1941
Writing class notes this month seems sort of a futile exercise, a frustration. It is, as I sit here, the middle of April. A few weeks from now, in early May, reunion chairmen Ed Larner and Bill Hotaling plus assorted class officers are supposed to gather in Hanover to finalize plans for our 45th reunion. What happens there will have long since been reported to you in special mailings.
By the time these words meet your eye, reunion itself will be history and the big news will be who was on hand and what happened at Dartmouth a week or two earlier. Sorry, but I can't help you. You'll find it all in the September issue.
A discouragement, too, is the lead item of news: a good friend and a dedicated worker for college and class, Jordan Gotshall, died in March. An obituary will appear in this or a future issue, and our sympathies and best wishes go out to Marge.
The class of 1941'S own coffee tycoon, Ralph Colton, checked in with a note attached to his dues payment: "Had another trip to Brazil. I speak Portuguese now, fairly well. Am hoping to put together a joint venture for soluble coffee with a 4,000-member coffee growers' cooperative and a European company. My manufacturing-for-export license is the key."
Inspired, no doubt, by the imminence of reunion, Bill David recently dug out his freshman beanie and his 1941 and "D" sweaters (soccer) to show his granddaughters, visiting him in Westminster, Md. The result was a delightful photo, of which Bill sent me a copy: he wears the beanie and each girl- Bill insists they're Dartmouth '92 and '96- wears a sweater.
The rest of Bill's communication, though, wasn't so delightful. He and Ann probably won't be at reunion, he says. "I retired from teaching last June, but Ann is in an advanced stage of Lou Gehrig's disease, and we aren't planning to go anywhere."
There are still a couple of brief notes here left over from the fall football season. BobFlouton, in Wilton, Conn., reported on attendance at the Yale game. And Charlie Kazaross, in Pawtucket, R. I., had a comment that was in line with a lot of others I heard in those days: "What's happened to Dartmouth football? My advice - switch to club football!"
A late-winter issue of a Time Inc. house organ, called "FYI," featured a profile on RoyRowan, tracing his career with the company from his first job as a Life correspondent in China in 1948 to his present status as a Fortune editor and managing editor of an employee magazine. I'll quote you a bit of it: "Rowan . . has known that he would be a journalist since stringing for the Springfield Republican [Mass.] while a.student at Dartmouth. What he didn't realize was that his career would be filled with so much of the adventure and excitement that all reporters dream of . . .
"Seeing so much of the world's darker side has not tainted Rowan's positive view of life. Characteristically, during a bout with cancer in 1974, he used the recuperative time . . . following his successful operation to write an article (published in both the Atlantic Monthly and Reader's Digest) aimed at helping others face their fears. 'lt just seemed a shame,' he says, 'to get sick and not be able to do something with it journalistically.' "
That finishes up this column and also this class secretary. It's been a pleasure to visit with everybody each month for these past years. Godspeed.
Richard D. Hill '41 was presented with the Dartmouth Alumni Award in April. He has been a banker in Boston for more than 40 years and a director of many firms and organizations in banking, communications, insurance, and industry on local, state, federal, and international levels. He has served Dartmouth as class and club president, class agent and capital gift fund-raiser, member of the Alumni Council, Tuck School Overseer, College Trustee for ten years, and chairman of the Board of Trustees. Two of his three children are Dartmouth graduates. "As New Englandish as a Robert Frost stone wall or fall foliage," he was named "New Englander of the Year" in 1982 by the New England Council and holds honorary degrees from Northeastern University, Babson College, Salem State College, and Boston College. He plays clarinet and saxophone with the Boston Pops Symphony and is president of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston.
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