By Gregory A. Weiss
Ned Snyder is living in Valley Mills, Texas, where he is professor of medicine and director of the hepatology service at the University of Texas Medical Branch.
Two recent class “mini-events” are well worth some detailed reporting. The following is Tom Opladen’s description of the recent New York City “class birthday party”: “The collective Class of ’66 60th birthday party took place at John and Kazie Harvey’s apartment in NYC in June. It was a great event with about 85 in attendance. People came from all over, including San Diego, San Francisco, Chicago, Pennsylvania, Washington, Maryland, and many other places, including Murph Levin from around the corner. We have a CD with the pictures that the photographer took, and I will be putting some of them up on the class web site. The Harveys had a great cake with all of our names on it and a ‘Y66’ in the middle. As a teaser, two pictures of the cake are at the top of the class home page (www2.aya.yale.edu/classes/yc1966). If you click on either cake, a larger version is displayed with all of the names legible. You can download the image and print it on your color printer. Happy Birthday and a great thanks to John and Kazie.”
Bruce Jorgensen’s description of a Calhoun west coast event follows: “Part of the ‘collective class’ celebrated birthdays on the west coast. Eleven former Calhoun roommates from six states gathered for a second time (the first was in 1994) at the Sea Ranch on the northern California coast for a four-day, three-night communion (probably an apt term). Golf, dinner on the beach, hiking, and an introduction to geocaching were among the diversions for Charlie Murphy, Ted Elliott, Grif Okie, Tom McCaffrey, Mike Straight, Marshall Craig, Jeff Hill, Dick Swingle, Russ Crawford, Andy Barnes, and Bruce Jorgensen. Entertainment high points included first-growth wines from the cellars of Swingle and Elliott, the incredible oldies of Hill, photos you hoped had been lost to the ages from Jorgensen, and, to cap it all off, the lost prelude to ‘Ragtime Cowboy Joe’ was revealed by Murphy on the final night. We counted ourselves blessed, and vowed not to wait ten years to do this again.”
All of us should be pleased and proud to learn that our four class Alumni Fund agents, Bob Brundige, Biff Folberth, Murph Levin, and Day Patterson, have been chosen as co-recipients of an Alumni Fund Chairman’s Award for outstanding volunteer service in fundraising on behalf of Yale. Each year only a small number of Alumni Fund volunteers are honored in this way. Through their collective efforts, and the efforts of many others, our class giving participation percentage has increased from the mid-40-percent level to an incredible 78 percent, ranking us first among all Yale classes (including reunion classes). Congratulations!
Another fundraising note: as you may or may not be aware, the university has launched a major project to renovate the Yale Bowl. Part of the financing for the project is to come from alumni, and, as one aspect of this, class football teams are being encouraged to raise $250,000 each to renovate one of the 30 portals through which fans enter the Bowl. Led by Jim Munson, with assistance from Tone Grant and your corresponding secretary, a total of more than 20 football players have committed the $250,000 amount. In recognition of our efforts a class plaque will be placed at the entrance to “our” portal.