Thayer School
THE annual meeting of the Dartmouth Society of Engineers was held at the Dartmouth Club in New York, February 2, with 50 members in attendance in spite of severe curtailments of commuter service by the illness of a large number of trainmen. The results of the ballot on the nominating committee's slate, with well over 200 ballots mailed in, were announced by the tellers in the election of officers for 1951 as follows: P. J. Halloran '20, President; E. Shaw Cole '31, VicePresident; P. L. Thompson '09, Treasurer (three-year term); R. N. Miller '20, Secretary (three-year term); and for Members-at-Large of the Executive Committee, R. H. Ellis '17 (three-year term), F. A. Davidson Jr. '41 (two year term), P. J. Henegan '49 (one-year term).
After the reading of the treasurer's and secretary's reports, Pete Halloran, presiding officer, entertained a discussion of the newly adopted constitution. Several provisions having to do with membership qualifications were discussed and referred to a committee on the constitution to be appointed by the president for further study and possible submission to the entire membership for letter ballot.
The Dean then spoke on the state of the School. Highlight of the evening was an exposition by contractor Jack Macdonald '14, retiring vice-president, on the similarities between geldings and consulting engineers.
The following members and guests attended the meeting: T. T. Whittier '00, F. E. Cudworth '02, F. E. Schilling '09, H. A. Ward '10, N. L. Doe '13, J. S. Macdonald '14, F. A. Davidson '15, E. H. Elkins '15, W. M. Birtwell '18, R. H. Griffin '18, P. J. Halloran '20, R. N. Miller '20, V. C. Smith Sr. '20, J. W. Guppy '24, K. P. Coykendall '26, H. A. Schroedel '26, C. T. Washburn '26, C. F. Jost '27, W. P. Kimball '29, J. H. Minnich '29, E. S. Cole '31, G. E. Franson '31, G. N. Collins '35, G. E. Elsenhans '36, J. J. Moulton '37, J. W. Coggeshall '38, R. E. Elkins '40, F. A. Davidson Jr. '41, J. A. Thomas Jr. '41, J. A. Thomas Sr., Columbia '13, R. T. Barr '42, L. E. Amy '43, N. Ward '43, C. L. Weinberg '43, T. E. Candler TT'47, M. McLoud TT'47, R. Samuels CE'47, H. O. Dressel Jr. EE'48, N. Falkin CE'48, T. L. Gustenhoven CE'48, S. Horner CE'48, S. Lishner ME'48, J. E. Joyce ME '49, R. D. Eckerson ME'49, A. J. Hendler EE'49, P. J. Hendler CE'49, F. A. Parker ME'49, C. R. Paulson EE'49, K. H. Snedaker EE'49, W. Wheeler CE'49, M. R. Pender '50.
Since the February news letter was written, the College has received word from the Army that an ROTC Ordnance Unit will be established at Dartmouth next fall. The junior and senior years of this program are open only to engineering students and to majors in the physical sciences. However, basic training during freshman and sophomore years is open to all Dartmouth students in those classes regardless of major subjects. Except for specifying the field of study of students enrolled in the advanced ROTC unit and requiring one course in Military Science and Tactics each semester, the Army ROTC program, in common with Navy and Air Force ROTC's, exercises no control over the normal academic requirements.
A recent publication of the Lincoln Arc Welding Foundation, "Welded Deck Highway Bridges," devotes several pages to a description of a design of a welded triangular space frame bridge submitted by John Minnich '29, and Don Armitstead, Peter Brown,Paul Henegan and Bill Wheeler, all CE'49, of Hanover, N. H.
Al Whitehill '33 has returned after several years on construction jobs all over the United States to his former home town of Passumpsic, Vt.
A Christmas message, which brought a breath of the blue Pacific and a faint hissing of surf from Waikiki, also brought the news from Doris and John Fondahl '48, that John has been promoted to the rank of assistant professor in civil engineering at the University of Hawaii.
A card from Mrs. and Mr. Bob Pretat CE'48 announces with remarkable brevity that they were "just married Dec. 18th." If we had more information we'd pass it on.
I'd like to quote in full the fine letter, disguised as a Christmas card, which came from Al Graves CE'48, but in the interests of conserving newsprint and pages I'll try to boil it down. A year ago, Al moved his family from Boston to Florida where he, Ann, and daughter Cathy now live at 114 Citrus Avenue, Dunedin. Al is "second in command of a small but growing and progressive construction company" and is tremendously pleased with his location and his work. He remarks about Thayer School that "not once has my training at Dartmouth and more especially at Thayer let me down even in what I consider to be a great variety of work for only 2 1/2 years out of school. For the sake of all your students, don't change your system or standards. Not only am I pleased with the training I received, but many of my engineer acquaintances have praised the Thayer School policy of no specializing, but sound and basic grounding in all phases of engineering." It's words like those, Al, which make men want to teach especially in the Thayer School.
A card from Bill Matthews ME'48 brings the now familiar news of recall to active duty in the Marine Corps. Since graduation, Bill had worked with New Departure in Bristol, Conn., where he was a bearing application designer at the time of his call to the service.
We were particularly pleased by the card bringing "Season's Greetings from the Publisher (Barney Oldfield ME'48) and the Staff (Molly Oldfield) of The Mecca Mailcall. May we be favored by your continued patronage. Notes in parenthesis are mine and it may well be that they are inverted. In any case a Thayer School Wah-Hoo-Wah for the ME'48 newsletter.
