1987

As I write my very first Class Notes column, the Olympic torch is just days away from Atlanta. A fitting metaphor, as the class of 1987 torch has recent ly been passed to a new slate of officers. I'm thrilled to be your new class secretary, and look forward to reporting the comings and goings of '87s 'round the girdled earth over the next five years. I am indebted, as we all are, to both Meg Crone Ramsden and her predecessor, Gregg Rippey, for their entertaining and chock-full-o'-news columns since our graduation. Tough acts to follow!

Of course, the first column is the tough est. I don't yet have a backlog of cards and letters and e-mail messages to draw on, so I

must rely on my own sources. My personal grapevine will be of limited value, I fear, because my friends are now all afraid to talk to me lest everything they say ends up in print. Luckily, since I have worked for Dartmouth in the development and alumni relations areas for the past four years, I have developed a finely tuned nose for news, and this month the information gods were smiling on me. Here's what I dug up:

"He's a man from a '4os movie—he's dashing, he's true, he's not neurotic. He's a rock." So described in the July 7 New York Times is our own Nigel Ekern. Nigel was married in June to Kimberley Ryan, an editor at Vogue magazine. The couple met in high school, and four years ago (after Nigel's graduation from NYU Law School) bought a red 1972 Cadillac El Dorado convertible named Ruby to drive across the country for the summer. "They visited the Grand Canyon, Graceland, and Las Vegas, while living for long stretches of road on nothing but Cheez Doodles. They rarely fought, thanks to the car's size." Nigel (now working at Debevoise & Plimpton) and Kim live in Greenwich Village, and still ride around in Ruby. Perhaps the most interesting part of the article was one friend's prediction of the couple's future: "Kim will definitely be the Kool-Aid mom. Nigel will be working grueling hours at the law firm, and Kim will be at home in her cutoff shorts and wild eccentric shoes. All the neighborhood kids will flock to the Ekern house for the Kool- Aid and the fun hide-and-go-seek games and the car just like Ruby."

Also passing across my desk recently was a press release from Bowdoin College, announcing that Tim Foster has been named first-year class dean. Tim has come a long way from his days as Mass Row area coordinator, when he led a particularly nutty group of UGAs, including myself, Jock McDonald, Louis Crosier, and Mary Crawford. Tim worked for Dartmouth admissions after graduation, then received a master's degree in geography at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Since 1993 he has been the director of residential life at Carnegie Mellon University. Incidentally, Tim's boss at Bowdoin will be Dean Craig Bradley '82. Congratulations, Tim!

There's nothing worse than opening up the Alumni Magazine to the Class Notes section and not recognizing a single name in the 1987 column. I hate when that happens. But the only way you can read about people you know is to send me news. If you don't write, you forfeit your right to complain about the column, so don't say I never warned you. I look forward to hearing from you, and I promise to pack more names into next month's column. Hope you have a fabulous fall!

1B Hemlock Ridge Drive, White River Junction, VT 05001;

Anonymous Keith Boykin '87, p. 36