George W. Bush sure knows how to forgive and forget. Three years after Tom Connolly '79 tipped off local news media about Bush's old drunken-driving conviction -- all but torching a presidential campaign just days before a historic national election -- the Portland lawyer finally heard from Bush. In the mail Wednesday was an autographed picture of the president and Laura Bush, smiling outside their ranch in Texas. A message below the picture thanks Connolly for his dedication as a "Charter Member of the Bush Campaign in Maine." To appreciate just what a triumph this is for Connolly, let's review what happened after Nov. 2, 2000, when he passed a reporter a tip about Bush's 1976 OUI in Kennebunkport: The death threats from Bush zealots were just the beginning.

Pennsylvania Inspector General Don Patterson today announced that C. Jeffrey Goble '73, a 20-year employee of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, has been named director of the state Bureau of Special Investigations for the Office of Inspector General. Goble will direct Investigative Operations managers and their teams who are engaged in investigations of alleged fraud, waste and abuse in government programs. In 1983, Goble joined the FBI and was assigned to a Special Operations Group responsible for conducting physical and technical surveillances. From 1985 to 1992, Goble held various relief supervisory positions that exposed him to counterintelligence, fiscal management, personnel, and undercover operations assignments. Most recently, Goble worked as a special agent in Harrisburg, holding top-secret clearance credentials.

A decade after bringing his wife and daughter from Russia to settle in Portland, Vitaliy Demin has self-published a book designed to ease the transition to America for other newcomers. Welcome to America: The Complete Guide for Immigrants offers the how-to on everything from paying your taxes to celebrating American holidays. Demin's daughter, Olga Demin Lambert '99 -- now working toward her doctorate in language and literacy at Harvard -- translated much of the bilingual book from Russian and wrote the chapter on education. When the family arrived in the United States, Lambert entered the 11th grade as one of only two English-as-a-second-language students at South Portland High School. Two years later, she graduated eighth in her class and went on to Bates to study French and psychology.

John A. Kenney Jr., a leading specialist in dermatological conditions afflicting African-Americans, died Nov. 29. A member of the Bates Class of 1942 and a Trustee Emeritus, he was 89. One of the first black doctors formally trained in dermatology, Kenney developed the dermatology department of Howard University's College of Medicine into a major research center. When he began his medical career, many white doctors refused to see black patients, and those who did often lacked experience in treating skin conditions common among blacks. Because of Kenney's prominence in the field, many colleagues referred to him as the dean of black dermatology. Born in Tuskegee, Ala., Kenney joined the dermatology faculty at Howard in 1961 and taught there for almost four decades.

When director Peter Weir wanted extras for Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World, he asked for folks -- preferably guys -- who could sail a tall ship. But the pool of people, male or female, who can handle a three-masted barquentine is small. That's how the distinctly feminine Emily Pritchard '00 of Randolph Center, Vt., became a seafaring extra in the Russell Crowe vehicle, which includes dramatic sea battles and the inevitable storm at sea. Pritchard is in there, somewhere. "You can see the back of my head for sure in one shot," she says. Pritchard gained her nautical skills during an around-the-world voyage on the tall ship Picton Castle. About a month after her return, Pritchard was on location with the film in Mexico.

When Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean swept through Iowa recently, covering 200 miles' worth of campaign stops in a few hours, only one senior aide was with him: Kate O'Connor '86. O'Connor estimates that she has seen or talked to Dean almost every day since she came to work for him 14 years ago, when he was Vermont's lieutenant governor. It was in her living room that Dean mapped out the themes of his campaign. Today, as Dean soars beyond his Democratic rivals in fundraising and poll numbers, O'Connor remains at the heart of the tiny cadre of senior Dean advisers. His de facto political director when he was governor, she was Dean's first presidential campaign manager, orchestrating his candidacy from her house for much of 2002.

Blair Hundertmark '85 is one of a rare breed, a professional actor working and living in New Hampshire. "I knew I'd need to work differently, diversely," he says about his career choice. "To make a living you need to know what here [New Hampshire] is; what you are, what skills you do and don't have. And then surround yourself with the right people. You're not going to do this alone." He found theater after college, late by most standards. After more than a decade he's still at it. He manages, emcees, acts, directs, teaches and does any necessary tech job. Currently he's gearing up for Of Mice and Men, which he'll direct at the Palace in February.

Chelsea Plourde could have succumbed to "senioritis" this year, taking the easiest classes possible for a cruise to graduation from Poland Regional High School. But she decided to take advantage of a unique and challenging opportunity for students living within driving distance of Lewiston, and signed up for a political science course at Bates this semester. For more than two decades, Bates has offered free courses to a select group of high school students. Nearly 30 take one course per semester through the program, and those who earn a B or better receive college credit. "This opened my eyes to the workload college students have," said Plourde. "My friends were surprised that I wanted to increase my workload senior year, but I like having that extra push."

In Dynasty's End (Northeastern University Press), Thomas J. Whalen '86, an assistant professor of social science at Boston University, offers a well-researched account of the most dominant team in the history of professional sports. In compelling portraits of both the players and the era that brim with colorful detail, the book tells the story of Bill Russell's Celtics, who won 11 championships from 1957 through '69, and focuses on the Celts' last hurrah, the '68-69 season. Whalen has read just about everything available on the subject -- citing 101 books in his bibliography. So if you want a complete portrait of one of the great success stories in team sports, you don't have to read 101 books. Thanks to Whalen, you only have to read one.

