"Dartmouth' s Dedicated Alumni"
by Stephen L. Waterhouse '65
Chapter 1: Introduction
"Dartmouth’s Dedicated Alumni: Fifty Years of the Alumni Awards: 1954-2004" has been written in large part
to provide the story of the recipients of the Dartmouth Alumni Award, the single most significant award presented annually
to a handful of Dartmouth’s most dedicated and successful Alumni. There has not previously been a single resource
where details on the lives of these more than 420 individuals could be reviewed. You will find this group of individuals
to have followed very diverse career tracks with some achieving great professional acclaim and some simply providing outstanding
support for Dartmouth College. But I hope this book will provide you with much more then just the story of the Alumni
Award. In fact, I anticipate that you will learn a few nuances in the development of Dartmouth College that you won’t
expect, and, perhaps, this will lead to your being even more impressed with this little College in the wilderness.
This year of 2004 is the 50th Anniversary of the Alumni Award program that has recognized outstanding Dartmouth graduates
from the Classes of 1894 to 1978. For many alumni, the year of 1954 might be memorable for other reasons.
For example, trivia junkies may know that this was the year that Elvis Presley gets credited with starting the Rock ‘n’
Roll revolution with the introduction of his first big hit, "That’s All Right, Mama."
MEMPHIS - November 5, 2003: On July 5, 1954, Elvis Presley recorded his first record, "That's All Right," at the legendary
Sun Studio in Memphis and rock 'n' roll took off. To commemorate that event and its global impact, Memphis will mark the 50th
Anniversary of Rock 'n' Roll in 2004 with a yearlong celebration of rock music
And others might remember that it was in 1954 that the eight Presidents of the Ivy League agreed to form the athletic
conference that continues to this day to be the basis for intercollegiate athletic schedules amongst these eight schools.
And there were other things starting that year as well. But for this book, the big event occurred on June 12, 1954 when
Earnest Martin Hopkins ‘01, one of the greatest of the alumni to preside over Dartmouth College, stepped up to receive
the first Alumni Award.
In looking through the list of recipients, you will find that there are the very recognizable names like John Sloan Dickey
1929, Sherman Adams 1920, and Nelson Rockefeller 1930. There are also somewhat lesser known individuals who have greatly
impacted our world like Basil O’Connor 1912, Harry Semmes 1913, Albert Bradley 1915, John Woodhouse 1921 and Joseph
Young 1945. And you will identify many individuals who have contributed much to making Dartmouth what it is today, including
Charles Proctor 1900, Albert Foley 1920, Sidney Hayward 1926, Addison Winship 1942, Clifford L. Jordan 1945 and J. Michael
McGean 1949. When you look at it all, the list is a very impressive review of what Dartmouth graduates have done with
their lives, as well as how they have impacted Dartmouth College.
The story of the Alumni Award and its recipients is, however, only a part of what you will find in this book. There
is another story here that will provide some insights on the importance of Dartmouth College and its alumni to the development
of the United States and the world for a much longer period then that represented by the recipients of the Alumni Award.
At the end of the day, the quality of an educational institution can be measured by the success of its graduates. As
you will learn, the alumni of Dartmouth College have been an impressive group right from the beginning. There
is very good reason for Dartmouth to be ranked today amongst the top educational institutions in the United States and the
world. When the college was founded in 1769, the alumni of Dartmouth College very quickly became key players in the
development of the United States, founded several years later in 1776. And as the years have rolled on, Dartmouth College
alumni have played an increasingly important role on the world stage.
This book provides, particularly for Dartmouth Alumni, some interesting stories and trivia that will enrich your understanding
of the history of Dartmouth College. For example, the cover of this book features a watercolor painting image by Ann
Frances Ray, completed in 1840, that shows Dartmouth Row with only Dartmouth Hall in white. Was this a mistake?
Or when and why were Reed, Thornton and Wentworth Halls painted white? I first noticed this issue some 15 years ago
when I acquired an old mantel clock, made in 1838, with the same image painted on the glass front of the clock. My suspicion
at the time was that the paint on the clock face had gone bad and turned color! Now you will learn the "rest of the
story!"
