1950
Neither an old man with a flowing beard dressed in a sheet nor a chubby babe in swaddling clothes were evident. The New Year arrived quietly, without fanfare. Now 1975 is only statistics and memories. Our year of renewal is over. It was a good year.
Reunion years are a time to take stock; they are a time to evaluate progress or success and to renew objectives. The depth of analysis is primarily a function of the reunion year, and the 25th is particularly critical. Most of us still have more milestones to pass, new peaks to conquer. Yet the quality of the next quarter century may somehow differ. The drive remains the same, but the sense of urgency perhaps has gone. The peaks are closer to hand; the whole mountain no longer has to be scaled.
A fundamental difference in our anticipation of the year 2000 may be a change in perspective. Our own pinnacles having been attained, we may be able to relax and enjoy the view. There is so much, the grand and the simple, to enjoy.
ICI United States Inc. recently named Girard(Jerry) Smith vp for administration. He will be responsible for the company's distribution, management information, and administrative services as well as its purchasing and resale departments. His previous assignment had been general manager of the Latin American division. (The parent company of ICI is Imperial Chemical Industries, Ltd., of London.) Jerry will be headquartered in Wilmington. He and Peggy live with their three sons in Brandywood.
Jim Stevens, previously Dartmouth's comptroller and currently Knox College's vp for finance, recently participated in a leadership conference that launched a three-year fund raising program for Knox. His contribution was a paper on "Financial Operations of the College." An important fact is that Knox, founded in 1837, is one of the oldest liberal arts colleges in the Midwest. Less important, but possibly more interesting, is that Knox is "Old Siwash," the fictional campus in a series of stories in the Saturday Evening Post. Furthermore, its Old Main administration and classroom building is the only remaining site of the Lincoln-Douglas debates. (If the news release is short on info, dig into the trivia!)
An exhibition, "Twenty-five Books; Twenty-five Years," marking the first quarter-century of the Stinehour Press of Lunenberg, Vt., is on display at Baker Library. The exhibition will tour the country during 1976. Rocky Stinehour founded the press after graduation. Today his clients include leading museums, libraries, galleries, and universities. His work is sought by commercial enterprises and private patrons (including the Class of 1950). Products of the Press are regularly selected among the "Fifty Books of the Year" chosen annually by the American Institute of Graphic Arts.
The catalog published for the exhibition (what a way to assess the progress of 25 years and to cap a reunion year) reproduces in minature certain features of the individual volumes. In the foreword, Rocky describes the work and growth of the Press and comments, "Small organizations may in fact be in the forefront of a new movement toward a participatory industrial democracy, one that can serve basic human needs that are suffering so from neglect today." The catalog is dedicated to Ray Nash, professor of art emeritus.
Rocky recently returned from addressing the Wynken de Worde Society in London. While there he received the monotype award for photoset composition. He still prefers the quiet streets of Lunenberg or the campus in Hanover.
In buying the Lake Placid News, Ed Hale has returned to an old love. After graduation he earned an M.S. from the Columbia School of Journalism, then an M.S. in political science from SUNY in Albany. In 1955-56 he was a Nieman Fellow at Harvard. His Ph.D. dissertation in poli-sci dealt with "Newsmen and Government Men" under a long and learned subtitle. One of Ed's early jobs was with the Buffalo Evening News as a reporter, editor, and political writer before he was sidetracked into jobs with the N.Y. state government. So only the form, not the fact, of returning to the newspaper world is different. Nor is their location in Lake Placid a surprise, since Ed and Barbara have visited the town in all its seasons to enjoy Adirondack hiking and skiing with their three daughters. The move will free more time for these pursuits. On to the Olympics.
Tidbits here and there:
Fizz Nichols works for the First National Bank of Boston and lives on Beacon Hill. One of his colleagues is Bill Doe, vp of the Old Colony Trust Division. An Allied Chemical ad for Cushion Kote courts cites Dick Arnold, indoor tennis entrepreneur in N.J. Watch for news of Swede Swenson's son Bill on the hockey team; he is a '79. Eric Miller was recently appointed a trustee of Kimball Union Academy.
Tom and Anne O'Connell presented an evening of poetry reading, including works by Hawthorne, Holmes, and Melville, to the Berkshire Athenaeum. A gift of $50,000 from the Surdna Foundation in N.Y. to next year's scholarship fund of the Medical School was announced by Dean Jim Strickler. The picture of Phil Brown and his family in a Grant Wood pose was a classic. Mini-reunions are great, so TedBamberger initiated a micro-reunion at The Dock in Tiburon, Calif., with Dave Taylor and Larry Batty; next year he will try for four.
It is snowing tonight. For the first time in years here in N.J. there is an accumulation. Cars are struggling to climb the hill; many have given up. An occasional plow grinds and whines its way through the piling drifts. The storm is a quiet one; no winds attend it. As the night deepens the flow of modern life ebbs and an unaccustomed stillness prevails. Our dog dashes back from her nightly outing to curl up next to the radiator. Harsh realities are softened by the glistening mounds of new snow. The only noise is the sound of a snowflake falling.
Tonight is reminiscent of many Hanover nights. The new year begins quietly and softly. Snow flurries filter the light. Only the sound of snow is heard in the land, in the night.
Have a good 1976.
Secretary 510 Hillcrest Road Ridgewood, N.J. 07450
Treasurer, 19 Claybar Drive West Hartford, Conn. 06117