When the Wang Center for the Performing Arts kicked out the Boston Ballet's The Nutcracker last month, the controversial decision brought to light the Wang's budget woes. For the last two years the nonprofit arts center has run a deficit. That's why the Wang was forced to boot a Boston institution for the roaming Rockettes. Still, ''is this Christmas action going to be enough?'' wonders Richard Maloney '85, an assistant professor in Boston University's arts administration department. ''That's going to be one of the big questions. We are going to see more nonprofits forced into this corner, like Joe [Spaulding, Wang president and CEO] was, and having to make this decision . . . that he has to hurt another nonprofit to help his nonprofit.''

When Michael Foley graduated from Bates in 1989, he had no idea that what his parents accepted as a good college pastime would one day become his career. "I was not supposed to dance," said Foley, assistant professor of modern dance at the University of South Florida. In fact, Foley was an athlete at his Catholic high school, where he played football and ran track. Foley intended on pursuing sports at Bates, but that changed when he took his first dance class. "When I walked into the studio for the first time to take a dance class, it just felt like this was the place I needed to be," Foley said. "Spiritually, mentally, philosophically -- everything just seemed right. It was like coming home."

When Pamela Johnson was young, she received a gift of money. Asked what she intended to buy with it, she never hesitated: "Samsonite," she said. Luggage in hand, Johnson has been on the move almost ever since. From age 18, the painter and printmaker figures she has moved an average of every other year. Now 45 and feeling settled as an assistant professor of art at Bates, the Kansas native is confident she can set her luggage aside. Johnson ratchets her profile up this week when she shows work in Portland for the first time, displaying black-and-white prints in a group exhibition at the gallery Zero Station. Johnson is among 28 artists taking part in the show, which will encompass progressive works on paper.

At myriad levels Bates and the local communities are a joint effort: The college's economic strength depends in part on the health and success of Lewiston-Auburn, and Bates works with the communities in roles from economic partner to think tank to seed bed. One part of that town-gown story involves the economic impact of a college that draws students from all over the world. The other part is the rapidly expanding economic and community cooperation between Bates people and the communities, a process of growing social capital and finding common cause. -- Bill Hiss, vice president for external affairs, Bates College

Five months after the Supreme Court endorsed affirmative action, resolving decades of debate over race in college admissions, the leaders of the country's top small colleges are tending to issues concerning minority students. More than 20 college presidents, including the heads of Barnard, Williams, Trinity and Wellesley, met Nov. 7 in Boston to address the issue. "We had a very good recruiting year, and through hard work, we tripled the number of African American students in our freshman class," said Bates President Elaine Tuttle Hansen. "That's what makes this project so important. Getting them here is so hard; we can't afford to blow it."

Nathan Holt is justly nervous. Beginning Friday, Holt plays the title character in the Bates College production of William Shakespeare's Hamlet at Schaeffer Theatre. There's nothing like playing the leading role in the best-known play in the English language to get your nervous juices flowing. But Holt, a senior from New Brunswick, N.J., is up for the task. "It is very daunting," he says. "It's a challenge that thousands of actors have undertaken in the past, and countless more to come. It's scary to think about being compared to all of them. But like any great challenge, it's that element of insecurity and vulnerability that is as attractive as it is scary."

"Taken together, these objects remind me of John Donne's poem 'No man is an island,' because in fact just 200 simple objects take you all over the world and to people rich and poor, and well-known and not so well-known." -- Nancy Carlisle '77, curator of the Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities touring exhibit Cherished Possessions: A New England Legacy. Carlisle discussed the exhibit at Boston's Old South Meeting House in a slide lecture recorded by WGBH.

Charles Antin '02 decided to ditch his day job to jet off to Paris to teach English. But for a while Charles was going nowhere. He'd reserved his flight online, but, he says, "unfortunately, I had bought a ticket for my dad to go to France instead of myself." His father was the last Antin to use the Web site and Charles didn't change the settings. The airline said his only hope was to buy another ticket. We knew airline tickets are not transferable -- but we also knew that sometimes "goodwill exceptions" are made. So Help Me Hank explained to the carrier that this was a computer glitch on the ticket site. The response was music to Charles' ears: a ticket in his name.

"We are the organized opposition to unhealthy food. We are the counterforce. There are hundreds, thousands in the U.S. like us," says Mark Winne '72, a founder and the longtime director of the Hartford Food System, the city's oldest nonprofit food organization. Now, after 25 years of waging his own war on poverty, hunger and food insecurity, Winne will dedicate himself full-time to raising awareness of what he calls an "alternative to the mainstream, conventional system." Recipient of a 2002 Food Society Policy Fellowship, Winne is stepping down from the Hartford group to write about his mission and carry the word across the United States.

This summer, as the nuclear crisis in North Korea intensified, most eyes focused on Washington and Pyongyang. Less noticed, but no less important, was the role of a third player: Beijing. China had boldly stepped into the fray, suspending oil shipments to North Korea, sending high-level envoys to Pyongyang, and shifting troops around the Sino-Korean border. And China has not let up the pressure since. These initiatives represented a stark departure from more than a decade of Chinese passivity on the Korean nuclear question, and signal a larger transformation: China's emergence as an active player in the international arena. -- Evan S. Medeiros '93, an associate political scientist at the Rand Corporation, writing with M. Taylor Fravel in Foreign Affairs, November-December 2003

"This isn't exactly the type of book I would tend to read," admits Robert McCauley '79, whose first novel, All Enemies, was recently published. His reading taste tends to run to historical fiction and best sellers by the likes of Robert Ludlum and Clive Cussler. All Enemies, set in the 2020s, depicts the world's plunge into chaos after a Russian native becomes U.S. president. McCauley, a banker for the City of Boston Credit Union, says he tried to make the book as plausible as possible, adding that he based the fictitious president's rise to power on the Supreme Court decision that determined the 2000 presidential election. (The book is available at the Bates College Store and popular online booksellers.)

