As you read this the class of 2018 will be preparing to arrive in Hanover for the beginning of their Dartmouth experience. The year they graduate will be 61 years after the graduation of the great class of 1957. And 61 years after the class of 2018 graduates it will be the year 2079. What will the world be like then? I’m sure their 61 postgraduate years will be as momentous as ours have been—and may the world be in better shape than it is today.


If you spent any time in Kansas, Missouri, Iowa or Tennessee in the late 1950s you must have visited a Katz Drug Store. Graced with the iconic larger-than-life Katz cat that smiled down on customers as they entered, these were the stores that had everything. These establishments were founded and owned by Steve Katz’s grandfather, Issac Katz, who opened his first store in Kansas City, Kansas, in 1914. Steve has coauthored a book available on Amazon.com about his grandfather and his accomplishments called The Kings of Cut-Rate. He describes how that one store grew to 65 stores and $100 million in sales until 1971, when they were sold. 


“Katz Drug was the predecessor to Wal-Mart and the other self-service, big-box discount stores,” said Steve. “It was the largest nongovernmental employer and biggest advertiser in Kansas City.” 


Recently the College has reported the deaths of classmates Ron Fraser, Bob Dennis, N. Peter Nieman, Malcolm Lindsay, Peter Vitella, Bruce Hack and Robert Staz. Their families have our most sincere condolences.


You are the stuff of this column, and what you send me, it will be. With that in mind, peruse the following. (Thanks to Joel Ash ’56 for this idea. See Joel’s work just above.)


This column would surely be better


If you’d send me an email or letter.


If you’ll just be so brave


To send news we all crave


That will make you the new class pacesetter.


—Bruce Sloane, 124 Hull School Road, Sperryville, VA 22740; (540) 987-8859; bsloane@wildblue.net