Co-Presidents: | Bill Higgins, 5360 Miami Road, Cincinnati, OH 45243 |
Steve Warhover, 33 William Fairfield Drive, Wenham, MA 01984 | |
Vice-President & Webmaster: | Chuck Sherman, 3100 Rittenhouse Street NW, Washington, DC 20015 |
Secretary: | Larry Geiger, 93 Greenridge Avenue, White Plains, NY 10605 |
Treasurer: | Jim Weiskopf, 13125 Willow Edge Court, Clifton, VA 20124 |
Head Agent: | Bob Spence, 16 Surrey Road, New Canaan, CT 06840 |
Bequest Chairmen: | Rich Daly, 5036 N. Creosote Canyon Drive, Tucson, AZ 85749 |
Steve Lanfer, 178 Sea Meadows Lane, Yarmouth, ME 04096 | |
Alan Rottenberg, 24 Gould Road, Waban, MA 02468 | |
Mini-Reunion Chairman: | Al Keiller, 85422 Dudley, Chapel Hill, NC 27514 |
Newsletter Editor & Alumni | Bob Serenbetz, PO Box 1127, Newtown, PA 18940 |
Council Rep: | Phone: 215-598-0262 Fax: 215-598-0770 |
Email:BobSerenbetz@prodigy.net | |
Class Website: | http://www.alum.dartmouth.org/classes/66 |
June-July 2004
60th Birthday
Party a Great Success
Eighty-five classmates, spouses,
and friends attended the 60th Birthday Bash in San Francisco, April 30 –
May 2. Most attendees from the
East and Midwest started arriving Thursday to acclimate to the time change and
do some independent sightseeing before the start of the �official�
program. Wayne and Kathy Locurto led Bill and Jane Higgins on a perimeter
�power-walk� from Union Square to the Embarcadero to Fisherman�s Wharf to Ghirardelli
Square and back, over Nob Hill and down through Chinatown. The power-walkers joined the more
sedentary Steve and Anne Warhover, Gary and Sharon Broughton, and Karen and me
for a delicious dinner at �Jacey at Jack�s�.
Friday morning started early for Erv and Chris Burkholder, Brad Stein, Dean Spatz, Mike Urbanic and me, as we
headed out as a �sixsome� to the Presidio Links. It was even earlier for Mike, who left Joyce with her cousin
in the South Bay, where they had spent the night, to take the BART up to Union
Square. While the course was a
little beat up, the views, with the early morning fog, were spectacular. Play was speedy enough to allow us to
get back in time for the first �scheduled� event. .
Ken and Ann Zuhr led fifty-three of
us from Union Square through the Tenderloin District to the new Asian Art
Museum, now housed in the old San Francisco Library, across from City
Hall. We split into three groups for a
guided tour of the facility, with its extensive collection of Indian, Japanese,
and Chinese art and artifacts.
Our one �cultural� event was
followed by the opening reception, organized and supplied by Walt Knoepfel and Roger
Brett, Chairman and �Co-Chairman� of the weekend. Housed in the upstairs mezzanine of the Chancellor Hotel, it
provided a meeting place for us all throughout most of the event, with plenty
of wine, beer and snacks to keep us going. Roger and Korki did a fabulous job putting together a
�welcome bag� of goodies, including �Two Buck Chuck� wine, sourdough bread, Ghirardelli
chocolates, and assorted other goodies, all contained in a canvas bag with logo
designed by Chuck Sherman.
Reunion organizers made group
reservations at a number of local eateries, so while fourteen �66ers went to
the �Beach Blanket Babylon� Early Show, the vast majority went to dinner in
groups and met up in North Beach for the �Beach Blanket Babylon� 10 PM Show.
This revue has been running for many, many years, but stays fresh with new
satirical skits based on current celebrities. The costumes, including huge decorative hats, were most
memorable.
Roger Brett had spent a significant
amount of time planning the Saturday morning trip to Napa�and it went like
clock-work! After a continental
breakfast at the hotel, all attendees split up into two buses (which came to be
known as the big, air-conditioned bus with Roger and Korki� and the little,
air-conditioning failed bus with Walt and Murni Knoepfel) and were treated to
coffee and Danish for the ride north.
Our first stop was at Domaine Chandon in Yountville (for a champagne
liquid breakfast), followed by a wine tasting and a delicious outdoor lunch at
V. Sattui in St. Helena, overlooking the vineyards. Our afternoon visit was to the Francis Ford Coppola winery
in Oakville, with a private tasting, and time to visit Coppola�s Motion Picture
Museum on the site. Bob McAuley drove in from Sacramento to schmooze with the rest of us, if only for a few hours in the vineyards. The return
trip took the group down the Marin Peninsula and over the Golden Gate Bridge.
