A fighter pilot who transitioned to civilian airlines in 1969 and now retired 14 years, Dave Leighton maintains his calm with self-deprecating humor. Dave has penned serious and carefully reasoned op-ed pieces in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune on weighty matters such as relations with North Korea and treatment of prisoners in the Iraq War as well as his very funny essay in our 50th reunion book, where he writes among other things, “To my credit I’ve paid all my bills, never been in jail, am genuinely liked by most dogs and rarely giggle or drool in public.” In our conversation he advised, “If you’re from Minnesota you learn to put up with cold winters and summer mosquitoes,” and “Mary and I live four miles from Lake Minnetonka, where I grew up, and yet our three kids can’t live far enough away.” John Newman, whom Dave knew at Dartmouth, lives nearby when John’s not in Naples, Florida. Dave and John met after college in the Navy flight program, then in Vietnam and then again when John joined Northwest Airlines a month after Dave did. John roomed at Dartmouth with Jack Phelan, Dave’s “hockey buddy.” Dave played hockey till he was 50 and coached the “Minneapolis cops.”

And speaking of the Star-Tribune, Roger Parkinson, former publisher and president, received the University of Minnesota board of regents’ Award of Distinction, one of the highest awards given to a non-alumnus. Roger, who lives in Toronto, Canada, is vice chairman of the dean’s advisory council for the university’s Humphrey School of Public Affairs and former publisher of the Toronto Globe and Mail and Buffalo Courier-Express. Roger earned a Bronze Star in Vietnam and an M.B.A. from Harvard and an M.A. in international relations from University of Toronto.

John Merrow, author, documentary maker and longtime education correspondent for PBS, will in late October receive the Dolores Kohl Education Foundation Prize, which has gone to prominent professors and scholars Linda Darling-Hammond and Diane Ravitch. Dolores Kohl is a scholar and writer. John and Joan will travel to Chicago for the award, which includes $10,000, which “means I can afford to buy a drink for any classmates” in the area, he quipped.

Roger Adelman posed with former Pennsylvania governor and U.S. attorney general Dick Thornburgh, who presented him the Justice Potter Stewart Award by the Council for Court Excellence (CCE). Roger then went on to give “a riveting speech on the importance of jury trials in the 21st century,” the CCE report said.

Seventeen classmates, spouses, widows and friends enjoyed the first DartTravel ’63 trip, May 7-21, a cruise from Amsterdam to Vienna down the Rhine, Mein and Danube rivers organized by Petie Subin and Ed Mazer. Other classmates included Bill Wellstead, Sam Cabot, Gordon Weir, Mary Lord, widow of Dan Watts, Bill Subin, Jim Knappenberger and Dan Kellogg. Save October 12-16, 2016, for the 75th birthday celebration in Santa Fe and Taos, New Mexico.

I am sorry to report the deaths of Frank McGrath, Fred French, Jamie Weisman and Peter Rollins.

—Harry Zlokower, 190 Amity St., Brooklyn, NY 11201; (917) 541-8162; harry@zlokower.com