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OBITUARIES
Class
of 1928
David
Hirsh, retired businessman, Hallandale, Fla., on July 15, 1998.
Hirsh had been chairman of Grany Travers Co. in New
York.
Class of
1930
Shroeder
Boulton, retired executive, New York, on February 13, 2000. The
grandson of Frederick Schroeder, mayor of the City of Brooklyn and
founder of the Germania Bank, Boulton was born in Brooklyn and
earned a bachelor's in business at Columbia. He worked briefly for
the Brooklyn Bureau of Social Services in 1931 before joining
Baker, Weeks & Harden as a research trainee. (Boulton later
joked that he was one of four people to join Wall Street during the
Depression.) He eventually became a partner at Baker, Weeks &
Harden, and later worked as a financial consultant at Lazard
Frères & Co. and at Jesup & Lamont. He retired in 1998
as first vice president of Tucker Anthony Inc. During the 1960s,
Boulton and his second wife, the psychotherapist Mary Holzman
Bancroft, were vocal supporters of the civil rights movement and
opened their Greenwich Village home as a meeting place for civil
rights workers.
James A.
Hamilton, Jr., Knoxville, Tenn., on December 3, 1999. A Phi
Beta Kappa graduate of the College, Hamilton received a J.D. from
Columbia in 1932 and an LL.M. from NYU. From 1941 to 1971, Hamilton
worked as an attorney and later as a district director at the
Immigration and Naturalization Service of the U.S. Department of
Justice. In 1971, he retired to Titusville, Fla., where he lived
with his wife, Nora, until her death in 1984, when he moved to his
daughter's home in Knoxville. In his retirement, Hamilton, who was
a devoted Yankee fan, was known for his recitations of classical
poetry and Shakespeare. Memorial gifts in his memory can be made to
the Development Office, Columbia Law School, 7th Floor, William
& June Warren Bldg, 1125 Amsterdam Avenue, Columbia University,
New York, NY 10027.
Class of
1931
Sidney B.
Becker, retired executive, New York, on January 15, 2000.
During World War II, Becker served in the U.S. Army, eventually
rising to lieutenant colonel. He received the Legion of Merit, the
highest non-combatant award for exceptional service. Becker worked
in senior executive positions at Schenley Industries and Willcox
& Gibbs, where he eventually became board chairman. An ardent
supporter of Reconstructionist Judaism, Becker was a member of
Board of Governors and the executive committee of the
Reconstructionist Rabbinical College; he provided the Rabbinical
College's first endowed chairs in Hebrew Studies and scholarship
funds to support its Israel study program. The Rabbinical College
awarded Becker the honorary degree "Keter Shem Tov" (Crown of the
Good Name), bestowed on persons of academic and communal
distinction. He was also a member of the executive committee of the
PEF Israel Endowment Funds, and a life member of the board of the
Associated Y's of New York.
Stanley
Howard Brams, journalist and automobile industry expert,
Atlanta, on December 25, 1999. Brams was born in Greenville, Mich.;
his journalism career began when he was only 14, as school editor
of the Bay City Times-Tribune. Brams entered the College with the
Class of 1931, but dropped out during his junior year at the height
of the Depression. He returned to Michigan, where he went to work
in Detroit as an advertising copywriter for the J.L. Hudson
Company, Frank & Seder Company, and Sears, Roebuck. Brams
emerged as a leading authority on labor relations and the American
automobile industry. He covered his first Detroit Auto Show in the
fall of 1935, to preview the 1936 Plymouths, as a reporter for the
Transradio Press Service. He was editor of Ward's Automotive
Reports from 1936 to 1940, the Detroit editor of Iron Age
magazine and Detroit bureau manager for McGraw Hill from 1946 to
1952, and the editor and publisher of Michigan Beverage News
from 1986 to 1989. In 1952, he became a founding member of the
Detroit Press Club. During the 1960s, Brams contributed the
"Automotive Industry" entry to the Encyclopædia
Brittanica yearbook. Over his long career, he contributed
articles to scores of magazines, including Reader's Digest, The
New Yorker, Parents, Saveur, The New York
Times Magazine, Nation's Business, Mechanix
Illustrated, and Ford Times, among others. During the
1960s and 1970s, Brams had the responsibility of closing all of
Henry Ford II's press conferences at the Ford Motor Company
headquarters with a traditional "Thank you, Mr. Ford." (Ford was
not only a close friend, but also one of Brams's poker-playing
companions.) By the 1980s, Brams, who was recognized as perhaps the
oldest automotive journalist, was often referred to as the "dean of
auto writers" by his Detroit colleagues. He established Press
Relations Newswire in Detroit in 1961 and later set up similar
facilities in Washington, D.C., Cleveland and Atlanta. The most
successful of Brams's entrepreneurial ventures, these bureaus used
private-circuit teletypewriters from Western Union and local Bell
companies to deliver press releases to newspapers, magazines, and
radio and television stations. In 1985, the four bureaus were sold
to PR Newswire in New York. An avid traveler, Brams spent three
months circumnavigating the globe in 1986 and became a board member
of the Detroit Chapter of the Circumnavigators Club. He was a board
member of the National Automotive History Collection of the Detroit
Public Library (serving as chairman from 1990 to 1992), a past
president of The Prismatic Club, and a member of the Society of
Automotive Engineers, the Engineering Society of Detroit, the
Economic Club of Detroit, and the Customer Advisory Council of Blue
Cross-Blue Shield of Michigan. Brams's service to his alma mater
included membership in the Society of Columbia Graduates and past
membership in the John Jay Associates.
