Class Notes, January/February 2023
By John M. PinneyFall is here but you wouldn’t know it based on average daily high temperatures here and the absence of large flocks of migratory geese. There may be a connection between the two. I’ll give the geese another couple of weeks before I get worried and start putting sandbags around my house to repel rising water. I don’t mind the absence of goose guano, but I do feel for those who earn extra income supporting goose hunting here every year.
Thanks to the efforts of Bob Leich, Chris Kinney, David Roscoe, our YAA rep Jennifer Julier, and Bob’s wonderful assistant, Judi Rabin, we had a fabulous fall event: the annual class dinner! Eighty classmates, spouses, partners, significant others, and three of our widows converged on the Yale Club for our traditional cocktail hour and a half and chicken dinner. Two things made this one of the truly memorable dinners: the opportunity to reconnect with so many after too long an absence, and the truly outstanding talk given by NASA administrator, our classmate, Bill Nelson. Bill gave us a fascinating look at NASA’s current and future programs and plans, complete with photos from the James Webb Space Telescope. His energy and excitement about NASA’s present and future were inspiring, and it was a pleasure to feel the intensity of his excitement about his second career. Bill’s talk was recorded and is available for viewing on our class website, yale1965.org. The results of David’s anonymous biennial political preference poll for ’22 midterms, which he presented at the dinner, can also be viewed on our website.
As is the custom, we held our class council meeting prior to the dinner with a room full of enthusiastic classmates. Mel Shaftel reported on behalf of Stan Trotman that our 55th “reunion-we-didn’t-have” class gift fundraising effort closed out at $7.6 million, beating our target of $7 million. Well done to Stan, Mel, and all involved in this unusually challenging effort. The council affirmed our commitment to hold a 60th (the last “official” five-year reunion for a class), and our reunion team of Bob Leich, David Roscoe, and Carl Farrington immediately threw their hats in the ring for the job they have performed so well over so many years. Their offer was accepted with resounding applause. I took the opportunity to express special thanks to Dennis Mack, whose term as our YAA representative is coming to an end. Dennis has done so much to keep ’65 informed and engaged. We are open to volunteers to fill Dennis’s shoes.
The council also endorsed the proposed 2023 fall minireunion in Santa Fe, with thanks to Earl Potter, and authorized an outreach for another mini in 2024, location TBD. Our trusted treasurer Fred Kneip supplied a positive financial report (we haven’t spent anything because we haven’t done anything), marred only by a lower-than-typical dues participation rate of 32 percent. Since we have plans for multiple activities in the next few years, please consider our class dues as an investment in good time. Our official classmate count was down to 773 with 117 widows.
A few words about our class. The turnout for the dinner and the spirit of the evening are further indicators of resilience and perseverance during the incredible disruption of COVID. The Zoom program, which resumed in November with classmate Bill Torbert speaking on “Leadership and Power” is another example. The ’65 Zoom program has been copied by multiple classes and the YAA has recognized David Roscoe for his leadership on the program. David in turn has insisted that the other members of the team, Bob Hammond and Dennis Mack, get appropriate recognition too. The statistics for the program are truly impressive: 24 sessions, average 120 classmates signed up, and 60 classmates have participated as facilitators. And the beat goes on into 2023. Thanks to all of you who have lent your time and effort to these and other class events, keeping us together and engaged. Well done and thank you.
Please take the time to visit our website, post remembrances, view Bill’s presentation, and post ideas for our 60th reunion.