1980

There are as many ways to gather class news as there are classmates who have performed this function. While my co-scribe Paul Elmlinger four-wheels from New York to Hanover and then back to New York to rub elbows with packs of captive subjects at each Dartmouth event along the way, I pursue a more passive strategy. I have decided to let fate supply the content for my column.

Last month an invisible hand placed Charlie Brown and me in adjacent seats on a flight to Rome. Charlie was traveling with a group of 40- plus students and teachers from the William Penn Charter School in Philadelphia, the oldest Quaker school in the world, where he teaches math and English and coaches the baseball and swimming teams. Charlies son, a junior, was part of the group; with some luck, he'll join his older brother at Dartmouth a year from now.

Years ago I found myself sitting next to Jeff Poorman on a flight from Atlanta to New York, which I suspect was a much shorter and less exotic adventure than his recent trip to India. In a small town outside of Mumbai Jeff volunteered to work as part of a 2,000-person Habitat for Humanity team that built 100 homes in less than a week. Jeff, serving as part of a 30-person international team from Citigroup, was particularly impressed by the work ethic and commitment of Jimmy Carter and Brad Pitt, two team members who worked as hard and contributed as much as any other volunteer.

Two weeks ago, while navigating a serpentine security line at O'Hare in Chicago, I noticed a familiar-looking gendeman facing me, from the other side of the rope, seemingly immersed in his USAToday, one turn ahead of me in the line. I recognized the everyman traveler as former scribe Dan Zenkel. Adjusting for the switchbacks that pulled us apart and put us back together, we engaged in a piecemeal conversation that focused on the hate mail that sometimes comes from trying to inject humor into this column. Our discussion ended when Dan was whisked away for a voluntary cavity search.

For this passive content strategy to work, I can t carry the whole load myself. A few months ago my wife made a trip to Albuquerque, New Mexico, for a hearing in the U.S. District Court. The federal judge directed Sarah to work with his new law clerk, a Dartmouth grad and recent transplant from New Jersey. Mindful of my responsibilities as scribe, she dutifully asked, "What year did he graduate?" And that's how she met Steve O'Brien, who recently made the commitment to do more satisfying work in a more appealing place.

Josiah Stevenson, principal of Boston-based Leers Weinzapfel Associates, reports that his firm was recently honored with the 2007 American Institute of Architects Firm Award, the highest bestowed on an architecture firm. The award, given annually, recognizes a practice that consistently has produced distinguished architecture. And finally, Lanny Vickery and wife Kim are proud to report the birth of a daughter, Treana, earlier this year. Lanny has officially displaced me as the '80 with the youngest child. Who's next? Any takers?

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