Class Note 1965

After Dartmouth Night and a great bonfire, we learned about not letting the “Old Traditions Fail” from Thad Seymour and began to feel like veterans. We were not so hardened that we were not worried about our first round of finals. The football team finished its 6-3 season and our freshman team ended the year 3-3—including a shutout over Harvard. We headed home, changed forever, to be welcomed back “from the Ivy League” by friends we left behind. We tend to focus on these good old days and, for most of us, they were truly very good. It’s hard now to remember how much things were changing. The world outside of Hanover was, however, very much in turmoil. It was only on November 1, 1961, that the federal ban on segregation on public facilities involved in interstate commerce became effective. On November 14 The New York Times reported that “the quiet, tropical capital of South Vietnam” was suddenly teeming with American officers—it was okay, because U.S. spokesmen insisted it was only coincidence that so many military men arrived so soon after General Maxwell Taylor’s visit to the region. JFK, acting on a recommendation from Taylor and Walt Rostow increased to 3,205 (from about 900 at the end of 1960) the number of U.S. troops acting as “advisors” in a burgeoning conflict most of us did not know was going on. Appropriately enough, Joseph Heller’s Catch-22 was published on November 10, giving us an expression that the language had needed.


Asserting that “the only crime of Galileo” was that the class of ’65 had been assigned to read it before getting to Hanover, Harvey Welker recently said it almost caused him to head for Ohio State. However, he saw the light and even went on to get his engineering degree at Thayer. After a successful stint in big business, Harvey set up his own consulting firm in Philadelphia about 13 years ago. He “actually started [his] career in engineering” when most were retiring. He now finds his work better than ever and has no plans to retire. He and Juliet celebrated their 41st wedding anniversary in June. He believes his family’s greatest accomplishment has been their daughter Kristen Welker. He suggests that we catch her on the NBC nightly news, where she reports on the workings of our government from Washington, D.C.


John Rogers has also moved on to more enjoyable pursuits. He and Bev have returned to Golden Valley, Minnesota. He retired as president and CEO of a firm that uses genetic technologies to improve the environment to “move on to the next phase.” In John’s words that means music, speaking and writing. As he said, “For the last 40-plus years I’ve been using that graduate degree for which Dartmouth prepared me so well. Now I’d like to exercise the Dartmouth degree in English a little.” During August he played acoustic blues, ballads and rags sets in the Twin Cities and his son James (Jimmy Rogers of God Johnson) sat in. Check out John’s website at www.goodoldblues.com.


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