1963
Much of the really hot news this month is from Tinseltown. An account of Chris Miller's smash hit Animal House (Chris co-authorized the screenplay) appears adjacent to this column.
Mike Moriarity's new movie, Who'll Stopthe Rain, has just opened to rave reviews.
A recent TV Guide reported that SteveMacht will be appearing in a new television mini-series (a la "Roots," "Rich Man, Poor Man," "Seventh Avenue") called "The Immigrants." It's based on Howard Fast's novel about the orphaned son of Italian immigrants who becomes a shipping magnate - until the day a few of his ships don't come in. It will be done in two four-hour episodes.
Steve also recently finished filming the movie version of Nightwing, a novel about how a colony of vampire bats carrying bubonic plague invades the United States, via the Southwest. Steve portrays a very with-it Navajo indian chief whose plan to convert the Navajo nation into a conglomerate is jeopardized by the bats. (There's another connection to the Class here; Nightwing was written by Jack Smith's brother Martin, who had the misfortune to attend Penn.)
That's all from Hollywood. From Washington, I have it on good authority (i.e., not from a member of the Class - this is from a genuine, bona fide political source) that TimKraft's real job these days is planning the Carter re-election campaign for 1980. Remember, you read it here first.
Meanwhile, back in New York, Are Williams has been elected a vice president of Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith, Inc. He is currently the manager of Merrill Lynch's institutional computer services department which provides computer services for fund sponsors and financial institutions. Art had worked as an institutional salesman and registered investment advisor before joining Merrill Lynch in 1974 as a marketing representative for the department he now heads.
Careful readers of this column will recall that last year we reported that Jim Page was going to try coaching both the College ski team and the national Nordic combined team at the same time as an experiment. Apparently the blend of duties didn't work out all that well and Jim has made a choice. He will leave Hanover and move his family to Park City, Utah, to begin his new duties as assistant Nordic team director of the U.S. National Ski Team. John Morton, a former Middlebury College and Olympic skier who has been teaching and coaching at Diamond High School in Anchorage, Alaska, has been named as Jim's replacement.
And here's a late word just in from Zambia: Kevin Lowther has left his duties as editorialpage editor of the Keene (N.H.) Sentinel to join Africare, a non-profit organization based in Washington that specializes in aiding African nations with health and agriculture programs. Kevin, who was in Africa as a Peace Corps volunteer and later served as a Peace Corps officer in Washington, will be the organization's field representative in southern Africa. According to a story in the Sentinel, he expects to be based in Lusaka,, the capital city of Zambia. His wife and their two daughters were expected to join him there by the end of the summer. Part of Kevin's duties will involve coordination of assistance for refugees from the areas where guerrilla warfare is going on, the article said.
Back in the United States, officials at Swarthmore College in Swarthmore, Pa., were recently pleased and happy to announce that Dave Smoyer has been named chairman of that school's athletic department. Dave, a soccer all-American while at Dartmouth (he lettered for three years in tennis and squash as well), has been the director of admissions, director of development, and business manager of the Roxbury Latin School in West Roxbury, Mass. He was also coach of the soccer team, the freshman basketball team, and the freshman baseball team. In his spare time he taught a course in mathematics. Earlier in his career he had been a practicing lawyer in Philadelphia, assistant to the commissioner of the North American Soccer League, and associate director of athletics at Yale.
David Saunders is now in Richmond after completing his Ph.D. at Bryn Mawr, and is teaching in the school of social work at the Medical College of Virginia, which is part of Virginia Commonwealth University. Dave is also doing research on alcohol and driving. He reports that "I like the academic life, although I have come to the conclusion that the reason academic politics are so dirty is that the stakes are so small. The things grown people can fight over!" Dave's wife Ronni is conducting workshops on the problems that face sons and daughters as their parents become elderly.
Dave recently worked on some diabetes research with Gordon Weir, who is now on the faculty at MCV. Gordon finished a residency in endocrinology at Case Western Reserve, and had spent several years at Massachusetts General before heading for Dixie.
Bill King is practicing law and doing some lobbying when the legislature is in Richmond, Dave Saunders also reports. Bill had been president of the Richmond Dartmouth Club until he recently stepped down, but the office remained in the hands of our Class, however, as Dave succeeded Bill in the job. Dave reports that Bill's "still fit although less hirsute." We'll be awaiting Bill's reply on Dave's general condition and hairline location. My suspicion is that Bill doesn't think of himself as bald - he thinks of Dave as hairy.
Our ex-Marine-turned-minister, Dave GoodwiMie, is now joining the Army. He has finished his doctorate in counseling and is now a chaplain (major) in the U.S. Army, which has asked him to report to Fort Campbell, Ky., where he has been assigned to say prayers for the 101st Airborne.
George Sullivan recently left law practice to become the chief executive officer of Ripley Industries in Collierville, Tenn. He had been in Syracuse, N.Y., and claims that he misses the snow and skiing, but is "gradually getting acclimated to Southern living."
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