After a short time to deposit wine
purchases in our rooms and freshen up, our next stop was the North Beach
restaurant to celebrate �officially� our 60th birthdays, including a
�Class of 1966� birthday cake.
Joining us for the dinner were several northern California classmates
and friends, including Harold and Judith Stoddard, Rod Page and Grace Brown, Jim and Jennifer Makol, David Gordon and Lucia Heldt, Allan and Gwen Anderson, and Bill Reilly
�67 and wife Diane.
The last official event of the
weekend was a farewell brunch held in the Carnelian Room at the top of the Bank
of America Tower, affording 360 degree views of the city and the Bay Area. A small group headed out to SBC Park
(formerly known as PacBell Park) to watch the Giants beat the world champion
Florida Marlins in the 13th inning on an intentional walk to Barry
Bonds, who later scored. Wearing
my Yankees cap, I tried hard to restrain myself from making snide remarks to
Mary (Mike�s wife) McConnell, who had the gall to wear a Boston Red
Sox cap!! This was, of course,
shortly after the Red Sox had beaten the Yankees in six of seven April
games.
Besides the folks mentioned above,
the final list of attendees included: Rich and Judy Abraham, Bob and Jenene Bach, Jack Bennett and Liz Callison,
Halsey and Isabel Bullen, Margie Carpenter, Rich and Mary Daly, Jeff and Penny Gilbert, Don and Margot Graves, John and Nancy Hargraves, Wayne and Weetie Hill, Tom and Judy Hoober, Bill and Nancy Hobson, John Hughes, Ed and Paula Jereb, William Koelsch and Amanda
Gooden, Rock and Jenny Ley, Jim and Elizabeth Lustenader, Alan and Debbie Rottenberg, Carol Spatz, Bob and Linda Spence, Dave and Mary Spring, Jack and Nancy Stebe, Mary Stein, Tom and Barbara Steinmetz,
Tim
and Toni Urban, and Jack
Young and Kathy O�Sullivan.
All of us who attended are indebted
to the hard work and outstanding organization and procurement talents of
Reunion Chairman Walt Knoepfel and his team of Roger Brett and Ken Zuhr. Several rounds of snaps and
�wah-hoo-wahs� for these classmates.
News from Classmates
Several of the attendees stayed on
after the weekend for more sightseeing or to see friends and relatives. Ed and Paula Jereb visited their
daughter and son-in-law in the Pacific Northwest, while Bob and Linda Spence visited Linda�s
parents and siblings in the Bay area.
Alan and Debbie Rottenberg journeyed north to Sonoma County
for more winery visits.
Bob Bach wrote, �Monday,
our friends at Avis had a car ready and we found our way to the Presidio for
yet more sightseeing. Then down
the coast to half moon Bay to see the elephant seals, participate in yet more
wine tastings, and enjoy two restaurants we had learned of in our research.�
The reunion gave us all an
opportunity to get caught up with �news� from a number of classmates. Winning the prize, I think, for longest
trip to the reunion were Rock and Jenny Ley, who are still
living in Honolulu, where Rock is a lawyer defending insurance companies and
�self-insured� corporations in workmen�s compensation suits. Jenny is a doctor of internal medicine
and teaches residents at the University of Hawaii Medical School.
John Hughes came to the
reunion solo, as Nancy was unable to get time off from her teaching job in
Minnesota. The Hughes are in the
process of building a new home in Western North Carolina, where they will
someday be neighbors with Bob and Karen Serenbetz, who recently
bought land in Cashiers, NC.
Other new home owners include Jim and Elizabeth Lustenader, who had just
sold their home in Princeton prior to the reunion and have subsequently bought
a home in Bonita Bay, about ten miles north of Naples, FL, where they will be
neighbors of Mike and Joyce Urbanic, who are in the midst of gaining
approvals for a renovation of their Naples residence.
Roger and Korki Brett are being honored
for their community service by the city of Oakland! Brett Park will soon be inaugurated by the Mayor. Congratulations, Roger and Korki, on
this recognition of your unselfish work..
Erv Burkholder has joined
StreamCenter, a web-based streaming video company, as CFO. The company provides webcasts of professional education material to members of
professional/trade organizations that are unable to attend their association's
conference. Chairman of
StreamCenter is John Rollins (see
below).
Jim Makol continues as a
pediatrician in Sacramento, where he spends most of his time in hospital
administration with Kaiser Permanente.
Harold Stoddard is a quality
assurance inspector for the Social Security Administration, reviewing
disability insurance cases. Judith
works in an after-school program for five year olds.
