Newsmakers

QUOTE/UNQUOTE "The silver medal is a great piece of hardware but it keeps me around for another four years." —ADAM NELSON '97, AFTER WINNING AN OLYMPIC SILVER MEDAL FOR SHOT PUT, TO THE ASSOCIATED PRESS AUGUST 18

Keith Boykin '87 is no stranger to politics. He served as director of specialty media for the Clinton administration and is president of the National Black Justice Coalition, a gay-rights advocacy group. Boykin entered a whole new political realm, however, when he found himself running for president on Showtime's political reality show,American Candidate. Described in an August cover story in The Advocate as "part civics lesson, part Survivor" and by Entertainment Weekly as "American Idol meets TheAmazing Race meets Crossfire," Boykin and 10 other contestants participated in a mock political campaign in the hopes of winning $200,000 and a chance to address the nation on TV. What did the New York City resident learn during the 10- episode campaign? The Fort Worth StarTelegram reports that Boykin was dismayed to learn from political consultants that pinstripe suits don't fly on the campaign trail. "Charisma goes a long way in running a successful campaign," he told the Philadelphia Inquirer. "If you have an outgoing personality, you can connect with the voters. It makes a huge difference." Viewers learned whether Boykin's charisma put him over the top when the winning candidate was announced live on October 10....Charles Trumbull '02 was recently thrust into the spotlight by President Bush, when a speech he gave on Cuba included a quote from a history paper that Trumbull wrote as an undergraduate in 2001. In a July address to Florida law enforcement officials, the president declared of Fidel Castro: "The dictator welcomes sex tourism. Here's how he bragged about the industry This is his quote: Cuba has the cleanest and most educated prostitutes in the world.'" As Trumbull explained to the Los AngelesTimes, his academic paper—which won the Association for the Study of the Cuban Economy's prize for best student paper and is posted on the association's Web site—said nothing of the sort. "Castro was merely trying to emphasize some of the successes of the revolution by saying even our prostitutes are educated,' " said Trumbull, who did field research in Cuba as an undergraduate. "Castro was trying to defend his revolution against negative publicity. He was in no way bragging about the opportunities for sex tourism on the island." Trumbull, who is now a law student at Vanderbilt University, added that he was "annoyed" by the White Houses misrepresentation of his scholarly work. "It is really disheartening to see bits of my research contorted, taken out of context and used to support conclusions that are contrary to the truth," he said....When Dr. Lan Smith attended Dartmouth Medical School he did more than hit the books; he wrote one. His first novel, The Blackbird Papers, in which FBI agent Sterling Bledsoe tracks the murderer of his brother, a Nobel Prize-winning Dartmouth professor, received positive reviews from the Los Angeles Times and KirkusReviews. Although Smith ultimately graduated from the University of Chicago's medical school, it's clear that he was greatly influenced by his time in the Upper Valley. "I realized how quaint a place Hanover is— very mountainous, very dark, very charming," Smith told the Miami New Times. "And I thought, 'What a great backdrop for a murder mystery.'"...Stephen Crystal '87 has been gearing up to put his stamp on Las Vegas' cityscape. Barrick Gaming, of which Crystal is president and a 25 percent shareholder, purchased several hotels and casinos on 25 acres in downtown Las Vegas, including a parcel adjacent to the Plaza Hotel and Casino. The Las Vegas Business Press reports that this site is the leading location for an intermodal rail station, which is slated for completion in 2008 as part of the city's ambitious 20-year downtown redevelopment plan. "From our standpoint, the transaction was about a lot more than just acquiring hotel-casinos. It was about acquiring and getting in on the ground floor of an opportunity to change the shape of downtown," Crystal said. "While everyone is focused on the monorail on the Strip, people are not focused that by the end of 2007, monorail service will be linked to downtown, light rail will be linked to downtown, Amtrak will return to downtown and we will have rapid transit bus lines. All of that is going to occur in a facility that will be at the plaza site. We have a great opportunity to maximize integration at that location."