Class Note 1965
Issue
Sept - Oct 2015
The 50th reunion has come and gone, completed with dispatch through the efforts of many. More than 200 classmates, spouses and friends made it memorable. Many deserve kudos for its smooth execution: Steve Fowler, Mike Bettman and Roger Hansen, certainly, for guiding the ship; Stu Keiller, Dave Beattie, Mike Gonnerman and Ed Keible for the Class of ’65 Bunkhouse project (article at http://alumni.dartmouth.edu/news.aspx?id=609); the many panel organizers and contributors; Steve Waterhouse for the Passion for Skiing project; and Jim Griffiths for assembling the ’65 Friday night band.
I approached the reunion with some trepidation, remembering the elderly gentlemen rocking on the front porch of the Hanover Inn back in 1965, dozing between events of their 50th reunion. What would we be like?
I shouldn’t have worried. I left the reunion rejuvenated by the breadth of interest and activity of the class of ’65. Many of us are “retired,” but the word is foreign to us. We are emeritus lawyers, doctors, teachers. We are volunteers, pursuers of new directions in life, activists. My Dartmouth experience has given me my next venture as a writer. John Sloan Dickey told The Atlantic in 1955 that the purpose of the liberal education is to see undergraduates “made whole in both competence and conscience.” He would have been pleased to see that purpose played out at our 50th.
Then there was the place itself, a beautiful campus whose buildings so artfully blend tradition and modernity. The McLaughlin cluster, where many of us stayed, reassured us that Dartmouth’s draw is the promise of a fine education, not creature comforts. Lou’s catered breakfasts reminded those of us willing to arise at the crack of dawn (before the coffee was gone) that it’s still possible to ingest several days’ worth of fat and sugar in one glorious, sybaritic experience.
For me, a faraway Midwesterner, seeing friends from freshman year Brown Hall—Steve Shaul, Lynne and Carl Seager, John Ferdico and Barbara and Kris Greene—for the first time since graduation was a pleasure.
The weekend was full, covering a broad scope of classmates’ activities and passions: Panels explored the arts, the Vietnam experience, who we were and are now, social justice and the technology that has changed our world. Those who attended, go to www.biggreen65.com before memories fade, select “Repeatable Narratives,” and give us your thoughts on the reunion. And mark your calendar for the mini-reunion October 9-11.
Following the three-hour band gig on Friday night, I…uh…slept a little late for the class meeting. Possibly as a result, I’ll be taking over Tom Long’s job as secretary. Filling Tom’s size 18s will not be easy and I will need a lot of help. Let me know what you’re doing today and perhaps a little about how it relates to your undergraduate experience. Email me at johnbairdrogers@comcast.net or call me at (763) 568-7501. If you only have time for 140 characters, tweet me @johnrootsmusic.
—John Rogers, 6051 Laurel Ave., #310, Golden Valley, MN 55416; (763) 568-7501; john.b.rogers.65@dartmouth.edu
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More of 1965 Class Notes
I approached the reunion with some trepidation, remembering the elderly gentlemen rocking on the front porch of the Hanover Inn back in 1965, dozing between events of their 50th reunion. What would we be like?
I shouldn’t have worried. I left the reunion rejuvenated by the breadth of interest and activity of the class of ’65. Many of us are “retired,” but the word is foreign to us. We are emeritus lawyers, doctors, teachers. We are volunteers, pursuers of new directions in life, activists. My Dartmouth experience has given me my next venture as a writer. John Sloan Dickey told The Atlantic in 1955 that the purpose of the liberal education is to see undergraduates “made whole in both competence and conscience.” He would have been pleased to see that purpose played out at our 50th.
Then there was the place itself, a beautiful campus whose buildings so artfully blend tradition and modernity. The McLaughlin cluster, where many of us stayed, reassured us that Dartmouth’s draw is the promise of a fine education, not creature comforts. Lou’s catered breakfasts reminded those of us willing to arise at the crack of dawn (before the coffee was gone) that it’s still possible to ingest several days’ worth of fat and sugar in one glorious, sybaritic experience.
For me, a faraway Midwesterner, seeing friends from freshman year Brown Hall—Steve Shaul, Lynne and Carl Seager, John Ferdico and Barbara and Kris Greene—for the first time since graduation was a pleasure.
The weekend was full, covering a broad scope of classmates’ activities and passions: Panels explored the arts, the Vietnam experience, who we were and are now, social justice and the technology that has changed our world. Those who attended, go to www.biggreen65.com before memories fade, select “Repeatable Narratives,” and give us your thoughts on the reunion. And mark your calendar for the mini-reunion October 9-11.
Following the three-hour band gig on Friday night, I…uh…slept a little late for the class meeting. Possibly as a result, I’ll be taking over Tom Long’s job as secretary. Filling Tom’s size 18s will not be easy and I will need a lot of help. Let me know what you’re doing today and perhaps a little about how it relates to your undergraduate experience. Email me at johnbairdrogers@comcast.net or call me at (763) 568-7501. If you only have time for 140 characters, tweet me @johnrootsmusic.
—John Rogers, 6051 Laurel Ave., #310, Golden Valley, MN 55416; (763) 568-7501; john.b.rogers.65@dartmouth.edu