Howard F.
Rundlett, retired petroleum analyst, Danbury, Conn., on October
4, 1999. Rundlett, who also took courses in the Engineering School,
worked as a chemist for the Sherwood Petroleum Co. in Brooklyn
before joining Standard Oil's operations in Cleveland. In 1946, he
became an analyst at Esso (later Exxon) Research and Engineering in
Linden, N.J., from which he retired.
Class of
1933
Roland
Eric Gunther, retired chemist, Oxford, N.Y., on February 15,
2000. Gunther was a flavor chemist at Norwich Eaton Pharmaceutical
Company. He retired to New Berlin, N.Y. in the early 1980s and had
been living at the New York State Veterans Home in Oxford at the
time of his death.
Paul E.
Kaunitz, retired psychiatrist, Jacksonville, Fla., on December
12, 1999. Kaunitz, whose father was a 1905 graduate of P&S and
whose mother graduated from Barnard in 1911, received a master's
from GSAS, a certificate from Columbia's Psychiatric Institute and
medical degree from NYU. He was a practicing psychiatrist in New
York City and Westport, Conn., for nearly 50 years. During World
War II, he served as a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army and
received a Bronze Star from General Omar Bradley for "meritorious
service" in planning and executing the medical evacuation plans for
the D-Day invasion. Kaunitz began a private medical practice
specializing in psychiatry in Westport in 1950, and later became an
attending psychiatrist at the Yale-New Haven Community Hospital and
a member of the Department of Clinical Psychiatry at the Yale
College of Medicine, where he became a full professor. He founded
Yale's Department of Psychiatry Consulting Service, was a fellow of
the American Psychiatric Association, an examiner for the American
Board of Psychiatry and Neurology, and a past president of the
Connecticut Psychiatric Association. In 1998, Kaunitz and his wife,
Dr. Rita Davidson Kaunitz '45 GSAS, retired and moved to
Jacksonville, where they became active members of the congregation
of Rabbi David Osachy '88. A loyal alumnus, Kaunitz was a member of
the John Jay Associates and a regular contributor to Class Notes in
CCT. In addition to his wife, survivors include a son, Jonathan
'72, '76 P&S, and a daughter, Victoria '71 Barnard.
