1977

P.O. Box 861 Norwich, VT 05055

As we write it is early August and we are here in sunny California, but as you read this column, the leaves will be falling and we will be in Hanover. Also, as you read, Samuel E. Belk, otherwise known as "Q," plans to be climbing Mount Everest. He is a part of a 15-member North Face Expedition representing one of the first American attempts to scale Everest from the remote Tibetan side. The route had been closed to climbers in the 19305, and was only reopened by the Chinese in 1981. Since their climb received permission from the Chinese government more than two years ago, the members have raised nearly $250,000 in donated equipment, supplies, and cash to finance the expedition.

The team will use yaks to transport 6,000 pounds of gear from where the last road ends to the advanced basecamp at 19,000 feet. Expedition members will then ski supplies to Camp 1 at 20,500 feet, and from there will climb using crampons and rope. According to Stanford's campus newspaper, "Q" says he has dreamed of climbing Everest ever since he was 15, and "I'd like to say I'm a mountaineer first and an M.B.A. and bond salesman second." "Q" received his M.B.A. from Stanford in 1985, and has taken a three-month leave from his job in the San Francisco office of First Boston Corp. to go to Tibet.

We finally did track down Ted Wingate, who is now back in Rochester, Minn., for his last year of med school. After he finishes, he's aiming for a residency in child psychiatry. And he shared with us a big secret of his success as a class secretary: one Evy Chan. Evy is living and singing in the Chicago area, but finds time to keep up a lively correspondence. Her most recent note to Ted was written last spring, but was received too late for him to include in his last column. Our mailbox hasn't exactly been filled to overflowing with news of classmates lately, so we gratefully acknowledge that old news is better than no news and hope you'll help us out by sending word of yourselves and classmates, pronto!

Thus, the world according to Evy: Marge Blaisdell is back at Tuba City on the Indian reservation (Navajo) in Arizona after six months in Mexico City helping to rebuild clinics after the earthquake. ChipStone spent the last year in culinary school in NYC. David Pierce mastered Chinese and is a lawyer with Paul Weiss Rifkind Wharton & Garrison in Hong Kong.

Susan Bull Riley is living in Greenfield, Mass., with husband Richard and daughter Elizabeth Brooke, nearly two years old. She teaches flute at Northfield-Mount Hermon and plays in the five-college area. Doctors Andy Repasy and wife Lori Anderson live in the Chicago area with daughter Stephanie Nicole. Andy told Evy that he saw Tom Blueher and his wife Francesca in Albuquerque recently; they now have two sons, and Tom is practicing law.

Since reunions we've seen two '77s: one was Betty Stroock, who so kindly helped us as we struggled with two tired kids and a million carry-on pieces of baggage at the Burlington and Chicago airports in June. She was happily headed back to Wyoming where she was Signed up as a post-doc at the University for the coming year after having received her doctorate in geology at Cambridge, England, this past spring. The other was Rika Pierson Clement who lives with her husband Bill Clement '79 and daughter Lauren, almost three, at Stanford. Rika works in development, raising funds for the Stanford libraries, while Bill is a graduate student in geology.