Many of the readers of this book will have seen the magnificent State Funeral organized for former President Ronald Reagan
in 2004. Do you know of any Dartmouth alumnus who was accorded that same honor despite not being a President of the
United States? Do you know that Dartmouth was once located in Vermont, rather than New Hampshire? Do you know who gets
credit for starting intercollegiate skiing in the Eastern United States and Canada? And when, where and what was the
content of the first ski race? A French astronomer named a planet after a Dartmouth graduate. Do you know
who that graduate was as well as the name of the planet? And do you know how important the legal contributions by Dartmouth
graduates have been to the legal structure of the United States? And, to many Dartmouth alumni, the Alumni Award is
thought to be an Award given only to Dartmouth College undergraduate alumni. You will learn this has not always been
the case.
The Alumni Award program was proposed, studied and initiated by the Alumni Council in 1952-1954. I will outline
this history, the operating procedures established then and how recipients are selected! I will identify who the over
420 Alumni Award recipients selected over the past fifty years are, and outline briefly what they had done with their lives
after graduating from Dartmouth College to qualify for this Award! This is a true "first". Extensive research
has been undertaken to pull together misplaced citations and background information on recipients that was not previously
available.
We will consider together the significance to the status of Dartmouth College of having so many dedicated Alumni.
And I will highlight who the unsung participants in this program are behind the scenes. Finally, I will identify some
of the up and coming leaders of Dartmouth alumni activities who have received another important and related award, the Young
Alumni Distinguished Service Award!
But to appreciate the significance of alumni activities to the long-term success of Dartmouth College, it is not enough
to just discuss the recipients of the Alumni Award, the oldest of whom graduated with the Class of 1894. One must also
appreciate the history of Dartmouth College from the real beginning in 1743 when Eleazar Wheelock first considered developing
an educational institution during his teaching experience with a full blooded Mohegan Indian, named Samson Occom. With
the aid of past historians, I will provide a brief, edited version of the history of Dartmouth College to illustrate a relevant
kind of alumni involvement in Dartmouth even before the College was officially founded in 1769. Thru this history, you
will gain an understanding of the continuing impact of Dartmouth’s dedicated alumni.
Dartmouth College
has always depended for its survival on the support of alumni and others intimate with the challenges of educating young men
and women. However, the kind of support provided to Eleazar Wheelock and his successors from the time he first formulated
his intention to create an institution to educate Indians was of a different kind to what we might see being provided now.
There are a number of critical moments in the history of Dartmouth College when its very survival was on the line. It
is appropriate to say that the very existence of this institution in the first 100 years was in constant jeopardy from various
outside forces. And we will outline some of these situations.
Only the leadership of men like Eleazar Wheelock, John Wheelock, Francis Brown, Daniel Webster, and many, many more has
led to the more stable operation of the College today. In most cases, it has been alumni who have stepped forward with
the needed support or organizational skills to solve each crisis. A single individual would not now have as much direct
impact on the survival of the College as was possible in the past. The alumni leaders of the past have made it
possible for the College to continue to evolve as one of the leading educational institutions in this country, and now the
world.
Many dedicated alumni from before 1900 have not been recognized in the way our Alumni Award recipients have, but are
certainly worthy of such accolades. To illustrate this, we will provide a few examples of these outstanding alumni from
earlier times. You will no doubt be impressed, as I was, to see the impact our earliest alumni had on not only the affairs
of Dartmouth College, but also on the entire country and the world. For example, just in the first 30 or so years of
Dartmouth’s existence when Eleazar and John Wheelock were leading Dartmouth, we graduated men who went on to:
- Become some of the most important politicians in the United States with 8 Senators, 12 Governors, 52 US Representatives,
hundreds of State level officials and at least 3 men who were the second choices to be elected President of the United States
- Provide senior members of the legal community with a Supreme Court Justice, many State justices and many important
lawyers
- Found or contribute substantially to the early development of many other significant educational institutions in the
United States, including Amherst, Bowdoin, Hamilton, Kenyon, Union, West Point and Williams College…. And later Berkeley,
and Bates among others!
