1971

By virtue of writing twice in one month, Nels Armstrong is hereby named official Class Roving Correspondent. His latest dispatch follows: "Look out!! I could get used to this. While visiting in Charlotte, N.C., I read in the local newspaper that classmate Isaac Heard Jr. was recently elected chairman of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Planning Commission. He is in fact the first professional planner to head the commission in its 40-year history. I'm not sure what that says about Charlotte, but it says great things about Ike and a Dartmouth education. Stay tuned; next I'm going after Anthony Harley.

Scriptwriter Bill Phillips traveled all the way to downtown Hanover from his home in Etna, N.H., to attend the April "world premier" of his latest effort, the movie version of Carolyn Chute's The Beans of Egypt, Maine. The story is not typical Hollywood fare: according to the Valley News it is about "poor folks' lives of quiet desperation punctuated by violence and gunshots." The film was shot on a meager $1-million budget, but, according to Bill, demonstrates more quality than some S30-million efforts. Bill has seen about a dozen of his screenplays made into films, including some made-for-cable movies and Christine, the Stephen King thriller about a malevolent Chevy. Beam, he says, is "a Hanover kind of a movie, Christine not being a Hanover kind of movie."

Craig Robelen and his home-building firm, Robelen and Associates, were the subject of a recent article in the Palm Beach Post. Craig would appear to be one of those individuals (rare among us?) who knew from an early age what he "wanted to do when he grew up" and set about to do it. After Dartmouth, he got his M.B.A. at Michigan and then began a series of real-estate-related positions which ultimately led him to a firm in Boca Raton, where he was in charge of development, design, construction, and sale of custom homes, one of which was featured on Lifestyles of theRich and Famous. He formed his own company in 1986 and continues to build three or four homes a year in the Palm Beach area. He lives at Delray Beach with wife Lisa and daughters Laura 9 and Madison 7.

Barry Brink moved to Chapel Hill, N.C., last year so that his wife, Lela, could accept a position as director of the pediatric ICTJ at the University of North Carolina. He says that also "allowed me to escape from a 13-year exile in Texas (sorry, Murray)! I joined a clinical psychology group practice in Raleigh which specializes in Child/adolescentpsychology...the weird thing is that I never took a single psych course at Dartmouth." Barry also notes that "daughter Dani (11) has her sights set on Dartmouth in six years and oldest daughter Malia is a sophomore at Dartmouth and loves it. Her graduation in June 1996 will be one week prior to our 25th Reunion...so I will be one of the first to RSVP! It will be a hell of a ten-day party...a little (lot?) of celebrating, biking, and seeing y'all."

20 Den Road, New Hartford, CT 06057

In Hanover Bill Phillips attended the "world premier" of his latest effort, the movie version of The Beans of Egypt,Maine. DON O'NEILL '71