Thayer School
THAYER SCHOOL has had welcome visits from several alumni during the past few weeks. The more of these visits we have and the more news we hear, the more we are impressed with the contributions Thayer men are making to the war effort. Such evidence inspires us to keep on with our job of turning out more and better en- gineers and directing them into channels of war effort where, as engineers, they can do the most good. Although it may not be- hoove us to say whether we're turning them out better, we can quote figures which show a Thayer School enrollment for the present semester of fifty-six, including twenty-one Tuck-Thayers. Relative to our enrollment of eighteen three years ago, these figures can be taken as an indication that we're turning out more, anyway.
A. P. Richmond 'l5 spent an afternoon at Thayer School last month during a brief leave from his job as Lieutenant-Colonel in the General Staff, U. S. Army, at the War College. A 1 looks in the pink of health and reports that the Army finds no difficulty keeping him busy. He reports modestly but favorably on Adele and their almost- two-year-old son, Jonathan. Al's oldest son, Pete, is a junior at the University of New Hampshire where he is rated No. 1 in the R. O. T. C. and is studying electrical engineering. We happened to be having a Thayer School faculty meeting that after- noon, and A 1 told us some interesting things about the experiences the Army has had in teaching men in the Officers Candi- date Schools.
Mr. David W. Mann, father of David M. Mann '3B, dropped in for a visit late in the summer. After talking about the affairs of all the rest of Dave's class, I managed to get a little information on Dave's job. He's been married about a year—an item we slipped up on at the time—and he and his wife live high up in the mountains of Montana in the village of Lincoln, built, owned and operated under the direction of Dave himself for the sole purpose of op- erating the Mike Horse Mine which, also under Dave's direction, is busily engaged in digging up lead and zinc for war pro- duction.
G. A. Hall '35 dropped in for a short visit about the first of last month, wearing gold bars and looking very spruce indeed in his Army uniform. Gerry was inducted into the Army last spring, and is a good example that you can't keep a good man down, even with his own cooperation. Gerry thought he wanted to see how it felt to be a private and made no attempt to get into officer training. But the Army spotted him and within a month of induction he was teaching mathematics and after three months of training at the induction center he was shipped down to Officers Candidate School at Camp Davis, South Carolina. He's now a full-fledged officer, and after his visit at Thayer School he returned to Camp Davis as an instructor.
F. H. Munkelt 'O9 and Mrs. Munkelt spent a couple of days in Hanover late in the summer during a brief vacation. Fred's just about the most faithful Thayer School alumnus there is, and it was a great pleas- ure to talk with him about the School and to show him what we are trying to do and where and how. As Secretary of the Thayer Society of Engineers, Fred has done a grand job for several years now, and he always responds to requests for information or as- sistance no matter how busy he happens to-be with his own business.
S. R. Stearns '3B and Lee are the proud parents of a baby girl, Marjorie Elisabeth, born August 10. Russ has been attached to the Philadelphia Navy Yard for a couple of years, working on dry docks, marine rail- ways and the like as field manager, design draftsman and cost engineer, which sounds like quite an order. We understand he's do- ing a great job at it.
Another alumnus, W. W. Olmstead '39, is located in Philadelphia. Lt. (jg) Bill of the Navy Civil Engineer Corps has been in charge of the construction of a six million dollar naval air station. Just to indicate that the Thayer Schoolers can dish it out, we can report that Bill's job was awarded second prize for speed of construction among all naval air bases of that class for the month of July. Maybe we're behind the times and he's got the first prize since then. We can't help wondering how he would have made out on this job with a highly specialized training instead of the broad civil background when he was faced with the proposition of building runways, hang- ars, repair shops, a sewage disposal system, a water supply distribution system, power houses and the various appurtenances re- quired in connection with them.
Another officer in the U. S. Navy (CEC) is F. R. Drury '3B. Dan left here August 20 for training at the Norfolk construction training center. Lieutenant Drury hadn't been on the job more than a couple of weeks before he found himself an executive officer instead of a trainee. At last reports he was still at Norfolk. Sally and their three boys are remaining in Hanover for the present.
