CLASS NOTESSeptember-October 2010

   Joe Barker, is the very model of a modern 21st-century gentleman. He's built a successful real estate business in Nashville, Tennessee. Very mid-19th-century you might say, and he's founded a software company and is taking it public. Very late 20th-century. But the kicker is, while Joe and wife Judy went off this spring on a seven-week trip that started in Bangkok and wound its way through Myanmar, Laos, Cambodia, Southern China and Vietnam, he was in constant touch with his business interests and partners around the world. Very 21st-century, 10 years in. "My office is wherever I am," Joe explains. "My computer is my Blackberry and my window to the world beyond my immediate environment."

Another classmate still on the cutting edge is Dean Anderson, who co-founded a venture in 2004 that is now SunLink Corp., the leader in designing systems for placing solar electricity arrays on flat roofs and flat ground. (How did he know?) Dean is director of market development. "As long as I have enough energy I will want to stay involved." Dean reports. Dean is also continuing to recover from a leg injury received while kiteboarding in 2003, and after 10 operations and a self-designed rehabilitation program he's well enough to race his 14-foot trimaran sailboat on San Francisco Bay most weekends.

Bob Watson spent three years in the Army before graduating with the class of 1969. He went on to earn an M.A. and Ph.D. in geography at Penn State where he met and married his wife, Mary, a New Zealander, in 1972. They moved to Wellington, New Zealand, for two years and they've been there ever since. Bob worked in the auditing and computer systems areas for the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries, the Housing Corp. of New Zealand and the Bank of New Zealand. Now retired, he's working with small nonprofits and hiking in New Zealand and Australia.

Parker Smith is still practicing trial law in state and federal courts in Florida, "now for 40-plus years, trying to get it right." Parker and Gayle have been raising their 6-year-old granddaughter Jordyn for almost four years. "A challenge," Parker admits, (especially at my age." (Parker doesn't seem old to the rest of us, does he?)

Peter Dorsen, still an avid cross-country skier, is about to begin teaching two courses at the Academy of Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine. Pete is enjoying life with Dinah, his Kenyan wife, and two of her children. (There's a sitcom plot somewhere in there!)

New grandfathers: Class president Chuck Sherman welcomed Freya Grace Webb in April, born to daughter Emily and husband Vince in Virginia. Of course Chuck made the trip from Vermont into a mini-reunion opportunity, visiting Jim Weiskopf, John Rollins, Ben Day and '67 Bob Burka, who graduated in 66, along the way. Stan Colla's new grandson Blake, also born in April, may have already matriculated with the class of 1932. Blake's dad, Geoffrey, is an '04, mom Carrie an '01, both granddads are graduates, as are four more aunts and uncles. And, oh yes, his great-grandfather was in the class of 1932.

Dates to save: fall mini-reunion October 29-31 in Hanover and 45th reunion (not a typo) October 14-17, 2011, while classes are in session in Hanover. More on the info-packed class website.

Send comments on the website to Ben.Day@Dartmouth.org