Princeton Class of 1961

1961 PEACE CORPS PARTICIPANTS

Joseph Brooke Baker '61

Born Oct, 14, 1940 in Newark, Ohio, Joseph attended Newark High School. He majored in architecture. He was a member of Key & Seal, rowed with the 150s and was librarian for the band. He served in the Peace Corps in Tunisia for three years.

Following Princeton, he earned a second bachelor's degree in architecture at Berkeley (Phi Beta Kappa) At his death in 1991 he was chief of design for the southeast district of Austin Co., a Cleveland-based architectural firm, having earlier been associated with Joseph Baker and Associates of Newark.
A member of the American Institute of Architecture, Brooke was active in St. Bede's Episcopal Church and was past president of the Friends of Dunwoody Library, in Dunwoody, Georgia, where a room is to be named for him. "May you live in interesting times," he wished us in our 25th reunion yearbook. He died of lung cancer July 8, 1991, in Atlanta, where he and his family had lived since 1979.

John Kremer '61

John served in the Peace Corps in Lithuania, teaching English to middle schoolers. His wife served with him there.

Lowell Hart Fewster '61

A lifelong learner, born in Rochester, NY on April 18, 1939. After Princeton, earned a Bachelor of Divinity degree from Colgate Rochester Divinity School, then masters and doctorate degrees in Higher Education Administration from
the University of Rochester. Passions throughout his life were his faith, peace and justice issues and photography. As an American Baptist Minister, Lowell pursued four distinct careers: pastor, campus minister, seminary administrator, and regional church leader. He met his future wife, Julie Palmquist at divinity school. In 1991 he became executive minister for the American Baptist Churches of Connecticut, retiring in 2004. He was one of the first Peace Corps volunteers in Nigeria, serving in the early 1960s. He taught secondary school in Yola. One of his students later founded the American University of Nigeria. He traveled on international photographic expeditions to Guatemala, China and Morocco, and photographed disappearing barns in New England and around the country. He passed away at the age of 81 on May 28, 2020.

Joseph Mygatt '61

Joseph served in the Peace Corps in Tunisia.

Richard H. "Dick" Nelson '61

The first Princetonian on staff at the Peace Corps, right out of college.

Was Publisher of Ivy Magazine. chair of The Tiger Magazine. Elm Club. Woodrow Wilson School. Died at age 60 January 24, 2000. Palm Beach. Had been President, CEO and Director of US Energy Systems, Inc. Was special assistant to Bill Moyers, deputy director of the Peace Corps. in 1962 military aide to VP Lyndon Johnson 1963-1967. First Lt. in US Army, 1963-1964, recipient of the Presidential Medal in 1965. He was described by Eric Goldman on the first page of his book, "The Tragedy of Lyndon Johnson," as a "sharp-minded, energetic young man with an offbeat sense of humor and full quotient of his generation's puzzlement about what to do with their lives." A member of the United States Polo Association. He had a spot-on imitation of JFK and once called Sargent Shriver on the phone pretending he was the president and fooled Shriver. Law Degree from Georgetown.

"I had met Bill Moyers and Sarge Shriver during the 1960 campaign. I was at Princeton. That would have been my senior year. I worked for the Kennedy-Johnson ticket. I was doing my senior honors thesis for the school of public and international affairs at Princeton on the expropriation of American property in Cuba in 1959.

I was on my way to the University of Virginia Law School the following September, and Bill said 'Why don't you work for us during the summer?' I did, and I stayed, never got to Charlottesville. I became the newspaper assistant to Shriver. But there were only a half-dozen of us at the time in the Peace Corps."

"I stayed with the program and enrolled in Georgetown Law School at night rather than going to the University of Virginia Law School. Then, in 1962, I had an altercation with the army because I had an ROTC commission from Princeton. The army claimed I was not a full-time graduate student, therefore I had to take my active duty commission immediately. I went to Sarge and I said 'Sarge, I'm already working for the government. I don't know why I can't continue like this until I at least complete law school.' He said 'Why don't you take it up with Mr. Johnson?' I had started to come in contact with Mr. Johnson quite a bit because of his involvement with the Peace Corps. I was writing some speeches for him on the Peace Corps and doing some traveling with him. I did go to see the Vice President and asked if he could help me get a deferral from active duty, at least until I finished my graduate studies. He said, 'Why do that? Just go ahead and take your commission, and then you can come on my staff as my military aide.' "

"Well, there was, of course, the classic case of Margery Michelmore who dropped the post card in Nigeria which created pandemonium. I was in charge of the decompression of Margery when she got back to the United States."

Joseph Weston Segura '61

Born in Little Rock, Ark., in 1940, Joe grew up in Louisville, Ky., and entered Princeton from St. Xavier High School. At Princeton Joe majored in psychology, took his meals at Cloister, and roomed with Doug Kerr, John McCobb, Phil Shambaugh, Jeff Morgan, and Ray Unger.

Joe attended med school at Northwestern, spent two years as a Peace Corps physician in Chile, and did his residency at the Mayo Clinic, where he spent the rest of his career. As its Carl Rosen Professorship of Urology, he was a distinguished urologist who specialized in the treatment of kidney stones.
Obituaries for Joe that appeared nationwide mentioned his international leadership in the field and his many publications, professional association leadership positions, and awards. In endourology, an endoscopic kidney technique, he was considered "the father of the field." In a tribute, his colleagues wrote, "We will not see the likes of him again - old school, honest, hard-working, 100 percent reliable, always there for you."
He lost his battle with mesothelioma, a form of cancer, May 23, 2006, at his home in Rochester, Minn.

Zoltan Szigethy '61

Zoltan served in the Peace Corps in Malaysia on the island of Borneo 1963-1965. He taught English to Chinese elementary school children during the first year and then trained Malay and Chinese teachers throughout Sabah how to teach English. He became an Associate Peace Corps Director, Malaysia in Malaya, 1965-1967. He then became a Peace Corps Country Director, in Azerbaijan, from 2005-2009. He turned around a dysfunctional and small program to a healthy, more varied and larger one.

"The irony of my teaching English and training others to teach it in Malaysia is that English is my fourth language due to entering the USA through Ellis Island as an immigrant. The first three are Hungarian, the Bavarian dialect of German, and high German. Peace Corps service added Malay to this list and laid the cornerstone of my abiding interest in Mandarin. My two years as a PCV were the most free and exhilarating years of my professional life."

The intervening years focused on urban affairs, real estate development and philanthropy in the US, plus public administration education throughout the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. My current title is Orchardist, as I tend to and take pleasure from sixty fruit trees on Bainbridge Island, Washington.