Class Note 1980

I’ve run into classmates in airports, supermarkets, on mountaintops and along unpaved country roads in the dead of night (don’t ask). I have bumped into members of our class at rodeos, in European museums and on the Hollywood studio set where they test contestants for Jeopardy. So at this point, nothing surprises me less or delights me more than hearing about other chance encounters.


For spring break Tom Ware and his family fled the frozen tundra of Wisconsin for a favorite resort destination in St. Croix. Once there, Tom’s son Thomas, scheduled to matriculate as a Dartmouth freshman this fall, regularly strolled the grounds wearing one of the several Dartmouth T-shirts he had brought along. One day a guest approached him: Was he a student there? It turns out the curious guest was none other than our own Regina Rehkamp Ketting. The chance encounter led to a reunion of sorts, with the two families meeting for a nice lunch on the beach and lots of talk about Dartmouth, past present and future.


It’s time to introduce a new column feature, “The ’80 List”: Albert Ellis, Bill Stewart, Joe Hunter, Tom Isaacson, George Morris, Bill Finnegan, John Toulmin, Grant MacEwan.


(What do these classmates have in common?)


For inspiration as you plan your summer, here’s a byline from Judi Byfield, who teaches African and Caribbean history at Cornell. Judi spent the first half of last summer attending a summit on global leadership at the University of the Free State in Bloemfontein, South Africa, that brought together students, administrators and faculty from across the world. This university is one of the historically white Afrikaner universities that trained those who maintained the apartheid state. Although its population has rapidly diversified since the end of apartheid, the administrators and students there are all too aware of the history and trauma that must still be overcome to undo the institutionalized racial inequality that defined South Africa’s history during the 20th century. Through her interactions with the students Judi gained a new, deeply personal perspective on how the dreams that many hold for the future exist side-by-side with the pains of the past and the frustrations that many harbor for the slowness of the changes they anticipated. While it was exhausting for Judi to watch these young people wrestle with these issues, she also found it energizing. And it made for a great “What I did last summer” story.


Claiming his classmate is “too modest” to ever mention it himself, Jake Eschen recently directed me to an article in the March issue of Plaintiff that profiles fellow northern California lawyer Mike Danko. The article highlights how and why Mike, at the midpoint of his career, left a successful practice at an international firm defending financial institutions to dive headlong into plaintiff’s trial law. It was a career move Mike had never imagined making, inspired by a single case he agreed to handle for a friend. The transition has been a better fit for Mike than originally expected. Who better than a psych major to get in a juror’s head? And Mike’s interest in science and engineering—how things work—has served him well in his area of specialization, aviation law. One suspects that the airplane and helicopter Mike flies are among the safest ever built.


—Frank Fesnak, 242 River Road, Gladwyne, PA 19035; (610) 581-8889; ffesnak@yahoo.com; Rob Daisley, 3201 W. Knights Ave., Tampa, FL 33611; (813) 300-7954; robdaisley@me.com