Class Note 1980
In 1996 we held a family reunion at the Greenbrier, a gracious old resort in West Virginia’s Allegheny Mountains. Our visit came shortly after the Washington Post exposed a decades-old secret. Back in 1958—the year most of us were born—Congress authorized the construction of a top-secret emergency relocation facility for its members. Completed in 1961 and designed to hold 1,100 people, this Cold War fallout shelter had been carved deep into the mountainside, nearly a thousand feet beneath the resort. For more than 30 years the shelter was maintained in a constant state of readiness by a small group of government employees working undercover. Cover blown, the government immediately declassified the facility and opened it to the public. When I visited, guided tours had just begun.
As I gazed in disbelief at the cavernous underground dormitories, conference rooms and legislative chambers, I thought, “If members of Congress were the only people left on the planet, would they have the skills to survive? And for whom would they be making laws?” I decided then and there that the facility might better serve a more worthy and diversely talented group of roughly one thousand: our class of 1980. I envisioned it as a more inclusive and less frivolous Sphinx-on-steroids. Our group would include a comparable number of lawyers but far more engineers, educators, artists, doctors and entrepreneurs. And we’d have those mad living-off-the-grid skills of Derek Brown.
As survivors, we could build on our shared histories. I recently heard some good news from high school and Dartmouth classmate Keith Pickholz about another hometown friend Bob Berlinger. After winning the Eleanor Frost Award for playwriting as a senior at Dartmouth, Bob went west, as graduates of New York’s Horace Greeley High School are programmed to do. After completing his graduate work at the University of California San Diego (UCSD) Bob embarked on his successful career as a television director. Those of you who don’t jump through the credits have probably seen Bob’s name attached to episodes of Grey’s Anatomy, Arrested Development, Two and a Half Men, The West Wing and other critically acclaimed shows. Talent runs in Bob’s family: brother Joe makes award-winning documentaries. This spring Bob was recognized as one of UCSD’s Fifty Most Distinguished Alumni at the school’s 50th anniversary alumni weekend. One of the 50 best out of nearly 150,000 living graduates—well done, Bob!
I recently had the pleasure of reconnecting with Sam Walker. Sam, his wife, Tamela, and their two grown daughters live in Atlanta. During working hours Sam stays busy as the general manager of an environmental engineering and specialty distribution company and the senior executive responsible for sales and marketing at a management consulting firm. He somehow manages to carve out time for his true love, sports. Sam not only plays the usual round of golf but also plays baseball in a senior men’s baseball league. And if that wasn’t enough, Sam has been coaching football for various public and private schools every year since moving to the Southeast, where football is king and the competition is fierce. Can Sam maintain this level of activity? His recent hip replacement—made possible by a referral from Atlanta-based orthopedic surgeon Drew Miller—has only made him stronger.
—Frank Fesnak, 111 Arbor Place, Bryn Mawr, PA 19010; (610) 581-8889; ffesnak@yahoo.com; Rob Daisley, 3201 W. Knights Ave., Tampa, FL 33611; (813) 300-7954; robdaisley@mc.com
