One hundred thirty-one classmates and 101 spouses and guests attended the class of 1966 45th reunion in Hanover on October 13-16. It was a weekend packed with old friends, fond memories and good times, leavened with the excitement of seeing revitalized Dartmouth, in session, and moving smartly ahead.


Selected highlights (food first): Chow and overnight at Moosilauke Ravine Lodge. Official reunion dinner at Dowd’s Country Inn in Lyme, New Hampshire. Buffet barbeque at the Dartmouth Skiway. A hike and lunch at the new, but already legendary, Class of 1966 Lodge.


Honored guest dean Thad Seymour, back on campus with wife Peggy, discussing student life with undergraduate leaders and pounding the gavel at a live auction that raised $10,000 for the class scholarship fund. 


Classmate Howard Weiner’s movie, What is Life?


The Revs. Budge Gere and Brad Laycock leading a stirring memorial service for our 79 deceased classmates at Rollins Chapel.


Our retiring and award-winning class president Chuck Sherman presenting a check for our collective past-year individual contributions to the Dartmouth College Fund which totaled, wait for it, $535,000 (!) to, wait again, the Dartmouth Moose (a student in the moose mascot costume). Chuck was in heaven! “One of the highlights of my presidency.”


Class officers elected for five-year terms (until our 50th in 2016): Al Keiller, president; Jim Lustenader, vice president; Jim Weiskopf, treasurer; Larry Geiger, secretary.


Who’s responsible: reunion chairman Lustenader, ably and tirelessly assisted by Roger Brett, Ben Day, Doug Hill, Bill Malcolm, John Rollins, Bob Serenbetz, Chuck Sherman and Jim Weiskopf. A terrific effort all around!


Our 45th made history. Here’s an update on two classmates who have been teaching it.


“My politics are still more or less the same as they were in 1974 when I finished UC Berkeley,” reports Nelson Lichtenstein, the MacArthur Foundation Professor of History at the University of California at Santa Barbara. “I stand on the left and try to help it flourish, in the academy and without.” Nelson taught at Catholic University and the University of Virginia before joining the “admittedly left-coast UC system.”


Nelson’s latest book is The Retail Revolution: How Wal-Mart Created a Brave New World of Business. He is also the director of the Center for the Study of Work, Labor and Democracy. Wife Eileen Boris is chair of feminist studies at UC Santa Barbara. Nelson, who still enjoys hiking the High Sierras, says, “Neither of us plans to retire anytime soon.”


After 35 years of teaching U.S. history at Washington & Lee University, Barry Machado retired in June 2005. “No regrets. I’ve managed to publish more books and articles as an emeritus than I did when I was a professor.” In addition to teaching at W&L Barry coached the first women’s basketball team there for two years before serving as the assistant men’s basketball coach for six more. “There was not much free time during that stretch, but mind and body did achieve equilibrium.”


Barry and Anice, an eighth-grade teacher in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, where they now live, have been married for 41 years. “She remains both the finest person and teacher I have known.” They enjoy their two grown children and four grandkids.


Best wishes for a healthy and happy 2012 to all!


—Larry Geiger, 93 Greenridge Ave., White Plains, NY 10605; (917) 747-1642; lgeiger@aol.com