Class Notes September 2004

The largest single gift ever given Dartmouth by a member of our class recently came from BARRY MACLEAN -- $15 million for the construction of the new MacLean Engineering Science Center at the Thayer School, which Barry served on the Board of Trustees for 30 years.

Groundbreaking will be about the time this note reaches our homes, and the new center will be ready for both undergraduate and graduate engineering students in a year and a half. It will greatly enhance engineering edcuation at Dartmouth.

"I'm doing this because I really believe in what Thayer does," Barry told me. And he noted that his mother, Dorothy Jean MacLean, had previously made a major gift to the school to support a program that brings Smith students to Dartmouth to study engineering. So the MacLean family through two generations has been a great benefactor to Thayer.

Barry's gift was, of course, the subject of a proud Dartmouth press release and is known throughout the nation.

I should also contritely admit that I must have underestimated Barry's financial worth when, in a classnote expressing thanks for the gala party he gave for last year's Chicago class reunion, I remarked that his and Mary Ann's penthouse apartment where the party was held indicated just how well modestly prosperous Chicagoans are able to live. The gift to Dartmouth in all likelihood indicates he is more than just modestly prosperous.

Our classmate JON MEYER, an associate professor of psychiatry at John Hopkins University, has been elected to a two-year term as president of the American Psychoanalytic Assn.

BOB HAGER, a national correspondent for NBC, will retire this fall and move from Washington, DC, to his and Honore's property in Woodstock, Vt., the latest of many '60s to become a permanent resident of the Hanover area.

JIM and Brooke ADLER have returned from a trip to France, to Grasse and Paris, celebrating their 40th wedding anniversary.
Just as last year, class president Rick Roesch informs me that at our annual minireunion, Oct. 8-11, in Hanover, we will hold a discussion of the book assigned to all incoming freshmen this fall -- "Refuge-- An Unnatural History of Family and Place," by Terry Tempest Williams. This book is published by Vintage and is available in both hardcover and paperback in bookstores and online. The Dartmouth academician who assigned the book will be on hand to discuss it with us. Last year, many of us did read the book assigned and it enhanced our minireuion.

Our 45th Class Reunion will be held June 13-16, 2005 and those with ideas for what activities should be included are invited to contact DICK CHASE or BILL GUNDY, the reunion co-chairs, with suggestions. Notes can be sent to Dick at P.O. Box 238, Elkins, NH 03233-0238, or to Bill at P.O. Box 2394, New London, NH 03297.

Please note that having retired from the Los Angeles Times I now have a new e-mail address.
--KEN REICH, 5522 Nagle Ave., Van Nuys, CA., phone 818-994-9231, e-mail kennethireich@yahoo.com