1956

One difficulty of growing older is witnessing your community of peers shrink. In recent weeks the College has notified me of the deaths of five classmates: Glenn McClure Gardner, Ewing Park Goff, Robert Thomas Wolfe and Mansir Waite Hicks. Look for obituaries in this and a later issue. Appreciating our vulnerability can make us all the more grateful for friendships begun 50 years ago and nurtured through class gatherings, small and large, since then. It is as well an invitation to reinvest in those opportunities. At this writing the big Baci fun-in-the sun reunion in Florida had some 60 classmates, wives and partners signed up. The next event is the wine country cruise along the Napa Valley in September. Late Oc- tober will be Homecoming. Join in!

On Sunday morning, February 2, those who came to New York for the annual Fun Fantastics were invited to Kesang Tashi's Gangchen Carpet Gallery on Fifth Avenue and 28th Street. He was one of our foreign scholars in the '70s, and after a career in banking put together a community development project in his native Tibet that now employs 3,000 persons weaving traditional Tibetan carpets for sale overseas. A second enterprise, a hotel in his hometown, has brought tourists there. Kesang thanked the class for its vision in creating a scholarship that could make that kind of difference for so many. The whole weekend was great, but for many of us that encounter was the high point. Thanks to Roger Schumacher and Buddy Schattman for their usual great planning.

Our present scholars are Lindsay M. Hirschfeld '03 and David R. Peranteau '04. Lindsay majors in geography and sociology and last year was a Presidential Scholar research assistant working with the geography department. Graduate school is in her plans. David also has a double major, government and history. He is editor-in-chief of World Outlook, the Dickey Center's international affairs journal, and has a variety of work-study jobs. Both carry 3.6-plus grade averages. Those who've contributed the close to $300,000 for the Class of 1956 Scholarship Fund can know they've made a real difference.

Harry Nutting began the great class of '56 online medical symposium at www.alum.dartmouth.org/~classtlk. It's designed to provide personal medical experiences that can assist classmates making decisions about their own health care.

Russ Cooper-Mead, anticipating our '56 reunion book, has crafted the book's own Web site: www.56plus50.org. Look for sample pages, cartoons, pictures, requests for our memorabilia and reflections on our lives and times. It's another way to reconnect and get ready for the 50th.

Mort Shea was one of four men cleaning off the paddle tennis courts at nearby Eastmen early this winter when a leak in the propane pipe caused an explosion. He's in New London Hospital doing remarkably well given all the broken and cracked bones. Cards can be sent to Mort Shea, P.O. Box 1287, Grantham, NH 03753-1287.

P.O. Box 968, Quechee, VT05059-0968;(802) 295-8912; stewwood@aol.com