Richard Parkhurst '16

Richard Parkhurst '16 (right) was honored with the Dartmouth Alumni Award on January 26 at the winter meeting of the Alumni Council in Hanover. Ellwood H. Fisher '21 (left), president of the Council, read the following citation in presenting the award:

Graduate of the College in 1916, your career is marked with full diversity, distinction, and achievement. Your first post with Ginn and Company, Boston publishers, preceded appointment to the Boston Port Authority which you served as Vice Chairman, Secretary, and Chairman until 1945.

During World War II you served the Federal Government in the Office of the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs, working in the area of port security. In 1946, you were appointed to the United States Maritime Commission. From 1950 until your retirement two years ago you were associated with the Boston & Maine Railroad.... This is just the bare outline of your career, and does not include numerous honors, appointments, and volunteer positions.

Dartmouth has enjoyed the full measure of your service, generosity, and devotion. You have been Secretary of your Class, Secretary and President of the Boston Alumni Association, and a member of the Alumni Council and Athletic Council. Last June your classmates elected you President of 1916.

Your father, Lewis Parkhurst '78, served Dartmouth College with great distinction as a member of the Board of Trustees for 33 years. Your son Stephen is Class of '52. Another son, John, could not come to Dartmouth because he died in 1945 from duty as an ambulance driver with the American Field Service in the jungles of Burma. The love of this boy for the College, like that of his father and grandfather, was revealed in his bequest from personal savings, in a letter saying: "In case anything should happen to me, I should like Dartmouth to have $1,000 to be used for something in Parkhurst Hall."

We bestow upon you, who so fully merits it, the Dartmouth Alumni Award.