1977

My e-mail in the fall brought several reflective messages from classmates with significant personal news.

On September 30 Nora Odendahl married David Searls in an outdoor ceremony at Prospect, a historic home and gardens on the Princeton University campus. Dartmouth guests attending included Beverly Graf and Mark Hunter Madsen, and Davids cousin Kathy Peden Blaisdell '79. "We both greatly enjoyed attending the 50th reunion of the Dartmouth Film Society last October; little did I know, when Tom Ruegger '76 asked us about our intentions, that I would become engaged shortly thereafter."

Nora works at Educational Testing Service on development of the GRE and the GMAT. She remains an avid photographer and serves on the governing board of the Association of Princeton Graduate Alumni. David is a biologist who works as a vice president and director of bioinformatics at SmithKline Beecham Pharmaceuticals in Pennsylvania, where they reside.

The big news at Susan Dentzers house is the birth of a daughter, Grace, on August 31. She joins big brothers Willie, 6, and Sam, 3. Susan was enjoying a brief maternity leave from her duties as health correspondent for TheNews Hour with Jim Lehrer. "My husband and I are gradually getting used to the fact that, with three kids, the game of parenting shifts to a strictly zone defense!"

In June Bob Leach left his employer of 13 years to take a new job as chief actuary at American Skandia Life Assurance Corp. in Shelton, Connecticut. American Skandia is a subsidiary of a Swedish multi-national and markets longterm savings products (variable annuities, mutual funds, variable life insurance). After 13 years in Wellesley, Massachusetts, the Leaches moved to Weston, Connecticut, about 40 miles outside New York City. The trauma was mitigated by the fact that both Bob and his wife, Kate, grew up in metropolitan New York, so it feels a little bit like going home. We got here just in time to be able to closely follow the Subway Series. I ended up rooting for the losing side (can't get out of my mind those fond memories of the Amazing Mets of 1969!)."

Don Givler also sent his "five-year update." "Amazingly enough, we've been living in Monroe, Louisiana, for 15 years. Dartmouth's foreign study program was good preparation for living in the South. It is less of a cross-cultural experience now than it was when we first arrived, but there are still times that I feel like a stranger in a strange land. Amy and I are completing our 19th year of good marriage, and it is getting better every year. Amy celebrated six years in remission from Hodgkin's lymphoma earlier this year. That experience was a reminder that life is unpredictable and precious. I'm a card-carrying soccer dad. Getting three children to all of their practices and games requires all of our organizational skills, and even then we sometimes get the times and places confused. That plus serving as an elder at Twin Cities Bible Church takes up whatever free time I once had. Professionally, I've been program director of a family practice residency here for 10 years. Our clinic and hospital provide health care for the medically indigent in the northeast part of the state. It is a challenging time to be in both medical education and indigent medical care. I visited Hanover last fall for the first time in more than 20 years. It was strange to walk around and see that Hanover hasn't changed much, but I have. For

14102 Beckley Trace, Louisville,KY4 0245; alan.macdonald.77@alum.dartmouth.org