When the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded in the Gulf of Mexico on April 20, Nancy Kinner ’80G, ’83G was in Anchorage, Alaska, doing one of the things she does best—talking about oil and, ironically, what to do with it when it spills.

On a late December afternoon, Taylor Chace flies across the rink at UNH’s Whittemore Center Arena, carving long arcs in the fresh ice as he whoops and hollers toward the goal.

Tyler Walker ’08 grew up in northern New Hampshire at the foot of Cannon Mountain. Like every other kid in town, he wanted to ski. But he had been born with a spinal defect that required both legs to be amputated above the knee. When he begged to join his friends on the slopes, though, his parents didn’t bat an eye. They got creative. . .

Joris Brinckerhoff ’82 was a new Peace Corps volunteer, hitchhiking along a dusty road in Costa Rica, when a dilapidated land cruiser pulled up beside him and changed the course of his life. . .

On a rainy afternoon in late April, Mary Pat Rowland ’74 is pulling a tray of pumpkin muffins out of the oven when Jack, 17, and Jacob, 13, come bursting through the door, followed a few minutes later by their younger brothers . . .

It’s hard to know exactly when a puffin chick will be ready to fledge–and nearly impossible to witness–but if you happen to be spending the summer on one of the few uninhabited islands off the coast of Maine where these seabirds nest, . . .

From on board the M/V Thomas Laighton, cutting through the coastal waters near Portsmouth, the rocky islands seem at first an apparition, a thin gray line shimmering under the summer sun. They take shape slowly, rising from the sea, nearly barren, scrubbed clean by the wind. . .

In the middle of a hot night on the outskirts of Baghdad, Sgt. Zack Bazzi rumbles along in an M1114 Humvee. He scans the terrain, studies the shadowy buildings nearest the road, watching for signs of trouble. . .