Jim O’Connell writes, “After 22 years managing Wausau Wisconsin’s historic Grand Theater (46 years in the performance facility business, beginning with my first job at the Hop the winter of our freshman year) I have taken up teaching. I’m an assistant professor of arts management at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point. (I love the fact that I’ll come up for tenure as I turn 70!) I figure I’ll be doing my new job if I can distill the lessons of all the mistakes I’ve made so that my students will be prepared to make brand-new mistakes of their own. By the way, I’ve noticed one big difference between college now and college when we shook the hand of John Sloan Dickey: Now they let in children!”


Bill Phillips, professor of film studies at the College, writes, “After three and a half years of shooting 60 hours of footage and editing it down to one hour (plus a bonus section) I’ve finally screened Sabra, my documentary film about printmaker Sabra Field. Among the interviewees are Howard Dean, Madeleine Kunin, Jim and Susan Wright and, of course, Sabra herself. To get a DVD, contact idvdandposter.com (the Hanover-based DVD store). Both screenings were sold out at the new Loews Auditorium.” David Edson writes that he and Jim Chasey hooked up in January in Houston for a great flamenco and classical guitar show at a night spot, Mi Luna, and sends his regards to the rest of our class. Bo Smith from Fairway, Kansas, writes, “Just finished The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace. It got me thinking about the impact of four years in Hanover in my life (and more generally reminiscing). One could tie this book into a discussion of colleges’ responsibility in shaping social behaviors that impact their students’ future lives—and in particular whatever colleges can do to lessen the likelihood of excessive use of alcohol and drugs.” Dave Hill in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, writes, “Mike Barle, Mike Furey and I are holding our second annual golf trip to Mesa in early March. My daughter, Dr. Deborah Hill, emergency and sports medicine doctor, gets married September 5. Still donating to Heorot, Sphinx, the golf team, hockey team, sponsored program and the College. Looking forward to booking the Hanover Inn for June 15-20 for our 45th reunion—glad to see that it is in June and not in October as the last one was. Finally, our litigation boutique, Hill Sokalski Walsh Olson, was voted by Benchmark Canada as the top litigation firm in Manitoba for the third straight year. The firm was established in 1988 and is in its 28th year and consists of 13 lawyers and students and two retired judges as counsel, including the former chief justice of Manitoba. Looking forward to seeing Peter Wheelock at our daughter’s wedding—you better make it, Wheels!”


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