The Alumni Awards
Four outstanding alumni have received Alumni Awards in the past year. Their citations are adapted below. Also honored were two Distinguished Young Alumni who will be featured in September Class Notes.
Melvin George Alperin '58
In his home state of Rhode Island Mel has an outstanding record of leadership. He has been in his family's wire and cable business there since graduation, and he has led and supported a litany of business and civic organizations: a bank, private schools, the United Way (of which he was state chairman), Valley Resources, and a host of Jewish councils and associations.
As a Dartmouth alumnus, his record has been equally all-inclusive. Co-winner of the Roger C. Wilde '21 Reunion Record Award at his 20th, Mel served his class on the Executive Committee and as class agent, then Reunion Giving Committee member and chair. He served locally as a member of his club's board of directors and a regional agent, the whole alumni body as a member of the Alumni Council 1983-1986, a worker on the Campaign for Dartmouth Major Gift Committee, the Third Century Fund, the Alumni Advisory Committee on Jewish Life, and enrollment. He continues to involve himself academically through Alumni College.
The Alperins have spread themselves nicely around Hanover over the years: Mel has a Dartmouth brother, son, cousin, niece, and nephew.
Ralph Nixon Manuel '58
He chose Dartmouth because a hero of his youth, Detroit Tiger manager Red Rolfe, had a Dartmouth resume. He did play baseball in Hanover, but campus pinnacles like John Dickey, Al Dickerson, and Eddie Chamberlain persuaded him that education was the way you wanted to go.
After NROTC on campus and four years in the navy, he returned to Hanover and the Admissions Office. Earning a Ph.D. along the way, Ralph then served three years as Dean of Freshman and seven as Dean of the College. He administered and advised Dartmouth's youth from an old Tiger Stadium bleacher seat which had foundits way to his Parkhurst office.
In 1982 Ralph left to head up the Culver Academies in Indiana, where he recently broke a nationwide prep school record by raising $60.1 million in a fund drive. He pads his adminstrative duties by assistant coaching the baseball team.
Extracurricularly he is involved with boy scouts, school and educational associations, environmental groups, and the navy reserve. And on the Dartmouth front he's been a class stalwart: class agent, newsletter editor, a member of the executive and reunion giving committees, and he has been at bat from the start on matters pertaining to equal opportunity and Native Americans.
Ralph and Sally own a retirement condo in Hanover and have been retaining their cottage at nearby Goose Pond, the better to keep their eyes on son Brad, a Dartmouth '93.
Russell Allen Boss '61
Quite frankly, we don't know whether or not his A.T. Cross pens write under water, but we do know that among many other things a good part of Russell's life has been spent on the water—as a sailor at Dartmouth, then all over the Adantic out of a variety of New England harbors. He entered the family business—A.T. Cross Cos., regarded as the premier writing instrument company in the world—after three years in the Coast Guard, and he worked his way up from general manager to president.
His list of community involvements is expansive: schools, banks, hospitals and medical groups, scouts, jewelry institutes, insurance companies, business and political organizations, and yacht and sailing groups.
His Dartmouth involvement does not pale in comparison: class and head agent, club president, including president of the Year in 1978, campaign and reunion giving committees, Alumni Fund Committee, and now the Campaign Executive Committee planning for the upcoming campaign.
Russell delights in his "great wife and three smart, athletic daughters." Robin was All-American in tennis at Harvard; Martha '89 was All-Ivy in lacrosse at Dartmouth; and Alexis '93, also at Dartmouth, is a field hockey captain.
Robert Vincent Bartles '64
Bob lives in Meriden, just 14 miles south of Hanover, where he coaches youth baseball and basketball leagues, and from where he participates in Dartmouth affairs around the clock. Born in Brooklyn, he was brought up in New Hampshire, where he has pursued his schooling and an illustrious career in periodical distribution. An active undergraduate, he has been a hyper-active alumnus: member of the CFD Leadership Committee, telethon chairman, admissions liaison officer, president of the Upper Valley Club, member of the Alumni Council, and chairman of its student life committee. For his class he has been a member of the executive committee, reunion chairman, regional agent and head agent, newsletter editor, and class president.
Especially concerned with the quality of life in fraternities, Bob has been a trustee and president of Beta Theta Pi's alumni corporation and for almost 20 years the fraternity's alumni advisor; the first chairman of the Fraternity Board of Overseers; and member of the recent Committee on Residential Life chaired by Professor James Wright.
In Bob's second year as class president he led the '64s to Class of the Year honors. In his last year, Bob himself was honored as Class President of the Year.
Typically, Bob's community involvements have been legion as well: trusteeships, councils, school concerns, and the like. He has been the dedicated chairman of thelong-range planning committee and vice chairman of the board of Kimball Union Academy to the extent that he received both the Anti-Defamation League's Human Rights Award in 1976 and the Brandeis University Distinguished Community Service Award in 1983.
Beyond family his own and the Dartmouth family Bob has a life-long interest in outdoor activities, the natural environment, and antiques.