Class of
1934
David
Alfred Boehm, publishing entrepreneur, New York, on February 6,
2000. Boehm was the founder of Sterling Publishing in New York and
the U.S. editor of The Guinness Book of World Records, which
he introduced to American readers. A Manhattan native, Boehm
attended George Washington High School. At the College, he majored
in sociology, became editor of Spectator, and collaborated
with his classmate and lifelong friend Herman Wouk on the senior
skit. Boehm's experience at Spectator directly led to his
interest in publishing. After graduation, he joined Cupples and
Leon as an editor and later became a production manager at McGraw
Hill and a sales manager at Greenburg Publishers. Boehn founded
Sterling Publishing in 1949, working out of a telephone booth in
the Hotel Pennsylvania, where he could take calls out of earshot of
his regular employer. Sterling's first book, Stampography
(about stamp collecting), set the pattern for information-filled,
"how-to" volumes that became Sterling's forte. In 1956, Boehm's
career took off when he discovered an imported edition of an
English book, The Guinness Book of Superlatives, in a Boston
bookstore. He sped to London, where he quickly obtained the book's
publishing rights in return for a percentage of what he earned on
sales in the United States. He renamed it The Guinness Book of
World Records (Boehm assumed most American readers wouldn't
understand "superlative") and Americanized the volume's information
by adding information on baseball. In no time, The Guinness Book
of World Records was one of the world's best-selling books, and
Sterling and Guinness were sharing $1.7 million per year in
revenue. Boehm then licensed the name to a series of endeavors,
from paper cups to museums. Sterling published a new edition of the
Guinness Book every year, causing considerable consternation
at the British parent company, which became unhappy that more
people knew the Guinness name for the book than for the beer. In
the 1980s, Boehm staved off a series of lawsuits from Guinness (a
federal judge described one of the brewery's attempts to break
Boehm's license as "blatantly unreasonable cupidity"), but finally
sold rights to the book back to Guinness in 1989. While he was
still the book's publisher, however, Boehm became a connoisseur of
the arcane. He became a regular guest on The Guinness Book of
World Records television program, hosted by David Frost, and
often served as a judge with Frost when contestants sought to
create new, often bizarre, world records. He eliminated goldfish
eating as a record listed in The Guinness Book when he noticed that
goldfish were getting smaller, making eating many of them less of
an accomplishment. He excluded from the book a man who caught a
grape in his mouth from 270 feet away (the event wasn't common
enough) and another who managed to fit 250 clothespins on his nose.
Boehm became a founding member of the Guinness Book of World
Records Museum, originally in the Empire State Building and later
expanded to other cities. His company remained successful after
giving up The Guinness Book; Sterling currently has
approximately 3,000 titles in print. Boehm also wrote or edited
many books, all published by Sterling, ranging from a popular
series of children's geography books to The Real, Real World of
William C. Casey, a posthumous collection of lectures and
writings by his friend and former Columbia sociology professor.
Boehm was a regular attendee at College reunions. Survivors include
his son, Lincoln '66.
Class of
1935
Alan
Gornick, retired attorney, Bloomfield Hills, Mich., on February
26, 1998. A native of Leadville, Colo., Gornick, who was a member
of Phi Delta Phi and selected as a Nacom, received his law degree
from Columbia. He worked as an associate in two New York law firms
before moving to Michigan in 1947 to join Ford Motor Co. as an
associate counsel in charge of tax matters. He later became the
company's director of tax affairs. Gornick was a noted lecturer on
tax matters and the author of several books and many articles on
tax law. He was a past president of the Tax Institute and the Tax
Executives Institute, and a member of several tax law associations.
He served his alma mater through membership on the board of
directors of the Alumni Federation, the presidency of the Columbia
Club of Michigan, and long service as president of his class. In
1947, he received the Distinguished Alumni Accomplishment Medal
from Columbia.
Edward H.
Reisner, Jr., retired physician and medical researcher,
Allendale, N.J., on December 16, 1999. A native of Manhattan, Kan.,
Reisner received his medical degree from P&S in 1939. During
World War II, he served as a captain in the U.S. Army Medical
Corps, earning a Purple Heart and Bronze Star after suffering a
bullet wound during the Battle of the Bulge. After the war, he
began a private medical practice specializing in internal medicine
and hematology in New York, where he was affiliated with St. Luke's
Hospital. A widely respected cancer specialist and diagnostician,
Reisner published over 85 papers relating to his research into
nutrition and cancer. In the 1950s, after Reisner and a colleague,
Dr. Randolf West, showed that vitamin B12 was the element missing
from the blood of patients afflicted with the often-fatal disease
of pernicious anemia, a treatment was developed. Reisner was also
an assistant professor of clinical medicine at P&S and at the
NYU Medical Center and was a past president of the New York Society
for the Study of Blood. Reisner's service to his alma mater
included membership on the Undergraduate Affairs Committee in the
1960s and chairing his class's 25th reunion committee. A longtime
resident of Tenafly, N.J., Reisner had been living in a retirement
community in Allendale, N.J. A memorial service was held in the
chapel at St. Luke's Hospital on January 8, 2000.
