1954

It's "duckboard" season in Hanover. I don't know if they still lay out those infamous wooden walks that slowly sink into the Green, but is is hard to think of spring arriving without seeing some poor unsuspecting soul trying to stay above the muck. Having established that mental picture, we can accept spring and the "Greening" of the world.

With the time lapse between the writing and printing of this column, it is exceedingly difficult to stay current with the movements of some of the more fleet-footed of our classmates. While you were reading in the January/February column of Dick Page's English adventures, he was changing jobs and geography again. Dick has accepted the position of president and chief executive officer of Fred S. James and Company, the New York-based insurance subsidiary of TransAmerica Corporation. Dick is leaving his position as president of Alexander Howden Groups, the London subsidiary of Alexander and Alexander, another large insurance brokerage, which position he has occupied since October 1983.

Dick and Jane have moved back to Darien, Conn., where they lived before the move to London. In his new position Dick takes charge of the nation's fifth-largest insurance brokerage. In an interview quoted in The NewYork Times, Dick said he took the job because it would permit him to be the number one decision-maker in an insurance organization at a time when the industry is undergoing vast changes. "I think it's exciting to be in a position to influence those changes," Dick said.

Good luck, Dick. It sounds as if you have made an exciting mid-life change. My apologies to Bill Grover for the misspelling of his name in the December column. My bifocals prevented me from distinguishing the incorrect spelling in the printer's proof. Sorry, Bill!

Our adopted classmate Frank DelVecchio the balloon man writes from Medford, Mass., that he is well, and he expects to be in Hanover for all of next year's home games. Watch for him at his familiar corner.

Classmates of '54 continue to rise to the top of many alumni organizations. Charlie Morrisson has been elected president of the Dartmouth Alumni Association of Eastern Massachusetts, the largest regional alumni body. The association encompasses a number of clubs in the area around Boston, including the Southeastern Massachusetts Club, of which Dr. John Crowe is president. Could the College and its alumni be in better hands than those of the class of '54?

Robert O. Collins, professor of history at the University of California, Santa Barbara, has been named author of "the best book in history and social science in the field of British studies published anywhere by a North American scholar in 1983" by the North American Conference on British Studies. He was awarded the conference's annual John Ben Snow Foundation Prize for his book Shadows in the Grass: Britain in the SouthernSudan, 1918-1956, published by the Yale University Press. This is Bob's sixth book on the Sudan, a series whose writing has involved 25 years of research.

According to the award citation, Bob "describes the problem which British administrators faced in the Southern Sudan after 1918 and the many factors which contributed to the formulation and ultimate abandonment of policies designed to preserve British rule by isolating the indigenous populations from such subversive influences as Islam, education, and Egyptian and Northern Sudanese nationalism."

In 1980 Bob was awarded a gold medal by the president of the Sudan in appreciation of his quarter of a century of studying and writing about the history of the Sudan and particularly its southern region. He is the only American to receive this award, the Order of Science Arts, Gold Class. Bob's present research in the Southern Sudan is a history of the Jonglei Canal.

Congratulations, Bob, on this prestigious award and the recognition by your peers that it signifies.

The first Class of 1954 Intern Grant has been awarded by the faculty of the Nelson A. Rockefeller Center for the Social Sciences to Margaret Garretson '86. The funds for this grant are underwritten by an endowment made possible by our class. In a letter to DickBarker extending her appreciation to the class, Margaret wrote the following:

"I plan to use this generous sum towards my housing costs this winter in Washington, D. C., where I will be interning for the Federal Reserve Board. As an economics major modified with mathematics, I hope to have enough background in statistics and computers to help me in my work as well as the knowledge of economics to understand some of the implications of my research.

"My career plans are still unclear; I am considering both banking and economic research or policy making at the federal level. I am hoping this internship will help make this choice clearer and provide me with valuable experience in either field.

"I am looking forward both to living in the capital and to starting my work with the Fed. Thank you for your generosity which makes this possible."

The class as a group should feel a pride in helping to make this opportunity available to an outstanding Dartmouth student.

Dave McLaughlin's dog and pony show will be on the road in the East in April and May, with stops in New York City on April 16, Syracuse and Rochester on April 17, and Chicago and Hartford in May. Members of the class of '54 should turn out in record numbers to greet our very own Dartmouth president.

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