I
received a number of notes from classmates unable to attend the reunion. John Rollins writes, �Sorry to miss the big 60th in San Francisco.
Anne and I were vacationing in Italy after my semester at George Washington U
ended. Last night I celebrated my own 60th with Mead Over, Erv Burkholder and Chuck Sherman
among those partying. This fall
I'll start my fourth year of teaching the Entrepreneurship course at GWU�s
School of Business. Also, I'm still helping start new businesses.
My most recent is StreamCenter, where I serve as Chairman. The
pay-per-view webcasts help nonprofit associations generate much-needed revenue
and enable the members to maintain their professional certifications without
the hassle of traveling. As you will recall, associations were the
customers for my enterprise software for the 30 years I served as president of
AZTECH Software.�
Tony
Yezer wrote, �I had really hoped to make
the birthday party. Unfortunately,
in January it snowed in DC and, for the first time in recent memory, George
Washington U shut down. The
consequence was that dates were added to the academic calendar. Given that this is the end of the semester,
and faculty at private universities are expected to show up for classes, etc.,
I just can�t get away. I hope all
attendees enjoy swapping lies about the good old days.�
Our Class Reunion Chair Al
Keiller was unable to make San Francisco as a result of an illness in the
family. Al and Jo are in the
process of building a new home in Windsor, VT and preparing for daughter Mary
Beth �93�s wedding in October.
Congratulations to Al for being named to the Board of Trustees of the
Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center, the combination of Mary Hitchcock Hospital
and the Hitchcock Clinic.
Peter Lake, a disgruntled
former Californian who now runs Lake Real Estate in Marblehead, MA, writes,
�Wish I could be in SF this weekend, since May 5 really is my 60th
birthday. However, after having
lived 26 years in California the last thing I need is to go back to that
hell-hole. It was fun while it lasted but the state�s got too many people for
me to enjoy it.� Peter can be reached at PALake@comcast.net.
In addition to emails, I appreciate
the number of green cards that have been sent with your news and that of other
classmates. Roger Brett noted an
article in the May 23 Oakland Tribune crediting Skip Battle with saving
internet search engine Ask Jeeves, where he is now Executive Chairman, and
discussing his career and involvement with other East Bay technology companies,
including PeopleSoft, Barra, and Fair Isaac, all of which he serves as a
Director.
From Des Moines Tim Urban writes, �My
company, Urban Development Corp, and I were selected as a regional finalist for
a 2004 Ernst and Young Entrepreneurs of the Year Award. We are about to break ground on a $40
million mixed-use �New Urbanite� Town Center project called West Glen (see
description at webudc.com).�
Congratulations, Tim, on a tremendous honor!
Received an email from Frank
Parker, who, like many of us, has changed his email address to avoid
spam. Frank is still practicing
medicine at Metro Anesthesia Consultants in Phoenix and invites all our class
transplants from the East to use Frank as a medical resource. Contact Frank at flparkermdpc@msn.com.
Also changing email addresses is
another class doc, Rich Kaiser: �I�m retiring from my solo practice of
General Surgery this Friday, June 25.
Figure I�d upgrade to broadband with all the extra free time I�ll have
for web surfing, as well as golf.�
Rich now gets email at rkaiser66@comcast.net.
Anther recent retiree is Eric
Waples, who notes, �Just retired�moving from Washington, DC area to 1519
Raven Circle, Unit H, Estes Park, CO.
Married Sue, my freshman year Carnival date, in 1996. We welcome visitors, who can call us at
970-577-1827.� Eric�s email address is ewaples1@aol.com.
Also welcoming guests is Bill
Cooper: �We�ve finally taken the path of least resistance and retired to a
country town (Scottsville) about � hour south of Charlottesville, VA. Anyone who�s up for Thomas Jefferson or
towns of 500 will be welcome.� You
can call Bill at 434-286-2888 or email at wlcoop@earthlink.net.
Ned Pratt has moved from
Troy to Waterford, NY. Classmates
can reach Ned at nedpratt66@aol.com.
Mike Masin has joined O�Melueny & Myers, LLP at 7 Times Square;
email is mmasin@omni.com.
Tom Louis writes, �Got
married on June 19 to Germaine Buck with our children, siblings and friends
cheering us on. Complete
joy!� Tom is now living in
Potomac, MD; send congratulations c/o tlouis@jhsph.edu.
