March 2005 Letter

To the Great Class of 1969:

For those of you who were intellectually challenged by my quiz last month, I have some good news: you weren’t alone! At the end of this e-mail, you will have a chance to redeem yourselves but, in the meantime, here are the correct answers, based on the best available information:

As to how many states and foreign countries are represented by our Class, the answer is 35 states and two foreign countries. The interesting thing here is how international the School has become. As you might guess, we live in nearly as many states as the current school population, but 21 countries are represented in the student body this year.

After Massachusetts, the five most populated states for the Class of ’69 today are: New York (12), California (10), Pennsylvania (7), Connecticut (6) and Maine (6). This compares with New York, Connecticut, New Hampshire, California and Vermont in the current student body.

The bonus question asked was how many lbs. of M&Ms the Admissions office consumed in a year. The correct answer (a Scroll exclusive) is 685 lbs. (or a little over six oz. per applicant).

Since I last wrote, we have added a couple of Classmates to the e-mail list. We are always looking for more, but I was particularly gratified to have turned up Tee Johnson who, you will be glad to know, has lived the good life since graduation. He recently wrote from beautiful Buenos Aires, and I quote:

The creative energy here in Argentina is hot and heavy - I love it! The Tango....the Food...the art.....the scenery....the cost of living (1/3 of the cost of living in the U.S)...... the medical insurance....the Food.....the weather....the sun...the FOOD!.....the beautiful women......ahhhhhhh!

For those of you who don’t follow the news at the School as regularly as others, the only thing I will note is that there is mention on the web site that the School recently hosted the sixth concert in honor of Clem Schuler who served the School from 1935 until 1976 and who passed away in September 2001. You can find the article at Welcome to Deerfield Academy News.

On another note, for those of you who participate in Annual Support, 2005 has gotten off to a slow start for the Class, after a strong rush for 2004 year-end tax deductions. This, I suppose, is to be expected, however, we do need to step it up in the coming months if you’re not going to embarrass me for boldly predicting that we can achieve a 50% participation rate among those we solicit this year. For those to whom this pertains, here’s the address for making a gift online: Annual Support.

Finally, for those of you who would like a chance to improve your GPA, here’s the second in a series of Class trivia quizzes:

1. Name the Classmate who holds the following patent: Technique for Estimating the Pose of Surface Shapes Using Tripod Operators;

2. Name the Classmate who recently made a presentation entitled “Metadata: The Promise vs. the Reality”;

3. Name the Classmate who co-authored “Cultured human keratinocytes both active and catabolise 1 alpha-hydroxyvitamin D2 analogs”; and

4. Bonus Question: Explain what each of our Classmates meant.

Be well and stay in touch!