As the fall trimester of our sophomore year began to wind down in November and December, our attention was divided among our coursework, the momentous events in the global arena and the giddy effects of the first undefeated football team since 1925. Most of us were trying to balance fraternity membership with the coursework that really counted in our majors. We were distracted by the aftermath of the Cuban Missile Crisis—even though we could not know for decades how near we came to nuclear war. United States forces returned to peacetime readiness conditions on November 20, when the Soviets agreed to remove their bombers from Cuba and the United States abandoned its “quarantine.” The elections that year had repercussions that still echo. George Romney upset the incumbent Michigan governor. Democrats controlled both houses of Congress as Teddy Kennedy was first elected to the Senate. Richard Nixon lost his California gubernatorial race to Pat Brown and declared that the press wouldn’t have Dick Nixon to kick around anymore.


On Thursday, November 8, recently re-elected New York Gov. Nelson Rockefeller ’30 gave the keynote address in a 10-day ceremony celebrating the opening of Hopkins Center. The program included a band concert and The Players’ production of Danton’s Death. The Hop, according to Ernest Martin Hopkins, class of 1901, provided the “stamp of the pure liberal arts college,” citing two critical needs for such an institution—a great library and a student center where all could meet and exchange ideas. The other place we congregated that fall was Memorial Field, as the football team won its final four games, shutting out Yale and Columbia, to finish the season 9-0. 


Ed Wynot is preserving his youth by teaching history at Florida State University and rooting for the Jacksonville Jaguars. After graduation Ed served in the Army before earning his Ph.D. in history at the University of Indiana. He moved to Tallahassee to teach Russian and East European history—he recently completed his 40th year at Florida State and has no plans to retire any time soon! He has two children, six grandchildren and a great-granddaughter! Ed is looking forward seeing our classmates at the 50th. 


Tom Sakmyster recently retired from a similarly productive and rewarding career, teaching the history of Eastern Europe, particularly Hungary, at the University of Cincinnati. His most recent book, A Communist Odyssey: The Life of József Pogány, came out in September. Tom reports that he is now turning to something completely different, serving as the official historian for a nearby Shaker village that is being restored. 


Not all ’65s are historians. A three-volume encyclopedic text on Infectious Diseases and Conditions, edited by Brad Hawley, has also been published this year. Brad makes the complex subject accessible to both medical professionals and laymen. 


Start now planning to join Ed Wynot and all our classmates at the 50th, June 12-14, 2015. Try to identify a classmate who would be an appropriate recipient of an honorary degree at Commencement during our reunion. 


Please send me a note about what you have been doing.


—Tom Long, 1056 Leigh Mill Road, Great Falls, VA 22066; (703) 759-4255; tomlong@erols.com