Ralph Perry ’51 (right) received the 2007 Distinguished Alumni Service Award, named for Helen A. Papaioanou ’49 (left). Perry received the award in Pettengill’s Joan Holmes Perry ’51 Atrium — a space that honors Perry’s late wife — during Homecoming’s Volunteer Recognition Dinner. Perry was saluted for his philanthropy, for his “profound and passionate service to Bates,” and for helping “others understand that Bates is a very special place that needs strong support to preserve its future.”

Perry partnered his extensive philanthropy initially with Joan Perry, who died in 1994, and now with his second wife, Mary Louise Seldenfleur. It was Perry and Seldenfleur, in fact, who proposed using Perry Atrium to showcase high academic achievement, and in 2008 that showcase, the Mount David Summit, celebrates its seventh edition.

The college also will present a pair of awards for exceptional service to Bates.

The Distinguished Service Award this year goes to Barbara Abbott Hall ’41 of Baltimore, Md., secretary of her class for more than 40 years and a former trustee of the college. She helped lead the class of 1941 to repeated victories in the competition for the Mary Pike Award, given for high participation in the Annual Alumni Fund.

Receiving the Distinguished Young Alumni Award are David ’91 and Nancy Flynn Bass ’92 of Scarborough, who have served as class agents and participated in career panels at the college. They are co- chairs of their respective classes’ reunion gift committees.

Also on the docket for the weekend are a one-man performance by the distinguished actor Vincent Dowling, a reading by noted poet X.J. Kennedy and panel discussions on the status of women at Bates, the Holocaust and the career of the late U.S. Senator Edmund S. Muskie ’36.

There will also be a tour of the Bates-Morse Mountain Conservation Area, a protected 574-acre parcel on the coast near Phippsburg that includes a barrier beach and is used for research in plant and animal ecology.

The annual parade of reunion classes at 11:30 a.m. Saturday precedes the alumni luncheon. For the parade, classes traditionally adopt amusing costumes, often recalling their undergraduate years, and the best costumes are recognized with awards.

Official reunion classes this year are those of 1936, 1941, 1946, 1956, 1965, 1966, 1967, 1971, 1986, 1990, 1991 and 1992.