Several trends are converging to change the way that businesses manage their information technology. Companies are more widely dispersed with remote offices, staff working from home, and traveling employees working from hotels. Business partners want access and shared use of computer systems from across the country or across the world. Software vendors are offering centralized or hosted solutions. Meanwhile cost management has become critical in all areas, certainly in IT. Technologies such as remote management can help meet these demands in a cost-effective way. -- David Silverman '99 is senior systems analyst at The Telluride Group Inc.

Passion, idealism and a willingness to take risks are essential to the performing artist. Add physical prime and brimming vitality, and you have an idea why college theater can be among the most exciting experiences for actor and audience. Theater department head Martin Andrucki arrived at Bates College fresh from graduate school in 1974. "Our students consistently bring high academic achievement," he says. Since Bates is a liberal arts school rather than a conservatory, students are expected to gain the rudiments of the profession, with further training in graduate school or workshops. "What we teach is a fundamental understanding of the nature of theater, which includes a big history and literature, humanistic component," Andrucki says.

Think of Thos. Moser furniture and you think of wood -- gleaming American cherry, fashioned into spare, exquisite chairs and tables. You may also think of Tom Moser himself, the former Bates College speech professor who famously gave up the academic life to build fine furniture in a New Gloucester grange hall. Neither of those associations is an accident. Since its start in the early 1970s, Thos. Moser Cabinetmakers has carefully conveyed a brand image of traditional craftsmanship applied to updated versions of historical wood furniture designs, all with a personal touch that grew from the vision of the company's founder. Now Moser the man and Thos. Moser the company are grappling with big questions about how to extend that brand into the future.

Tom Grande '75, one of the guys and still an egghead, led the charge. Didn't matter what the stampede was for. People followed Tom. Even women people followed him. A woman from Hawaii followed Grande to Bates. When the snow melted, she said: "I'm going back home. You're welcome to come along, but I've had enough of East Coast weather." "I moved there with her in 1976 and have been there ever since," Grande says. Now a partner at Davis Levin Livingston Grande of Honolulu, Grande's big cases include record Medicaid fraud settlements of $4 million and $3.4 million. In those cases Grande not only won whistleblower protection for rank- and-file workers, but netted them high six-figure awards under Hawaii's False Claims Act.

Good technique, a positive attitude, the right doctors and his wife, Ruth, are the reasons pianist Frank Glazer says he's still performing at the age of 88. An artist in residence at Bates, this Wisconsin native lives with his wife of more than 50 years in a restored farmhouse near Kezar Falls. Known locally as the Black Homestead, it has been in Ruth Glazer's family since the mid-1700s. "My wife has been a great asset in every way," Glazer said. "Of course, from a physical standpoint, I've had good doctors. Having really good technique has been a matter of knowing how to use the muscles so you don't develop tendinitis or other problems. . . . In a word, [technique] has to do with efficiency."

The term "domestic terrorism" often conjures up images of right-wing militias, Timothy McVeigh and anti-abortion activists bombing clinics and killing doctors. But since 1977, the FBI has recorded nearly 1,000 criminal acts in the name of the environment or animal rights, with damages totaling $100 million. Investigators describe such organizations as the Earth Liberation Front as domestic terrorist groups in part because of the way they operate. "They are computer savvy, and they know how to cover their tracks and use anonymous techniques,'' said Tom Carey '73, former domestic terrorism chief for the FBI and head of security at Bates. "A lot of these people don't really have fixed addresses, and they move from place to place.''

"There's an old African saying that the roots of a tree cast no shadow. That's how deep the blues goes. When you really listen to the music you understand: This is the one thing they could never take away from black people." -- Corey Harris '91, blues singer and host of Feel Like Going Home, the premiere episode of Martin Scorsese's seven-part documentary series about the blues

For three decades, Marcus Wright hooked up with Phoenix's few Caribbean-born residents, like himself, through a loose grapevine. But now Maricopa County has more than 4,000 Caribbeans, who have formed the Caribbean-American Association of Arizona. The association presents its first Caribbean Festival today. Creating such a presence is exactly what an emerging immigrant community must do, said Cuban-born Lillian Guerra, a professor of history at Bates. "Planning a festival is the first organizing approach in developing an identity. You bring people together: 'Look how many there are of us, look who we are, we're a community,' " she says. "Once the community has defined itself as having something in common culturally, then the next step is talking about particular political needs that should be addressed."

"They were pleased - I think a lot of the freshmen had no idea. Many of them have never lived in a town like Lewiston-Auburn. The comments we heard were very, very positive. It's different from home, but it's a new place to learn in. They are pretty happy to be here." -- President Elaine Tuttle Hansen, talking to television reporters about the response of students new to Bates who took a downtown walking tour of Lewiston on Aug. 25, during Orientation

The chairman of the U.S. House of Representatives' principal subcommittee on higher education appears to be having trouble building support for a proposal that would penalize colleges that raise their prices too high by barring them from federal student-aid programs. On Tuesday, three of four people invited to testify at a subcommittee hearing on college costs blasted the plan proposed by Rep. Howard P. (Buck) McKeon, a California Republican. The three joined Democratic lawmakers in warning that any plan to control college prices would lead to a deterioration in educational programs. "A federal foray into controlling the prices charged by institutions would be unwise and potentially destabilizing," said Jamie P. Merisotis '86, president of the Institute for Higher Education Policy, a Washington-based research group.

