"Will you give the Valedictory?"

The audience will clap politely when the young man with the big smile steps behind the rostrum. It's a nice smile, a boyish smile, and they will make themselves comfortable for his little talk. But when Jere Daniell delivers the valedictory this month, there will be no small talk. For many in the audience it will be an intellectual experience. Others, relaxed in the warm morning sun, may be amazed by the deception: Jere looks like a boy, but talks like a mature, thoughtful man.

There are some who would say that Jere was destined for distinction (and, indeed, already had a measure of it) because his father and two brothers were Dartmouth men before him. Another brother went to Cornell, and there are two girls in the family, one at Middlebury and the other still in high school.

The children grew up in Millinocket, Maine, a paper mill community cut out of the woods ninety miles north of Bangor, where Mr. Daniell is an engineer with the Great Northern Paper Company. There is a lot of good hunting and fishing nearby, and a few years ago a moose wandered into town. Jere is a fisherman of the old school and would rather dangle an angleworm than flick a fly.

The life of the community centers around the paper company and while Jere was still in Stearns High School, he worked on vacations in the mill and out in the woods as a lumberjack and log driver. Jere was valedictorian of his class and participated in a number of activities and sports. He followed the course set by his brothers: after graduation from high school, he spent a year at Phillips-Exeter to round off his preparation for college.

At Dartmouth he realized that the usual star athlete from a small high school was not up to college football and basketball, and so he joined the DCAC managerial competition. The job suited him perfectly. He was smart, quick and would never leave a job undone or incomplete. He was chosen as the DCAC representative on the Undergraduate Council and then as a student representative to the Athletic Council itself, while serving last winter as basketball manager. Jere is a member of Palaeopitus, and as vice-president of the Undergraduate Council, he is chairman of the important Judiciary Committee.

The Judiciary Committee is a student court which hears cases when students have broken College regulations. The Committee then passes on recommendations to the College's Committee on Administration, headed by President Dickey, for official action. During the last year it has not been unusual for Jere to take a full half-hour presenting a case to the Committee and then discussing the merits further with the President. In many cases the decisions are hard to make: the men on the Judiciary Committee, and the chairman in particular, are suddenly taken out of the student body and asked to judge their fellows. It is a sobering experience, and one which Jere has accepted and discharged with distinction.

Jere has been a modified Government major, and has taken work divided equally between Government, Philosophy and English. He is a member of the Naval ROTC unit and will serve on a transport, the USS Monrovia out of Norfolk, shortly after graduation. After the Navy, he plans to do graduate work at the Harvard School of American Civilization and then embark on a career as a teacher.

He has heard all the arguments about the low salary of teachers and says, merely, "What I know about myself is best adapted to the teaching profession - and I think I can contribute as much by being a teacher as anywhere else."

Although Jere is one of the best-known students on the campus, he has made his way quietly. He has never run for elective office, but rather has always been chosen for responsible positions. Like the time a few weeks ago when he was in the Dean's Office to pick up some cases....

The Dean called to him and asked what almost seemed to be a casual question. "Will you give the Valedictory at Commencement?" he said. "It should be about eight to ten minutes." Jere thought "Why me?" but didn't say it. He smiled his big boyish smile and said, "Yes, sir." And that was it.

JERE DANIELL '55