Class Note 1968

While I sometimes feel like the news dentist (it’s like pulling teeth sometimes), class news does always seem to arrive just in time. Lots of news, and a request, from John Miksic, writing from Singapore. He is a scholar on Southeast Asia art and archeology, having written recent books Old Javanese Gold and Singapore and the Silk Road of the Sea. He also works with the Singapore Ministry of Education introducing lower secondary school students to archeology. His plea is for funds to support and endow a chair in Southeast Asian archeology at the National University of Singapore. John is thinking of retiring from his teaching here, and he is afraid they will not continue to teach the subject without an endowment of $2.5 million. John has a personal teaching collection of archeological specimens, mainly shards of Chinese ceramics from the Yuan and Ming dynasties, which may be discarded without the endowed chair. Please contact John if you’d like to help. Ben Johnson recently got married to Katherine Mary Polaski, both of them for the first time. She is 29 (!), which he reports will keep him “young-er.” Katie is a professional ballerina and studio owner who shares his love of ballroom dance. The competition for her attention is their puppy Lulu. Ben is still working at Merrill Lynch, but helping Katie on building her studio business. Joe Leeper wrote, having just returned from his 50th high school reunion in Hood River, Oregon. He plans to make the fall mini-reunion in Hanover with his old roommate Mike Moeller. It will be Mike’s first return to Dartmouth. Mike retired from his position at the University of North Alabama after five decades of service in the industrial hygiene and chemistry department, for which he has been honored with the establishment of a Dr. Michael B. Moeller scholarship. Joe is also trying to persuade “cheapskate” Tony Abruzzo to come along, but that may be a hard sell. New England has called other classmates: Deborah and Dick Olson traveled from Michigan to visit son Dan ’04 and had time to visit Sweetland Farm in Norwich, Vermont. En route, they stopped in Seneca Falls, New York, and he posted a picture of himself with statues of Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Sin-Tung Chiu has had a special season of anniversaries. Quite a few of his former violin students, some from 40 years ago, all came to San Francisco to visit and share music-making. And he also had a chance to reconnect with Carol and Sherwood Guernsey, on vacation in California, where they shared a long and wonderful breakfast in Monterey. Grandchildren are becoming an increasing news category in our Class Notes. Bob Reich reports keen enjoyment of 5-year-old granddaughter Ella, but notes for every hour he spends with her he needs a half-hour nap. On Facebook is a picture of Paul Fitzgerald with grandson Kieran on his shoulder, noting, “He is heavier than he looks.”


—David Peck, 54 Spooner St., Plymouth, MA 02360; davidbpeck@aol.com