The words "It is, sir, as I have said, a small college. And yet there are those who love it" were first attributed
to Daniel Webster by Rufus Choate at Webster’s memorial service in Hanover soon after his death in 1868. As John
Sterling, Class of 1911, a recipient of the Alumni Award, wrote in his 1965 book on Webster and the Dartmouth College Case,
no one knows if Webster actually ever said those words in his famous speech before the United States Supreme Court in 1818
when he defended the College from being taken over by the University of New Hampshire. However, those words have
become a symbolic representation of how Dartmouth’s men and women feel toward their alma mater. No individuals
have represented this feeling more deeply then the recipients of the Dartmouth Alumni Award.
The Award was conceived in 1953-1954 under the guidance of an Alumni Council Committee including Bill Andres ’29,
Francis Brown ’25, Ort Hicks ’21, Sid Hayward ’26 and Ken Henderson ’16, who had all been outstanding
alumni of their day! These men felt it was time that some very special alumni of the College were recognized for
their substantial contributions to the well being of Dartmouth College. The Committee suggested that the Award be given
to alumni of Classes who had graduated more than 25 years ago. They emphasized that the Award should be for "outstanding
service" to Dartmouth over an extended period of time with consideration for contributions to community service and career
achievements. Importantly, the Award recipients were to be determined by alumni, not by the College Administration or
the Trustees. The Award was to be considered "comparable in dignity, distinction and significance to the College’s
honorary degrees presented annually at graduation time".
To enable any activity like the Alumni Award Program to function, it requires the collaboration of many individuals.
Most are unknown to the audience who observe the successful receipt of the Award by a classmate or friend. These behind
the scene folks are the ones who research the alumni body to identify potential recipients, spend long hours in discussion
of prospective candidates for the Award, write the citations that extol the virtues of individual candidates and organize
the events at which the awards are presented. Although some of these individuals are employees of the College in Alumni
Affairs, many are simply alumni or friends of the College who have a strong level of commitment to the merits of this program
and appreciate the contributions of the recipients. We will let you know who many of these individuals are and describe
what they do to make this program a success.
For the past fifty years, many of the most outstanding of our alumni who have labored diligently on the College’s
behalf over the past century have received this special recognition. The list is distinguished by its career diversity with
men of good worth whose lives have evolved in many directions from poets to teachers to lawyers to industrialists and just
about anything else you can imagine. One of the earliest Alumni Award recipients, Robert Frost, Class of 1896, famously
wrote "Two Roads diverged in a wood, and I took the one less traveled by, And that made all the difference." The
importance of making a difference is what distinguishes this group of truly outstanding Dartmouth alumni.
We will present shortened versions of the over 420 Citations written at the time each Award was presented to a recipient
of the Alumni Award. This is the first and only opportunity anyone has had to gain some perspective on this outstanding
group of Dartmouth Alumni who have contributed so much to the welfare of our College over the past 100 years. Not only
have these alumni been instrumental in the success of Dartmouth College, many have played equally important roles in the communities
they have lived in. They have participated in a wide variety of careers, but with a high level of success in all they
have done. Through these men and women, you will gain an interesting view of how the Dartmouth education has contributed to
our greater society in the United States, and in some cases, the whole World.
As indicated earlier, the first Alumni Award was presented in 1954 to former Dartmouth College President, Earnest
Martin Hopkins, Class of 1901. Hopkins had not only been President of the College for a significant 29 years,
but he had also served as the first College officer assigned to deal with Alumni Affairs and had been the first President
of the Dartmouth Alumni Council, the group behind the formation of this Award. Hopkins was instrumental in developing
the modern version of alumni activities that has served Dartmouth so well. During his tenure as President, the endowment
increased five fold and many new buildings were added to the campus. And he was involved in critical government roles
in two World Wars to help defend our country. So, it was fitting that he became the first recipient of the Award initiated
to recognize alumni for their leadership contributions to the developments at Dartmouth College plus success in career and
civic contributions.
