1961

Harry Ames sends along a major article on Matt Friedman in the Vermont Standard (Woodstock, Vt.). The article reports that Matt, a psychiatrist at the V.A. Hospital and a professor on the Dartmouth Medical School faculty, is psychiatrist in charge of the National Center for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder—the disorder first recognized as a result of Vietnam. This fall, when Iraq began freeing hostages, Matt's organization swung into action, offering a counseling program for returning American hostages. "The thing we're most concerned with is being given the opportunity to intervene with hostages and their families early enough to prevent these symptoms from progressing into fullblown Post Traumatic Stress Disorder," Friedman told the paper. The Center called on mental health professionals from throughout the VA. system for help. Friedman said not all hostages would be affected, but some probably would be. A key is the support the hostages receive upon their return home.

The lengthy article was printed on January 4, about two weeks before the Gulf War began, but it's reasonably certain the Center will be involved in handling post traumatic stress once our Gls return from battle.

Meanwhile, Harry Ames reports he has "become intrigued by the legitimate 900 information distribution business (as opposed to gab lines, porn lines, horoscopes) and am even now working on a bigger one than the ski line." Since last year, Harry has operated 1-900-FUN-SNOW (900-386-7669), providing instant ski reports by fax for virtually every ski area in the United States, and a bunch abroad. He's also moving around a good bit, with his current "mail drop" at 17 James Street, Cortland, NY 13045. "Having seen daughter Elise graduate from Dartmouth a couple of years ago, and with son Ethan now a senior at Georgetown, good old Dad is off doing some long-delayed traveling."

Dennis Dinan, former editor of the Dartmouth Alumni Magazine, is back at work at Dartmouth. He is par.t of the new Dartmouth capital campaign, writing brochures and other materials aimed at encouraging YOU to give. As of this writing, the campaign has not been announced officially.

Jim Baum, president of Baum's Inc. in Morris, Ill., was elected to the board of directors of the National Retail Federation in January at the association's annual meeting in New York. The group is made up of CEOs of stores ranging from small operations to the largest chains. Jim also was appointed to the executive committee as one of 15 independent retailers. He's also on the executive committee of the Illinois Retail Merchants Association and co-chairman of the Morris Retail Committee. Baum joined the store in 1964 and became president in 1982.

Tom Conger has taken off like a rocket as a new class newsletter editor, joining BertRowley. Classmates are aware of the monthly barrage filled with juicy tidbits about literally dozens of classmates, but I thought readers in adjacent classes would like to hear about the human writing machine in San Francisco. TC's averaging about 25 classmates an issue, a prodigious amount, which makes me somewhat green, since my mailbag is empty so much of the time. But I guess that writing this column for almost 14 years makes me somewhat Green anyway.

Office of Information and Publications, Bowman Gray School of Medicine, 300 S. Hawthorne Road, Winston Salem, NC 27103.