When an Ohio State player faked catching a pass by a North Carolina State quarterback Saturday and got away with it, the stage was set for the Buckeyes' final touchdown. "I've seen the play and he did not catch the ball," said Daniel J. Doyle Jr. '72, a Bates Trustee and founder of the Institute for International Sport. Based at the University of Rhode Island, the agency fosters higher ethical conduct in sports. Last year, Doyle addressed North Coast Athletic Conference players around Ohio as part of a program to heighten sportsmanship, but he knows it will never prevail over gamesmanship -- casual cheating for the win's sake. "You obey the law when someone is watching you," Doyle said. "Ethical conduct is what happens when nobody is looking."

"If we do it right, if we accomplish the goals, I think it's a very big deal. I think it will be something I will be very proud to be associated with to say that a state that is not very high in per capita income, nor population, a state that not particularly is addressed as a wealthy state in terms per capita income, will have at least partially solved the health care needs, the medical care needs of its population, in a way that I think would be envied by most other states. I think there may be indeed a "Dirigo Effect" in which we might lead other states and hopefully the nation into a more realistic way to cover the health care needs of our population." -- Dr. Robert McAfee '56, a former president of the American Medical Association, nominated by Gov. John Baldacci Sept. 5 to chair the board of directors of Maine's ambitious Dirigo Health plan

Maine State Sen. Peggy Rotundo, director of the Bates College Center for Service-Learning, is a co-sponsor of a resolution passed by the Maine House and Senate that seeks a waiver from the federal No Child Left Behind Act. The federal legislation imposes a wide range of mandates on state and local governments. On The News Hour, Rotundo was asked if she believed that Maine would actually receive such a waiver. She answered: "We were hoping that it would help them to understand that we felt that we could do the work on our own, that it wasn't necessary for us to meet the standards of the federal legislation because we had ample evidence that we were doing a very good job already."

"[W]hen I speak of theatre, I speak of history, culture and the personal roles we choose to play; at the same time, when I say desire, we're not just talking about the temptations of the external world . . . of erotic desires and a natural sensuality that forms part of my own idiosyncrasy as a Cuban, but about the desire for beauty, for an improvement in the human condition, for complete justice, truth and peace." -- Cuban artist Manuel Lopez Oliva, on Cuba and the Theatre of Desire, his Bates College exhibition, which is his first solo show in the United States (translation by Assistant Professor of History Lillian Guerra)

"[My grandmother] fondly shared some of her memories from her own travels around the world. I described all the courses I would be taking in the fall; she described all the courses she had taken at college, more than 50 years ago. Several times every day, however, it would hit me that she was dying -- that I wouldn't be able to discuss what I learned in my classes or share my writing with her. Grandmother died on Aug. 6 . . . that was also the day I turned in my first Compass column. [She] gave me the inspiration to begin writing . . ." -- Michele Stillwell-Parvensky '07, of Denver

"Omar McRoberts has written about Boston's urban religious environment and offered a trenchant analysis that challenges much of the conventional wisdom concerning 'faith-based communities.' . . . If we are truly interested in contemporary community life and civil society, we will want to know how churches actually work in depressed urban areas. There is no better study available on this volatile subject than this one, required reading for all would-be policy makers, and citizens." -- The Rev. Peter Gomes '65, reviewing McRoberts' Streets of Glory: Church and Community in a Black Urban Neighborhood

As a mother of two, wife, adjunct professor at Western Connecticut State University and owner of a computer business, 49-year-old Kathy Slivka '75, of New Milford, wears many hats. But in her spare time, she travels to Bridgeport to help out at the Center for Women and Families of Eastern Fairfield County. For her efforts, Slivka recently received the center's 2003 Volunteer of the Year award. Founder of her own computer services firm, Computer Training Partners, Slivka first rolled up her sleeves for the center and helped out during a computer crisis about four years ago. The center's database seemed incomprehensible, but Slivka worked with the staff and programmer and helped them improve both the system itself and their comfort with it.

Recently, the Bush administration projected a record $455 billion budget deficit for the fiscal year 2003. The nonpartisan Center of Budget Policies and Priorities recently analyzed Congressional Budget Office data and concluded that, of all Bush administration policy decisions, "tax cuts . . . account for the majority of deterioration in the budget." It therefore seems unconscionable to enact more tax breaks -- yet that's exactly what the House tried to do in June in approving a repeal of the federal estate tax. If approved by the Senate, this would cost the treasury $1 trillion over the next 20 years. Mainers should tell their elected officials to preserve the estate tax, the nation's most progressive tax, instead of digging a deeper hole in the federal and state budgets. - Jim Amaral '80, in an op-ed column

A 38-foot shallop completed an 11-day journey Thursday that re-created the first trade voyage up the Kennebec River by the Pilgrims in 1628. The Elizabeth Tilley, a replica of the boat used for the original trip, set sail July 28 from Plymouth, Mass., replicating the voyage of John Howland from Plymouth to Cushnoc, the original name for Augusta. The single-masted Tilley is the brainchild of Brad Gorham, president of the Pilgrim John Howland Society, which arranged to have the shallop built. "We created it based on 17th-century naval architecture practices, which were pretty rigid," said Peter Arenstam '85, who built the boat and led the crew. "This is the most unique vessel I've ever built."

"I know people think of lawyers as just being interested in money, and that, of course, is true of many. . . . But the lawyers who want to go into the legal aid business and do family law, landlord-tenant law, welfare law as a career, these certainly are people we think should be supported." -- U.S. First Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Frank Coffin '40 on National Public Radio's Morning Edition. Coffin headed an American Bar Association committee that found that fewer recent law school grads will take jobs as public defenders because they can't earn enough to offset the cost of student loans.