Here are some other examples….
Warren Cleveland Kendall, Class of 1899, was a very successful railroad executive who was crucially responsible for shepherding
the country’s freight cars around the United States during two world wars. And along the way Kendall was President
of the Dartmouth Association of Washington, DC and the Dartmouth Club of Sarasota; longtime Secretary of the Class of 1899
and President of the Alumni Council………
Charles Albert Procter, Class of 1900, came from a huge Dartmouth family with some 20 Dartmouth alumni that started with
his great grandfather Ebenezer Adams, Class of 1791, who was a Dartmouth Professor of Learned Languages. Charles Procter
was himself on the Dartmouth faculty for some 38 years. He gained great fame as the "father of American skiing," long
time Director of Officials for Dartmouth Winter Carnivals and Chairman of the Outing Club’s Board of Trustees.
In 1966, his nomination for the Skiing Hall of Fame included these words:
"The activities of the late Charles Proctor become a history of the early organization of American skiing, both Nordic
and Alpine, with particular emphasis on the intercollegiate aspects. His early research in ski jump flight dynamics
left its mark on FIS ski jumping, both design and competition, and stimulated the sports beginning in the eastern sections
of the United States. His association with Sir Arnold Lunn of Great Britain was responsible for the introduction of
slalom skiing to the North American continent. His enthusiasm was responsible for the first National Downhill Race in
1933, and the first National Slalom Race in 1935, both being introduced and sponsored by the Dartmouth Outing Club on Mount
Mooselauke. He was an active organizer and official of the 1932 Olympic Winter Games at Lake Placid, New York.
…… A professor of physics at Dartmouth College, Proctor for years was considered the guardian angel and patron
saint of the Dartmouth Outing Club…… his leadership helped establish intercollegiate competition in the
Eastern United States and Canada. The first intercollegiate event was a relay race between McGill University and Dartmouth
College in 1913."
(Note: Charles A. Proctor was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1966. His son Charles N., another
skiing legend, had been elected to the Hall of Fame in 1959!)
Arthur Ruggles, Class of 1902, achieved international medical renown as a pioneer in Psychiatry. He received the
Croix de Guerre for important medical leadership with the Armed Forces in England and France. He was the first recipient
of a silver plaque for outstanding citizenship in his of hometown, Providence, Rhode Island. And of course, he found
time to be a key member of the Dartmouth Alumni Council, a Trustee of the College and an active member of his Class and the
Dartmouth Club of Rhode Island
Basil O’Connor, Class of 1912, was the Law Partner of President Franklin D. Roosevelt before he became President.
O’Connor served as the longtime President of the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis that led the battle to
ultimately lick polio, was a President of the American Red Cross and was decorated by at least 16 foreign governments.
And oh yes, he found time to serve many years as President of his Class among other Dartmouth alumni roles.
Clark Weymouth, Class of 1926, served with one employer in the paper industry for 42 years at many home locations from
Maine to Chicago. "Tubber" who, despite being on the move constantly, was a legend in community service in all of his
communities, and an even bigger legend at Dartmouth where he served multiple terms as Class and Club President, Head Agent,
fund raiser in major campaigns, Alumni Councilor and more.
Thomas Bradford Curtis, Class of 1934, was first a lawyer, then a distinguished U. S. Congressman from Missouri, and
the first Chairman of the Federal Election Commission. But he also served as a Trustee of several colleges, including
Dartmouth, and a leader of many civic organizations. And of course, he performed many Dartmouth alumni roles such as
Secretary of the St. Louis Alumni Association and Vice-President of the Alumni Council.
Donald Garland Rainie, Class of 1940, was known as "Mr. Music" in his home community of Concord N.H. He once played
in a Concord band led by his father, led the Dartmouth Band for two years and was head of his local Concert Association.
