1797 Dinner

To the Great Class of 1969:

Last night I attended the 32nd Annual 1797 Dinner in New York at The Pierre. The dinner coincided with the UN confab as well as with the most sweltering September weather anyone could remember in New York.

As you would expect, the celebratory event was staged with the customary aplomb, courtesy of Mimi Morsman. Jeff Louis, Chairman of the Board of Trustees (and the third lineal descendant to serve in that capacity), gave an upbeat assessment on the state of the School and, most importantly, on the search for a new Headmaster, the first since our 25th Reunion. It will come as no surprise that the School has had no trouble in attracting qualified candidates. Sometime this fall the School will disclose the names of the remaining candidates (expected to be between four and six) who will be invited to campus for day long exposure. The Board hopes to announce the new Headmaster (or Headmistress) by year end.

The occasion was a bittersweet one, insofar as it represented the last of the 1797 Dinners of the Widmer era in New York, a tradition begun 32 years ago by Mr. Crow. The Headmaster feigned having only just prepared his remarks after Bob Dewey's introduction, but it was evident from where I was seated that his handwritten notes had been prepared well in advance. The Headmaster laced his remarks with anecdotes, recalling the importance of New York in the history of the School, including the presentation to Mr. Boyden at The Waldorf at a dinner on the occasion of his 50th year as Headmaster of not only a buggy, but also a horse. The Headmaster also analogized the intellectual and moral support which Deerfield is providing to King's Academy in Jordan to the financial help which Deerfield received from Exeter, Andover and Taft during the dark days of the 1920's when the Commonwealth of Massachusetts terminated state support for private schools. Meera Viswanathan (or "Miz Viz" as she is known by students) delivered a heartfelt, extemporaneous speech about the last eleven years and what a sense of heritage meant to her, which encompassed not only the past, but also shared hopes for the future. The evening concluded with a DVD devoted to the Headmaster featuring tributes from students, teachers, alumni and trustees.

I expect to report back in early October, following Volunteers Weekend. Weather permitting, I hope to post some photos of the Koch SM&T Building as well as the Deerfield - Hotchkiss football game. In the interim, please follow the lead of Tim Truby and Steve Bisbee and send portrait photos for posting by clicking on the Class Postings link.

Be well and stay in touch.

P.S. Trivia Question: Who can tell me how many Headmasters the Academy has had since its founding? Send your guess to me via the Class Postings link.

"Beam me up, Scotty!"

To the Great Class of 1969:

As I mulled over last month how much Google has changed my daily life – not because I had been so prescient as to have invested in the IPO – I realized that Google could make a difference in how we related to each other. The more I reflected on this and that 100,000 new blogs reportedly are being created each day, it seemed totally fitting that our class – which graduated one month prior to the historic lunar landing – also should be first class to set foot in the blogosphere. It is with that sense of adventure that I decided to launch Albany Road Redux into cyberspace as a tribute to the Great Class of 1969. I hope you like it and will help to make it a success by contributing future content.

Albany Road Redux is, first and foremost, a meeting place for members of the class who would like to remain in touch electronically, as the statement at the top of the website indicates. I am, unlike many bloggers, the traffic coordinator through whom postings travel. In that sense, I am the Editor-in-Chief of the blog, just like Marty Kaiser has the ultimate say at The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. You will notice on the right of the website a handful of links which I hope you will find useful. For example, you can send me news and photos by clicking on the Class Postings link or catch up on news about the Academy by clicking on either Deerfield News or Google Deerfield. I also have included a link to the Alumni Website as well as a direct link to the online giving form at Annual Support for those of you who would like to make a financial commitment to Deerfield. Finally – and this is what I am most excited about – I have included a link to what I am calling the Online Yearbook which is the beginning of a compendium of individual portrait photos of class members. I hope that you will forward to me a suitable photo (or a replacement photo) for inclusion in the “Yearbook”.

Class Trivia

While the photo of Ed Grosvenor in my June Letter drew some quick responses, no one could answer who the first classmate was to run a public company. That distinction goes to Charlie Bishop who was not only the President of Bone Care International when it became a public company in 1996, but also its first employee when it was formed in 1987. Some other classmates who currently head up enterprises include Andy Cohn (Duncan Bolt Company), David Colker (National Stock Exchange), Tee Johnson (T.H.E. Audio), Jim Lunt (Lunt Silversmiths), (Hank Minor (P.W. Minor & Son), Kevin Murphy (Ocean Cuisine International) and Hank Wetzel (Alexander Valley Vineyards).

In keeping with the captains of industry theme this month, can anyone identify the smiling classmate pictured in the Online Yearbook at Starbucks’ annual shareholders meeting?

Miscellaneous

Since my last class-wide e-mail, the Academy sent out my August Letter with a short questionnaire and a stamped, self-addressed return envelope. Please take a minute, if you haven’t done so already, to send it back so that I can learn more about how each of you wants to relate to the Academy in the current school year.

New faculty orientation began on Wednesday, August 24th, and the campus is beginning to buzz again after a long, hot summer. Returning students are due to arrive on Friday, September 9th, and will be joined the following day by new students.

In closing, I regret to tell you that two classmates have been displaced by Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath: Barry Ahearn is an English professor at Tulane University in New Orleans, and Paul Galuszka is an attorney in private practice in neighboring Metairie. Best wishes to all, but most especially to Barry and Paul at this time of unfathomable adversity.

G7 Summit Meeting in NYC

O'Gara, Beach, Lacey, Squires, Kjorlien, Bisbee, Johnson, H.T.

The Group of Seven convened for dinner in New York at The Union Club in July for its first meeting since graduation. There was universal agreement that the intervening years had treated some more kindly than others and that the Group should not wait another 36 years for its next gathering. Therefore, a tentative date of November 11th has been circled so as to coincide with the week of the annual dinner of the Atlantic Salmon Federation which Robert Clough has indicated he will be attending. In the words of one G7 member, "I am still amazed how people could seemingly pick up conversations that started decades ago. There really is a bond formed during those Deerfield years." Another member wrote, "No matter that I did not "hang out" a lot with many of the classmates of the last G7 dinner; we had an immediate and deep bond that transcended any of our previous experience together and emanated from a respect for the intelligence, perseverance, and experience of the last 36 years. In celebrating all of the things that are similar and that bring us together we have celebrated the best of ourselves and the best of what our "Deerfield experience" gave us. This is what our class shares and what we should always support."