Don Smith entered Dartmouth in March of 1944 and received his A.B. in 1948 and M.B.A. from Tuck in 1949. He served in the Air Force at Cape Canaveral during the Korean War. To improve his accounting background, he got another M.B.A. from the Stanford Graduate School of Business in 1954. His business career included stints with Standard Oil, Ford Motor Co., United Greenfield, Parker Pen Co. as secretary treasurer of Eversharp, and Xerox.


He retired in 1990, but has remained active politically and in fundraising in Los Angeles. He was appointed commissioner of cultural affairs by Republican Mayor Riordan, and subsequently appointed to two four-year terms, ending in 2015, as commissioner of the Los Angeles Convention and Exhibition Authority by Democratic Mayor Villaraigosa. Don enjoys traveling and is planning a three-week European tour this spring to include Paris, Zurich and northern Italy. His highlight last year was accepting a November invitation from the president and his wife to an “Evening of Country Music” in the East Room of the White House and a following reception in the State Dining Room. Don was one of the original contributors to our Hood Museum Space for Dialogue program. 


Our class treasurer, Foxy Parker, came to Dartmouth in November 1943 under the Navy V-12 program; went to preflight training in 1944; got his wings at Pensacola, Florida, in April 1946 (staying in the active reserve until 1966); returned to Hanover that summer and got his B.S. in 1948 and master’s from Thayer in 1949. He worked for three years at Grumman Aircraft and then joined the family business, the Bard Parker Co., that his father started in 1916 to manufacture surgical instruments. It was sold to Becton, Dickinson and Co. in 1957 and Foxy remained involved until retiring in 1995. Foxy and Helen, who celebrate their 60th anniversary this year, have two daughters and a granddaughter they visit outside of Vail, Colorado, giving Foxy a chance to exercise his expertise on freshly groomed (“otherwise forget it”) black diamonds. 


—Dave Kurr, 4281 Indian Field Road, Clinton, NY 13323; (315) 853-3582; djkurr@verizon.net