Can it be 40 years since our first Winter Carnival? There are some among us who still aren’t ready to go on the record about that weekend. “My memories include stuff that probably should not appear in print,” one wrote. Others are more forthcoming. Mark Germano will never forget “Cheech and Chong in Webster Hall, Dean Brewster’s keg bus cruising Hanover.” John McPhaul was amazed by the creative ice sculptures materializing outside dorms and fraternities. “I particularly remember an amazingly rendered immense, prone Viking snoozing up against a keg of beer.”


Paula McLeod remembers being besieged with calls from high school girlfriends who suddenly wanted to come visit for the weekend. “Several of them did make the trip, although after saying hello on Friday my recollection is that I didn’t see them again until Sunday. They didn’t actually ‘stay’ with me. Wonder where they went? Maybe I should ask them!”


Michael Day, director of first-year composition in the English department at Northern Illinois University, recalls that the drama department staged the musical Man Better Man by professor Errol Hill, the first tenured African-American faculty member at Dartmouth. “Man Better Man was set in Trinidad, had a lot of voodoo and great music in it and featured professor Bill Cook as the Obeah man. Chip Shoemaker and Kyle Grimes were in it, along with many others whose names I have forgotten. The performances and cast party for that play were a welcome alternative to the frat row scene.”


Now to the present. From class president Dave Graham: “Seven of us had a wonderful chance to conduct a focus group with 19 current students for WOW78 (my sharing wisdom initiative). Michael Whitcomb, Chris Simpson Brent, Todd Baker, Scott Chronert, Dean Stephens, Doug Ireland ’77 and I had an engaging two-hour conversation about career planning, guidance and the role for alums like us. The students were engaging and engaged. You’ll be hearing a lot more about this in 2015.”


Finally, it is my sad duty to report that we lost another classmate last fall. Morris Gibbs passed away on October 28 in Kenosha, Wisconsin. Michael Glass, who saw Mo at a Sigma Nu Delta reunion just two days before he died, is one of many who mourn his passing. “Mo was a lifelong bachelor, but it would be wrong to think he left no family behind. Mo’s friends were his family and Mo’s family was quite large. It included many who knew Mo from childhood and those who met him along life’s path; in high school, at Dartmouth and during his long career at Hewlett-Packard. From his Wisconsin home he traveled to all parts of the country to visit his Dartmouth family. West Coast? Southeast? New England? No friend was too far for Mo to visit. He was exceptionally generous with the things he had to share, which were a huge heart, a deep well of kindness and the most precious of commodities, time.” What a lovely tribute.


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—Rick Beyer, 34 Outlook Drive, Lexington, MA 02421; rick@rickbeyer.net