An Outgoing President

Fred Hart '58, the outgoing President of the Dartmouth Outing Club, has fulfilled this billing well during his year in office.

He has been at the end of a toboggan rope helping the Dartmouth Ski Patrol to ease injured skiers down the slope; he has been on the face of nearby cliffs with the Mountaineering Club; he has been on the business end of a canoe paddle while shooting white water; and he has spent many hours at the end of the long conference table in 23 Robinson Hall administering the affairs of the largest undergraduate organization on campus.

Fred's interest in the out-of-doors started with skiing. His father, a Norwalk, Conn., businessman, is an ardent skier to the point of conducting, "for the fun of it," a Friday evening skiers program over radio station WNLK. Frequently, after telling the whole area where the best skiing was, he would follow his own advice and pack the whole family (Fred has two brothers) off into the mountains.

Fred attended the Norwalk public schools. While at Norwalk High, he was on the tennis team, the track and cross-country teams and, in his senior year, he was class president. His interest in mathematics and physics was stimulated by his physics instructor who often spoke of conducting experiments in "the Dartmouth form." This, combined with a rumor that Dartmouth men sometimes ski, helped to lead Fred to Hanover. He staked his claim in the Outing Club early: before departing for Hanover he took out a four-year membership by mail.

The Outing Club's freshman trip convinced Fred that his long-term investment had been well made; his group went into the mountains and traveled the Franconia Range. He also joined the Dartmouth Christian Union and, with two other students, once conducted a service in a Manchester, Vt., church. He played in the Band, having "held down first chair" in the trumpet section of the Norwalk High School Band, and became a member of the Dartmouth Ski Patrol.

Last summer, Fred remained in Hanover to serve as assistant to John Rand, the Executive Director of the D.O.C. Fred supervised the work of a three-man trail crew that had as its mission the maintenance of the Outing Club's 1OO miles of trails and repairs on the Club's fourteen cabins. Also he worked on plans for the new cabin that was built last summer on the summit of Mt. Moosilauke to replace one that had burned. Plans and organization of the freshman trip took up part of the summer and plans for the Club's activity for the year, brought him right up to September.

One important Outing Club activity cannot be planned: the DOC is on call with local and state agencies for rescue and fire-fighting missions. Last spring Fred was put in charge of the logistics concerned with an emergency crew that was sent to man the fire lookout tower on Smarts Mountain. The emergency arose over Green Key weekend and was not a little disconcerting for the dates of some of the men called upon to help.

The Outing Club maintains a file of its members who have skills and personal equipment which enable them to engage in many types of emergency work. Many of these men have learned the woodsman's lore from Ross McKenney, the Club's woodcraft adviser, whose knowledge of living in the out-of-doors is, Fred says, limitless.

As a senior, Fred has been the Outing Club's representative on the Undergraduate Council while in his first year at Thayer School. This summer he has a post in the engineering office of Connecticut Light and Power (no digging involved) and, when he finishes Thayer School next June, he may enter the atomic electric power field - or he may teach - or he may combine the two. You never can tell what an outgoing young man will do.

Fred Hart '58