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ANNE DOROTHY STRIPHAS

By Debbie Walsh

Real Estate Agent with SHAHAR Management

March 29, 2009 10:51 AM

ANN For my friends who loved Anne Striphas who did such wonderful things for Orange County I think the obituary written by her family says it all. She left this earth way too young and may we find a cure for cancer before it claims too many others.

Courtesy of the Times Herald Record:

Anne Dorothy Striphas died on Tuesday, March 10, 2009, with family and friends by her side at the Arden Hill Campus of Orange Regional Medical Center. She was 39 and had been struggling valiantly against pancreatic cancer since July 2008.

Ms. Striphas was born August 7, 1969 in Goshen, NY, the daughter of Susannah and Peter Striphas. She is survived by her mother, Susannah Bright Striphas, of Goshen; her mother's partner, Richard Patterson of Goshen; her brother, Theodore G. Striphas and his wife, Phaedra C. Pezzulo of Bloomington, IN; aunts and uncles: Mr. & Mrs. John Bright and their three children, Mr. & Mrs. James G. Frangos and their children, and her boyfriend, Oliver Mackson of Port Jervis. Her father, Peter Striphas, died in 1986.

She graduated from Goshen High School in 1987 and from the State University of New York at Binghamton in 1992, with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Sociology, receiving departmental honors and the Edward H. Prentice Award for university service. She was the recipient of a Sage Fellowship to Cornell University for graduate studies in sociology and government. In 2000, she completed the Harvard University-Tufts University Dispute Resolution accreditation program, offered through Harvard Law School.

In August 1993, she joined the Times Herald-Record in Middletown as acting night city editor. From October 1993 through May 1996, she was the newspaper's assistant editorial page editor, writing daily editorials with a special emphasis on environmental and social issues. She also served as a member of the newspaper's editorial board.

In June 1996, Ms. Striphas became an editorial writer at the St. Petersburg Times in St. Petersburg, FL, one of the largest and most renowned newspapers in the U.S. She served as a member of the newspaper's editorial board and was a columnist and contributor to the newspaper's Sunday Perspective section. Her honors included a first-place award for editorial writing from the Florida Society of Newspaper Editors and an Excellence in Journalism Award from the Florida Press Club.

From 2000 until 2002, she was account director for Tucker/Hall Inc., the largest public relations firm on Florida's west coast. She returned to Goshen in December 2002 and founded ADS Consulting, a public relations and communications consulting firm.

From February 2005 until her death, Ms. Striphas worked for Elant, Inc., a not-for-profit senior housing and health-care system based in Goshen. She was vice president for marketing, sales and public relations, handling a wide array of marketing and development initiatives and producing the company's annual report and monthly reports to bondholders.

She was a member of the Rotary Club of Goshen, serving as vice president in 2005-2006. She was installed as president in 2008, but reluctantly resigned after her illness forced her to scale back her activities.

She served as a member of the Board of Directors of Inspire, completed the Leadership Orange training program in 2006 and was named a Rising Star in business in 2006 by the Orange County Chamber of Commerce.

During her life, Ms. Striphas traveled to Egypt and to Greece. She was an accomplished cook, specializing in Greek delicacies, comfort food that she learned from her mother, and southwest specialties that she learned on her own. She was an animal lover, especially of large, regal, somewhat goofy dogs like her beloved Great Dane, Astro, whom she adopted from a shelter in Tampa, FL.

In lieu of flowers, her family asks that charitable contributions in her name be made to: The Elant Foundation, 46 Harriman Dr., Goshen, NY 10924 - email: jriccardi@elant.org or www.elant.org/foundation/foundation.html; Goshen Humane Society, Inc., PO Box 37, Goshen, NY 10924 - email: ghsl@frontiernet.net or www.goshenhumanesociety.org, St. Vincent Catholic Medical Centers Foundation, Pancreatic Center, 130 West 12th St., Suite 6J, New York, NY 10011 - email: vtorti@svcmcny.org or www.svcmc.org.