Class Notes

1953

Nov/Dec 2001 Mark H. Smoller
Class Notes
1953
Nov/Dec 2001 Mark H. Smoller

With under two years to go till our 50th reunion, the class of 1953 charitable trust remains committed to the funding of a new student center to be built on the north campus

and to be named "1953 Commons." Presentation ceremonies will be made during our 50th reunion in June of 2003. An astounding number of Marilyn and Paul Paganucci's friends, as well as their children's, have contributed more than $110,000 to the trust in Paul's memory. What makes it even more remarkable is that these are unsolicited contributions; just a way of acknowledging love and respect for Paul.

Bill Hazelton invited me to view a tape of the presentation by the senior class of Chaminade High School of the dedication of their year book to his son Bob. Bob is a teacher, coach and head of college guidance at the school and, I might add, a good friend of Dartmouth's. He is a very young guy, and could almost pass for one of the kids, all of which made such a presentation by the kids even more meaningful to me.

Donald Goss is hard at work on The Book. He has already immersed himself writing and putting together our 50th reunion publication. If our 25th and 40th reunion books, both of which were the result of Donalds fine hand and strong back, accurately presage our big 50th reunion edition, we can look forward to another fabulous volume about the life of our class and the lives of our classmates.

Bob Chaloner was the subject of an interesting article in the DMS Alumni News & Notes. Bob is a physician who spends his workdays at the maximum security Coxsackie Correctional Facility in Coxsackie, New York. He is the medical director of the prison, a responsibility that he undertook 17 years ago. In addition, he is the sole doctor for the facility and, as such, is responsible for overseeing the health care of about 1,000 inmates, a 24-hour-a-day position. In that regard he sees patients each morning at the outpatient facility, and oversees a 20-bed infirmary. In the afternoon he travels a couple of miles down the road to his own general practice office, where he sees non-incarcerated private patients. Bob says that practicing medicine in the prison is just like any other practice, though there are times when prisoners try to deceive him in order to get special food or to get special treatment or just to have an opportunity to rest. Bob says that he has never felt endangered even though he has had to travel, often alone, into the depths of the prison to see the more dangerous inmates who are not allowed to leave their cells. "Other than seeing prisoners marched from here to there, you don't really think too much of it," he says.

Unfortunately I have to close with the announcement of the loss of three classmates: Dick Hooke, Elliot MacFarlan Moore and Tom Napoleon. We offer our sincere condolences to their wives and children.

4 Schuyler Drive, Jericho, NY 11753;(516) 938-3616; marksmoler@hotmail.com