1944

It's always nice to talk to Bob "Needle" Allen, but one could hardly care for the news he had April 28 that Dan Donovan's wife Arline had died that day in Rockville Center of lung cancer. She had only been ill a few months. All of our sympathies to Dan and the five children.

As for Needle himself, he continues his seven-day-a-week pace juggling two businesses, one in N.Y. and the other in Minneapolis. He has stepped down as chairman of the board of his alma mater, the Berkshire School, and finished a five-year term as a member of the President's Committee at Smith, wife Jean's college. "Working with today's youth has been one of my very great satisfactions," he said.

Lorenzo "Bud" Baker is getting weightier and weightier in the vehicle business outside Columbus, Ohio, where he's gone from VWs to Volvos to Mack trucks. After a long career in automobiles, he was named administrative manager of the Columbus Truck and Equipment Cos. in 1979. We caught him and wife Ann en route to Bethel, Maine, on a visit to son Lorenzo 111, a 1978 Skidmore graduate who is now associate director of admissions at Gould Academy.

We thought Fred Campbell was still an insurance exec in Peterborough, N.H. Not so. Ten years ago he upped and went off to the big city, Boston, where he is manager of the inward freight department of Peabody & Lane, Inc., steamship agents. But he doesn't get to sea himself: "I stay home and root for the Red Sox and listen to the Boston Pops." His parents are still living in Peterborough, though, and his father, at 89, is chipper and active and still driving his own car. A Mercedes Sports, no doubt!

Hank Best is also pursuing new pursuits. After 13 years as an accountant in a family sheet-metal business, he moved into the municipal field and likes it very much, thank you. He is treasurer and tax collector for the town of Narragansett, R. 1., and, for fun, treasurer of the East Greenwich Fire District. He and Ginny have a small summer place in Potter Place, N.H., about 35 miles from Hanover, and they are members of the Ragged Mountain Fish and Game Club there. Both their sons, Barry and Doug '7l, are lawyers.

Restaurateur and Black Angus raiser JerryBrody also breeds race horses. This winter he was looking for a name for a filly whose dam was "Birth of a Nation" and whose sire was "Silent Screen." A friend suggested that Jerry give the horse the obvious name that of Lillian Gish and with her permission he did just that. According to the New York Times, "Lillian Gish" the horse ran a first at Aqueduct in April, paying $3.40. Lillian Gish, the 83year-old actress, was reported ready to place a bet herself.

Also in the Times was the late-March announcement that Bill McElnea had resigned as president of Caesars World Inc. He'd held that post since 1972, and said he was leaving for personal reasons. Under Bill's stewardship, Caesars' earnings climbed from $1.6 million on revenues of $68.2 million in 1972 to earnings of $33.8 million on revenues of $518.8 million in the fiscal year ending last July 31.

We chatted with Leonor Brown, WhitBrown's nice wife, and she told us that Whit, a family physician, donned the academic robes from 1975 to 1978, teaching at the University of Massachusetts, and then in 1978 became chief of outpatient services at the U.S. Navy Regional Medical Center at Newport, R.I. "We had a summer home in Newport," she said, "and a 10-minute walk to work here sure beat an hour's traffic commute in Worcester." Besides, they have a 32-foot boat and spend all their free time on the briny. Their four kids are all off and gone, but keep coming back again, according to Leonor. She and Whit were off for two weeks of England and Scotland in early May.

That old stay-at-home Syd Bowers is back in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, where he is a geologist with the Arabian American Oil Cos. He is also a member of: the Explorer's Club, the Royal Geographical Society, the Royal Central Asian Society, the Club Alpin Suisse, the American Association of Petroleum Geologists, the American Geophysical Union, and the Society of Petroleum Engineers of Aime. As an undergraduate, chubber Syd was a member of the D.0.C., Cabin & Trail, the Winter Sports Council, and the Ledyard Canoe Club.

Two admonitions: Send in your alumni questionnaire. Don't forget the Alumni Fund. And have a good summer.

That's it. Blessings.

Harry Jacobs Jr. '42, chairman of the board and chief executive officer of Bache Group,Inc., and a World War II bomber pilot with the 12th Army Air Force Training Command, took a nostalgic flight on a B-25 during a recent trip to Detroit to address theWomen's Economic Club on "Investing in the 80's."

209 Parkhurst Hall Hanover, N.H. 03755