1960

Scarcely a month goes by in the preparation of this note that I don't get some word of a new book, or article, or lecture by a classmate. Ours is becoming an ever more intellectually accomplished class. Bruce Ducker is a business lawyer in Denver, but he also has five novels in print. The latest, Lead Us Not Into Perm Station set in Brooklyn in the 1950s, won the Colorado Book Award last year. Marital Assets was nominated for a Pulitzer. Bruce recently ran into another author, Budd Schulberg 38, and a 1960 honorary degree winner. "I introduced myself and we got together for lunch," Bruce recounts. "He came over to the house."

Mel Small, a history professor at Wayne State University since 1965, is author of a new book, Democracy and Diplomacy: TheImpact of Domestic Politics on U.S. ForeignPolicy. "Of all the scholarly things I've done, it's probably the most readable," he remarks. "It's rather relevant in terms of Bosnia." Mel has also been a restaurant reviewer for the Detroit Metro Times and a book reviewer for the Detroit Free Press when its employees weren't striking.

John Burks, professor of journalism and humanities at San Francisco State University for the last 13 years, says he became a more successful student after leaving Dartmouth at the end of his sophomore year with only a 1.0 GPA. Now a columnist and contributing editor for Multimedia World Magazine, John is also chief writer for the TV company, Rte. One, which is working with ABC to produce interactive TV by the turn of the century. At Dartmouth, John played in a jazz group whose "heart," he recalls, was our late classmate Alden Van Buskirk.

Class news: Roger Hanlon, chair of mini-reunions, is working on a series of 1960 barbecues. The idea is that sometime in July or August we would have a dozen or so of these around the country, where classmates could get together less expensively than by traveling to Hanover.

Paul Cantor and class president JimAdler sent out a letter to the class executive committee and a few others urging contributions to fund 1960's Student Art Program, where undergraduate art is purchased, framed, and placed on display in dormitory lounges and study rooms. The program costs about $4,000 a year and at this writing, 37 classmates have given $2,127 in this giving year. Jim, incidentally, reports that he and Brooke are progressing with their plans to move permanently to the Hanover area. "We're definitely selling our house in Stamford (Conn.); it looks as if we have a buyer," he remarks. "We're looking in Norwich and we've found a home that intrigues us mightily."

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