Bob Ringstad and Bart Lombardi’s annual early fall luncheon for New York City area classmates came off in fine fashion in September, attended by George Davis, Fred Forni, Cyril Gsell, Bill Guggisberg, George Howard, Dick Lathrop, Larry Newman, Ken Roman, Jim Rosenfeld, John Rosenwald, Larry Stern and Dr. Harry Wachen, along with Bob, Bart and out-of-towners class president Dorn McGrath,mini-reunion chairman Vic Trautwein and me. A fuller report of the proceedings, along with photographs, will appear (or by now may have already appeared) in Bill Montgomery’s newsletter.


Toward the end of the gathering, last spring’s thrilling victory of Dartmouth’s seven-man rugby team over powerhouse Army in the finals of the 2011 National Tournament held in Chester, Pennsylvania, came up. Ken Roman stated his belief that rugby had returned to the Dartmouth campus during our undergraduate days and that 1952 classmates, including particularly Alan Reich,had been at the core of the effort. I undertook to look into the matter, based upon a consensus of those present that if the class’ participation in rugby’s revival had been significant, some commemoration of that fact might be appropriate at our 60th reunion.


So far I have learned that rugby was indeed reestablished at Dartmouth in the spring of 1951. (Rugby as an intercollegiate sport had been replaced in the latter part of the 19th century by football.) The initial idea was to field a team in Bermuda during spring break to compete in a tournament that until then had been the exclusive domain of Harvard and Yale. The 1952 teammates identified so far are Vince Jones, Cliff Fitzgerald and Bob Herr,along with Al, who served as a co-coach, no doubt because he had previously played the game during a year spent in prep school in England prior to matriculation at Dartmouth. So that we can complete the picture, e-mail or phone me if you were on the pioneering team or know of others who were.


As 2012 is upon us, a happy New Year to all, and a reminder that reunion is less than half a year away, June 11-14.


—Dave Drexler, 100 Waters Edge Dr., Jupiter, FL 33477; (561) 747-3874; dave@drexler.com