Greetings, ’71s! The mailbag is fairly empty this month, so I’ll reminisce about fall term freshman year. I gave a pint of blood the other day as I try to do four to five times a year, a habit formed during our first term on campus. I wonder how many of us remember those blood drives at the White Church, with Jim Campion signing our parental consent forms. My dorm, Middle Mass, used to frequently win the so-called “blood keg”—a quarter keg awarded to the fraternity and dormitory that had the highest percentage of guys donating. What do you suppose are the chances of that tradition continuing today? As likely as parietals being reinstated, I’m sure. From Mickey Stuart: “I’m in Dallas, flogging deals. Currently in the portfolio—a project to build wood pellet plants in Texas and Georgia, used for low-carbon fuel in electric generation, a reality TV show on air shows, several oil and gas service companies in North Dakota and Texas. Just signed on as a consultant to import wine for one of Texas’ fastest growing retail grocery chains—hooray!—trips to France, Italy and Argentina.” Bill Phillips, who teaches screenwriting at Dartmouth, has returned to his first love: filmmaking, which is now all digital (as opposed to celluloid, which we learned at Dartmouth). But it’s the same principles, and he has embarked on a two-year documentary production titled Sabra Field: the Language of Vision. Sabra has been making prints for more than 40 years and was Bill’s neighbor in East Barnard, Vermont, his senior year. They just returned from Hawaii, St. Petersburg and Anguilla, documenting her work there. They were previously in Italy, but she’s best known for her Vermont/New Hampshire work, which includes many pieces hanging at Dartmouth (in the trustees’ boardroom, the Medical School, Rocky, Jim Wright’s house and a huge stained-glass window in the DHMC chapel). Dartmouth recently gave Bill $5,000 toward this project with an award as Distinguished Lecturer of the Year. Further backing has come from Kickstarter.com, which paid for the latest trip and where you can see portions of this work. Her website will remind you of this area: sabrafield.com. Bill was a Senior Fellow in film, back when Dartmouth didn’t have a film major. After a career in Hollywood, he’s enjoying teaching and filmmaking. Now, with the Black Family Visual Arts Center, the College is very well equipped with a TV studio and a film studio, not to mention wonderful facilities for teaching all aspects of film. Photography, sculpture, drawing, painting, printmaking, architecture and digital arts in general (including gaming) are also well represented in the new building. By the time this column appears the dinner to honor and induct Willie Bogan into the College Football Hall of Fame will have taken place in N.Y.C. Our class involvement is being coordinated by Jim Rager and Murray Bowden and we should have a strong class presence at the ceremonies. More details on that in the next column. Keep those cards and e-mails coming.


—Pete Webster, 17 Woodbridge St., South Hadley, MA 01075; weebs71@gmail.com