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Hello Class of '83. I'm sitting here on the last day of Spring Break in a condo on the beach outside of Tampa, trying to cheer myself up after witnessing the disappointing loss of our Vanderbilt men's basketball team to Siena. The week started out in Atlanta, where our hotel was hit by the tornado. We witnessed room shingles and debris flying by our 15th story hotel room next door to the Equitable building before evacuating to the stairwell to the sounds of breaking glass and rattling doors. Our room was fine, but the rooms all around had the windows broken out, and our next door neighbor received cuts to his face. We were ecstatic to find that the first round of the NCAA was in Tampa, so we drove down Monday to wait on the beach until the team arrived. Guess we'll be routing for the women's team and baseball now.

It has been a long time since graduation. I have many fond memories of Vandy - John (my husband) and I met the third day of school our freshman year at Barefoot in Branscomb, and we married 2 weeks after graduation. All of our (cheap) dates were football and basketball games, so after a 7 year stint in Philadelphia for medical school and residency, we were happy to return to Nashville where we could cheer our team on in person. Our oldest son, Andy, is now a junior at Vandy and will attend medical school there upon graduation.

Ralph Davis, our reunion chair, Martha Woolbright Ray, our attendance chair, and I (party chair) met in February with all of the other class chairmen planning their reunions. We got to hear from then interim, now Chancellor Zeppos, and I think you will all be pleased with Gordon Gee's replacement. He has a great sense of humor (when asked if Vandy was trying to get rid of Greeks with the Commons, he replied, "Well, first of all, I'm Greek"), and hehas been at Vanderbilt for quite a long time. Please go the the class page link and go to Dores2Dores to get your friends' email addresses and encourage them to come to reunion (and to blog). I think the biggest thing that keeps people from coming is that they are afraid they will go to the reunion and will not recognize anyone! Reunion is paired with a home football weekend, and instead of scheduling a team that will beat us, they actually scheduled us to play Duke (so don't wear blue). The class party should be fun, not stuffy. We will have stand up tables and tons of food, so don't worry that you will be stuck at a dinner sitting by someone that you don't know as we want everyone to be able to move around and visit. We will also have a DJ instead of a loud band, as some classes have complained about the music being so loud in the past that they couldn't talk. The band will be at the combined party after the class parties. I will post a blog for you to list songs that you want to be played at our party. We chose not to have a cheesy theme like disco or mardi gras, but to go with the simple "Black and Gold" as that is what everyone is coming for. If you have any suggestions, please feel free to let us know! Laurie Alsentzer lalsentzer@comcast.net