I’m sorry to lead with sad news, but our classmate Channing Migner died in December of 2021. I met
Channing when we were sophomores. He and my roommate, Jo-Ellyn Sanford Harris, were close friends
when we all lived at the Hilltop Complex. My connection with him was not consistent or deep, but our paths
crossed over and over again through the years. I saw him at the first contra dance I attended in 1980 in the
Boston area. He ended up joining my husband’s men’s group a few years later. And one day I passed
through the reception area of the training company I worked for in Cambridge to find Channing waiting to
meet with the president of the company. We kept ending up in the same places, completely by serendipity.
I’ve always enjoyed the fact that our lives, though never tightly connected, intertwined at several different
times over the years, completely unintentionally. Here is his obituary: bit.ly/3Nw5Rtb
More powerlifting news from John LaFlamme: In June of 2021, he became the top-ranked Men’s Full
Power Raw Powerlifter over the age of 70 for all years and all weight classes in the worldwide
OpenPowerlifting.org database with his fifth USA Powerlifting National Championship win in Daytona,
Florida. He also won the Men’s Best Masters Lifter Award. In September of 2021, he became the 83KG
Weight Class International Powerlifting Federation Class’s World Champion and Best Lifter over the age of
70. He also set a new Masters 5 (age 70+) Raw Squat World Record of 426.6 lbs/193 kgs at the 2022 US
Virgin Islands Powerlifting Federation Nationals.
I received an article from the Bangor Daily News about Julia Lane and Fred Gosbee of Bristol, ME, who
have published their first book, Bygone Ballads of Maine, Volume 1: Songs of Ships & Sailors, published by
Loomis House Press. Representing 10 years of work, the book is a collection of never-before-published
folksongs collected in Maine before 1950. Julia and Fred, who sing together as Castlebay, have been life
partners for 35 years, recorded dozens of albums, and sung folk songs all over the world. I found a song
from the collection on YouTube: Bit.ly/3sMHX4O
They also gave a Zoom presentation for the Maine Historical Society this spring, which you can see at
Mainehistory.org.