Sarah Standiford was a toddler when a group of activists decided to put women's issues on the map in Maine. The women formed a group that would fight for bills to protect and extend women's rights. Twenty-five years later, Standiford has become executive director of the Maine Women's Policy Center and the Maine Women's Lobby. "Understanding how communities work and working to make change is a big piece of what I do," said Standiford, 28. She left her job as community relations and organizing manager for Planned Parenthood of Northern New England to head the policy center. She will continue as co-chairwoman of the Maine Choice Coalition. Standiford, a Maryland native, is a 1997 Bates graduate with a degree in anthropology and a concentration in women's studies.

The bridegroom's mother beamed as her son was married July 19 in Manhattan. Rajpuram Sriram, a native of India, had done what his mother had not: chosen a "love marriage" over an arranged one. His road to love began with a bump. It was in 2001 at International House, a residence and cultural center. Ogniana Ivanova '00, then a graduate student, was fantasizing about her new International House neighbors, whom she hadn't yet met, as she dressed for a date. "I'm hoping some dashing Swedish guy would move in across from me," she remembered. Suddenly, a knock on the door. "With a big smile, Raj says, `Hi, I'm your new neighbor,' " recalled Ivanova. Her response was curt. "I said, `Hello, let's talk tomorrow, I'm really late.' "

"Cuba isn't in a position economically to [regress] back to the early '90s, when people couldn't even get soap. . . . There's a sense of fear and frustration, and there's a precariousness right now that is due to the kind of extremism that the Bush administration is taking." -- Assistant Professor of History Lillian Guerra, discussing the mood of the Cuban people 50 years after Castro started his revolution. The anniversary coincides with Havana's newly harsh repression of dissidents, souring relations with European trading partners and Washington's increased restrictions on Cuban contacts.

They're passionate about politics, committed to campus activism and dedicated to the ideals of smaller government, less taxes and more individual freedom. They're today's college conservatives -- people like Oliver Wolf of Shadyside, one of 187 young people who attended the National Conservative Student Conference in Washington this week. Wolf is a sophomore at Bates College, a place he says has a distinct liberal bias. As vice chairman of the Bates College Republicans, he is working hard to change that by bringing in speakers like conservative commentator Dinesh D'Souza and organizing events that "present a diversity of opinions." "I believe in the free expression of ideas," said Wolf. "I feel that conservatism can be well-respected if it is presented in a strong but civil way."

Professor of Economics Anne Williams was one of a team of sleuths for this nationally televised show that solves mysteries associated with historical places and artifacts. Williams, identified as a "world-renowned jigsaw expert," was shown a puzzle, found in Worcester, Mass., dated 1894 and depicting women playing football. Part of a team that included a sports historian, magazine collector and members of an antiquities society, Williams called the mystery object a classic example of a puzzle cut in 1908 or 1909 from an 1894 lithograph, and she identified the puzzle cutter as Mary Underwood of Boston. The puzzle is one of two of Underwood's known to exist.

Bush-Cheney '04 today announced that James D. Tobin '83 will serve as the New England campaign chairman. "Jim Tobin will be a valuable advisor and messenger for the campaign," said Marc Racicot, Chairman Bush-Cheney '04. Tobin is the founder of The Tobin Company, a Bangor, Maine-based communications and political consulting company. He has more than 20 years of political experience and has served as national political director for Forbes for President, Northeast political director for the Republican Senatorial Committee under Sen. Bill Frist, regional political director at the Republican National Committee and as a consultant to the National Republican Congressional Committee. In addition, Tobin has advised Sens. Cohen, Snowe and Collins. Tobin lives with his wife and four children in Bangor.

Amy Dickinson will soon be tackling matters of infidelity, illness, greed, dating, splitting up, weddings, funerals and all manner of issues that confuse and amuse mankind. On July 20 she starts writing "Ask Amy," her daily advice column. In so doing, Dickinson -- a veteran journalist, former lounge singer and a distant relative of poet Emily Dickinson -- will enter into the most intimate relationship that exists between newspapers and their readers. Kirk Read, a professor of French at Bates College, has known Dickinson since childhood. "Amy is the classiest, funniest, smartest girl to walk off the farm," he said. "I have taken her advice for years. She leads people to their own best advice. She's a listener and, yes, a pretty adept talker."

Hikers seeking a challenge have the Appalachian Trail. Now Rob Center '73 of Waitsfield, Vt., is promoting a trail of waterways that flows over 740 miles from upstate New York to Fort Kent, Maine. The Northern Forest Canoe Trail follows old Native American routes along 22 rivers and streams, crosses 56 lakes and ponds, and requires 62 carries between waterways. Center and others are trying to raise $1 million to have the trail marked on maps, announced on signs and equipped with campsites. He envisions the trail attracting birdwatchers and history buffs as well as canoeists. "We're looking at this as appealing to someone coming to a specific destination for a three-to-five-day period," he said, rather than through-paddlers.

South Pond Chapel in Plymouth, Mass., looks like so many others that dot the New England landscape -- locked doors, peeling white clapboards, overgrown grass. But on summer Sunday nights the tiny church comes alive as people of all ages and faiths congregate for old-fashioned hymn sings that leave their throats parched but their spirits refreshed. The highlight of the season usually comes on the last Sunday in August, Old Home Day, when the Rev. Professor Peter J. Gomes '65 takes the pulpit, as he has every year since the hymn sings began in 1961. "It's my absolutely indisputable hypothesis that singing the old hymns reminds us of our youth," says Gomes, who supported himself as an organist while attending Bates College and Harvard Divinity School.

"I said, 'WERU, I work there -- what is this? This shouldn't happen. This is amazing.' Then I looked at [the article] and realized, 'This is us.' . . . Considering that we're non-profit, non-commercial, facilities are not state-of-the-art -- to be listed is pretty phenomenal." -- Denis Howard II '94, development director for the community radio station WERU-FM, in East Orland, Maine. In its July 2003 issue, Esquire ranked WERU among 12 best radio stations in the United States.

