1961
Outside the Hanover Inn it was not the best of days. All day long it was cold and blustery and snow had threatened (and indeed had fallen briefly). There was little to cheer about the football game.
But inside the Tavern Room at the Inn it was warm and happy and crowded with members of the class of 1961 having a November 1 reunion. The talk was of now and then, and of people catching up. The talk also turned to football, with so many members of the 1961 team back (Jim McElhinney, Ken DeHaven, Hank Gerfen,Al Rozycki, Dick Beattie, Charlie Chapman), and inevitably to the muffed plays. Hank recalled when he could not stop his man during the Cornell game and how Rozycki got creamed. Rozycki recalled the time he was commended for extra effort on getting a first down. All he had done, he said, was grab the pants of the fellow ahead. The stories abounded.
No one took a complete count of everyone who was in Hanover for the mini-reunion because some could get up only for the Yale game and a bit of pre-game activities, like MoBanks; some came to the cocktail party but had to depart before the dinner, like Skip Mahady; and some got to sit down at one of the six great round tables for a splendid dinner arranged by mini-reunion chairman Bill Haynsworth. Some of the fellows, it turned out, were also up for club officers weekend, like Class Treasurer VicRich, Pete Stuart, Mike Murphy, and your reporter. Some, like orthopedic physicians DeHaven and McElhinney, were up for four days of lectures, seminars, informal meetings, and "grand rounds" as the first of our 1961 Fellows. That's the program organized so well by Ron Wybranowski, who spoke to the group about plans for future years.
One key discovery: We're finally a generation out of Dartmouth. Suddenly, our sons and daughters are "Men of Dartmouth" four members of the class have children in the class of 1984. Gerfen has son Chip (actually Hank Jr.), Chapman has son Chuck, Ralph Barton has his namesake, and Russ Holmes has a daughter, Sue. The undergraduates dropped by our reunion to join their parents and we decided to get the students involved in class affairs as liaison officers (modeled after the club liaison officers) because we'll need student coordinators for future phases of our 1961 Fellows programs.
Some catching up: Mike Murphy is in the steel-drum business near his home in Windermere, Fla., and is quite concerned about the impact of the federal government on small businesses like his. Gerfen is in the advertising business in New York City, with the firm of Mathieu, Gerfen and Bresner, and he's quite proud of competing in the past two New York marathons, finishing in 4:27 last year and 4:19 this year. Pete Stuart, Mo Banks, and IvarJozus are Connecticut lawyers, while SkipMahady is practicing across the river in Norwich, Vt.
Paul Nelson is peddling fuel oil in Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont for Coastal Corp., a business he got into after serving as executive director of the governor's energy council and as a member of the staff of former New Hampshire Governor Meldrim Thomson. PeterPalin is a trust officer in Stamford, Conn., where he says he "enjoys new-business development." Vic Rich says he is "chairman of the conservation board for the Village of Irvington, where I live. Our board's new motto is 'Help keep Irvington clean and green; swallow your beer cans.' "
Among the others who were present (as we said, we can't guarantee the list is complete) were Dave Blake, the new dean of the business school at Northeastern (see the October column), Hartley Webster (who was campaigning for ever better achievements in the Alumni Fund drive), Howard Serrell, Russ Boss, Class President Jerry Kaminsky, Bill Shure, Dennis Dinan, and, reportedly, Lenny DiSavino. Many brought along wives and families: folks such as Jean DeHaven, Karin Stuart (and two sons), Carol Jozus, Kris Chapman, Diana Beattie, Lois Rich, Ann Haynsworth, Jackie Kaminsky (and son Michael), and many more.
Many members of the class knew about activities of other classmates. Their reports: Jeff Conn has his own accounting firm in Muskegon, Mich., with eight people working for him, after previous experience working for other accounting firms and for a furniture company. He has two daughters. Ira Gorman lives in Middletown, Conn., where he is doing family counseling at Elmcrest Psychiatric Institute
Russ Boss is proudest of his daughter, who is a tennis star. He reports she was Rhode Island women's and Rhode Island 16-and-under tennis champion, was 37th in the United States, and first in New England in the 14-and-under group.
Vic Rich brought along several reports from the back of class-dues statements. William Sheehan is practicing pulmonary medicine in Southeastern Massachusetts and Newport R. I., when he's not sailing on Buzzard's Bay! He lives in Dartmouth, Mass., with his wife, three children, pets, and parents.
Bob Shearer says he's moved to the computer center at the State University of New York, Farmingdale, last October as a program analyst and is "enjoying it immensely." He reports he has gotten another master's degree, this one in biology, and that he's continuing on at New York University in the education school toward a Ph.D. "Life seems to be running on all six cylinders (or four or eight) and I still seem to have a full deck of cards - although they're often all.jokers."
And, by telephone from California, Mike Kirst reported he's on sabbatical leave from Stanford but busy as ever as chairman of California's State Board of Education. He reported that Frank Small is a lawyer in Palo Alto and apparently doing quite well. He says Mike Hecht is doing very well as a manager for all the stores of Carter-Hawley-Hale, the big national department store chain, and living in the ritzy Los Angeles section called San Marino.
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