Class of
1936
Paul
deRykere Kolisch, physician, Friendship, N.Y., on January 3,
2000. Born in Brooklyn to a Hungarian father and Belgian mother,
Kolisch earned his medical degree from the Long Island College of
Medicine (now the New York Downstate Medical Center). A highly
decorated veteran of World War II, Kolisch served as a medical
officer for the 508th Parachute Infantry of the 82nd Airborne
Division. During the D-Day invasion, Captain Kolisch parachuted
behind enemy lines in Normandy, was wounded in action and held
prisoner by the Nazis for three weeks. He was awarded a Bronze Star
for his courage and efficiency under fire during the Battle of the
Bulge. He also received the European, African and Middle Eastern
Campaign Medal with bronze arrowhead device and four bronze battle
stars; the Purple Heart; the Distinguished Unit Citation; the
Combat Medical Badge; and the Parachute Badge. His foreign military
honors were the French Fourragere; the Belgian Fourragere; and the
Dutch Military Order of Wilhelm. In recognition of his wartime
exploits, Kolisch received the New York State Conspicuous Service
Cross and Prisoner of War Medal in 1999; later this year, the
Provincial Governor of Normandy will posthumously award him the
Normandy Campaign Jubilee Medal. Revered in his adopted home of
Friendship in Allegany County, N.Y., as a traditional country
doctor, Kolisch was a board certified physician in pathology and
nuclear medicine. He was lured to Friendship from North Tonawanda
in 1964 by an advertisement from the Friendship Chamber of Commerce
seeking to replace the town's retiring doctor, who had practiced
there since 1922. Kolisch made a house call on the first day of his
new practice in the town, and he continued making house calls until
the end; he was also known to treat people without insurance and
those who he knew would never be able to pay. The author of several
papers on pathology and nuclear medicine, Kolisch was a member of
the New York State Medical Society, the Medical Society of Allegany
County, the 82nd Airborne Association, and the Rotary Club of
Friendship. Kolisch was a highly respected consulting pathologist
to enforcement local law enforcement and served on the Friendship
School Board for several years. Kolisch also had practiced at
Warren Hospital in Phillipsburg, N.J., DeGraff Hospital in North
Tonawanda, N.Y., Bradford Hospital in Bradford, Pa., Jones Memorial
Hospital in Wellsville, N.Y., Coudersport Hospital in Coudersport,
Pa., and Cuba Hospital in Cuba, N.Y. At the time of his death, he
was medical director of the College Park Nursing Home in Houghton,
N.Y., while still maintaining his private practice in Friendship.
Kolisch will be interred in Arlington National Cemetery.
Herbert G.
MacIntosh, retired clothing executive, Irvington, N.Y., on
January 1, 2000. A Bronx native, MacIntosh graduated from
Stuyvesant High and was a captain of the Columbia varsity track
team. After graduation, he went to work at Stern Brothers
department store in New York as an assistant controller. In 1942,
he joined the U.S. Navy, spending two years of naval aviation
service in the Pacific Squadron and two years at the Naval Air
Station in Vero Beach, Fla.; he was discharged with the rank of
commander. After the war, he returned to Stern's as general
superintendent and vice president. In 1958, he joined Brooks
Brothers as a vice president and later became senior vice
president. He continued as a consultant to the company for five
years after his retirement in 1979. MacIntosh had served as a
trustee or board member of Greenburgh Savings and Peoples
Westchester banks, the Irvington Board of Trustees, the Community
Hospital at Dobbs Ferry, and the Irvington Presbyterian Church. His
service to his alma mater included membership on the board of the
former Columbia Club of New York in the early 1960s, including a
term as president. He was also active in alumni affairs, including
long service as president of his class.
Robert
Aime Rostan, retired design engineer, Pensacola, Fla., on
December 25, 1999. After College, Rostan became a design engineer
for Russell & Stoll, a manufacturer of electrical products. He
later became chief design engineer (and an expert in the design of
plugs and connectors) at Midland Ross, which had acquired Russell
& Stoll, working there until his retirement. He also was a
consultant to the U.S. military and the National Electrical
Manufacturers Association (NEMA). During World War II, when
pleasure boats were an uncommon sight in the waters around New
York, Rostan, who was an avid sailor, would sail his boat, The
Wanderer, off Long Island Sound, where U.S. submarines on
training exercises frequently would use it as a marker and surface
near the small craft. After The Wanderer was lost in a
hurricane, Rostan converted an old "Down East" hull into the
Escape, NY, a 36-foot, diesel-engine cabin cruiser that he
piloted along the lakes and waterways of upstate New York and off
Long Island. He earned his airplane pilot's license at 50 and began
refurbishing old sports cars in his retirement. Rostan, who had
lived at various times in the Bronx, Maramoneck, N.Y., and Chatham,
N.J., had retired to Pensacola, Fla.
Class of
1938
Seon P.
