The 40th reunion of the Great Neck South High School Class of 1979 is planned for Saturday, Sept. 21 at the Harbor Links Golf Course in Port Washington.
Many of the 357 graduates of the Class of 1979 have gone on to have illustrious careers in law, medicine and the arts. Some give back to their community through volunteer work.
Of the 242 graduates that have been located, 127 live in New York State. New Jersey has the second largest group of graduates with 18. Florida and Massachusetts have 15 and 13 respectively. California is where 10 of our graduates call home and Pennsylvania and Connecticut have five graduates each.
Robert Urban is an ophthalmologist in the Tampa region of Florida.
With degrees from Columbia, Yale, University of Illinois and Harvard, Urban has repeatedly served as a pro-bono visiting ophthalmic surgeon at the request of the governments of India, Guatemala and El Salvador.
Alexandra Miletta is currently living in Rome, Italy, after a career teaching elementary school and then graduate students at CCNY/CUNY and Mercy College. Known as “Andra” to her friends, she is a caregiver to her 90-year old mother and blogs about their Roman
adventures and her mom’s Alzheimer’s disease at www.roadsrome.blogspot.com.
Adam Rosenbloom holds music degrees from Columbia University, Carnegie-Mellon University, and the Aaron Copland School of Music. As a conductor of opera and symphony Rosenbloom has worked with orchestras across the U.S. and Europe. He recently sang two Mozart basso roles: Don Bartolo and Il Commendatore, both with New York Lyric Opera Theater.
After years in New York City with a successful career in financial systems technology, Randi Gordon recently moved to Southern California. Gordon describes herself as a retired triathlete, with over 40 races to her credit. She combines her athleticism with her love of travel; she recently climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro and went scuba diving in the Cayman Islands.
Matthew Goodman is an author of several notable books, including the New York Times bestseller Eighty Days: Nellie Bly and Elizabeth Bisland’s History-Making Race Around the World. His next book, The City Game: Triumph, Scandal, and a Legendary Basketball Team, tells the thrilling and heartbreaking story of the 1949-50 City College basketball team, the only team to win the NIT and NCAA championships in the same year.
Lawrence Kellermueller joined the Metropolitan Museum of Art as its Director of Engineering Services in 2012. Kellermueller is responsible for the design, construction, operation, repair and maintenance of all mechanical, electrical, plumbing and lighting systems at the 2.5 million-square-foot museum and its four satellite facilities.
Fania Leiderman Samuels and Louis Samuels began a sweet romance in ninth-grade English class that continued through college at the University of Rochester. They married during medical school in 1983. Both completed their medical degrees at Hahnemann Medical School in Philadelphia. Fania is a cardiologist and Louis is a cardiothoracic surgeon, both affiliated with Jefferson University in Philadelphia. Louis performed the first total artificial heart transplant in the northeast in 2001. The couple has three daughters and lives in Philadelphia.
Mark Donnelly has enjoyed a successful career as an electrical engineer after graduating from SUNY Binghamton. Donnelly has worked for various defense contractors building hybrid microcircuits for use in spacecraft, airplanes, boats, helicopters, tanks, submarines and missiles.
Clara Cohen-Pomerantz is a member of the Village of East Hills Board of Trustees.
She finds time to champion annual special events, such as Green Day and Wellness Day for East Hills residents. Through Pomerants’s initiative, East Hills has two exceptional programs, Friends for Friends, for special needs children and Neighbors for Neighbors, which helps residents in a time of need. Pomerantz teaches Hebrew classes and nursery school at Temple Sinai of Roslyn.
Jeffrey Chasnow is a Senior Vice President and Associate General Counsel at Pfizer in New York City. Chasnow is a graduate of Harvard College and the University of Chicago Law School. In 1999, Chasnow joined Pfizer, where he currently leads legal teams that support clinical trial operations, regulatory matters, environmental law, foreign trade controls, pricing and access issues and digital/technology operations.
For more information, contact gnshs1979@gmail.com or 916-601-7338.
Patricia Clark lives in Sacramento, CA where she works for the California Department of Water Resources. She is a member of the Class of 1979 Reunion Committee.