Bates College closed the broadcast of ABC World News Tonight with Peter Jennings on June 9, the last item in a montage of commencement speakers from several colleges, including Smith, Carnegie Mellon and the U.S. Naval Academy. In the Bates clip, Yale Professor of Law Stephen L. Carter told graduates: "Today when you receive your degrees and move your tassels from the right side of your cap to the left, you will also be graduating into what we might describe as the reasoning class -- people who are trained to use their minds." Added Jennings, "Next stop, the real world."

Former Supreme Court Justice Louis Scolnik '45 has received a special award by the group he helped create: the Maine Civil Liberties Union. On Thursday, the retired lawyer, judge and justice was presented a plaque by the organization honoring his 80th birthday. The Lewiston native watched another prominent lawyer win an award in his name. Maine Attorney General Steve Rowe became the 15th recipient of the Justice Louis Scolnik Award. Much of Scolnik's life has been spent fighting for people's rights, as the American Civil Liberties Union's sole lawyer in Maine, a founder of the Maine Civil Liberties Union, a Superior Court judge and a justice on the Maine Supreme Judicial Court.

James Carignan '61 has been through a lot in his 33 years at Bates College. Three college presidents, massive campus expansions and attempts to move Bates from a conservative regional school to a nationally recognized liberal arts college. And then there were Carignan's two heart transplants and the sniper attack that left a bullet lodged in his chest. So it may be surprising that when the retiring dean talks about the last three decades, he sounds a lot like a kid just back from a theme park. "It was a great, great ride," he said.

"I think that all along the [White House] policy toward Iraq had this odd characteristic. It was one of the most publicly and outright argued policies of my lifetime and yet, despite that, it remains hard for most citizens to understand. Because of that difficulty the administration called attention to some components of the policy over others. . . . But as we look back on the war, retrospectively, the actual reasons for going to war become clearer as the president and his advisors are interrogated about why they did what they did." -- Jeffrey Tulis '72, associate professor, Department of Government, University of Texas at Austin

"I work out five days a week in a good week! On the weekend, grocery shopping by myself feels good. I crank up some music and we dance together -- or I'll dance for my 2-year-old, Julia, and she looks at me like I'm crazy! But it gets my blood pumping and lets out any pent-up stress. I've got Julia on a sleep schedule so I can have my eight hours -- otherwise, I get cranky. Now I'm in bed between 9:30 and 10:30 every night. Then I say my prayers, especially after a challenging day with Julia. I give thanks for her, for my husband, and for everything we have, and it gives me peace." -- Julie (Young) Mann '89

Bryant Gumbel '70 is coming back to broadcast television. This time, he won't have to set his alarm clock. Gumbel, the longtime Today anchor who quit CBS' The Early Show a year ago, will be co-host of a new PBS show, Flashpoints USA, that will air four times a year. The series, which will originate from the Washington-area WETA, will begin on July 15 by examining how the country is balancing its homeland security with its freedoms of expression. Gwen Ifill, a NewsHour correspondent and moderator of Washington Week, will co-host the show with Gumbel. Since leaving CBS last year, the 54-year-old Gumbel has been seen only on his HBO series, Real Sports.

When Andrew "Drew" Sachs '91 began work as Brewer's economic development director in 1999, he was given two directives: Develop the waterfront and draw businesses to outer Wilson Street. Four years later, waterfront restoration is about to begin, fully funded by $3 million in state and federal grants and $200,000 of local money. A plan to convert the area into a scenic delight has been developed. Businesses are vying for space along Wilson Street, once a sparsely occupied area. Sachs played a key role in jump-starting these developments and others in Brewer, and his contribution has been recognized. When he interviewed for the job, Sachs says, "it was very clear I was coming into an environment where economic development wasn't a question, it was a demand."

"It was important for him to get it out into the open, to give a full measure of the Kennedy presidency. . . . The Kennedy administration projected a certain image. That image did not quite live up to the reality of the situation here." -- Thomas Whalen '86, assistant professor of social science at Boston University. Whalen, the author of Kennedy Versus Lodge: The 1952 Massachusetts Senate Race (Northeastern University Press, 2000), appeared on NECN to defend Robert Dallek's decision to reveal Kennedy's affair with a 19-year-old intern in the biography An Unfinished Life.

A former professional squash player who became disillusioned with the sport's elitist overtones, Greg Zaff began SquashBusters, a Boston-based program aimed at improving the lives of poor and minority youths, in 1996. Zaff's formula of combining daily squash training and supervised study time with community service has inspired similar programs in New York, Philadelphia and Hartford. Foremost among each program's goals is instilling students with a sense of accountability and respect, for themselves as well as teammates and opponents. In less than six years, 15 SquashBusters students from the sixth, seventh and eighth grades have gone on to prep schools in the Northeast, Zaff said, and one of the program's best players, Guillermo Moronta '06, is now a member of the team at Bates.

As China's government has admitted the true extent of the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome virus, life in Handan, the city I live in 250 miles south of Beijing, has begun to change in small ways. People look at you more warily on the street. Disinfectants have sold out at the local pharmacies. Gauze masks, ordinarily worn by bike riders to keep out pollution, are now a fashion statement de rigueur (even though they do little to prevent inhalation of the virus). My English-teaching colleagues are all nervous and pester my school's director about precautions they should take and whether there are any confirmed cases in the city. I give it less thought -- there are some things you can't control. -- By Jeremy Breningstall '97

The fame is nice, but it's not why Justin Easter '03 competes. He simply loves to race. Easter closes a remarkable career at Bates College this month at the NCAA Division III track and field championships in Canton, N.Y. If he defends his title in the 3,000-meter steeplechase [Editor's note: He did, finishing in 8:54.27], Easter will earn his seventh All-America award and become the first Bates athlete to reach the NCAA championships in all 12 sports seasons. He will walk away from Bates at the end of the month with a degree in English and the distinction of being named the school's male athlete of the year. Ask Easter for perspective and an engaging smile is followed with a shrug. "It's been a good run, I guess."

