1957

Dartmouth Night and Homecoming weekend were set against the backdrop of the most beautiful New Hampshire fall weather this year. The perfectly lighted facade of Dartmouth Hall and the enthusiastic throng are hard to duplicate, as is the brilliant foliage of the warm fall afternoon that followed.

Saturday morning we came inside Dartmouth Hall to meet and discuss the doings of the class. The following are my "minutes":

Hanny Mason discussed our financial report. We've been nearly holding our own. The largest single item in our budget, roughly half the budget, is subscriptions to the Alumni Magazine for all our classmates. After some discussion the consensus of the group was to continue funding the magazine for all classmates. While a few have kept no link to the College, we agreed they might re-start their interest through some contact.

Our class sponsors a scholarship, Steve Wilson '96 is our current student. He talked with us about the College and about his focus. He's currently doing research on methods of managing and reducing pain. He thanked us for our part in making the Dartmouth experience available to him, he said he feels Dartmouth has attracted fine minds from around the country. He has been able to interact with people he would never have shared time with back home in Alabama.

The class also contributes to the Rip-Wood-Smith dorm complex social program. Everybody's favorite for the day was Rebecca Bishop '95, the coordinator for the program, who is a bundle of energy she was the California champion in acrobatics. Rebecca has put together a great program varying from "senior sympathy night" on Tuesdays to massage clinics, Sunday night ice cream socials, and a variety of joint ventures with other dorms, fraternities, etc. The class voted to continue funding the dorm complex for another year.

As reported last month, Randy Aires has agreed to be our Alumni Fund chairman. He told us a bit about our class situation. We won the Green Derby because of our participation, which was 71 percent last year. Continuing to build that participation is the key both to a successful fond and to a successful class. Let's all get behind Randy with an early gift and with a willingness to act as agent. One note of interest; leadership gifts represent seven percent of total gifts and 60 percent of the money. Nineteen of us participated at the 1769 Society level, and 47 at $1,000 or more. Randy says his statistics indicate that 137 of our group are candidates for leadership giving.

Monk Bancroft, our mini-reunion chairman, did a great job on Homecoming, what with the parade, libations at the class meeting, lunch at the dorm complex, cocktails and fun at Joe and Jane Stevenson's, and a terrific dinner at the Norwich Inn. Clark andHappy Griffiths topped it off with a super pancake breakfast Sunday morning. Good organizing, Monk! The class agreed it would be a great idea to expand mini-reunion gatherings to include some geographic diversity. We talked up a repeat of the great West Coast gathering a few years back. Maybe Joe Conely, who was our California rep at the meeting, could get something started. Plans are for a cross-country ski weekend near Hanover and a possible Martha's Vineyard weekend next summer with Herb Roskind and GeorgeJohnson.

Clark Griffiths indicated that Dan Goggin has "almost" agreed to head up the 40th Reunion. It's quite a shock to think our 40th is only two years away.

The class gave an award to Jack Hall for his many contributions to the class and the College. Jackwas our president from 1985 to '92. He's currently on the Alumni Council and has been instrumental in the operations of the Dartmouth Alumni Club of Princeton and the Will to Excel campaign, etc., etc. Congratulations, Jack! The class also voted a similar award to another classmate who has made that extra effort for the great class of '57. More on that later.

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