1956

Saturday, December 7,2002, brought a number of our classmates to Hanover for the special joint session of the Alumni Council and the Association of Alumni to receive the final report of the joint committee on alumni governance and trustee nominations. The Alumni Hall of the Hop was nicely crowded with folks from classes reaching from the '40s right up to today. Doug Keare, Ed Ross, Bill Tell and Larry Morse each took opportunities to speak to those of who had turned out. I had the chance to talk with Link Spaulding and Clem Malin but missed Joe Obering, who was also present. The final report recommends reuniting the associations 62,000 members with the council, while increasing councils membership by some 30 persons to 122. There's a two-year discussion period with a final vote scheduled for April of 2004. Everyone is looking for a way to enable us all to be more meaningfully engaged in the ongoing governance of the College.

Preston V. Pumphrey was just recently appointed to the Nassau County American Red Cross board of directors. After operating Pumphrey Securities Ltd. for 35 years in Syossett, New York, Preston retired in 2001. This is but one volunteer activity among many as well as serving as an adjunct professor and grant committee member of "Values in Business Management" at Long Island University, C.W. Post Campus in Old Brookville.

J. Richard Leaman Jr. is the new chairman of the board of directors of Elwyn Inc. Dick is also on the board of directors of Church and Dwight Cos., Pep Boys and Stonebridge Financial, a Philadelphia-based Internet bank. That ought to make for a busy retirement.

I received a picture of Len Clark, Lee Gammill and Deke Jackson '49, taken at the Savute Elephant Camp in Botswana, Africa, in September. They traveled with Kay Woods, a friend of Lees from San Francisco who heads the Leakey Foundation, funding studies into the origins of man. The spectacular beauty of the countryside and its animals were contrasted with the poverty, AIDS and "feelings of unrest in most of the countries to the north."

The Rev. Joseph M. Elliott and James D. Loghry, freshman roommates and good friends ever since, died within days of each other earlier this past fall. Obituaries are included in this issue.

The Valley News in late November reported an heroic act by David Celone '79 A, one of the Alumni Fund staff that has worked to assist our annual class efforts to support the College. He plunged into the Ompompanoosuc River, saving the lives of two 11-year-old boys and the woman who was driving them to school. The story reported that the boys were quickly freed from the auto that had crashed through the side of the covered bridge in Thetford Center, but their driver was tangled up in the seat belt and remained submerged and inactive for five to six minutes. David and Dr. Steven Spencer of Norwich resuscitated her. Dartmouth is a family. We can be thankful for every class and its contributions.

P.O. Box 968, Quechee, VT 05059-0968;(802) 295-8912; stewwood@aol.Com