Racism stinks. Especially "eRacism," controversial artist William Pope.L's exhibit opening today at the Portland [Oregon] Institute for Contemporary Art. Walk into the show and your olfactory sense is assaulted with a scent of rotting meat and cabbage. A real stench is a staple of Pope.L's multidisciplinary artworks, which often use food (although usually dehydrated so they don't decompose too quickly). And like that sweet-and-sour assault on the senses, Pope.L's art may not be embraceable but it also can't be missed. The retrospective testifies to Pope.L's polemical appeal and growing stature in the art world. Three organizations, including PICA, DiverseWorks Artspace in Houston and the Institute of Contemporary Art at Maine College of Art, have collaborated to assemble the show by this lecturer in theater at Bates College.

The Kennedy Center, with its Sondheim Celebration, and the tiny, economically struggling Synetic Theater were the biggest winners last night at the Helen Hayes Awards, the annual prizes given for excellence in Washington theater. In a ceremony held at the Kennedy Center, the 19th annual awards dispensed honors in 24 categories. The inaugural Charles MacArthur Award for outstanding new musical, named for Hayes' playwright husband, went to the Arena Stage production of Zora Neale Hurston and Dorothy Waring's "Polk County," adapted by Kyle Donnelly and Cathy Madison '88. Madison worked as Arena's literary manager until this spring and is now a fund-raiser for an anti-hunger organization in Washington.

Copies of the Lisbon High School student newspaper from the mid-1960s containing two original stories have become collector's items. Why? The writer of the quirky tales is one ''Steve King'' and the stories, titled ''The 43rd Dream'' and ''Code Name: Mousetrap,'' are believed to be among the earliest published work of best-selling horrormeister King, who graduated from Lisbon High in 1966. The old papers were discovered last year by retired English teacher Prudence Grant '65, who sold the copies on eBay for between $400 and $800 per copy. Grant never had King in class, but was an adviser for the school paper, The Drum. Grant remembers him as ''a goofy guy who went on to do far, far, far better than any of us.''

The Historical Society of Western Pennsylvania has received a $200,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities to develop a curriculum about the French and Indian War that will focus on the role that Native Americans played. Ann Fortescue '84, director of education for the Senator John Heinz Pittsburgh Regional History Center, is administrative director of the grant. She will work with teachers from seven states to develop the new curriculum, designed for K-12 teachers. "The project is a teacher-training program," Fortescue said, explaining that when it is finished, sometime in May 2006, "teachers from across the country will be able to access the curriculum simply by going to the history center's Website."

Matt Buchman '80, of Washington state's San Juan Islands, wants to avoid wasting power in a way that most Americans unwittingly do every day: He has targeted the transformer, the converter that allows electronic devices with diverse voltage needs to use the standard 120 volts. Sometimes called "two-pronged vampires" because they continuously draw power, transformers can account for up to 5 percent of a home's power consumption. Buchman (whose designs for his solar-powered house are detailed at his Website, www.mlbuchman.com/house/house.htm) uses only electronics with newer, solid-state transformers. "I went around with a meter and measured what a typical appliance took,'' he said. "Then I went into a big appliance store, looked at every appliance and figured out which was the lowest usage."

Twenty years after the Reagan administration discovered that ours is "a nation at risk" and that our educational system is rampant with inequality, the potent political rhetoric of "standards-based" reform dominates the important debate regarding education reform. In order to leave no child behind, government establishes what it calls high standards, aligns curriculum and pedagogy with these so-called standards, tests students to see if they meet the standards, and holds students, teachers, and schools accountable for test results. The logic is clear, but the premise is false. The standards-based movement is based on the faulty assumption that standardized instruction and tests breed high intellectual standards and that these "standards" will truly break the cycle of inequality. -- By Eleanor R. Duckworth and David U. Fox '93

Matteo Pangallo '03 has logged significant time onstage, but this summer he takes on a different theatrical role in his first full season as president and artistic director of the Salem Theatre Company, a project he has nursed from dream to reality. The idea, which Pangallo first had as a student at Marblehead High School, is to bring quality performing arts events to Salem. ''It's time Salem opened the curtain on Act One, Scene One of its own revitalization,'' said Pangallo. Theater has long been a large part of his life, from community theater in his youth to his involvement in drama groups at Bates, where he majored in English and minored in theater.

Worcester native Dan Doyle '72 will receive major honors from the University of Rhode Island. On May 18, the URI will confer an honorary doctorate of human letters to Doyle for his work as founder and executive director of the Institute for International Sports at the school.

If college is supposed to prepare students for the real world, the college-admissions process is quickly becoming a rough introduction to the rat race of adulthood. The process has never been so competitive, or so controversial. The role of the SAT and other standardized tests is part of the controversy, with critics calling them discriminatory and not representative of academic potential. Bill Hiss '66, vice president for external affairs at Bates, made standardized tests optional for applicants while he was dean of admissions. "I broadly question whether [the SAT] or any standardized test system is uniformly predictive of student performance," Hiss said. "Half of this is test-taking skills."

After this hard winter, people's minds are turning to summer things — perhaps to a favorite fishing hole or trout stream. To help revive those sylvan yearnings, former Bostonians Ben Winship and David Thompson '88 have released a deliciously languid, breezy homage to the joys of the angler, Fishing Music (Snake River Records). The CD casts its lines far and wide, from Hoagy Carmichel's "Lazy River" to the Celtic ballad "Banks of the Marlborough Shore." Because the collection is performed by the same core ensemble, however, it takes on just the right chummy, leisurely feel.

