Newsmakers

QUOTE/UNQUOTE "It's clear to me that a vigorous debate on the issue most likely could not take place if I remain in the race. What would take place, rather, is a brutal, scorched-earth campaign that has turned off so many voters." JACK RYAN '90, WITHDRAWING FROM THE ILLINOIS SENATE RACE IN JUNE

Republican Jack Ryan '90 pulled out of the Illinois Senate race at the end of June amid embarrassing sex club allegations that surfaced after the records from his divorce from actress Jeri Ryan were unsealed. According to the Associated Press, her allegations that he had taken her to sex clubs where he tried to pressure her to perform sex acts in front of people drew jeers from late-night comedians, who joked that it gave new meaning to the family values party, and sharp criticism from party leaders, some saying Ryan had misled them about how damaging the records might be. "The media has gotten out of control," Ryan said in the written statement announcing his departure. "The fact that the Chicago Tribune sues for access to sealed custody documents and then takes unto itself the right to publish details of a custody dispute is truly outrageous. The debate between competing visions and philosophies is a vital one—one the voters of Illinois absolutely deserve. But it's clear to me that a vigorous debate on the issues most likely could not take place if I remain in the race." Peter Fitzgerald '82, the retiring Republican senator whose seat is up in November and who supported Ryan to the end, said Ryan was given little choice. "It was like piranhas," Fitzgerald told the Associated Press. "They smelled blood in the water and they just devoured him." Fitzgerald predicted Ryan, a millionaire investment banker- turned-teacher, would stay in the private sector. ...John Harrington '77, the new police chief in St. Paul, Minnesota, doesn't see himself as a cop. He prefers "peace officer," believing that his job is as much about solving problems as solving crimes, reports the Twin Cities' Star Tribune. He joined the force in 1977 as one of a dozen minority recruits brought in when the department was under a court order to address racial bias in its hiring. Since then he has embraced the diversity of his city, forming partnerships with community activists, business leaders and the clergy. "He's very communityoriented, very conscious of many cultures, very accepting," Linda Miller, the executive director of a local social justice agency, told the Star Tribune. Harrington credits his Dartmouth education—he majored in religion with a minor in Far Eastern studies—with helping him better understand the needs of various immigrant groups and other cultures: "I didn't think at the time it was going to be much use to me when I got here, but it has really served me we11."...1f you have rented a car at Baltimore-Washington International Airport recently, you may have noticed an enormous metal ball poised on steel arcs above your head—The Baltimore Sun recently compared it to a boulder teetering on a hillside above Wile E. Coyote's head in a Road Runner cartoon. The creation, Called Momentum Study, was designed by David Hess '86. "A lot of work I have been doing has been with objects that look like they're going to do something," he told The Sun. "They're just poised on the edge of a moment when something is going to happen. You get the sense the ball really could roll forward. That precariousness interests me because there's an anticipation, a sense of energy coming forward." Hess' art useswood and metal and often deals with unpredictability. His work can be found around Baltimore in other locations such as Johns Hopkins Hospital's oncology center and the American Visionary Art Center....E. Norman Veasey '54 retired in April after 12 years as Delaware's chief justice. "The chief justice position offers plenty of opportunity to be pompous, but [Veasey] wasn't," says public defender Lawrence Sullivan. "He was a regular guy who could respond well to all occasions." As Veasey told The News journal, "I hope I never talk down to people in an opinion or in conversation. My intention is to explain." He expects to stay in the law game, ideally in a firm where he can work on corporate governance, ethics and arbitration.... Reno Baietti '78 has bought himself a great cocktail party story: He recently purchased the 76-foot yacht Nor'wester, which saw service in the Navy's coastal patrol fleet during World War II and was coowned at one point by John Wayne. "One of Waynes most famous lines was 'Well, pilgrim,' "Baietti tells MPG Newspapers of Plymouth, Massachusetts. "I'm not quite a pilgrim, but I am a native Plymouthean, and my mother volunteers at the [Plimouth] Plantation. That's about as close as you can get."Baietti s plan is to sail the yacht from Puget Sound in Washington down to the U.S. Virgin Islands, where he will run charter trips year-round. It will not be the first time Baietti has done this—he ran a charter on Sant Agostino, a 54-foot ketch, from 1986 to 1989, when Hurricane Hugo barreled through the islands and damaged the boat beyond repair....Colleen Cullen '03 is one of a half-dozen recent Dartmouth graduates teaching Bikinian children English, a key to a wider world beyond the remote Marshall Islands they live on, according to the Associated Press. Under a program Dartmouth professor Andrew Garrod began three years ago, Dartmouth students and recent grads travel to the Marshalls, a group of islands in the Pacific that have been home to families who were moved from the Bikini Islands in the 1940s to make way for U.S. nuclear-bomb testing. "The island leaders felt they needed native speakers to help improve their grasp of English," Garrod told the Associated Press. The elders on the island have expressed a strong desire to return to the Bikini Islands, but, as Cullen says, "Bikini is a vague concept to younger Bikinians, not something they think of as home."...The Center of Sport in Society, led by Peter Roby '79, is launching a national sportsmanship campaign along with Youth Sports USA, according to a May article in The Flint (Michigan) Journal, to have children, parents and coaches in all youth sports organizations sign a contract to exhibit good sportsmanship. "We want this to work and we think it can work," says center director Roby. "Too many kids today get burned out of sports at an early age because it's just not much fun to play these games anymore. I think kids had much more fun when they could go out on their own, with a bat or a ball, and just have fun playing the game. Everything now is organized. The fun is gone from their games."

John Harrington ’77

David Hess ’86

QUOTE/UNQUOTE "I hope I'm going to live to see the day where almost every movie is caption-accessible." JOHN STANTON '93, DEAF PLAINTIFF IN A LAWSUIT AGAINST TWO MAJOR MOVIE CHAINS THAT WAS SETTLED IN MAY AFTER THE THEATER CHAINS AGREED TO INSTALL CAPTIONING DEVICES IN THE D.C. AREA