The official web site of the Lowell Alumni Association

With the recent opening of the magnificent new de Young Museum, it seems like everything is happening in Golden Gate Park these days and, not surprisingly, Lowell alumni are to be found in the thick of things . . . kudos to Warren Hellman '51 for bringing us the fifth and finest edition of his free Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival featuring the likes of Dolly Parton, Joan Baez, Emmylou Harris and another 60 great acts . . . while Jack Anderson '50 helped keep the Bay Area laughing with his 25th anniversary Comedy Day featuring another great line-up of top comics . . . and let's offer congrats to Yomi Agunbiade '87 who was recently named General Manager of the SF Recreation and Parks Department by Mayor Newsom, following a stint as acting GM . . . meanwhile, at one of the special opening events at the new de Young, Lowellites were out in force -- including Alan Wendroff '55 with his wife Lyllian, Judge Charles Breyer '59 and wife Sydney Goldstein '62 -- enjoying the de Young's spectacular collection which includes works by our very own Richard Diebenkorn '39.

On the docket: Congrats to the Lowellites recently recognized as being among the top 100 Northern California "Super Lawyers" - David Fink '78, Jerome Falk '57, Deborah Schaefer Ballati '68 and David Heilbron '54 . . . while Vicki DeGoff '62 and Deborah Schaefer Ballati '68 made the list of the top 50 female "Super Lawyers" in Northern California . . . and speaking of super lawyers, how about Jill Hersh '69 who made the headlines in August for winning a landmark ruling from the California Supreme Court recognizing the parental rights of members of same-sex couples.

Winner's Circle: David Shimmon '76 was one of the owners of this year's winner of horse racing's Golden Gate Derby and the Santa Anita Derby, Buzzards Bay of Fog City Stables . . . and Buzzards Bay also ran in the Kentucky Derby this year, where he finished fifth. Shimmon is also a member of the board of directors of the Tech Museum of Innovation in San Jose.

Sports page: Not many Lowell alums have ever been NCAA champs, but Mara Allen '04 managed to do it as a freshman member of Cal's varsity 8 women's crew team, only the second Cal women's team to ever win an NCAA title . . . and Mara also received the very first Lexus Gauntlet scholarship for outstanding sportsmanship . . . another outstanding rower is Avery Penna-Couttenye '04, the coxswain and only female member of the Henley Rowing Club 8 that recently won the prestigious Henley Regatta's Thames Challenge Cup, the club's first such win since 1868!

Just when it looked like Justice Stephen Breyer '55 was about to end his near record-setting tenure as the most junior Associate Justice on the U.S. Supreme Court (11 years and counting), nominee John Roberts was shifted to the Chief Justice position, so the waiting goes on while traditional seniority rules mean that Justice Breyer continues to announce his vote last in conference and is responsible for taking handwritten notes of the Court's decisions on certiorari petitions . . . but his new book, "Active Liberty: Interpreting our Democratic Constitution," has received accolades. My favorite Breyer quote, from a recent profile in The New Yorker, discussing how to approach questions of Constitutional interpretation: ". . . you can't escape your background, your own experiences. And I start with Lowell High School, Class of 1955. That doesn't mean a lot to you, but it means a lot to me." You can find a link to the full article in the Alumni Spotlight section of the LAA website.

Still on the bookshelf: Daniel Handler '88 (aka Lemony Snicket) just issued "The Penultimate Peril: Book the Twelfth" which is, not surprisingly, the 12th in his wildly popular series of books about the continually imperiled Baudelaire children . . . and Handler continues to regale interviewers with the amusing (although completely false, but why let that get in the way of a good yarn?) story that he was removed from the Lowell Wall of Fame due to fallout from his early novel "The Basic Eight," a darkly fun but not-so-flattering tale of life at a San Francisco public high school close by Lake Merced . . . but let's not overlook another new book, "I Have Chosen to Stay and Fight," by comedianne Margaret Cho, perhaps Lowell's most famous and successful dropout . . . According to a recent check at amazon.com, the surprising news is that Justice Breyer's book is ranked #150, Handler's latest is at #1,177 and Cho comes in at #2,919, which means either that Americans have turned very serious or that the 8 to 12 year-old crowd has yet to obtain their own credit cards.

Great article in the SF Chronicle a few weeks ago by Duffy Jennings '65 looking back at his Lowell classmates on the occasion of his 40-year class reunion . . . amazing range of personal stories, both the good and the bad . . . while another nice piece profiled the Sons in Retirement (SIR) group, founded in San Mateo in 1958 and now boasting 170 chapters with more than 25,000 members, including Raymond Lang '36.