Class Note 1991
In case you didn’t know, Dartmouth played a key role in the recent landing of the rover Curiosity on Mars. In the early morning hours of Monday, August 6, classmate R. Aileen Yingst was right at the center of the successful landing mission, observing from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. Aileen is the deputy principal investigator for the Curiosity mission’s Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) camera, and she was among the hundreds of scientists gathered to witness the historic event. Now Aileen is living out in Pasadena on Mars time for 90 Martian days (a Martian day is about 37 minutes longer than an Earth day) as she and her colleagues examine the pictures from MAHLI to determine the characteristics of the individual grains that make up the rocks on Mars. When she isn’t busy monitoring missions to Mars, Aileen is a senior scientist at the Planetary Science Institute, where her research focuses on the surface composition of Mars and the interior workings of the Moon. She is also director of NASA’s Wisconsin Space Grant Consortium. Aileen lives in Sobieski, Wisconsin, with her husband, Ross Nova ’93, and their children Joshua and Rebecca.
Ironically, another classmate of ours actually calls Mars home—Mars, Pennsylvania, that is. Back in the country after living in Germany for a few years, it was great to catch up with Donna (Soave) Weber at reunion. Donna is living just outside of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, with her husband, Markus, and their two children, and it was great to see her again and get caught up. Not surprisingly, she has already become active with the board of the local Dartmouth alumni club, as well as the Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre. Donna extolled the many cultural and academic virtues of Pittsburgh—she wants visitors!
In this issue I also want to highlight a few more outstanding business items from our fantastic reunion in June. According to our class reunion giving committee (Steve McKenna, Gregg Lemkau, Dave Cogar, Jim Lucier, Robin Reynolds, Molly Aube, Rich Aube and Mike Lazar), we raised an exceptional amount of money for the Dartmouth College Fund! “Sincere thanks on behalf of the College and the class to all of you who contributed this past year to the Dartmouth College Fund. The class of ’91 stepped up and raised an extraordinary $1.4 million with 50-percent participation in honor of our 20th reunion. We nearly broke the all-time record for a 20th reunion. Congratulations to all!” Finally, at reunion we elected a new slate of officers: president, Scott Magrath; treasurer, Karin Jonas; secretary, Sara Burbine Potter; newsletter editor and Alumni Council representative (three-year term), John Pepper; head agent, Steve McKenna; and webmaster, Kristy Bronner. Congrats to all of our new officers!
I will be heading up to Hanover at the end of October for Homecoming (October 26-28)—this year Harvard will be the opponent in football and many of the weekend’s other athletic events. The following weekend (November 1-3) I will join our class representative John Pepper back in Hanover for Alumni Council, where I will begin my three-year term representing the Dartmouth Club Officers Association. Maybe I will bump into some of you on campus!
—Sara Burbine Potter, 108 Hillcrest Road, Fairfield, CT 06824; sara_burbine@yahoo.com
