A quote from one of my columns a year ago: “One of the frequent topics of our executive committee conference calls has been the good effort of increasing the number and variety of mini-reunions, as we approach retirement age and many of us have the opportunity to gather at nice venues around the country.”


Well, that effort has begun to pay off—our class was honored at the recent Class Officers Weekend (C.O.W.) as the class with the best mini-reunion program during the past year. Watch this column, our periodic newsletters, plus webmaster Steve Zrike’s class website for upcoming opportunities around the country to gather with your fellow ’71s.


At the most recent C.O.W. we had eight of us present, the best representation of all but two other classes: Peter Pratt, class prez (and also president of the Class Officers Association); Dave Brooks, treasurer; our three head agents Sam Cuddeback, Malcolm Jones and Michael Maynard; Jeff McElnea, gift planning chair; Bernie Wysocki, newsletter editor; and me, as your secretary. The two days were filled with seminars, sharing of best practices, a great reception and dinner Friday evening with President Hanlon and a gathering afterward at the home of Tom Oxman and wife Judy.


Don O’Neil and wife Sally have purchased a home in Winter Park, Colorado, so they can actually increase, if that’s even possible, the number of days on the slopes during the coming ski seasons.


Steve Muller writes, “My wife, Mary, and I took our first Dartmouth alumni travel trip in September to Turkey for two weeks. We had a wonderful experience and highly recommend this trip to classmates. Otherwise we remain busy in our retirement doing good deeds—I am on the boards of five small nonprofit groups here in our adopted town of Troy, New York.


From Bruce Tepper, “Seventeen members of Phi Sigma Psi converged on North Bend, Oregon, during an extended August weekend for a mini-reunion hosted by Jim Coffey and his wife, Jean. Jeff Ashworth and wife Bonnie, Dave Felt and Lynda Wendel, Mal Graham and Mary Ford, Mike and Pam Graham ’70, Art Hittner with wife Peggy, Phil Stoiber, Bruce and Belinda Tepper and Duncan and Sally Wood ’70 attended. Two days were spent touring the gorgeous southern Oregon coastline and one day was spent at the Coffey Memorial Boathouse on Coos Bay, where prodigious amounts of seafood (oysters, crab, salmon) were consumed as the assembled group solved world affairs. A number of spouses reminisced fondly about their 9 School Street experiences while comparing notes on grandparenting. In keeping with the College’s evolving policies about fraternities and liquor, only modest amounts of alcohol were consumed.”


I’ve just returned from a great Homecoming Weekend and would be remiss if I didn’t welcome our two newest adopted classmates: Kathy Rines, one of the 70 exchange students during our senior year, and Jack DeGange, sports information director from 1968 to 1977, a veritable walking encyclopedia on Dartmouth athletics.


—Pete Webster, 7 Leblanc Drive, South Hadley, MA 01075; weebs71@gmail.com