1976

Greetings! The first order of College news comes from Jim Beattie. As participation chair of our class' Alumni Fund effort Jim receives feedback from the College regarding how we fared and how we compare. We were able to set a record for a class 32 years out. The efforts of everyone involved in the Alumni Fund generated a total donation of $484,276, surpassing our goal of $475,000. Our participation was down in 2008 (44.6 percent) from 2007 (48.4 per- cent) and was below the overall fund participation of 47 percent (which was down from the 50.5 percent of 2007). Thanks to all of you who participated and thanks to the total team effort of all the '76s who worked on the Alumni Fund this year.

Jim also mentioned the efforts of J.T.Knight, our class representative to the Alumni Council. J.T. does a great job of communicating what's going on with and at the College by sending out periodic e-mails to our class and the class of '75, which he also represents. If you're not receiving J.T.'s e-mails and want to receive them, make sure the College has your e-mail address by filling out the appropriate info on the College Web site (dartmouth.edu) in the alumni section. Thanks, J.T., for all your hard work and keeping us connected with the College.

Soon after Commencement I received a call and an e-mail from Sandy Fitchet. He wanted to pass along that his daughter Margaret Fitchet was one of three valedictorians (all with 4.0 GPAs) in the class of 2008. Margaret is also the fourth generation of her family to enter the ranks of Big Green alums. One of the articles put out by the College outlined her achievements and told of her various honors and internships. It mentioned her seven class citations in addition to being a Rufus Choate scholar and member of Phi Beta Kappa. (In recalling my own achievements while in Hanover I had only five citations, but they were all from the campus police.) Sandy is currently living in the Hanover area, having developed a software company, True Vector Technologies (truevectortech.com). He passed along news that in 1988 during a trip to Canada he managed to connect with Andy Walker, who at that time was a barrister on Prince Edward Island.

The College also passed along news that Thomas Sorci has been named principal of St. Michael Indian School in St. Michaels, Arizona. Thomas was a religion and Native American studies major at Dartmouth and he holds a masters in linguistics from the University of Colorado and has almost completed a doctorate at Penn State in the department of educational leadership. Thomas was assistant director of A Better Chance (ABC) and recruited students from the Navajo Nation to attend independent schools in the Northeast. He was also a counselor for Native American students at Northfield Mount Hermon School for nine years. Congratulatioins, thomas.

That's it for now. Please send news.

106 Yukon Lane, Chapel Hill,NC 27514; (919) 493-7814;jayjosselyn@hotmail.com