We can finally report there is a new and improved class website, which can be accessed at www.dartmouth69.org. The site is still under construction as our Webmaster Peter Elias takes time from his busy schedule to add new and fill in existing sections. We will see the obituaries of our departed classmates in the near future, which will be particularly helpful since they are no longer published in this magazine. Unfortunately there are two deaths to report from late last year. Antonio Miller died while traveling with his wife, Cecilia, on October 21. While en route to Cuba they stopped at the Lima, Peru, airport, where Tonio suffered a fatal cardiac arrest. We also join in mourning the loss of Stephen Davies, who succumbed to cancer on November 8. We extend our sympathies to both families. Their obituaries can be seen on the website.


Last fall we reported that John Kitzhaber was seeking the governor’s office in Oregon for the third time. He was successful, repeating his wins from 1994 and 1998. We wish him well. 


There are other successes among our classmates. Michael Groden’s book Ulysses in Focus: Genetic, Textual, and Personal Views has been published by the University Press of Florida. Michael reports parts of the book are about his first reading of Ulysses in the comparative literature course taught by Peter Bien as well as a senior seminar on Joyce. He is a professor of English at the University of Western Ontario.


Rick Willets was kind enough to relay the participants and many of the happenings at our Homecoming gathering and class meeting, all of which you have seen in the ’69 Times or on the website. One item we would like to note here is his news that after 42 years of teaching biology at Haverhill, Massachusetts, High School, Rick will retire this spring and turn his considerable experience and talents to woodworking. As long as his shop is well away from the house I am sure his bride, Joan, will be happy with the change in lifestyle.


The class special projects grants committee chaired by Dimitri Gerakaris has named Project Right Choice (PRC) the second recipient of our award and presented it with $10,000. After the success of our donations for water filters destined for Haiti, the committee found an equally deserving group in PRC, whose goal was to secure $100,000 in support for Fisher House, a nonprofit housing foundation for veterans’ families at the Veterans Administration facility in Roxbury, Massachusetts. That effort was pushed over the top by our contribution and we even provided seed money for its next project.


Our president Sandy Alderson has initiated conference calls to improve communication among the class officers, the various committees involved in steering and organizing class activities and classmates interested in participating. The first was held in early December and our new, improved website has a report on the success of that effort and when we can expect another opportunity. Meanwhile, keep the information coming to Allen Denison and me and have a joyful 2011.


—Steve Larson, 9101 W 146th St., Overland Park, KS 66221; (360) 770-4388; wheat69@earthlink.net