1960

Natural gas prices are so low, they have forced John Wheaton to put his own gas exploration company "on idle" and go to work for PaineWebber in Sacramento, where he keeps an eye on some of the class's more successful businessmen.

I'm indebted to him for passing on word that the San Francisco Chronicle recently named Dick Levy, executive vice president of Varian Associates Inc. of Palo Alto (a semi-conductor equipment manufacturing firm), as one of the highest paid executives in the Bay Area. Also, he notes that GailWarden, president and CEO of Henry Ford Health System, past chairman of the American Hospital Association, and member of the Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center board, was one of those saluted this year in an advertisement in Business Week by the National Organization on Disability.

But John reserved his most admiring comments for Wes Roodhouse, who was in serious economic trouble in the Texas recession a decade ago, but has made a spectacular comeback in Boise, Idaho.

Wes, who grew up in Oklahoma on a cattle ranch with parents who overcame reverses, decided to leave Fort Worth "when the money gave out."

You can no longer get a job and retire with it," he observes. "You have to have a plan B somewhere.

"I wanted to move to the Northwest...Boise is like heaven. I came here, did some consulting, rewrote the accounting system for the largest law firm in Idaho, and made $15,000.

"I started my firm with six credit cards and the $15,000 in the summer of 1990." Now, Roodhouse Investment Management Co. is second in its categories in the Nelson ratings, and, he reports, the stock purchases he manages were up 49 percent last year.

Another classmate who has not allowed himself to become discouraged is GeorgePotts, defeated for the second time in running for the board of assessors in Wellesley, Mass.

I didn't expect to win," he confesses. "But I felt it was important to educate people on what has been happening here. The assessments on commercial properties have been going down, while the residential assessments have been going up." George got close to 1,300 votes. The winner got 1,700.

Bruce Hasenkamp, past national president of Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity, wrote a letter to USA Today correcting its report that making the late U.S. Commerce Secretary Ron Brown the first black member of its Middlebury chapter led to the chapter losing its charter.

Not so, Bruce said. "As a Dartmouth College undergraduate who knew Brown and who led the successful effort to repeal Sigma Phi Epsilon's race-based membership restrictions in 1959, I was pleased—32 years later—to see Ron receive the fraternity's highest alumni achievement award before 1,500 cheering alumni and undergraduate brothers."

Our annual Homecoming mini-reunion will be held again this year, October 18-19 at the Quechee Inn at Marshland Farms.

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