Singing Manager
When the Glee Club's bus pulls to a stop this spring in Buffalo or Atlanta or Philadelphia, the first man to swing off will be Al Maybee '57, the Club's manager. "As a representative of the College," says the Club's director, Paul Zeller, "we just couldn't do any better." Al will meet the local Dartmouth man in charge of the concert to coordinate all local arrangements and, if he is really an efficient manager, get first pick of the post-concert dates.
Al comes by his singing naturally; his father and both grandfathers were musicians. He started early with piano lessons and starring roles in such productions as "The Red Mill." He played Kid Conner o or was it Con Kidder at Summit, New Jersey, High School.
Al's father is with the National City Bank in New York. Besides their interest in music, Al and his father have enjoyed photography as an "on and off" hobby in a makeshift home darkroom and, occasionally, there have been cooperative ventures in the basement workshop. One summer vacation the family packed into the car and drove to the West Coast; another time they went north to Canada and the Gaspe.
Although Al says he is "just fair" as a singer, he has 49 others singing along with him - which must help a lot if the rave notices the Club gained on last spring's West Coast tour are fair measure. Then the Club flew by chartered plane all the way. The most exciting single aspect of the trip was the flight into Portland when, with one hour to air time for a TV show, the Club was still in the air, flying under a low ceiling directly down the Columbia River Valley. A motorcade with police escort met the boys at the airport and rushed them to the studio, just in time for them to be introduced as they walked onto the stage. Or was the high point of the trip meeting Anita Ekberg in Hollywood? ("Much prettier in person than on the screen.")
This spring the Glee Club will come down to earth again and travel by bus. The itinerary is: Syracuse, Rochester, Buffalo, Pittsburgh, Charleston, Chattanooga, Atlanta, Charlotte, Richmond, Washington, Wilmington, Baltimore, Philadelphia and Glen Ridge, N. J. In all there are fourteen stops in sixteen days. The word is that the 1957 Glee Club is better than ever.
A lengthy itinerary and tight schedule are not at all new for Al. Last summer he and two other Dartmouth men made a 6200-mile trip in Europe by motor scooter. ("Down hill, with a tail wind, you can do 55.") Al earned money for the trip by working as a machinist the summer before and so the budget was a real consideration. A motor scooter is, if nothing else, inexpensive. But when it rains, even if you are laced into a rubber suit, it is uncomfortable. And the rains in Europe last summer persisted and for most of the trip the boys were more wet than alive. The scooters were purchased in Milan; Al got as far as the suburbs before cracking his up. They headed right into the Alps for Switzerland and then on to France, Austria, Germany, Denmark, and Norway. Al had a list of the European boys who would be attending Dartmouth in the fall and, near Copenhagen, he, dripping wet as usual, knocked on the kitchen door of Adam Oigaard. Adam's mother greeted them "with open arms" and there was much talk about Dartmouth, time to dry out, and some good Danish food. And there must have been talk about something else there in the kitchen: Adam Oigaard is now a member of the Glee Club.
Al is in for a very busy spring term. Besides the tour, he has his senior thesis to write ("Cultural Conflicts between France and Germany") and, as treasurer of the Undergraduate Council, he is in charge of the annual College Chest Fund drive which will raise close to $12,000. And, somewhere in all this, he must find time to think about what he is going to do after June 9. As an International Relations major, he has many choices. There is the possibility of graduate school, service with the State Department, work in international business or, perhaps, the Army. The future is wide open for Al Maybee.
Allen F. Maybee Jr. '57
