Class Note 1979
Issue
March - April 2024
Our 45th class reunion co-chairs Ken Beer (khbeer79@gmail.com) and Jennifer Hughes (tojhughes@gmail.com) want to hear from you. What would make the June 19-22, 2025, reunion special or meaningful? Would you volunteer before or during the event?
Donna Smyers shared her dream for our 50th: “The things I focused on at Dartmouth were useful but did not actually fit my true strengths. Dartmouth really is just preparation for what you discover later. After my A.B. in engineering with varsity letters in gymnastics followed by an M.S. at Thayer in 1987, I pretty much changed everything, becoming a physical therapist and triathlete.
“People wonder what engineering has to do with physical therapy (PT). Let’s see: I studied stress and strain, fatigue and fracture, aging, oxidation, chemistry of materials, and mechanical systems. Guess what physical therapy is about? Add in a little anatomy and a lot of psychology and you’ve got it! Now, after a 27-year PT career, I’ve pretty much retired and focus on my real passion—sports that make us require PT!
“Our class was one of the first to benefit from Title IX as we entered Dartmouth. In high school I did gymnastics, one of the few girls’ sports. I muscled through, but without the early choice of an endurance sport, it took until my 30s to discover that the longer the event, the more I liked doing it and the better my results. There were some early hints though. I have fond memories of jogging with Diana ‘Bug’ Lawrence around the Hanover-West Lebanon-Lebanon loop and other loops she designed, as I skipped classes I was supposedly auditing senior spring. And Carol Geig’s Boston qualifier senior year really inspired me. But as an overweight gymnast, I couldn’t imagine being a runner, other than to try to lose weight by running Little Rip or Big Rip loops. Finally, in the late 1990s, I discovered that I could excel, even winning my age group, at really long races such as the Ironman World Championships in Kona, Hawaii. The great thing about triathlon is that races have five-year age groups based on birth year, so in 2022 I went for it, winning our 65-69 female age group at Ironman in Kona and 70.3 (half Ironman) world championships in Utah. In 2023, while recovering from those 2022 long-distance races, I had a great time with sprint triathlons. I even managed to win the Super Sprint World Championships in Pontevedra, Spain. For those of you who think you would never be able to do a triathlon, the super sprint entailed a 300-yard swim, 4-mile bike, and 1-mile run. Yes, if you can swim at all, you can do a triathlon! How many are up for it at our 50th reunion? Many of my best friends were rowers, so let’s include a paddle or scull option as the ’79s establish a tradition with the first Dartmouth 50th reunion super sprint triathlon. We’ll all be in the 70-74 age group in 2029! I’ll organize it if you participate!”
—Janie Simms Hamner, 7327 Centenary Ave., Dallas, TX 75225; jshandkids@aol.com
Donna Smyers shared her dream for our 50th: “The things I focused on at Dartmouth were useful but did not actually fit my true strengths. Dartmouth really is just preparation for what you discover later. After my A.B. in engineering with varsity letters in gymnastics followed by an M.S. at Thayer in 1987, I pretty much changed everything, becoming a physical therapist and triathlete.
“People wonder what engineering has to do with physical therapy (PT). Let’s see: I studied stress and strain, fatigue and fracture, aging, oxidation, chemistry of materials, and mechanical systems. Guess what physical therapy is about? Add in a little anatomy and a lot of psychology and you’ve got it! Now, after a 27-year PT career, I’ve pretty much retired and focus on my real passion—sports that make us require PT!
“Our class was one of the first to benefit from Title IX as we entered Dartmouth. In high school I did gymnastics, one of the few girls’ sports. I muscled through, but without the early choice of an endurance sport, it took until my 30s to discover that the longer the event, the more I liked doing it and the better my results. There were some early hints though. I have fond memories of jogging with Diana ‘Bug’ Lawrence around the Hanover-West Lebanon-Lebanon loop and other loops she designed, as I skipped classes I was supposedly auditing senior spring. And Carol Geig’s Boston qualifier senior year really inspired me. But as an overweight gymnast, I couldn’t imagine being a runner, other than to try to lose weight by running Little Rip or Big Rip loops. Finally, in the late 1990s, I discovered that I could excel, even winning my age group, at really long races such as the Ironman World Championships in Kona, Hawaii. The great thing about triathlon is that races have five-year age groups based on birth year, so in 2022 I went for it, winning our 65-69 female age group at Ironman in Kona and 70.3 (half Ironman) world championships in Utah. In 2023, while recovering from those 2022 long-distance races, I had a great time with sprint triathlons. I even managed to win the Super Sprint World Championships in Pontevedra, Spain. For those of you who think you would never be able to do a triathlon, the super sprint entailed a 300-yard swim, 4-mile bike, and 1-mile run. Yes, if you can swim at all, you can do a triathlon! How many are up for it at our 50th reunion? Many of my best friends were rowers, so let’s include a paddle or scull option as the ’79s establish a tradition with the first Dartmouth 50th reunion super sprint triathlon. We’ll all be in the 70-74 age group in 2029! I’ll organize it if you participate!”
—Janie Simms Hamner, 7327 Centenary Ave., Dallas, TX 75225; jshandkids@aol.com