Homecoming and its annual mini-reunion in Hanover was as good as ever. The maestro this year as last, Tiny Strong, made it possible for our present class scholars and a few of the military veterans to be with us and share their experiences while we enjoyed cocktails and our after-the-football-game dinner in the Inn’s Drake Room. Our class can be proud of our present scholars as well as its association with the veterans’ campaign to improve life for veterans recovering from physical and psychological traumas. Adding to the sense of our extended community, Doug Keare brought to the dinner Tashi Kesang ’70, one of our former class scholars. Other returning classmates included Clem Malin, Tom Harper, Tom Rosenwald, Elliott Weinstein, Bert Whittemore, Dick Kurts, Leo McKenna, Howie Sodokoff, Ted Rowe, Tag Chapman, Bob Slater, Jack Tamagni, John Allen and Rick Worrell. 


Buddy Schattman has contacted each of the 22 class scholars our scholarship aid has assisted during the past 45 years and encouraged them to tell us what they’ve been up to since their undergraduate days. Three quarters of them have responded so far, and the intention is to provide each of us a chance to read that correspondence through the newsletter. You may recall the scholarship initially went to students from overseas, and in its earliest years was able to assist one student at a time. In the 1980s we began supporting any undergraduate in need, and in the past few years we’ve been able to have as many as two students at a time receiving this assistance.


Dick Hlavac and his wife, Jackie, reported that they survived the earthquake that shook New Zealand in the early fall. They braced themselves under doorframes until the shaking stopped “and then crept under the dining room table for the aftershocks.” Of course, books tumbled out of their shelves; and both of their sons’ homes suffered some significant damages. Praise be, each of them is well and thankful for the concern of classmates.


Jack Crowley wrote of a terrific recent mini-reunion out in Sun Valley, Idaho. Pat and Jack Billhardt, John Parke, Cathey and Joe Holton ’51, Susan and Brad Leonard, Joan and Hugh Manchester, Anne Milne and Bert Whittemore, Lyn and Bob Slater, Jim Geier ’58, Ann and Tag Chapman, Beth, Jack and Josephine enjoyed the sheep dog trials and a Basque festival dinner at a wine cafe after beginning their day with a “rigorous” two-mile hike up Hemingway’s Big Wood River Valley trail. Sunday’s brunch was capped with the “trailing of the sheep” through downtown Ketchum, where Ernest Hemmingway’s love for the territory is one of its continuing stories.


Joel Ash puts pen to paper at least once a month and publishes a “Poem of the Month” online. To get on his list visit joel@poeticlimericks.com. You’ll find not only a link to his monthly work but also his previously published work given a five-star rating by Amazon.


—R. Stewart Wood Jr., P.O. Box 968, Quechee, VT 05059-0968; (802) 295-8912; stewwood@aol.com