Triple Honors for 1925

Edward W. Roessler '25 (left) was honored as the Class Treasurer of the Year at the annual meeting of Dartmouth class officers in Hanover last month. In making the award, Sidney C. Hayward '26, Secretary of the College, read the following citation:

You are proof positive that one need not be a banker in order to be a prize class treasurer. In filling that key post for the Class of 1925 for the past eight years, you have brought to the job a Phi Beta Kappa mind, an M.I.T. engineering degree, twenty-five years of experience as a design engineer for General Electric, and an ingredient hard to evaluate but certainly not matched by your financial brethren - a term as Chief of the Volunteer Fire Department of Mendham Township, New Jersey.

The Class of 1925 has set awesome fund records for the benefit of Dartmouth College, climaxed this spring with the Class of 1925 Professorship, endowed with a class fund of nearly $350,000. Yourself a generous donor, you were one of the leaders in bringing this class dream to magnificent fulfillment. In the role of class treasurer, you collect dues of $8.00, second highest among all the classes, from 62% of your class and maintain Alumni Magazine circulation to 91% of the entire class as well as to a large group of widows. Especially impressive in your financial management and foresight has been the creation of a reserve fund now large enough to assure a memorial book for every member of your class.

All this service to 1925 and Dartmouth College you have given without any thought of public acclaim. But tonight we ask you to stand front and center to be thanked and honored as the Dartmouth Class Treasurer of the Year.

Ford H. Whelden '25 (left) was named as the first recipient of the annual Class Bequest Chairman of the Year Award as Dartmouth class officers met in Hanover last month. H. Sheridan Baketel Jr. '20, president of the Association of Bequest and Estate Planning Chairmen, made the award and read the following citation:

In 1935, you were the first to storm the bastions of conservatism by sponsoring in the Alumni Council a plan for a Dartmouth Bequest Program. Bloody but unbowed, you lost that battle, but returned as a major force in getting such a plan approved by the Council in 1950. In the intervening years, you have provided indispensable leadership, first by your accomplishments with The Great Class of 1925 as its Bequest Chairman, and more recently as Executive Secretary of the Council's Bequest and Estate Planning Committee. By the unanimous acclaim of all bequest chairmen, and with warm expressions of their respect and affection, we salute you as Father of the Bequest Program and first recipient of the Bequest Chairman of the Year Award.

On behalf of the Class of 1925, Laurence G. Leavitt (left), head class agent, accepts from Alumni Fund Chairman Jack Dodd '22 the John H. Davis Jr. Trophy, awarded annually to the class that produces the largest dollar total in the Fund campaign. Mr. Dodd read the following citation:

The John H. Davis Jr. Trophy is awarded annually by the Alumni Fund Committee to the Class which produces the largest dollar total for the annual Alumni Fund Campaign.

Since its first presentation for the 1956 campaign, the Davis Trophy has been retained in each successive year by the Great Class of 1925, first under the leadership of Ford H. Whelden, and for the past two campaigns under that of his successor, Laurence G. Leavitt. Last spring the Class of 1925 led all Dartmouth classes by contributing $35,983 to the 1961 Alumni Fund with 183 class members making gifts of $100 or more.

For its continuing leadership in this important area of alumni support and particularly for its great help to the 1961 Million Dollar Fund, the Alumni Fund Committee is privileged to present the Class of 1925 with the John H. Davis Jr. Trophy Award for 1961 and to recognize the effective leadership of its fine Head Agent, Laurence G. Leavitt, 1925, with this citation.