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William Shepard, Jr, 71, International Banking Executive, Active Volunteer

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William “Bill” Brown Shepard, Jr., 71, of Darien and Naples, FL passed away suddenly on Tuesday, May 29 surrounded by his loved ones after complications from immunotherapy treatment for recently diagnosed metastatic melanoma. Bill was born in Summit, NJ to William and Mary Shepard. He graduated from The Pingry School and Wesleyan University, where he had a long high school and college swimming career. He passed on a deep love of competitive and recreational swimming to his children and grandchildren, and any Shepard family vacation always included being on the water. It was during college where he met his loving wife of 49 years, Midge, who came back the night they met and said to her friends “this is the first man I could consider marrying.”

After college they were married before Bill served a year in Vietnam as an officer stationed at a riverboat base.

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Ann Smith, 76, Worked at the New Yorker and for Area Newspapers

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Ann D. Valkenburgh Smith, known to her friends as Andie, died May 26, 2018. She was 76. Born in Boston, she was the daughter of Alice Schultz Valkenburgh and Roger Ransom Valkenburgh. After graduating from Phillips Academy Andover (1960) and Vassar College (1964), she became an editorial assistant at the New Yorker for staff writer Ved Mehta. She later moved to Darien and subsequently Greenwich, where she worked in various positions at The Wilton Bulletin, The Redding Pilot, and Community Answers, the Greenwich referral service where she served as the director of information.

Clayton Hasser obit obituary

Clayton Hasser, 77, Journalist, Former Darien Resident

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Clayton Raker Hasser slipped peacefully from this world on May 31, surrounded by family. Born Jan. 28, 1941, the daughter of William and Betty Raker, Clayton grew up in Holden, MO and attended Christian College as well as the University of Missouri in Columbia where she received a bachelor’s degree in journalism. She raised her family in Darien, attending the First Congregational Church. Clayton blazed a trail for women returning to the workforce in the 80s, beginning as a freelance writer and quickly rising to become editor of Patient Care magazine in Darien and later publisher and vice president of publications for the American Academy of Family Physicians in Kansas City.

Charles Rhodes Obit

Charles Rhodes, 71, Physician in Indian Health Service, Darien High School Class of ’64

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Charles Edward Rhodes, M.D., of Phoenix died unexpectedly March 8, 2018 at home. He was 71. Known to his family as “Chuck”, he was born June 22, 1946 in Charleston, WV, to the late Mary Tipton Ross Rhodes and Arthur Winfred Rhodes. A member of the Darien High School class of 1964, he graduated from The Johns Hopkins University (1968) and received his M.D. from Jefferson Medical College in 1972. Chuck Rhodes’ life was defined by a clear moral vision and a deep desire to give to others rather than be given to, rejecting comfort and luxury in favor of an unrelenting drive to serve those around him.