1969
Sans fanfare, here's the latest.
A legal staffer for Yellow Freight Systems Inc. of Kansas City, Bill Martin put his mettle on the pedal, so to speak, and wound up marrying the former Tracy Stoddard last November. Also hard at work on his joint return is JohnMasten, who slipped a ring on the finger of Marcia Rubine this past summer. A supervising policy analyst for the Office of Management and Budget of the City of New York, John is the recipient of an M.A. from Oxford University as well as a graduate of Yale Law School. Keep the bells warmed up for DonWhite, who is engaged to marry Elizabeth Buck this June. Former dean of students and a teacher of mathematics at the Hoosac School in Hoosick, N.Y., Don, armed with an M.B.A. from Duke, is currently a financial analyst with the Datapoint Corporation in San Antonio.
About a year ago, I reported that TomKenney had been appointed vice president and publisher of Redbook magazine. Recently he was again promoted, this time to the position of senior vice president and general manager of Charter Publishing Company, the parent firm. Tune in right here again next year to catch the first installment of his memoirs.
I received a note several weeks back from Gary Goodenough soliciting funds for the Tomb, but also containing some newsworthy items which I shall pass along to you. Gary reported that his employer, Salomon Brothers, has made him an offer he can't refuse. As a result, he will be departing Atlanta's agreeable environs for the hubbub of New York City. Carl and Nancy Moulton, whom I saw in Cambridge at the Harvard game, are living with their two sons in Cheshire, Conn. Carl is sales manager for a division of Allegheny Ludlum over in Bridgeport. Charlie Fitzgerald is flying planes for Braniff and is based in Minneapolis. And Scott McGinness, who a few months ago fathered a baby of the female persuasion, calls Chattanooga home, where, if memory serves me, he does a bit of lawyering.
A letter from Peter Komanecky reached me toward the end of last year, and initially I thought I'd try to paraphrase its content for the sake of brevity. However, I have taken the liberty of quoting him directly as I think you'll agree a synopsis would not have done justice to the tone and scope of his narrative. Also, I've got to fill this column. Herewith, a most interesting, thought-provoking letter from Peter.
"To fill my fellow '69 ers in on what has gone on in my life since I left Hanover, let me start by saying that I went on to Johns Hopkins to graduate school, where I got one of the fastest Ph.D.'s in the history of the Department of Romance Languages - a dissertation done on Luis de Gongora under former Dartmouth Spanish Professor Elias L. Rivers, which I finished in 1972. That same year I came to Milwaukee as an assistant professor of Spanish and Portuguese at the University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee, where I taught Renaissance and Baroque literature and contemporary literary theory for six years, except for a quarter as a Mediaevalist at the University of Washington in Seattle in 1978. I have published my share of articles and reviews and have a couple of books in the works, and I won a couple of National Endowment grants to do my scholarly work. The last two or three years I taught, though, I was becoming more and more discontented with life in the university system, and looked around for opportunities to change careers. Finally, a year ago last April, I resigned from U.W.M. (before a tenure decision was ever made) and spent a year doing volunteer work for a social services institution in Milwaukee serving the Hispanic community here, and mulling over the possibilities of moving to San Francisco to open a translating business.
"I successfully beat a severe bout with a metabolically-caused chronic depression - no doubt aggravated by the dead-end career possibilities as an academic and by the trauma of turning 30 - and founded a non-profit arts institution here for the Hispanic community last March. The National Endowment for the Arts came through with a fellowship for a training period in arts administration, and my new exposure to the business world, combined with a year in social services, turned me around politically into an avid Republican in search of private funding for the fine arts. The corpora- tion, of which I am the executive director, has two art galleries, one for internationally-known Hispanic artists and one for local and experimental arts, a community theater group with plans to tour the East Coast next year, a film and video segment, a radio program, a bilingual arts quarterly, a ballet studio, and a full classroom program in the arts. Everything is bilingual. We work out of a historic building, in a National Landmark Area of Milwaukee, which we are in the process of renovating. Since our program is unique in the Midwest, we are getting grants at a phenomenal rate, and have been called 'a model community arts institution' by an official at the National Endowment for the Arts. Donations can be sent to the Contemporary Hispanic Arts Consortium at 900 South 5th Street, Milwaukee. Dartmouth alumni David Wiggins '53 and Oscar Romero have been especially supportive.
"I am still single and plan to remain so. I spend my spare time making Renaissance music with a group at Marquette University, studying Russian, math, and Oriental religions, and just partying with the artists and business people my work brings me into contact with. It's far more stimulating than riding the tenure track and trying to leave footnotes on the sands of time. It also gives me far more 'academic freedom' than I ever enjoyed at the university and challenges me to make my own security for a change.
"Any Dartmouth alumni passing through Milwaukee are invited to stop by our center."
Thanks for taking the time to share your thoughts and experiences with us, Peter.
1 Meadow Lane Hanover, N.H. 03755
