Class Notes

Helen Kneale is a lawyer with the federal Department of Justice, a former flight attendant, a mother of one (soon to be two) daughters and a singer-songwriter. As Heliara, she released her first album, Starry Skies, on June 1, 2022. It touches on themes of love, friendship, motherhood, exploration, and working for your fairy tale. It is a true privilege for her to share with the world this music. The album is available everywhere.

Ian Carter was appointed as a judge to the Ontario Superior Court of Justice in Ottawa in June 2022. He comes from a Queen’s family that includes: his wife, Chrissie Yao (Artsci’93); children, Nathan (Artsci’23) and Madeleine Carter (Artsci’26); proud parents, Donald (Arts’64, Law’66) and Cathie Carter (Arts’65); and grandmother Margaret Carter (McNab) (BA’29). Justice Carter served as a law clerk at the British Columbia Court of Appeal following his graduation, then practised criminal and civil law in Vancouver before joining the firm of Bayne Sellar Boxall in Ottawa. Since then, his practice has focused primarily on criminal law. He was a member of the executive of the Canadian Bar Association National Criminal Justice Section for many years, including as chair from 2018 to 2019, and he was the 2014 recipient of the Regional Senior Justice Award, which is given to a member of the County of Carleton Law Association who has made an outstanding contribution as a litigator.

Kate Mills has finally donated her first-year Queen’s studio painting to the Union Gallery, where it will hang in the office and possibly be loaned out to other departments. She painted this five-by-seven-foot painting in March 1998 for a BFA studio class assignment. In the class, each student was tasked with painting in this mammoth size. She decided to paint an answer to a cliché question a teacher might ask in high school after summer vacation: What happened in my first year at Queen’s? It had felt like a big year for her, as it was her first time away from home. She put her new friends Natalie Bowles (Com’01) and Kerri Austin (Artsci’01) into the painting. Affected by the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, Kate also put in the broken trees along University Avenue from the disruptive January 1998 ice storm. Also pictured: her second home, Ontario Hall, where the fine arts classes are located; the radiator from her room in Ban Righ; and, outside her window, Grant and Kingston halls. Fast-forward 20 years – she decided the painting needed a better home than her parents’ basement, where they had kindly stored it. After she alerted former classmates, professors, and the Union Gallery in March 2021 through social media that she was interested in donating the painting, gallery director Carina Magazzeni accepted the painting. Presently, Kate is not a professional artist, but she has always appreciated the lifelong friendships she made and how her knowledge, confidence, and interests were enriched by her time at Queen’s.

After 11 years in Toronto, in various development roles at OCAD University (2011–2017) and The 519, a Church Street community centre in Toronto (2017–2022), Stacy, along with his husband, Mark Julien (Ed’08), is delighted to be relocating back to Kingston, where he will be taking on a new role as executive director of the Community Foundation for Kingston. He will also continue to volunteer as president of the Queen’s Queer Alumni Chapter. Reach out to Stacy Kelly to connect.

When Irene Jakubassa-Frezell realized that she and her former Queen’s classmates were not all going to be in Kingston for their 35th Homecoming reunion this fall, they gathered from across the country in Bayfield, Ont., and held their own! Class of ’87 reunion: (top, left to right) Gwen Callaghan-Simonds (PHE’87, BEd’88), Celia Dawson (Artsci’87) and Cathy Berka (Artsci’87); (middle row, left to right) Karen Goodwin (Com’87); Irene Jakubassa-Frezell (Artsci’87, B.Ed’88); Margot Gibbons-MacKay (OT’88); (bottom) MJ Hassard (Artsci’87).