- Jim Bowhay '81

You could say the two class agents being honored this month, Carl Adkins '59 and Catherine Foster Alter '60, have a knack for connecting and reconnecting with their classmates - including each other. After a single date when Catherine was a first-year and Carl was a second-year the two went their own ways. In 1997, however, they again found each other - or more precisely, Carl found Catherine and gave her a call on the telephone. As a result of that call, the two picked up where they had left off almost 40 years earlier. Carl and Catherine are now married and actively retired in Asheville, N.C.

Between their first and second dates, the two led active professional and family lives. In the midst of raising three children, Catherine went back to school, earning a master's degree in social work from the University of Iowa and a Ph.D. from the University of Maryland. For many years in the 1980s and early 1990s, she taught at the University of Iowa and served as director of its School Social Work Program. Shortly after the death of her first husband, Tom Alter '60, Catherine became dean of the Graduate School of Social Work at the University of Denver.

During those same years, Carl earned an M.A. at the University of Idaho and a Ph.D. at Kansas State. He spent the bulk of his career working as a professor of English and the men's tennis coach at Buena Vista College (now University) in Storm Lake, Iowa. Following his retirement from Buena Vista, Carl set up the writing program at the University of Denver's Graduate School of Social Work and he volunteers as a writing coach for athletes at the University of North Carolina-Asheville.

Both Carl and Catherine are also the proud parents of Grinnellians: Chuck Adkins-Blanch '84 and Sarah Alter Gershon '85.

The two have provided many years of service as volunteers to the College. Carl has served as class agent for the class of 1959 for 19 years, and Catherine became the class agent for the class of 1960 eight years ago. The two have also served as career development volunteers for Grinnell.

Carl and Catherine are now actively working with their class committees to prepare for their upcoming 50th reunions - as they continue to reconnect themselves and their classmates to the College.

July 2009 Honoree: Michael Schaffer '70
May 2009 Honoree: Ron Lavender '50
March 2009 Honorees: Carl Adkins '59 and Catherine Foster Alter '60
January 2009 Honoree: Ruth Koehler Bergerson '66
November 2008 Honoree: David V. Evans '64
September 2008 Honoree: Samantha Massingale Gerth '91
July 2008 Honoree: Audrey "Bunny" Howard Swanson '43
May 2008 Honoree: Emily Westergaard '02
March 2008 Honoree: David Rosenbaum '78
January 2008 Honoree: Beverly Burd Stubbee '48