May 28- Birthdays, Farewells, and Visits

Wednesday started with a meeting with Teri Stafford and Mark Powers to review Teri’s six months here at the law school. That was a good meeting. It was also our May birthday celebration and in addition a very sad occasion.

We said goodbye to Macey Panach who has been a wonderful Communications Director for the past year. We’ll miss her and her excellent work very much and we wish she and Matt the very best in their new lives in Oklahoma City. Happy Birthday to our May birthdays – Professor Steve Sheppard and Sally Kelley.

We had a couple of visitors stop in unexpectedly. Professor Laurence popped in and it’s always a pleasure to see him. As you all know, he is now retired and he was talking about his jumping lessons; he’s a very big horse enthusiast. He had fallen and he was talking about that experience with Professor Judges who also rides. Then Travis Martin, one of our alums, stopped by as he was on campus briefly that afternoon. It was good to see him. Also, a new member of the law school community, Professor D’lorah Hughes, is here now and she came for birthday cake, so it was a great afternoon.

At 2:00 p.m. I had a meeting with Professor Kim Coats and she’s planning some very interesting scholarship over the summer and big news –She was recently married! Congratulations Professor Coats! It’s awesome and we wish she and her new hubby the very best. We had a good meeting and I was tickled to receive that good news and to wish them both well.

After the meeting with Professor Coats, it was time to catch up the blog. We have a new system in place and we’re working to get things posted much more promptly, so I didn’t want to be the glitch in that new process and took the time to get caught up. Also I needed to prepare for the American Bar Association Labor and Employment Law Section’s Council Meeting which, yes I know it’s a big sacrifice, is in St. Thomas. But, that meant I would be away from my desk for a while, so I was taking time to get all the letters/correspondence done and to return phone calls before leaving.