Class of 1956

Class Secretary: Nancy Libby MacLean, 3 Oceanwood Dr., Scarborough ME 04074, njmaclean@aol.com

Class President: Nancy Mills Mallett, PO Box 246, Allamuchy NJ 07820, nanrus@goes.com

Selections from the recent Class Letter: Constance Berry Newman has been nominated by President Bush to be an assistant secretary of state in African affairs. She has been serving as the assistant administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development (Bureau of Africa)…. Arthur Curtis started a two-year term as the president of the Age Center of the Worcester Area Inc. earlier this year. He figures he’d better try the nine-day Elderhostel whitewater rafting trip in the Grand Canyon while he’s still young, so he has it planned for August…. Robert Gillette enjoyed the Bates-Bowdoin-Colby alumni trip to Russia last year…. While she never expects it to enrich her retirement income, Thelma Pierce has found classes at the Farmington Valley Art Center enrich her days…. Elise Reichert Stiles and Phil are still busy, “making music, working at church stuff, making our garden the best in town, keeping up with eight grandkids, and I still make lots of pots.”… In 2002, Donald Robertson managed four European trips, including a performance of Don Giovanni at the Tyl Theater (Estates Theater) in Prague, where the opera debuted with Mozart himself conducting. When he’s home, he volunteers at a nursing home, works on projects for the Massachusetts chapter of Bread for the World, and teaches English as a second language…. Franklin Smith is still involved with barbershop Ñ quartets and chorus and entering his fifth year as an officer in the local Mended Hearts Chapter. “The Montana Wilderness Assn. stills occupies a fair piece of time,” he says, “but with evening meetings, it still leaves all days ending in a Y for golf and skiing in season.”… Walter Taft notes that they have passed the five-year mark at their bed and breakfast, their minimum goal. They are committed at least through 2005. He’s also busy with the local chapter of SCORE, since many in the Oxford Hills area are contemplating opening small businesses, given the number of larger employers who have pulled out…. Last November, Jessie Thompson Huberty went on a photographic tiger hunt and then met pals from Manila in Delhi, visited the Taj Mahal, and then Rajastan to stay in Palace Hotels in Jaipur, Jodphur, Jaisalmer, and Udaipur…. H. Kirk Watson has high hopes that his four young children (ages 8 to 13) will all attend Bates. He performs surgery four days a week. He and Tracy enjoy summer in Maine with Edna and Fred Huber and Berit and Reid Pepin.

Next Reunion in 2006. Got news? Tap out a note to magazine@bates.edu!