40 Under
Forty

Russell Paul La Valle (Secondary Education 7- 12 English) ’74g (English) announced the publication of his novel “Underground Dreams” in June. A prolific writer, La Valle is a former advertising and marketing executive, where he wrote for many of the country’s top companies, corporations, and educational institutions, including SUNY New Paltz. As a screenwriter, he has written feature films that have appeared on HBO, Showtime, Cinemax, and The Movie Channel. 

David Clegg (Sociology) is running for New York’s 19th Congressional District seat in 2018. He is a trial lawyer, church deacon and former public defender. In addition, he has served on the board of directors of the Rip Van Winkle Council of the Boy Scouts of America for 10 years, has been a member of the Ulster County Board of Health and is chairman of the Ulster County Human Rights Commission. For more than 20 years he has coached and sponsored youth basketball teams in the city of Kingston. He and his wife Karen Clegg ’93g currently reside in Woodstock, N.Y.

Alex Storozynski (Political Science), a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, has presented his film “Kosciuszko: A Man Ahead of His Time” at SUNY New Paltz. Based on the book “The Peasant Prince: Thaddeus Kosciuszko and the Age of Revolution,” the film portrays Kosciuszko’s quest for liberty with his allies George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson and the French Revolutionaries against the tyranny of Britain’s King George, Russia’s Catherine the Great and Napoleon Bonaparte.