Dear Ella,
This is Diola, your husband. On this birthday of yours, I just wanted to provide you with some updates. Specifically, our biological Children are doing very well. Namory, Courtney, your name sake Ella, and Nawali are happily enjoying Alaska. Dr. Namory Bagayoko and Dr. Courtney Weathersby-Bagayoko are both working at a hospital in Anchorage, Kelley, Tim, and I visited them in late July and earl y August, in 2018. Attorney Kelley Bagayoko-Adams and her husband, Timothy Adams, are doing very well in Cincinnati, Ohio, where both are working. Kelley put aside the law degree (but maintains her license) to become an educator. She is an Assistant Principal in a good school. Kelley and Tim have their house you wanted them to have! William Cherif recently visited Cincinnati for a Tennis Tournament. He spent one knight at the house of Kelley and Tim, at their invitation. He is doing very well and is still working for a national insurance company as a computer scientist.
As for me, I am still a Southern University System Distinguished Professor of Physics, Chancellor's Fellow, and the Dean of the Dolores Margaret Richard Spikes Honors College! Yes, my dear, immediately upon your retirement (including from the deanship of the Honors College) and your leaving us, I went to the administration to let everyone know that cutting the budget of the Honors College, reducing it to a program, or appointing a dean who did not distinguish her/himself in teaching, research, mentoring, and service [like the two previous deans B Wade and Ella Kelley] are things I will fight with all the ferocity I can have. You see, in your absence, I had to stand up and care for our "academic children" who are the Honors College students, in addition to our biological ones and the Scholars of the Timbuktu Academy and of the Louis Stokes Louisiana Alliance for Minority Participation (LS-LAMP). Following my expression of the above position, the administration, out of its infinite wisdom, decided to appoint me as the dean. Trust me, my dear Ella, the College is doing very well and growing.
Infinite Love.
Diola Bagayoko, Ph.D., Your Husband
10-05-2018