This installment of our Class Notes is being written in the afterglow of what was an amazing not-quite-20th reunion in Hanover this past weekend; that said, this column also bears the burden of coming on the heels of said very busy reunion and therefore I plead innocence in delivering a slightly abbreviated installment this go-around! I was able to catch up with so many ’96s while we were all “home” for a few days, and I promise to do justice to their life updates in our next set of notes. Instead this set of notes is dedicated to a changing of the guard that took place at reunion in order to give several individuals their due thanks for years of service. In concluding their terms this year our outgoing class president Kimberly Koontz Haring and outgoing vice president Lanea (Eschmeyer) Tripp complete 10 years of service specifically leading the class. Their decade in office has been marked with planning and executing two class reunions (no easy feat!), a regular influx of class and College issues met head-on and an ever-changing class communications landscape given the effective advent of social media after their election. All this and Kim also managed to lead the Dartmouth Club of Ohio and (after relocating her entire family mid-term to Miami) helped combine two Dartmouth clubs to create and lead the Dartmouth Club of South Florida; at the same time Lanea single-handedly led us to a massively successful 15th-year reunion in 2010. This dynamic duo has led us through half of our tenure as alumni and deserves an immense amount of gratitude for helping the great class of 1996 get to where it is today. We will miss their leadership and look forward to building upon the strong foundation they have helped establish for our future.

Stepping into Kim’s formidable shoes is one Justin Heather, who himself deserves a healthy heaping of accolades—having just organized and delivered upon our highly successful reunion this year. Justin and his reunion committee worked tirelessly and valiantly to ensure every last detail was seamlessly ironed out in preparation for everyone’s arrival; as anyone able to join us in Hanover can certainly attest, they managed to do so with a great deal of aplomb and made our 2015 reunion one for the record books! On the heels of a great class gathering (and, we hope, a long overdue nap!) Justin will take over the presidential reins and help lead us into our third decade of alumni-hood. As if he did not have enough on his plate, Justin was appointed in April by the governor of Illinois as the deputy director and general counsel for the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity; this appointment came after joining the Lopp Mathias Law Group as counsel in March and serving on the board of managers for the Chicago Bar Association for the past two years. We welcome his leadership for the next five years and thank him for putting together an incredible not-quite-20th reunion! To complete our executive board Shervyn von Hoerl and I will be staying on as treasurer and secretary, respectively, with Holly Parker returning to the executive committee as our newest vice president!

I look forward to everyone’s great tales from reunion (and would love updates from anyone not able to attend as well!). We will also be looking for a few great volunteers to help complete our full leadership committee, so look to our next few Evergreens and e-newsletters for areas in which you can help lead the class!

—Garrett Gil de Rubio, 1062 Middlebrooke Drive, Canton, GA 30115; ggdr@alum.dartmouth.org