1955

The writing part of this job is a drag but speaking to our classmates makes up for it. I was talking to Peter Knoke in Fairbanks, Alaska, where he is a professor of computer science at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks. He enjoys the interaction with the students and lecturing about software engineering, chip design and programming. At Dartmouth he lived in Topliff and drove a big Harley Davidson up a hill, went airborne, hit a tree and landed in Dick’s House. He spent a fifth year at Dartmouth obtaining an M.S. from Thayer and a Ph.D. from Syracuse. Afterward he spent three years in the Air Force as a fighter pilot, then 29 years in industry. Peter owns his own plane and “flies all over the place,” including Bristol Bay, west of Anchorage, on the Bering Sea, and to Providenya, Russia. He is active as a flight instructor.

Dr. Herb Gramm was on the ski patrol and ran meets for the DOC. He retired from practicing radiology at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston for 36 years and continues to be active in professional organizations. Colette, his wife, worked as a doctor of immunology at the Dana Farber Cancer Center. Herb misses his students but not the bureaucracy. Herb partly retired at 65 and could take off three months in the winter, for seven trips to New Zealand and Australia. Both enjoyed hiking and swimming. Herb was a visiting professor in Adelaide, Australia. This year they visited family in North Carolina and Georgia. Colette came from the French-speaking area of Switzerland to Harvard Medical School. When at Dartmouth Herb worked for the dining association in the Hovey Grill for part of his scholarship. His roommate in Wheeler Hall was doctor and now artist and sculptor Alan Swartz. The Gramms summer in the Mt. Monadnock area of New Hampshire, hiking and attending the area music festival and theater.

After receiving his Dartmouth degree Charles “Chuck” Lowrie graduated from the Yale School of Forestry. He and his wife, Karin, live in Pine Grove, California, at 2,300 feet. As we spoke he was looking out on two and half inches of snow on his deck railing, 60 miles east of Sacramento. Both Chuck and Karin have been back packing all over the Sierra Nevada Mountains, including camping out at Paiute Pass at 1,000 feet. In the last two years they have done more road trips. Chuck was a district ranger with the U.S. Forest Service. He had responsibility for business, fire, campgrounds, ski areas, cattle grazing, mining, wildlife, leases and most of the land-use planning within the 190,000 acres of his ranger district, which included Sequoia and Tahoe and El Dorado National Forests. He also was an avalanche control ranger. Daughter Karin is a sixth-grade teacher of science and arts and is studying for a master’s degree. Their son Alex spent five years managing huts in Yosemite National Park. In the winter he worked as a ski instructor.

There will be a memorial service at the DOC House May 31 for Skip Hance, who died February 26.

24 Commonwealth Ave., Apt.3, Boston, MA 02116; (617) 266-2735; rfangerl@msn.com