Of course, he found time to be a successful lawyer and serve Dartmouth in many roles, including Class Treasurer for 26 years.
Raymond Rasenberger, Class of 1949, was Valedictorian of his Class, a prized basketball recruit of Doggie Julian and
President of the Undergraduate Council as an undergraduate. He enjoyed Hanover so much he returned a couple years later
as an Instructor of Great Issues. Then, he went on to graduate from Law School and establish himself as an outstanding
lawyer in Washington DC. Rasenberger has never stopped serving Dartmouth, handling many important roles like President
of the DC Club, President of the Alumni Council and Chairman of the Alumni Fund.
Paul Donnelly Paganucci, Class of 1953, was know to all simply as "Pag." But what a career he had as a small town
Maine boy who came to Hanover; discovered a big world of opportunity at Dartmouth, Tuck and Harvard Law School; achieved success
by starting his own New York Investment Bank with Classmates; and then came back to serve the College as Associate Dean at
Tuck and Vice President/Treasurer of the College. That was not enough career success for Pag as he returned to New York
as Vice Chairman of W. R. Grace and then chaired the new, start-up bank in Hanover, Ledyard National Bank. And of course,
their have been few significant roles in Dartmouth alumni affairs that Pag did not undertake, including Reunion Giving Chairman
for the first Class to ever raise over $1 million.
Sin Sing Chiu, Class of 1965, who grew up in Hong Kong, met a Chinese alumnus of Dartmouth at the suggestion of his father
and decided to give the College a try. And how fortunate we have been for that effort. Sing led the fledgling
symphony orchestra efforts in the early years of Hopkins Center, brought a new spin to College ping-pong, returned to Hong
Kong to seek his fortune and assisted several more members of his family to attend his alma mater. He has advised/hosted
travelers to the Far East for 3 decades as our "Mr. Dartmouth" in Hong Kong and China. He was the first non-North
American to receive the Alumni Award.
Ann Fritz Hackett, Class of 1976, is said to be known simply as "first’ because she has usually been head of the
line in most things. Ann was one of the first women to attend Dartmouth College as coeducation started, was an early
recipient of the fledgling Young Alumni Award, the first female graduate of Dartmouth to receive the Alumni Award and the
first individual to receive both Awards. And yes, she has had an outstanding career as a consultant around the world,
been a much revered Trustee of Dartmouth College and a participant in many alumni affairs.
To encourage and recognize younger alumni, the Alumni Council initiated the Young Alumni Distinguished Service Award
in 1990. This Award recognizes alumni who make outstanding leadership contributions to the alumni activities of Dartmouth
College during the first 15 years of their time as alumni. We have had over 35 recipients of this prestigious Award.
We look forward to the development of the civic and career aspects of their lives while they continue to work for Dartmouth
College such that they will qualify some day to receive the Alumni Award. We describe the history of the Young Alumni
Distinguished Service Award, the operating procedures with this Award and provide some background details on the Dartmouth
activities of the recipients from the Classes of 1976 to 1995.
Dartmouth College has a long history of dedicated support from its alumni. The strength of the ties between Dartmouth
alumni and their College is legendary in higher education and, perhaps, it does come from the granite of New Hampshire in
their muscles and their brains instilled through their time spent on the Hanover plain. Or maybe it comes from the successful
educational principals used by Eleazar Wheelock, even before Dartmouth College was chartered, and continued by his 15 successors.
In 1953-54, the Alumni Award Committee set up some ground rules for selecting alumni to receive the Alumni Award to recognize
their role in this history. This program continues to this day to recognize the most dedicated and involved of Dartmouth’s
alumni. This book highlights the lives of the over 420 recipients of the Alumni Award during the past 50 years
who have continued this tradition of commitment to Dartmouth College because none illustrate the strength of the dedication
of Dartmouth alumni to their alma mater more than these recipients of the Alumni Award. It also provides a sketch of
the College’s long history and earlier important alumni, the history of the Alumni Award program and the details of
recipients of the Young Alumni Award.
