The Fund

Al Louer and Charlie Bishop urged their classmates in 1926 to dig deep for the 1976 Alumni Fund. A happy conjunction of stars — the class's 50th reunion and Bicentennial feelings of loyalty — didn't hurt a bit as the men and women of '26 responded with an Alumni Fund record $626,626.26. Head agent Louer and reunion giving chairman Bishop seemingly have an affinity with symbolic dollars and not-so-odd cents.

The signal achievement of '26 led the overall Fund to a grand total of $4,547,131, exceeding its goal by $47,000 and representing an increase of some $345,000 over last year's sum. Alumni participation held steady at 58 per cent.

Together, the 12 reunion classes raised $2.1 million, nearly half of the total contributions. The Class of 1953 led all nonreunion classes with another record — according to Charlie Breed '51, executive secretary of the Fund, "probably a world's record for a non-reunion class anywhere" — with a gift of better than $88,000.