Class Notes

River Campus Undergraduate: Slater Society–1950s

1947
Arthur Frackenpohl ’49E (MA) released the CD The ART Collection with the Carolina Brass.

1949
William Morgan and Charles Stuart Kennedy are coeditors of the book American Diplomats: The Foreign Service at Work. A retired Foreign Service officer, William served as U.S. consul general in Beirut, Paris, and Montreal.

1958
John Rathbone, class correspondent, writes:

The Delta Upsilon classes from 1955 to 1961 had a reunion in Southern Pines, N.C., last October. Twenty-four alumni brothers and their significant others attended. Dick DeBrine writes, “A great time was had by all. As one could imagine, many played golf. We managed to see brothers we hadn’t seen in 46 years because of the five-year difference in the University reunions.” The weather was perfect for their reunion, but on the afternoon they departed, a big storm came in with tornados, one of which passed right through the grounds of their hotel. A couple of fellows left early to get to their homes in South and North Carolina. Dick also wrote that Ed Przybycien, a singer of note, brought a copy of a popular songbook from “our era” and (according to Dick), as “the only DU who can carry a tune when sober,” led the singing. (Back during our 45th, Ed promised to do something along these lines at our 50th.)

Sandy Gruver drops a line to say “Hi!” to her friends and promises to send news when she has some to share.

According to Joe Steinman, “Not much has changed since our last correspondence.” Joe has decided to teach one more school year, 2005–06, at the University of North Florida, as he still enjoys his grad classes and is getting a fair degree of diversity in his course selection. Joe shares the feelings that many of us have expressed about the aging process, succinctly summing it up in three words best shared at a reunion.

Bobbie Kirsch Thomas writes that she ran four reunions in Florida for Arcadia University alumni and had the pleasure of staying with Margaret Taylor Adams when she was in Naples. Both Marg and Bobbie love music and opera and enjoyed sharing their experiences. As Arcadia’s alumni director, Bobbie is running a nice trip, “A Literary Adventure,” to eastern Canada, Nova Scotia, and northern New England this summer. For this educational trip, an English professor will accompany the tour and will read works on the interesting parallels and contrasts among French- and English-speaking Canada and our more familiar New England. Bobbie closes with, “You can see that the English major in me is still at work!”

Dick Vandermeid writes that he and Sara are “continuing to live our contented and basically unexciting lives, except for the occasional miracle golf shot,” and are enjoying good health. Remember, if any of you plan to be in their area, Dick and Sara wish you would give them a call.

Dick and Margaret Vidale are planning a pair of trips this summer, first visiting their daughter, Laura, in Switzerland in June, then a visit to the DeBrines at their new home in New Hampshire. With the anticipated arrival of their younger daughter Lisa’s second child in September, Dick expects it will be a busy summer.

Dayton Vincent, professor emeritus at Purdue University, and his wife, Lola, recently visited Germany on two occasions. On their first trip, they were in Cologne last October 1 through December 15, where Dayton taught a course (in English) and conducted research with his colleagues at the University of Cologne’s Institute for Geophysics and Meteorology. He has been doing this about every other year since 1989. For their second visit, Dayton and Lola returned to Germany for two weeks in February, where he was an invited speaker at the retirement ceremony for Professor Peter Speth at the Institute. The ceremony coincided with Karnival week in Cologne, which hosts the biggest Fasching (Mardi Gras) celebration in Europe. Dayton and Lola got a taste of local celebrations, attending a grammar school presentation, visiting a local pub, and watching parades, complete with onlookers shouting “Camelle” (a Cologne dialect term requesting candy from those in the parade). The celebration ended on Tuesday, near midnight, with each pub burning a puppet to symbolize the ridding of one’s sins. Dayton says, “Believe it or not, I went to my office at the institute the next day and worked on a manuscript with my longtime friend and colleague, Dr. Andreas Fink. Lola and I also took the ‘fast’ train from Cologne to Nuremberg (over 400km in a little over three hours), where we spent the next four days with her sister and other relatives and friends. Finally, on Valentine’s Day, we celebrated by flying home to Indiana. It was one of the nicest trips we have made together, but, as usual, it was good to get home.”

When it comes to traveling, few can hold a candle to classmate Pat Westwood. Pat, whose e-mail user name is “traveleverywhere,” writes that she “has been to a few places” around the world. Pat traveled the Silk Road to buy camel bells at the Kashgar market, rode an elephant in Northern Thailand “to see people shorter than I am,” listened to a guide at the ruins near Oaxaca who said the site is where Christ spent his “lost” years, watched the dawn light the ruins at Machu Picchu and Abu Simbel, experienced an earthquake while at the Dalai Lama’s summer palace in Tibet, walked the Great Wall of China twice (both times in the rain), in Alaska was “eaten” by bugs bigger than the ones in Texas, rode a camel in Jordan where T. E. Lawrence had been, spent a few nights in a jail in Prague where ex-president Vaclav Havel had been imprisoned, rafted the Grand Canyon, and in New York City was bitten by bed bugs. Pat says, “There’s probably more, but it escapes me at the moment.”

—Contact: John Rathbone, 2375 Brookview Drive, Hamilton, NY 13346; jrathbon(at)dreamscape(dot)com.

Ronald Minor published two books in 2004—You’ll Never Walk Alone: A Daily Guide to Renewal and When the Road Seems Too Steep: A Daily Guide to Positive Change.