activ­i­ties and other Col­lege events. “We love attend­ing social func­tions at Wes­ley such as Home­com­ing, Founder’s Day, grad­u­a­tions or just help­ing with fundrais­ers on cam­pus,” she said. Mac­Don­ald described her cur­rent affil­i­a­tion with the Col­lege as a way to keep that con­nec­tion with the Wes­ley fam­ily that she dis­cov­ered when she first attended the school. She noted that the “admin­is­tra­tion, staff and stu­dents worked closely together” while she was there and that it is grat­i­fy­ing to visit cam­pus reg­u­larly to see “that same rela­tion­ship on a much larger scale.”

Mac­Don­ald, along with Mar­tin and Bill Huf­nal ’60, served as class vol­un­teers and began in the spring pro­mot­ing the reunion and encour­ag­ing fel­low alumni to return. “When I vol­un­teered as a reunion con­tact to call my class­mates, I did not real­ize how reward­ing it would be. Shar­ing sto­ries from the past and catch­ing up to the present day was such a plea­sure. What a rev­e­la­tion to know the tele­phone is still there giv­ing a per­sonal touch to com­mu­ni­cat­ing! I found this was a great way to reach out and encour­age fel­low class­mates to return,” said MacDonald.

Through their con­tacts, the three of them were able to renew old friend­ships and their efforts resulted in a good show­ing of alumni at their 50th reunion. All of the atten­dees had a won­der­ful time revis­it­ing their alma mater and reunit­ing with Wes­ley friends over Home­com­ing Week­end. With spe­cial seat­ing and recog­ni­tion at the All Class Reunion Din­ner, mem­bers of the group were indi­vid­u­ally named and given a 50th reunion gift from the Col­lege. In addi­tion, the alumni from Class of 1960 were the hon­ored guests at Sunday’s Golden Grads Brunch, dur­ing which they were offi­cially inducted into the Golden Grads Cir­cle by Pres­i­dent John­ston and given a com­mem­o­ra­tive lapel pin. The atten­dees espe­cially enjoyed the oppor­tu­nity to share mem­o­ries of their Wes­ley days and to catch up with one another through­out the weekend.

Since class vol­un­teers and per­sonal con­tact are crit­i­cal ingre­di­ents to any reunion, the Col­lege wel­comes involve­ment from other Wes­ley alumni to get an early start for their own upcom­ing class reunions. For infor­ma­tion on get­ting involved in a future reunion for your class or group, please con­tact Direc­tor of Alumni Affairs Amanda Downes at downesam@wesley.edu or 302–736-2318.