On the other side of the marriage
spectrum, Peter Dorsen sends his latest news: �Divorce was always something that happened to the other
guy. Now it�s me and the wife of
21 years expelled me. It�s like
those rams fighting it out for the mate and I lost. So I bought a duplex, (1890 vintage) moved into it, and
began a renovation, moving up a floor as I cleared out the crap above. What am I? A liberal who has been mugged. My place in the inner city has been a rapid tour of crack users
and ghetto mentality. BUT, my
practice has begun to click with my niches in pain control and addiction
medicine. No new book yet. The work on the duplex has got me in
good shape, pony tail and all.�
Finally, recent news from Tripp
Miller: �Jeannette and I will be celebrating our 37th wedding
anniversary in December. We
recently returned from a fascinating two week visit to Turkey. During the first week, we toured the
ruins along the Aegean and then we spent the weekend in Istanbul. Since we covered only eight or nine of
the civilizations that have left their marks on Anatolia, we will definitely be
returning to Turkey in the near future.
Jeannette is still a medical research scientist at NYU and I am still
with Business Week.�
Alumni Council Meeting
From May 20-22, Noel Fidel, Tim Urban and I attended
the 188th meeting of the Dartmouth Alumni Council. You may recall that following the
previous meeting in December 2003, the Association of Alumni voted down
amendments to its constitution, which would have stream-lined alumni
governance, while giving more Council representation to the classes and
electing at-large reps from the entire Alumni body. A seven member task force has been established to address
concerns regarding the resulting increase in power of the Council and bring a
revised set of amendments/ideas to the Council this coming December.
The Council was split into three
breakout groups to review alumni communication. It was felt that communications to alumni could be
streamlined, given the number of publications and electronic communications
that are sent to alumni, with the Alumni magazine playing a greater role as the
cornerstone vehicle. Communication
from alumni to the Council and the College at large has been limited and should
be more actively solicited. Suggestions
to improve the effectiveness of the council included expanding the size of
committees by allowing each member to serve on two committees and improving the
orientation program for new councilors.
The Undergraduate Report was, as
usual, lively and interesting. One
report highlighted the growth of sororities on campus and the resulting problem
that some have more than one hundred members. The Board of Trustees, as part of the Student Life
Initiative, placed a moratorium on the establishment of new Greek
organizations, which the sorority organization would like to see reversed. Another student expressed the need for
an Asian American Studies minor.
The Academic Honor Principle was reviewed, including statistics on the
number of cases adjudicated (quite small). Finally, a departing senior raised issues that he hopes the
College
will address in the future:
over-priced dining options (some things never change!), the convolution of
rules and procedures, poor guidance (both career and for post-graduate
studies), and the amount of fees for new grads, including class and club
membership dues.
Ann Duffy �77 gave an excellent
report on the Dartmouth Alumni Magazine Business Model Taskforce (or
DAMBMT!!). Highlights of the
recommendations include bringing back to the rolls dropped classmates, at no cost
to the classes, for one year, expanding circulation by soliciting subscriptions
from parents and graduate school alums, building an independent fund-raising
effort (similar to the Harvard model and Dartmouth Friends of � solicitations),
increase the College subsidy to the Magazine, increase advertising potential by
a new rate-base based on higher circulation, review the Magazine�s business
operations and establish a mission statement and strategic plan, and develop
reader feedback mechanisms. This plan
was to be presented to the Trustees and hopefully will be implemented in its
entirety.
Trustee Karen Francis �84 gave the
Board of Trustees report, which centered on student issues under review,
including maintaining the focus on teaching, the Greek system, student stress,
housing, and diversity (how the College can embrace diversity, yet encourage
togetherness).
After Alumni Council Committee
meetings, representatives had the afternoon to view a French film entitled
�Almost Peaceful�, tour the Rauner Special Collections Library, or tour residence
halls and Greek houses. Tim and I
chose the latter, particularly given our membership on the Student Life
Committee, and found the tour interesting, but somewhat �staged�, with
pre-planned visits to a sorority now housed in what had been DU, then Foley
House, the Latin American Studies House, and the new dorms across the street
from the gymnasium. The rooms were
in great shape, as the College has invested heavily in modernizing the old
buildings, but we would have preferred to make �surprise� visits to, say, Bones
Gate and Hitchcock!
The meeting concluded with a
presentation on the new capital campaign (�Campaign for the Dartmouth
Experience�) and a panel discussion led by President Wright and his senior
administrators, including Stan Colla.
A highlight of the weekend was a
�Lobster Bake� with the Class of 2004, introducing them to the Council and
alumni governance. All councilors
have requested that this event be repeated at every Spring meeting.
Mini-Reunion Schedule
Plans for the Fall Mini-Reunion are
being finalized by Al Keiller.
A sign-up sheet is available on this web site. Just click here.
You will also note on the
News/Events page that Tim Urban has again offered his home in Winter Park for a
ski weekend in March 2005. Further
details will be included in the next issue.