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CLASS NOTES
Columbia
College Today David Crook '35, who is a British citizen, is a professor at Beijing Foreign Studies University. He's married to Isabel Brown Crook, who also works at the university. They have three children and two grandchildren. "I am proud to have fought in Spain in the International Brigade, British Battalion, and in the RAF during World War II, leading to victory over fascism," he writes. David, who has taught in China since World War II, turned 90 this year. He credits Columbia with helping "develop my social conscience and my abiding interest in history and literature." His most memorable undergraduate memory is participating in the campaign opposing a visit by the Nazi consul to Columbia. Although he will not be able to attend his 65th reunion, he encourages his classmates to "keep on making the most of your Columbia education." Carl M. Relya '35 of Cincinnati turned 87 on December 29, 1999. He plans to attend reunion weekend in June. Clark B. Risler '35, who lives in North Carolina, worked for many years as a mining systems engineer for Westinghouse Electric. Carl and his wife, Margaret, who works at the nearby Amherst Community Church, have three children. [Editor's note: Although for simplicity's sake, Columbia College Today has combined notes from classes before 1936, we still have two active correspondents in these years. Members of the class of 1931 can send news to T.J. Reilly '31, 249 North Middletown Road, Apt. 14A, Nanuet, N.Y. 10954. Members of the Class of 1932 can send news to Jules Simmonds '32, The Fountains, Apt. 26, 500 Flint Road, Millbrook, N.Y. 12545-6411. Or you can always send news to CCT at the address above.]
Paul V.
Nyden Happy to hear from Henry Chin, M.D., N.Y.C., whose communication was prompted by our appeal for news. Thanks! Retired physician, married with one son, a daughter but no grandchildren. "Columbia exposed us to the whole wide world; we see more and more new things and we are living in a wonderful age," he writes. He has heard from several New York classmates: Dr. Charles Schletin, Fred Matthews, Ed Bickert and Dick Scheib. Henry sends greetings to all classmates and friends. Your class notes correspondent would particularly like to hear from those of you mentioned above. Help keep news from our classmates alive!
Murray T.
Bloom One of our far-flung (furthest-flung?) classmates is Max Norman. He has been living in Australia for the past 38 years where he has taught and written a play. He'd love to hear from any classmates via the Internet. His address is http://Maxcondor.HDC.com.AU. (Yes, he's still an American citizen.)
Dr. A.
Leonard Luhby
Ralph
Staiger John Alexander was elected our new class president at our 60th reunion. We are fortunate to have a retired dean as our president. Although Victor Futter is well known to us, and most of us know that his daughter was once president of Barnard, The New York Times on February 3 carried an excellent feature about her and her successes as Barnard College president and as director of the American Museum of Natural History. The headline read "Risk Taker Hit Jackpot For Museum," and cited the growth of the museum, with two new halls, a 25 percent increase in attendance, and a 90 percent increase in the endowment as evidence. An editorial in the February 18 issue of the Times praised the latest hall, which adjoins the Hayden Planetarium: "The architecture of this new installation is so invigorating, and the imaginative outreach of the science is so all-engulfing, that it reframes our sense of the museum itself." Ellen credits her will to win to having played a lot of sports. "She is absolutely ferocious on the tennis court," her friends say. Although Victor is not mentioned in either Times article, I, for one, do not want to play tennis with him, for I suspect that his daughter's prowess on the court is inherited from her father. Bernie Schutz reported, when I called him about our reunion, that the Steuben church in New York City, at which my mother and father met, was being demolished. He drove past it on his way to see his doctor. One of the adjoining buildings, he told me, was used as the exterior of the apartment of Lucy and Desi Arnez. I had walked past it many times but never knew that fact. The History Channel recently featured the invention of radar, and suggested that MIT was the U.S. source of the science behind that important development. Columbia was also involved, however. One of our "missing" classmates, Victor Ragosine, once confided to me that as a graduate student in physics, he was working on a similar secret project. Since your correspondent was in the hospital during our 60th reunion, he missed out on gathering news for this column. So that I don't run out of news, please keep those cards, letters, and e-mails coming.
Seth
Neugroschl I am writing this in late February, but you'll be reading it in May, just weeks before our 60th reunion on June 2-4. In the interim, our planning group will have been in very active communication by mail, phone and e-mail, with every locatable classmate - 228 of us, by a recent alumni office count (47 more are unlocatable, and 177 are deceased of our original class of 452). Early indications are that we may well exceed the very robust turnout at our 1990 50th reunion! Here's a very preliminary list of who is planning to be there (it might help to pull out your copy of our yearbook as you scan it!): Robert Alexander, Robert Ames, Walter Beyer, Paul Bookstaver, Victor Cole, Stanley Daugert, Hector Dowd, Daniel Edelman, Hermon Farwell, Wilfred Feinberg, Justin Feldman, Laurence Ferris, James Frost, Franklin Gould, Chester Hall, Theodore Hecht, Melvin Intner, Victor Jacobson, Ira Jones, Arthur Joseph, Herbert Kayden, James Knight, Saul Kolodny, Harry Kosovsky, Don Kursch, Albon Man, Don Mansfield, Wally Masur, Alexander Morrison, Robert McKean, Seth Neugroschl, Harry Papertsian, John Ripandelli, Harry Schwartz, Nikolai Stevenson, Boaz Shattan, Stanley Temko, Philip T. Thurston, Charles Webster. The Program Committee is working hard to make this June program at least as meaningful to each of us - personally and collectively - as was our 50th. Our overall program theme (continuing 1990's theme) is "Past, Present and Future: Lifelong Learning and Coping in an Era of Extraordinary Change and New Beginnings." In 1990, with many classmates still working or newly retired, the focus was on "Past and Present." Four panels made up of almost two dozen classmates explored "50 Years of Change in Law, Medicine, Business and Communications, and the Impact of These Changes on the Rest of Us." Two highly authoritative speakers looked at the fall of the Berlin Wall and the Tiananmen Square tragedy, both occurring just months before; and Roger Lehecka '67 presented "The Past, Present and Future of the Core." This June, with most of us retired, is a time for synthesis: "Putting It All Together - Past, Present and Future," both personally and for the world at large, seemed to be an appropriate, meaningful and exciting starting point for our 60th program planning. By the time you read this, you'll be much more up to date with our actual program committee's work than I can report to you at deadline. If you're still not registered, I suggest you review your most recent list of classmates attending for people you'd enjoy seeing again, and review the final program for its appeal to you and anyone you'd be coming with. We'll actively welcome you, even if this is your first reunion since 1940!
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