Bonan, real estate developer, Palm Beach, Fla., on January 22,
2000. A New York native, Bonan, who had served as a lieutenant in
the U.S. Navy during World War II, graduated from Brooklyn Law
School in 1946. He was president of Royal Business Funds, an
investment capital firm. In the 1950s, Bonan became widely known
for the Charles River Park Project in Boston, which he envisioned
as a self-contained community of apartments, office buildings,
hotels, public garages, and homes for the elderly within the city.
He participated in the revitalization of downtown Stamford, Conn.,
where he spearheaded the mixed-use, Southwest Quadrant development
project that combined commercial, residential and industrial
elements. Bonan was also president of Te-Amo Cigars, chairman of
Precision Film Laboratories, and a trustee of the Greenwich
Academy. Survivors include a grandson, Anthony Bonan
'00.
Class of
1940
Joseph
Bartolf, retired automobile salesman, Los Angeles, on December
30, 1999. A native of Lakewood, N.J., Bartolf played on the College
varsity football and baseball teams as well as wrestling and
boxing. He enlisted in the U.S. Navy in 1940 and became a pilot,
flying dirigibles on reconnaissance missions over the northern and
southern Atlantic. After the war, Bartolf settled in Los Angeles,
where he worked at Valley Motors Center in Van Nuys. Survivors
include a son, Philip '71. Another son, Michael '71, predeceased
him on October 23, 1999 (see below).
Class of
1944
Ronald D.
Smith, retired nuclear superintendent, Oak Ridge, Tenn., on
October 11, 1999. Smith had been department superintendent in Union
Carbide's Nuclear Division in Oak Ridge.
Class of
1948
Ray T.
Blank, retired educator, Bethpage, N.Y., on February 29, 2000.
Blank, who earned a master's degree and an Ed.D. from NYU, had been
superintendent of schools in the Plainedge School District on Long
Island.
Norman
Eliasson, retired defense department official, Falls Church,
Va., on December 11, 1999. Born in New York, Eliasson served in the
U.S. Army during World War II, earning a Bronze Star for his
service as a medic. Selected as a Sachem, he worked his way through
the College as an usher at Carnegie Hall and a cashier at the
Faculty club. After graduation, he earned a master's from
Columbia's School of International Affairs. Eliasson worked for 30
years in the Department of Defense. He participated in the Mutual
and Balanced Force Reduction negotiations for the reduction of
non-nuclear weapons in Europe, and he had served as foreign affairs
officer in the office of the secretary of defense. He also
conducted research for Army intelligence. Eliasson retired from the
department in 1980. He was a deacon at St. Mary's Episcopal Church
in Arlington. After receiving full military honors, Eliasson's
ashes were interred in the columbarium at Arlington National
Cemetery.
Class of
1951
Malcolm
Douglas Macdonald, Greensboro, N.C., on March 2, 2000. A native
of Jersey City, N.J., "Mac" Macdonald served in the U.S. Army from
1944 to 1947. Macdonald, who also earned a master's in psychology
from Teachers College in 1951, originally worked in a series of
positions for Western Electric in New York. He moved to North
Carolina in 1968, working as an equal opportunity officer for the
company, and eventually became manager of corporate human resources
planning. Macdonald was known for developing practices that
fostered equal employment opportunities for minorities, women and
the disabled. He later worked in human resources at AT&T. After
his retirement from AT&T, Macdonald became an independent
consultant and an associate consultant with Sesco of Bristol, Tenn.
An accomplished bridge player, he was a member of the American
Contract Bridge League. He was also a member of the American
Psychological Association. Survivors include a son, John '71. The
family requests that memorial contributions be made to The Columbia
College Fund, Office of Alumni Affairs & Development, Attn.
Rory Finnin, 475 Riverside Drive, Suite 917, New York, NY
10115.
Joseph
Rothschild, professor, New York, on January 30, 2000. Please
see In
Memoriam.
Class of
1953
Daniel E.
Chamberlin, businessman, New York, on June 29, 1999. Chamberlin
had been president of Chamberlin Communications.
Class of
1958
Walter J.
Green, editor, New York, on February 24, 2000. Green had been
chief of Corporate Editorial Services for the Metropolitan
Transportation Authority.
Class of
1959
Frederick
Jerome Trost, Jr., architect, College Station, Texas, on
December 31, 1999. The son of Frederick Jerome Trost '25, "Jerry"
Trost was a Jersey City native who entered the College with the
Class of 1959 but switched to the School of Architecture, from
which he received a bachelor's degree in 1961. Trost worked at an
architectural firm in Stamford, Conn., until 1967, when he joined
the faculty of the College of Architecture at Texas A&M
University. He became a member of the Department of Construction
Science, where taught lighting and heating, ventilation and air
conditioning, and related classes. A registered architect with
NCARB certification, Trost was the author of several textbooks and
numerous articles. He received the Former Students Distinguished
Teaching Award at Texas A&M. Trost also served 20 years in the
U.S. Naval Reserve, retiring as a lieutenant commander. His remains
will be interred at Arlington National Cemetery.
