1957

90 Tanglewylde Avenue Bronxville, NY 10708

Howie Silby just got back from the most exciting thing he's done since leaving Dartmouth, being one of two team leaders for the U.S. Olympic figure skating team. "It was a wonderful experience. I'm an Olympian, a team member who just doesn't happen to be an athlete. A team leader must be an administrator, a fighter for the kids, a communicator, cheerleader, psychotherapist, and water boy. You do whatever it takes to let the skaters do nothing but concentrate on performing. The biggest hurdle is usually getting to know the athletes real fast, but I already knew them for many years as a physician and because my kids competed against them." While Howie was away from his neurology practice in Maryland, the 19 other physicians in his group stepped in to carry the ball.

From now on, the College should always have a Frederick W. Searby scholar, thanks to a named fund just established by brother Dan Searby, Fred's estate, and some of Fred's former business associates. While it's an open scholarship to be awarded as the College sees fit, first consideration will be given to '57s and their descendents.

Willis Brooks recalled that he was started on Slavic languages and given his first Ukrainian dictionary by George Myro, who recently died. Following Dartmouth, Willis enlisted in the army to attend military language schools and get the associated intel ligence training. After a couple of years in Germany, where George was best man at Willis and Patricia's wedding in Stuttgart, Willis got his Ph.D. at Stanford. When the Soviets moved into Czechoslovakia in 1968, the Brooks family moved from Prague to Chapel Hill. Willis has been teaching nineteenth century Russian history at the University of North Carolina since then and has twice won the university's distinguished teaching award.

Along the way, Willis has been chief of Soviet and East European research for the USIA, where he conjured up a project to find out what the Soviet people think on a number of issues. As it is illegal and im- possible to do survey research in the Soviet Union, the approach was to ask 175 well connected people throughout the world what their Soviet friends were saying on particular topics. One of Willis's pleasures in Washington was to discover that the CIA had taken a real interest in the technique.

Inspired attire can lead to all kinds of adventures. Last fall, Larry and Ricky Silberman were out for a walk near their home in Georgetown. Larry was decked out in a reunion hat which prompted an attractive young woman to come over and inquire if he really was a Dartmouth '57. She turned out to be Duncan and Anne Barnes's daughter Lesley, who had just moved to Washington and rented a nearby apartment with three other girls, fellow Dartmouth '87s. On hearing the story, Dune asked Lesley if she knew what Larry was up to in Washington. She said, "Well, no, but I'm sure he lives in a better part of town than I do."