1951

Hello again. The football season is upon us now—let's hope for a repeat of last year's undefeated season and that means our fall mini-reunion is right there on the horizon. This year we're gathering earlier than usual the weekend of October 3-5, Cornell game so make plans now if you haven't already. At the suggestion of our class projects chairman, Bob Hustek, we are going do something really special this year. We are going to symbolically "adopt" the incoming freshman class, the '01s, who will of course be graduating the same weekend we celebrate our big 50th Reunion there on the Green in 2001. This will be properly memorialized in a halftime ceremony on the field, for which details are still being worked out. Because television scheduling calls for the game to begin unusually early (noon, as of this writing), we won't be having the usual Saturday morning seminar this year, nor the noon Choukas "chowdah." But there will be a designated location for a tailgate "brunch" near the stadium. And mini-reunion impresario Henry Nachman advises that the usual enjoyable gatherings, Lu and Peter Martin's deli Friday night in Blunt and Saturday night chez Barbara and Dave Hall, are all set. Every-body come!

Whenever you're next in Hanover, do try to see the very classy addition to the campus scene provided by Al Brout, whose incomparable collection of 1,000 tropical orchids has been permanently established for public viewing in the Gilman Life Sciences Building. Al's invaluable gift was formally accepted on behalf of the College by Acting Provost Jim Wright in a tastefal ceremony May 17. The good turnout of '51s attending—Prices, Claytons, Moris, Nachmans, Mitchells, Weingartens, Choukases, and Halls—then repaired to give our own congratulations to Al and Joan over drinks at the Nachmans'.

The legislature in Vermont has been wrestling with a revolutionary proposal to have the state provide public financing for political campaigns. In the middle of the controversy, former legislator and Green Mountain political sage Frank Smallwood told a Senate hearing he feared the idea would encourage so many candidates to run that none would get a majority in some important races—leaving the legislature to name the governor, in such circumstances. Frank tells us by phone from his retirement home in Burlington that he has thoroughly enjoyed his latest major project, a just-completed book on Thomas Chittenden, first governor of Vermont "he was in office for almost the first 20 years of statehood, yet nobody had ever written much about him." That done, Frank and Ann left for a pleasant spring trip to England, where he gave guest lectures at Nuffield College in Oxford.

In closing, I report the passing of two classmates. Percy Cornish of Albuquerque, N.M., died last December 20 and his obituary appeared in this magazine in June. Donald S. Smith II died at his home in Durham, N.C.; his obituary will follow.

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