...Chip Davis '93, a psychology major, was passionate about rowing as an undergrad. Following graduation the former Big Green lightweight crew member found a way to translate that passion into a business. "I was like, 'Hey, why don't we have a New England Runner-type publication for rowing?' " Davis told the Valley News. Thus Rowing News was born. Despite having no prior publishing experience, Davis has watched circulation of the Lebanon-based publication grow to more than 20,000. The bimonthly magazine, which is the largest U.S. publication devoted to rowing, is available on 685 newsstands and employs a staff of six. According to Dartmouth heavyweight row- ing coach Scott Armstrong, the magazine is a must-read for North American rowing enthusiasts. "He was a kid that started out [from] the back of his car and now [his magazine] is the bible," Armstrong said. Davis always knew the publication would be successful. "I never had a doubt," Davis said. "[That] was just youthful ignorance."... In conjunction with the U.S. Open Golf Championship last June, SportsIllustrated and U.S. Airways Attache paid tribute to Pete Smith '77, who died in 2002 at age 47. Smith, a Shinnecock Indian who followed in his fathers footsteps to become superintendent of the famed Shinnecock Hills Golf Club on Long Island, presided over the course for 19 years and prepped it for two U.S. Opens, including the majors centennial in 1995. Hie Attache piece, by Robert Sullivan '75, recalled Smiths Dartmouth days and his involvement in the Colleges "Indians" nickname debate. "I loved Dartmouth," Smith told Sullivan. "I had a lot of great times up there, and I'm always pushing kids from our tribe to go. But at the time, yeah, I was part of that politically charged atmosphere. I wanted the College to make the commitment to respect us, and respect its own heritage, too."...Jeffrey R. Immelt '7B and Henry "Hank" Paulson '68 were named to Fortune's list of the 25 most powerful people in business. Immelt, chairman and CEO of General Electric, was lauded for leading GE in the second quarter to its highest revenue gains in four years and for making GE "a model of CEO compensation reform" with his reconfigured pay package. Paulson, chairman and CEO of Goldman Sachs, was described as one of the "few Wall Street CEOs [who] still see themselves as stewards of capitalism," and was cited for his efforts to clean up Wall Streets tarnished image....John Hueston '86 has been rooting out corruption foryears as chief of the Orange County Division of the U.S. Attorneys Office for the Central District of California. Having prosecuted a number of corrupt public officials, Hueston is now taking on one of the country's allegedly most corrupt public companies as a member of the Enron Task Force. Assigned to the Texas-based group five months ago, Hueston is charged with aiding ongoing investigative efforts. "Enron is an organized-crime operation that was run in a corporate culture," Hueston told the Orange County Register. "It has had to be prosecuted as an organized-crime venture by prosecuting those at the lower levels in order to get the opportunity (and evidence) to prosecute those at the 50th floor," he said, referring to where top execs had offices. "These are people who saddled the taxpayers with the cost of the largest bankruptcy in U.S. history and they walked away with tens of millions of dollars for themselves. That is the height of arrogance."...Former Marine Capt.—and DAM Jan/Feb '04 cover subject—Nathaniel Fick '99 made the case against reinstating the draft in a recent NewYork Times op-ed piece titled "Don't Dumb Down the Military." Fick, who led platoons in Afghanistan and Iraq, argued that "the dumb grunt is an anachronism. Modern warfare requires that even the most junior infantryman master a wide array of technical and tactical skills"—skills that take several years to acquire, he pointed out.

QUOTE/UNQUOTE "A really respectable educational consultant is filling a void in terms of information regarding the process. It's what the high school counselors would like to do if they had the idea! environment." —HOWARD GREENE '59, VETERAN EDUCATIONAL CONSULTANT, IN THE OCTOBER ISSUE OF THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY

QUOTE/UNQUOTE "Renewing the draft would be a blow against the men and women in uniform, a dumbing down of the institution they serve. The U.S. military exists to win battles, not test social policy." -FORMER MARINE CAPT. NATHANIEL PICK '99, IN A NEW YORK TIMES OPINION PIECE JULY 20