Class Note 1961
The 50th reunion for the class of 1961 is now history. Nearly 400 people attended, including approximately 225 classmates. The event was a spectacular success and Maynard Wheeler and his numerous classmate assistants are truly deserving of a “wah-hoo-wah.” In addition, Denny Denniston and Don O’Neil and their numerous classmate assistants are to be commended for the outstanding job they did in the fund-raising area for the Dartmouth Alumni Fund: 88.4-percent class participation (443 out of 501 potential class donors) and $2,456,000 collected against a pre-established class goal of $2,001,961 (class goal exceeded by 23 percent). As a result of the class’ reunion success, it received two Dartmouth awards related to Dartmouth Alumni Fund giving for our reunion year.
The incoming class officers for the next five years, as submitted by the class nominating committee chaired by Art Kelton and voted upon at our reunion class meeting, are as follows: Denny Denniston, president; Ken DeHaven, vice president; Vic Rich, secretary; Ivar Jozus, treasurer; Pete Stuart, head agent; Pete Palin and John Damon, co-bequest chairmen; Maynard Wheeler, mini-reunion chairman; Tom Conger, newsletter editor; Bob Conn, communications officer; and Harris McKee, webmaster.
Our class began with 717 matriculated classmates, which was the smallest class during that decade. Since that moment in time we adopted two people into our class and 106 have died, which left us with a net amount of 613 net living classmates as of our 50th reunion. Since then, we have learned of the passing of Dick Bailey (April 2), Jim White (July 9), Bill Sheehan (July 11) and Terry Ortwein (July 30). We will miss all of them; look to our class website or our class newsletter for more details.
Ron Wybranowski, who successfully put together the 1961 Artists’ Show during reunion, has since expanded the participation by talented ’61 artists and their spouses (painters, sculptors, photographers) from 6 to 26. Because of popular demand, viewing on the website www.dartmouth61artshow.org has been extended until at least December 31.
By the time this article appears in mid October, Gim Burton will have already performed at Carnegie Hall on Sunday, October 9, as part of a 50th reunion concert for Your Father’s Mustache, a chain of banjo-sing-a-long nightclubs where Gim worked back in the 1960s and 1970s. We hope some classmates were able to attend, since I passed the info on to our class newsletter editor, Tom Conger, and to our class webmaster, Harris McKee, in August.
Chip Serrel, while fly-fishing on vacation in a remote part of Alaska during the summer, met Eleanor Killian ’11. Many Dartmouth tales were shared by these two alums, 50 years apart and just after our 50th reunion.
Finally, Mike Kirst, who wanted to attend our 50th reunion, unfortunately was detained in California, where he was recently re-appointed president of the K-12 California State Board of Education, this time with far more policy-making and decision-making power than granted when he held that same title several decades ago. In addition, Mike also has a large three-year grant through Stanford University from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to improve college success and graduation rates at broad access higher education schools (community colleges).
—Victor S. Rich, 5 Red Ground Road, Old Westbury, NY 11568; victor.rich@rsmi.com
