Hail, noble ’72s, far and wide!


First and foremost, you should be finalizing your plans to come back to Hanover on June 15-17. Fuzzy Thurston and our erstwhile 40th reunion committee are putting the finishing touches on what promises to be a terrific weekend. No excuses, folks! You just gotta join the fun! 


Related, this year we elect a new slate of class officers. Please send your nominations by May 1 to Jon Einsidler at jeinsidler@ phoenixadvisorypartners.com. (Yours truly will be retiring the quill in June, so we’ll need a new class scribe!)


Shel Prentice has just won the prestigious Deane C. Davis Distinguished Citizen Award from Green Up Vermont. For those in other parts of this great land, Green Up Vermont is the first of its kind citizen cleanup effort in the country and the only one that operates without creating road signs and billboards to advertise its efforts. Former Gov. Davis was the founder of the Vermont Chamber of Commerce and champion of the importance of the environment to the state as a natural and economic resource. Recipients of this award are an elite few. Shel, you are well deserving to be among them!


From days of yore to the present in ice hockey, Jim Borchert, Chris Denton and Tom Stebe rallied in Thompson Arena February 11 for the annual alumni game. Jim writes, “Players ranged from very recent grads (very quick and very accurate) to a ’60 (an Olympian). Despite a very fast pace, everyone was really in the game. The game ended in a tie after two 30-minute halves. I persuaded Bob Gaudet ’81 to have a five-minute sudden-death overtime instead of a shootout. The other goalie was in his mid-20s—the outcome of a shootout was just too predictable. Nonetheless, the white team won, to Denton’s chagrin. Great time telling lies fueled by excellent libations afterward.” Don’t sell yourself short, Jim—you’ve still got it in net, buddy! 


Joe Davis reports that our classmate, historian Roger Ekirch of Virginia Tech, is back in the news. As reported recently in the BBC News Magazine, current scientists seem to be reexamining his research and finding the long-held axiom of eight hours sleep being critical to our well being may be off the mark after all. Roger’s seminal paper published in 2001 and his book At Day’s Close: Night in Times Past, published four years later, revealed a wealth of historical evidence that humans used to sleep in two distinct chunks, this drawn from more than 500 references in diaries, court records, medical books and literature, from Homer’s Odyssey to an anthropological account of modern tribes in Nigeria…or the Tower Room at Baker Library? Interesting stuff. 


On a sad note, word has just reached me from Eliot DeMello of the passing of our classmate Robert K. Baird on September 14, 2011. More details will follow as I can discover them. Our sincere condolences to his family and loved ones.


Until next time, best wishes always in green!


—Lauren “Duff” Cummings, P.O. Box 580, Hanover, NH 03755-0580; lauren.cummings@dartmouth.edu