Dartmouth-In-Dixie

WAY DOWN HEAH in deep Dixie, March roared in like the proverbial lion to unfurl the banner of the newly organized Dartmouth Alumni Club of Louisiana which drew its first breath on the evening of March 8, 1940 at a dinner in honor of Charles Milham '06, member of the Alumni Council from Williamsburg, Va.

After several rounds of Sazerac Cocktails (compared to which those new-fangled Zombies are mere milk and honey), a wonderful French dinner, and a rousingly sober talk by Mr. Milham, the Club was born right then and there. Robert W. Elsasser '21, Professor in the College of Commerce & Business Administration at Tulane University, and Louis H. Marrero '34, were elected President and Secretary-Treasurer, respectively.

That was a pretty good beginning, but the high spot of the month came with the two-day visit of President Hopkins, topped off by a gala banquet on the 28. This marked the first official gathering of Dartmouth men ever to be held in Louisiana. Of course, the piece de resistance of the evening was "Prexy" and the after-dinner speech, as only he can give.

As we glanced about the room, we saw: Daniel T. Cushing '02, a transplanted Vermonter and a former Mayor of Bogalusa (La.), who deftly and delightfully introduced his old friend "Hoppy," and his son, Fred Cushing '35, who managed to tear himself away from his wife and family and the life of a country squire in Bogalusa to revel in the "Dartmouth Spirit.". . . .Hugh Blair '04, who forsook "the granite of New Hampshire" for the cool, pine-scented air of Covington (La.) in 1905, and who really had a tear in his eye as he told us that this was the first time in over twenty years he had had any connection with the College.

.... Dr. Michael E. Connor '01m, another New Englander, who holds the distinction of being one of the most widely travelled members of the Club, having spent a couple of years in the Medical Corps of the U. S. Army after leaving Hanover, ten years cleaning up germ-infested Panama while "T. R." was wielding his "big stick," and many more in Central and South America studying and doing research in tropical diseases as a member of the International Health Division of the Rockefeller Foundation, with some post graduate work in Italy thrown in for good measure. At present Dr. Connor is Chief Medical Examiner for the United Fruit Company at MacKinnon '34, who's doing graduate work in neuropsychiatry here at Tulane Medical School, having received his medical degree at the University of Cincinnati School of Medicine in 1938. He'll be heading back to New England haunts next year, however, to take over a post at the Hartford Retreat Walter J. Trautman Jr. '39, a first-year med. student at Tulane University, who brought his father, and younger brother, Joe, who, incidentally, has the yen to follow his brother's footsteps to "dear old Dartmouth.". .. .Nat Harris '16, who arrived here in 1932 and who seems to be doing a mighty fine job as General Manager of the W. T. Grant Company because early in June he plans to invade Winfield, in Winn Parish, that erstwhile cradle of Louisiana Demagogues, to wed Miss Cassa Lou McDonald. Maybe their honeymoon will take Nat back to the Dartmouth he hasn't seen for twenty-five years. Anyway, Congratulations are in order!.... Ed How '29, one of those lucky guys who landed a job after graduation with the General Electric Supply Corporation and still has it! But he's got what it takes, to say nothing of a wife, the former Katherine Brown, whom he married in 1936 and a bouncing three-year old baby daughter.

. ... C. Allen Bickford '25, who was fortunate to be in town for this occasion, because as Associate Silvaculturalist of the Southern Forest Experiment Station (he swears that's his official title) whose operations cover eight states from Georgia to Texas, he's in and out of town a lot doing research on forest fires in the South

Francis B. Hickman '21, Editor and Publisher of the Cotton Trade Journal, and another of the Club's globe-trotters, who, having recently put out one of his visually excellent International Editions of the Journal, had to dash off to attend a Texas Cotton Association meeting in Galveston.

....Joseph Slattery '32 H. Newton Smith '38, B.B.A. '39, College of Commerce and Business Administration, Tulane University, who in no time at all should be running the New Orleans Furniture Manufacturing Company Louis H. Marrero '34, the Sec.-Treas. of the Club, a graduate of the College of Law at Tulane University in 1937, who probably thinks in nothing less than six figures on the basis of his tracing titles to Louisiana's fabulous oil lands Bob Elsasser '21, the Club's President, who returned from delivering a paper on "Standards in Rationalization of Industry" at the Southwestern Social Science Association meeting in Dallas before the Business Administration Section, just in time to be in on the festivities in "Prexy's" honor Bunny Deutsch '35, who couldn't tear himself away from New England until he'd received an Ll.B. from The Yale School of Law in 1938, and who, like Marrero, is slaving away at the law, and at the same time is preparing a thesis for a Master of Civil Law degree in connection with graduate work done at the College of Law at Tulane last year

Altogether about twenty-eight alumni and friends of the College attended the banquet, and with a final promise by "Hoppy" to return to New Orleans at his first opportunity ringing in our ears, the launching of the Dartmouth Alumni Club of Louisiana can best be described as a momentous, down-right, whole-hearted success.