1957

As I reported last month, some fortunate members of our class have been enjoying the great minireunions organized by Monk Bancroft. It's good fan to attend them and good fan to report on them. On April 13 th and 14th Bill andAnn Edgerton put together a wonderful and eclectic series of events in Stamford, Conn., and environs with the high point being seats to enjoy Operetta in Red, White, and BlueMusic That Made America Sing. Bill was the producer of the show and daughter Annie, another Dartmouth graduate, was one of the leads. It was a great collection of music featuring gems by Victor Herbert, Sigmund Romberg, John Phillip Sousa, and others and was staged in the brand new Rich Forum Theater, an incredibly beautiful and modern theater. We also visited the Lockwood-Mathews Mansion, at the time the most expensive house built in America, had a fun lunch at the Brew House Micro Brewery in Norwalk, and enjoyed the Maritime Center including the I-Max Theater. Attending were Jack and LizCramer, Dick and Sue Birch. Dick is aiming toward teaching and has nearly completed an American studies degree writing his thesis paper on Brook Farm. Clark and HappyGriffiths came down from New Hampshire and Tom and Susan Schwartz slid across from White Plains. Joe Conley and Deborah Finney got the "arrived from the longest distance" award having come in from San Francisco. Joe is looking at a new business doing small appliance repair for hospitals, businesses, etc. throughout California. The Edgertons and myself rounded out the group. We were educated by a talk by Dick Page, Dartmouth Trustee and a chairman of the capital campaign. Dick said a next major issue for the Trustees is alumni relations. He described the alumni as the "living assets" of the College. He also spoke of the affinity group issue. While there is a lot of minority separateness at the College, the College is making an effort to integrate while mirroring the separateness of our society. Not an easy balance. The end of our mini-reunion was with a wonderful breakfast at the Edgerton's house.

On May 3rd and 4th Class Officers Weekend brought several of us to Hanover. President Freedman, who as you recall is an adopted classmate of ours, bragged that U.S. News ranks Dartmouth number one in quality of teaching, number one or two in student satisfaction, and within the top ten in academic achievement. The class of 2000, which has been admitted, totaled 1,050 people from 11,400 applicants. One half of the high-school valedictorians who applied were not accepted. The competition seems to grow fiercer each year.

We held a class officers meeting at the end of the gathering, with Clark Griffiths presiding with Dave Cook, HannyMason, David Orr, and myself in attendance. We a) ratified the constitution of the class of '57 that had been mailed to all classmates; b) voted to advance fund our 40th Reunion to get things started; c) agreed to do a class register with affinity lists (Hanny will tackle this one); d) agreed to study alternatives for our gifts and scholarship aid to try to make them more visible and interesting to our class. Clark will tackle this one. We all agreed we would like to generate a broader class participation and we solicit your ideas for accomplishing that goal. Quote of the weekend was, "If you want to make the gods laugh, tell them you have a plan."

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