Class Note 1976

Happy birthday to us! Come celebrate our 65th birthdays and the 250th day of Dartmouth’s 250th year in Santa Fe, New Mexico, September 6-8! Thanks to the efforts of mini-reunion chair Jim Beattie and a growing committee of planners, we’re moving the party west this year to one of the most enchanting cities in the country. Jim is securing a block of rooms in town and keeping the cost as reasonable as possible during high season. With the help of local classmates on the ground, including Jody Karp, Dave Magnus, and Bill Saubert, plans are in the works for a welcome reception Friday night along with a dinner Saturday night and lots of time for catch-ups and conversations. Our Minneapolis art expert Carol Vaughan Bemis (former Hood and Walker Art Museum trustee) is helping with an art tour. Rick Hill,who led our successful 40th-reunion bike ride, will do the same on Santa Fe streets and trails. I’m hoping Julie Miner will join me in recapping our Thelma-and-Louise-style New Mexico adventure (but with a Hallmark ending), when we interviewed the Navajo Code Talkers. Long-serving class volunteer Naomi Baline Kleinman will coordinate a locally guided history walk. The list of volunteers and attendees grows daily. Recent additions: Gary Love, Steve Melikian, Jamie Bergford, Martha Johnson Beattie,and Lynne Brooks.You’ll be receiving more info but do let Jim (jbeattie45@gmail.com) know of your interest in attending. I begged veteran school principal Tom Sorci to join us in Santa Fe to share his experiences as principal of St. Michael Indian School on the Navajo Reservation, but his new duties as principal of Holy Family School in his native New York state preclude it. Tom’s passion for teaching, kindled at Dartmouth when he student-taught on a Native American reservation in Montana, resulted in a distinguished career in Catholic education. Journalist Karen Turner, whom I managed to track down during finals at Temple University, where she teaches in the broadcast journalism program, is still the ever-achieving classmate I remember, with no rest in sight. The former lawyer, TV talk show host, reporter, and mayoral press secretary is committed to the success of her students as well as to the well-being of others. She was certified with her golden retriever therapy dog Brutus last June and has been in demand ever since. Brewer Doran accepted her fourth deanship in 19 years at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire College of Business. She calls being a business dean one of the best jobs on campus. Despite the major challenges she perceives in the funding of higher education nationwide, she says, “To see the transformation of students from first-year students feeling their way away from home to polished young men and women at commencement is a true joy.” Scott Simons recently racked up a third American Institute of Architects award for his firm’s breathtaking design of the Brattleboro, Vermont, Music Center.

—Sara Hoagland Hunter, 72 Mount Vernon St., Unit 4B, Boston, MA 02108; sarahunter76@gmail.com