1964

Some months ago the kickoff of Dartmouth's Campaign for Excellence brought us to New York for two days of thrilling seminars on the great issues of today. I met classmates Sandy McGinness, head of the Alumni Fund, and Ron Schram, Trustee of the College, at that wonderful event. We urge you to support the Campaign for Excellence as our 30th Reunion approaches.

While classmates are clearly making their mark in Hanover and the Big Apple, this month's column takes us out west and is indicative of the infinite variety of our career pursuits. I received reports from and about Don Alan Tenney and Dr. Kent Stockton.

Don reports from Washington State that since graduation he has been trying to assist inmates and former inmates of prisons and mental hospitals to adjust to society at large. He helps them find publishers for their writing or relatives to take them out on passes, and he introduces them to groups which help them with their addictions and problems. His work has brought him personal satisfaction and success.

Don reports that a recent study done in Eugene, Ore., determined that non-professional help in the way of friendship had a substantially greater impact on reducing recidivism than did professional help. He suggests that alumni and Dartmouth use their resources and the tolerance and understanding learned at Dartmouth to help former inmates. Keep up the good work, Don.

Kent Stockton has a family medical practice in Riverton, Wyo., where he lives with his wife and daughter. He has been there for 19 years on a quest for the Old West. Over the years Kent has developed a love for die western cowboy culture. He lives on a ranch where he raises and breaks wild horses, and he has learned to rope and brand cattle. Kent writes with passion and love for this truly American culture, and, while acknowledging the allure of the memories of Dartmouth, seeing some red foxes go across his alfalfa field reminded him that "these wide open spaces, mountain meadows, and huge skies are really what I live for."

Kent has become interested and skilled in cowboy poetry, and he personally started and runs the annual Wyoming Cowboy Poetry Round-Up in Riverton, a gathering which reflects the culture of the West. It is modeled after the big national gathering in Elko, Nev., started by another Dartmouth grad and cowboy poet, Gail Gardner '14. In a poem entided "Poor 01' Wyoming;," Kent answered a Newsweek article that criticized Wyoming as being a "Third World state: Yeah, I guess our philosophy's

out of synch, It's a different life we savor. But we've a long list of things that we think Balance the scales in our favor. For instance we take the time to sit an' admire The craggy oP mountain profiles. Alone on horseback, a man don't require All the gimmicks 0' Eastern styles. Cowboys an' Injuns, clean air an' big skies Are some of the things we've got. What makes us love this land? We reply, it's the things that can't be bought. Like prairie vistas an' sagebrush smells, The elk an' coyote's call, The handshake contract that comes off well, An' the people, most of all. —©Kent Stockton 1988 The poem says it all. Let me know what the rest of you in the fascinating and great class of 1964 are doing out there.

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