1939

Every year at this time you are invited, nay, urged to contribute in a unique way to a unique institution. Unlike your community chest campaigns where the total amount of dollars is all-important, the smallest check here is uniquely important. What we are urged to do is send a check, any check, to improve our participation index. And every year there are some deadbeats in the Class of 1939 who don't contribute one dime. Rather than flowery compliments, it may take some Dutch Uncle talk to point the finger at our hard core of deadbeats, and with a name like Conkle, maybe I'm the guy.

I'm tired of having '39 finish 39th, of watching good men like our class agents travel around the country and spend a lot of time writing letters, and then our deadbeats walk out, in effect, on their check. In the restaurant analogy, let's say, a guy enjoys an excellent meal at a prestige spot (and probably revels in the entertainment and floor show they put on every fall) and receives compliments for having eaten there, and then turns around and walks out on the check or lets George pay it. How can they pay the chef enough to keep him, how can they buy the latest pots and pans, how can they maintain the roof and the paint and the equipment and continue to produce the best meals in town, if some deadbeat doesn't pay his check?

Are you a deadbeat? Have you received all that Dartmouth has to give without giving a little bit of yourself to maintain its excellence? You are not asked to pay the whole check. You are being asked simply to mail a check today to Dartmouth to improve the participation of the-Glass of 4939. Are you a deadbeat?

Dot and I enjoyed a Dartmouth dinner in February and learned a great deal from a talk by Prof. James Cusick about the Alumni College, which will be August 14 to 25. If any of you attend, please send us a report.

Part of the fun of visiting Florida each winter is seeing your friend and mine, Harry Tanzi. The mythical mayor of Hanover owns a condominium in Boca Raton and is a good source of North Country information.

We should like to recommend the football brochure on the undefeated season plus the Cornell "anniversary game" program, which may still be available from the D.C.A.C.

You just never know. Years ago we never would have guessed we'd ever receive a long, friendly letter from the president of Colby Junior College. But now that our Ev Woodman is filling that job with distinction, we are very fortunate. Ev sent us a photo of the beautiful Colby senior who was queen of the Dartmouth Winter Carnival. President Woodman sent President Dickey a telegram: "Our respect Dartmouth's high standards confirmed again through choice Ann Miller carnival queen." In his reply President Dickey wrote: "We are glad to know that you approved the choice of the 1966 Carnival Queen. Thad Seymour - who ought to know - tells me that Ann Miller was a fine queen even to the point of taking the minds of her subjects off of the weather." It takes a certain amount of equanimity to portray the proper spirit and still remain queenly, and we think Ann struck the proper balance with her priceless comment to the press: "This is a moral victory for Colby." Having married a Colby girl himself, Ev could make the proper interpretations.

Ev, incidentally, is well into his fourth year at Colby, having come there after a string of foreign assignments. One of his pleasures is being near Hanover and all the Dartmouth family. His is a very lively academic institution, and Ev doesn't in any way feel cut off from the broader world of affairs. He closed his fine letter with the remarks of one of his student leaders, made recently, that "when better Dartmouth men are made, Colby women will make them."

Lt. Col. Harvey Yorke has retired from the U.S. Air Force after twenty years of active tiveduty and four years in the reserve forces. He served his final three and one half years as Chief of the Information Division at Mather Air Force Base in California. Harvey, a former newspaper reporter, has joined the firm of Whitaker & Baxter International, public relations counselors in San Francisco, as assistant to the president. With his wife and three children, he lives outside the city at 495 Rowland Blvd., Novato.

John Mecklin has been promoted to senior editor (staff writer) of Fortune Magazine. Mike Ellis visited Whitney Cushing this winter and writes, "Any man who can make a living as an artist, which he does, deserves great respect."

Betty Valier, Frank's widow, is a realtor with Parker Bryant in Palm Beach. Their son Biron was one of five award winners in art at the Florida State Fair and is now at the Cranbrook School of Art in Bloomfield Hills, Mich.

Al Gorman has been re-elected for his second term as president of the New York Bituminous Distributors Association. With a wife and six children Al stays busy keeping the home fires burning.

Bob Bacon passed away last month in Newtown Square, Pa. A more complete report will appear in the next issue.

We had letters this month from ZekeHill, Tom Brooks, and Howie Chivers. We'd like to hear from more of you next month. Zeke wrote about getting over to Hanover regularly from Burlington, while Tom described the Boston Alumni Dinner, which included a really wonderful glee club concert. At that event Tom saw Endy Smith,Moose Wyman, and Johnny Haartz (who is moving into a new plant for making convertible top fabric for General Motors and other auto makers).

Howie is still right in the center of things, where he has had the good fortune to see Bob Dickgiesser (young Bob is a freshman) and Ed Wells (that elder statesman of Dartmouth skiing who stayed off the boards at rarnival after glancing at the bare spots on the slopes), and Walt Darby (up for an Alumni Fund meeting), and Bill Russell (back from England and now in Peterborough) and Ev Woodman (head of a staid New England ladies' finishing school, see above).

Howie reports the Dartmouth Skiway is in midseason stride. After the annual Carnival thaw, things froze up tight and he enjoyed blue ice (New England powder) for a few days. One Chivers daughter is teaching skiing in the local Junior program, another is on the Junior racing team, and the third has "finally agreed that skiing has some merit and has just started to ride lifts."

We should like to give an unqualified plug for the Keewaydin Camp on Lake Timaaami in Ontario, where Howie spends his summers as the director. In 1934 we were a camper there, and we shall never forget the long canoe trips in the Canadian wilderness with an Indian guide. If you have a boy who could use a little toughening (in the finest sense of the word), write Howie for details. You won't regret it.

Secretary, Box 38, Cashiers, North Carolina

Class Agent, O'Ryan & Batchelder, Inc. 502 E. War Memorial Dr., Peoria, Ill. 61614