Treasurer of the Year

A tribute to Clarence G. McDavitt '00 as the Class Treasurer of the Year was one of the features of the annual dinner of class and club officers in Hanover on May 1. The citation accompanying the 1954 award was as follows:

The man whom we honor tonight as the Class Treasurer of 1954 does not qualify by title, because his official appellation is trustee of the Class Fund. In every other conceivable respect, however, he merits this recognition for accomplishments that are as unique as his title.

For fifty-one years he has administered the 1900 Class Fund, which now raises in one combined solicitation the money for general class expenses, including the class group subscription to the Alumni Magazine, and for the annual class contribution to the Alumni Fund. By means of this fund the class provided $63,000 for the erection the Dartmouth Outing Club House. Since 1932, despite a relatively small class membership, the fund has turned over to the Alumni Fund more than $60,000.

The record of annual individual payments to the class fund is remarkable. For the present year, the 97% of graduates and 85% of all members who responded to the treasurer's solicitation constitutes a record far beyond the general alumni average. In the matter of payments to the class fund by the widows or families of deceased members, our prize treasurer has nurtured and developed over the years a memorial program without equal. These memorial contributions annually are now double the number of living members of the class. In the class group subscription plan, the class is well above quota and sends the Alumni Magazine to 96% of the entire class and also to the interested families of deceased classmates. An exceptional class solidarity and a sense of family relationship, all working toward the welfare of Dartmouth College, have resulted from the class fund and its capable administration.

When we received Dartmouth's honorary Master of Arts degree in 1940, our Treasurer of the Year was cited by President Hopkins for the "quiet constancy and unobtrusive persistence" of his labors for Dartmouth. This was the hallmark of his service as member and president of the Alumni Council, president of the General Alumni Association, member and president of the Athletic Council, president of the Dartmouth Club of Boston, chairman of the Alumni Fund, and class agent ever since the Fund began in 1915, as it has been the hallmark of his superlative work as class treasurer for more than fifty years.

By doctor's orders, our prize treasurer in recent years has had to forego those trips to Hanover that delighted him so. But we know that tonight, as always, CLARENCE G. MCDAVITT of the Class of 1900 is with us in spirit, and it is with warm affection that we salute him as the Class Treasurer of 1954 and send him this Louis Orr etching as a token of our admiration, our appreciation, and our heartfelt good wishes.