Cheshire County
Secretary, Keene National Bank Keene, N. H. 03431
The 60th annual meeting of the Cheshire County Dartmouth Alumni Association was held the evening of December 29 at the Keene Country Club. President DickBowlen '30 welcomed an enthusiastic gathering of 60 alumni and guests and gave an interesting report of the Club activities over the past year.
Our committees had two meetings with college officers to discuss enrollment and job placing. The Club under the able guidance of Dick Bowlen and Ham Chase'47 put on a dinner meeting with wives invited to hear Professor Rassias talk on the foreign language overseas program. "Skip" Staples '72 of Keene, who had taken the course and had been in France, assisted in the program.
Chairman of the nominating committee Don Sutherland '30 brought in the following slate of officers for the ensuing year: President, H. Hamilton Chase '47; Vice President, Whitcomb Wells '44 and Sec'y.-Treasurer, Russell G. Putney '22.
The Secretary read excerpts from the statement by the President of the Club Officers Association whereby the Club Officers presented a resolution to the Chairman of the Board of Trustees expressing disapproval of coeducation. In his reply Mr. Zimmerman said that the Board based its decision only on the consideration of making Dartmouth more preeminent in the years ahead.
Richard L. Holbrook '17, halfback on the 1916 eleven under Coach Frank Cavanaugh, spoke briefly of the differences between college football in his era and the 1971 variety. Of course the two-platoon system has made the difference and there are more big men now. However, men like Jim Robertson and Gus Sonnenberg could kick and pass better than many collegians today even with the larger ball.
Dr. Ray W. Smith '17, attending our meeting for the first time in many years after working in Egypt on restoration projects, averred his only football playing took place at Keene High where he played center at 104 pounds.
The main speaker of the evening was John M. Curtis, assistant coach at Dartmouth, who is the only coach except Jake Crouthamel who chose to stay at Dartmouth rather than trek to Illinois with Bob Blackman. He said he was raised in the middle west and knew there wasn't a trout stream within a hundred miles of the University campus.
In an interesting discussion of the past season Mr. Curtis said that all the Ivy League opponents played their best games against Dartmouth. The Big Green should be in contention next fall but as usual all of our Ivy League opponents look stronger, especially Yale and Columbia. John also qualified as a swami by predicting Cornell's Marinaro would not star in the East West Shrine game as he would not carry the ball more than eight or nine times and the opposing line would be keyed to stop him. Our favorite film, "Football Highlights," was shown to wind up the program.