Class of
1971
Michael J.
Bartolf, insurance executive, New York, on October 23, 1999.
The son of Joseph Bartolf '40, Michael Bartolf grew up in North
Hollywood, Calif., where he attended North Hollywood High School.
At the College, he played on the varsity and lightweight football
teams and rowed for lightweight crew. After graduation, he remained
in New York, serving as a member of the Columbia football coaching
staff from 1971 to 1975 and as head coach of the lightweight
football team, and remaining a fixture at Lions home football games
till the end of the century. He entered the insurance industry in
1972 and enjoyed a successful career in marine reinsurance. At the
time of his death, Bartolf was an executive with Guy Carpenter
& Company. Survivors include his twin brother, Phil '71.
Bartolf's father, Joseph Bartolf '40, died on December 30, 1999
(see above).
Class of
1972
Francis M.
Perna, professor, Mill Hall, Pa., on June 14, 1999. Perna, who
had a doctorate from Cornell, was a professor of political science
at Lock Haven University.
Class of
1980
Ernesto I.
Castro, Miami, Fla., on May 7, 1994.
Class of
1999
Brian
Malmon, former student, Potomac, Md., on March 24, 1999. Malmon
was a well-liked and versatile student, who prospered academically
and became a leader of three student activities. He began singing
with Uptown Vocal, a student group, during his first year at the
College, becoming the group's president at the beginning of his
senior year. He also joined the staff of Spectator, and
quickly began writing a regular sports column, "Homerically
Speaking," for the paper. In 1997, he was named sports editor on
Spectator's 121st managing board. Malmon was widely known
for his sense of humor and talent at acting, singing and
improvisation, and he was cast as the lead of the 1998 Varsity
Show. In the fall of 1998, the beginning of his senior year, Malmon
left the College and told classmates he was returning to his
parents' home in Potomac, Md., to deal with personal issues. In
Maryland, Malmon developed his own website, briefly took a job with
The Washington Post, and kept in sporadic contact with
friends at the College. In the summer of 1999, he joined Uptown
Vocal when the group traveled to London aboard the QE2. Friends
report that he had planned to return to the College to finish his
degree in the near future. Malmon died as a result a self-inflicted
gunshot wound in his home. Members of Uptown Vocal attended his
funeral in Maryland and performed after the services.
Thomas G.
Nelford, Jr., former student, New York, on February 5, 2000. A
skilled wrestler and promising artist, Nelford attended Rio Mesa
High School in Ventura County, Calif., where in 1995 he was named
"athlete of the year." At the College, he wrestled for two seasons
before quitting the team. Nelford, who had planned to major in
visual arts and had published several cartoons in the
Spectator, was placed on academic leave at the end of 1997.
He went home to California, returning to New York in 1999. The New
York Police Department has concluded that Nelford killed his
girlfriend, Kathleen Roskot '02, early in the morning of February
5, and killed himself later that day.
Class of
2002
Kathleen
Adams Roskot, student, New York, on February 5, 2000. A native
of Bay Shore, Long Island, Roskot was an honor student and a gifted
athlete at Bay Shore High School, where she excelled academically,
played soccer in the fall, ran track in the winter, and played
lacrosse in the spring. Roskot was selected as an All-American
lacrosse player in her junior and senior years, and in 1998 she
captained her high school's team to the state finals. Actively
recruited by several colleges, Roskot chose Columbia because she
wanted to attend an Ivy League school. She became a starting
midfielder on the Columbia lacrosse team, where she showed herself
to be a daring player, intense competitor, and a team leader. She
also continued to excel academically, making the Dean's List. The
New York Police Department has concluded that Roskot was killed in
her Ruggles dorm room by Thomas G. Nelford, Jr. '99, a former
student on academic leave whom she had been dating. A memorial
service for Roskot was held at St. Paul's Chapel on March 20. The
Roskot family has created scholarship fund in her memory.
Contributions should be sent to The Kathleen Roskot Memorial Fund,
c/o Derek Wittner, Executive Director, Columbia College Office of
Alumni Affairs and Development, 475 Riverside Drive, Suite 917, New
York, NY 10115.
Compiled by Tim Cross
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