Reading through Christmas cards and letters this year, I was delighted to discover my friend Debbie (aka Beanie) is blogging at woven and spun. We go way back to our days as Penn State undergrads, so it was fun reading her blog entry about discovering that Valerie Plame, the CIA agent outed during the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, went to school with us at Penn State.
I had also read this recently, and (at the time) filed away a mental note to look into this a bit further because her name has always rung familiar to me. So this evening, I dug into the Collegian archives (the Collegian is the daily newspaper at Penn State), and discovered that I was on the Collegian staff with Valerie Plame. At the time I was Editorial Editor, which was the third-highest position in the news division, Valerie was Marketing Manager in the advertising division.
I found this Collegian masthead (below) from December 1984 in the Penn State Libraries digital archives. I’m sure I would have met her and/or talked with her at some point during my time at Collegian (I practically lived in Carnegie Building), but I don’t have any specific recollection of her. In any case, it’s kind of cool that I probably knew a famous/infamous future spy, way back in the day.
Ron Yeany 
Wow…that is way cool. I see some other familiar names …Ann Maturro, Greg Loder and Tony Ciccarelli!…I have seen Ann over the years…she was married with 2 kids living in NYC working for Family Circle when I last saw her…but what happened to Tony? I think Greg Loder is married to one of Crowley’s friends….hard to believe this was two decades ago…we’re old.
Over two decades ago, Bean, but who’s counting 😉
I’ve lost touch with most Collegian folks through the years, but still manage to stop in at Collegian offices and visit with some of the professional staff almost every time I’m in State College. I kept in touch with Tony for a number of years after college, but have since lost touch with him as well. He continued doing his PSU football cartoons for the CDT for quite a long time after he graduated and had been living close to home around Huntingdon. The last time I saw him was before we moved to Boston, which is now 10 years ago.
I think Greg married a girl named Becky, and I can clearly picture them in my mind, but cannot remember her last name, but you’re right — we met her through Crowley and Amy.
My closest brush with college fame was Ross Perot’s daughter in my class at Vanderbilt. I don’t even remember her first name (screw google, I am too tired) but it was her wedding that daddy Ross accused the Bush’s of trying to sabotage.
If we’re counting famous people’s offspring, then I have another brush with fame in college. My sophomore roommate Gary was in a class with Joe Paterno’s daughter Diana, and they became friends. I met her several times, and also drove her and other friends to Pittsburgh for a Billy Joel concert (The Nylon Curtain tour, as I recall).