1961

Some guys have jobs that sound terribly inviting, indeed perhaps idyllic. Jim and Mary Richards operate Maplelag in Callaway, Minn., and, thanks to the kindness of James D. Rogers '51, I've got a whole group of brochures for the varied Richards enterprises.

For instance, as you'd no doubt suspect, Maplelag produces maple syrup at its Little Sugarbush Lake site, getting maple sap from the last week of March until the trees bud at the end of April. They open 1,500 to 2,000 taps, getting sap that is two to three per cent sugar, which is then boiled to get the syrup, which is 65 per cent sugar. They've got all their own equipment, including their own evaporator.

Maplelag is also a cross-country ski resort, with 24 kilometers (that's nearly 15 miles) of trails nearby and, they claim, "some of the best skiing in the state." They've got a main lodge, several log cabins, a sauna that they use as a honeymoon cabin, and several bunkhouses. The place is the summer home for Concordia College's language study program, with groups speaking Russian, Swedish, and Finnish.

Jim is also in the blasting business, converting swamp areas to ponds and he'll make a pond based on the charge it takes to carve it out, from the six-charge pond (16 to 22 feet wide by 80 to 90 feet long) to one that takes 18 charges and is 32 feet wide and 150 feet long. the point, for those of you who aren't hunters, is build ponds that will serve ducks for nesting, breeding, and courting, will harbor migrating waterfowl, and will provide watering holes for bigger game. Of course, they can serve the more prosaic function of livestock watering, too.

More on Read Ambler, who, you recall, was recently named a California Superior Court Judge. According to a story stripped across the local front page of the Peninsula TimesTribune, Read did not expect to get the job. "I was disbelieving when I got the call from Tony Kline," legal affairs secretary to Governor Jerry Brown.

The story says that Ambler had been specializing in family, juvenile, and criminal law since he went into practice four years ago in Palo Alto. Before that, he had been in practice in Los Altos, and before that was a public defender for three years in Santa Clara County. So here's a judge with a background primarily on the side of the defense.

He's been active in the Bar Association, and was its 1977 president. He's also a representative on the criminal conflicts board, which considers conflict-of-interest cases.

Wife Cheryl is a former juvenile probation officer and is now studying for a master's degree in marriage, family, and child counseling at the University of Santa Clara. They have three children Harold, 14, Heather, eight, and Chris, eight.

Jay Torok has been named vice president of Clevepak Corporation's Composite Container and Core Division, which is based in White Plains, N.Y. He had been general manager of the four-plant division since June 1979. According to R. E. Cartledge, the company's chief executive officer, Jay "was instrumental in the recent consolidation of our plants and in planning, building, and [opening] our new Wausau, Wise., can plant." The firm is a producer of recycled paper and other paper products.

Oak Winters is becoming a name to be reckoned with in North Carolina in his position as executive director of the North Carolina Humanities Committee in Greensboro. That's a state-based program of the National Endow- ment for the Humanities, part of the growing interest in the humanities. (The National Humanities Center is in the Research Triangle Park near Durham.) For instance, the two organizations are sponsoring week-long "Voyages of Discovery," which are studies of texts like Homer's Odyssey, Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels, and Herman Melville's Typee. He sends out information on the National Endowment for the Humanities' summer seminars, which are aimed at business executives, journalists, labor leaders, lawyers and judges, health care personnel, administrators, etc. Around the office, discussions about Oak's work pop up frequently.

3300 Windsor Drive Charlotte, N.C. 28209