I’m always on the hunt for news stories of those we haven’t heard from in this amazing class. This month, I lucked into two! On an otherwise bleak news day, I spotted a front-page photo in The Boston Globe of students at desks in a lovely New England field. The lead sentence of the article by Zoe Greenberg was a breath of fresh, crisp fall air: “In a cleared patch of forest in the shadow of the Holyoke Range, where birds chirp and chipmunks scamper and sunlight dapples the dirt floor, Ms. Baudendistel’s seventh-grade class is learning about the night sky.” Yes! Our Jan Baudendistel! The article went on to describe the joys of outdoor learning at the Hartsbrook School in western Massachusetts, where Jan has taught for 33 years. The story concluded with her delight at the classroom distraction of two pileated woodpeckers pecking away on a nearby tree. I tracked her down to discover she is as youthful, modest, and energetic as ever. She invited me to visit the log cabin her seventh-graders are building in the woods. Not only will I visit; I’d like to enroll in the school! I then unearthed news online of our distinguished classmate Eric Madison and his remarkable career with the U.S. State Department. Eric and I overlapped in the exuberant, creative classroom atmosphere of Professor John Rassias,where putting on plays and sharing classic Rassias moments made friends of us all. After majoring in French and receiving a Fulbright scholarship, Eric began a multi-decade, multi-continent career with the State Department, serving in Asia, Europe, and Africa. He served as deputy chief of mission in Kinshasa, chargé d’affaires from 2012 to 2016. I hope I get to write his story before Peter Stark or our other class nonfiction adventure writers clinch the deal! After all this aggressive digging, I got lazy and began asking questions of anyone who happened to email. Shoun Kerbaugh was probably sorry he wrote for info on my new book (shameless plug). I asked the man from Kentucky what he remembered about winters at Dartmouth. His answer: “Gorgeous, but too long!” But he did love the first snowball fight, writing, “The heavy snow finally came and all the dorms emptied simultaneously and the snowballs started flying! I remember pelting Middle Fayerweather as all of us in South Fayerweather were simply ‘protecting our turf.’ ” My next victim was executive committee member Andy Shaw. I badgered him for news until he admitted winning the men’s senior golf championship for the second straight year at his Winnetka, Illinois, golf course—the very course where he and Jeff Hillebrand once sunk holes-in-one on the same day. Finally, the class extends heartfelt hugs of condolence to Mary Kay Walkush Beach,whose heroic husband and beloved Dartmouth faculty member, Terry Osborne, died in September. We also mourn the loss of the ever warm and welcoming Marty Doyle, whose humor, storytelling, and loyalty to Dartmouth and his countless friends remain legendary.

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