Nearly $300 billion in tax payments is missing -- and the government can't find it. The money comes from the millions of people who haven't filed their tax returns or been tracked down by the Internal Revenue Service. The amount of uncollected taxes: $280 billion and rising. And according to the IRS Oversight Board, it is too late to collect those taxes. "There is a substantial block of funds that are really in excess of 10 years old," said Karen Hastie Williams '66 of the IRS board. "Those trails are stale and it really is uncollectible at this point."

Euterpe Dukakis '25, who came to this country 90 years ago from Greece in search of the American dream and lived to see her son become the Democratic Party's nominee for president, died Wednesday night at Spring House, a retirement facility in Boston. She was 99. "People were coming to the United States in droves from everywhere then, because this was the Promised Land," Mrs. Dukakis told an interviewer in 1988 when her son, former Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis, was running for president. In 1985, Mrs. Dukakis set up the Dukakis Family Scholarship Fund for the music department at Bates, and in 1994 she gave Bates $1 million for the permanent endowment of the Euterpe Boukis Dukakis Professor of Classical and Medieval Studies.

Curatorial correctness has never counted for much at Exit Art, the SoHo alternative space now on 10th Avenue. Jeanette Ingberman and Papo Colo established it on Canal Street in 1982 intending to do things differently, and most shows have shed new light in some direction. ''Exit Biennial: The Reconstruction'' indicates that the pushing continues. The 35 installations and site-specific pieces share one primary characteristic: none existed when the show began. All have been built since then where they stand. A cabin by Katherine Gilmore '97 takes assemblage to rough, teeter-tottering extremes. Cobbled together from scavenged construction scraps, it suggests the dangerously heavy, poorly anchored gondola of a hot-air balloon. ''Exit Biennial: The Reconstruction'' is at Exit Art, 475 10th Avenue at 36th Street, Manhattan, through May 4.

Education columnist Jay Mathews asked high school counselors and teachers to recommend "colleges and universities that deserve bigger reputations . . . the hidden gems, the lesser-known jewels, the wallflower colleges that students fall in love with." Bates placed 28th on a list of 100, ranked by the number of contributor mentions, that started with Elon College and ended with Dean. Mathews' description of Bates: This is another small school -- about 1,800 undergraduates -- with a well-earned reputation for high academic standards and easy faculty-student communication. It does not require that applicants submit SAT or ACT scores, but students who have not applied themselves to their high school courses or shown intellectual merit in some way will not get in.

Raised in the fertile Democratic soil of Springfield's Forest Park neighborhood, U.S. Rep. Robert W. Goodlatte '75 is now thriving in the loamy earth of Republican Virginia. Goodlatte, a Republican congressman who represents parts of rural Virginia near his home in Roanoke, is more politically attuned to his adopted state. While the Massachusetts delegation voted 4-1 against going to war with Iraq, the 13-member Virginia delegation was politically the polar opposite, voting 5-1 to give President Bush the authority to wage war. Goodlatte, a Christian Scientist, agrees with the president's decision to invade Iraq. "I'm very conservative," Goodlatte said. When the late President John F. Kennedy ran for president in 1960, Goodlatte remembers, "I supported Richard Nixon."

For foreign students who have known armed conflict at home, war is more personal than for most of their American-born classmates. The issue is complicated for Smadar Bakovic, a Bates senior who served in Israel's occupying forces in the Palestinian territories. As a teenager fulfilling compulsory service, she did not fully understand the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Years later, as a Bates student, she visited Arab villages inside Israel and came to better understand hardships suffered under occupation. Bakovic feels the Iraq war is justified. From her perspective, many of her anti-war classmates are naive. "I feel that Americans in a way are privileged, because they can claim to be pacifist," she said. "I wish that the world was like that - where saying that 'I'm against war because it's bad' was enough."

Will Americans' patience for the Iraq war end as the human toll hits home? A strong sense of the fight's importance during the Civil War, World War II and the early years of Vietnam led people to accept higher casualty rates, said Chris Beam, who teaches a course on the Vietnam War at Bates. Beam thinks President Bush hasn't made an effective case against Saddam Hussein, providing potential for dissent. "If the war bogs down," Beam said, "then you're going to start hearing louder voices." Television could also shape opinion. The initial ambivalence some Americans felt about the war seemed to fade once they saw it start on television, noted Francesco Duina, assistant professor of sociology. "Many people doubted what was about to happen," he said, "and then because it seemed to go well they were OK with it, which is not really a logical position."

When the student group People Eating Plants asked Bates not to serve animal products during the Great American Meatout, March 20, Dining Services made a counteroffer. Bates would invite noted vegetarian chef Ken Bergeron to Commons to prepare vegan dinner specialties on March 20. PEP, meanwhile, would ask students to pledge not to eat animal products, holding out Bergeron's treats as enticement. Bates would then donate $1.85 per pledge — the estimated savings on animal products — to a charity of PEP's choosing. PEP founder Alexis Curry '03 said that 654 students took the pledge, benefiting the Trinity Soup Kitchen. "It seems like people who didn't even take the pledge are eating vegan," Curry said. Bergeron's dishes included white bean cakes with peach tomato salsa; winter squash Afghani style; and chocolate zucchini "Nanny" cake.

When her son became a Marine nine years ago, Yvonne Custis knew there was a chance he could go off to war. That became reality when Capt. Jon Custis '91 was sent to Kuwait nearly two months ago with the 3rd Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion. Since then she has heard little. "I think they've gone across the border" into Iraq, she said. "He's in reconnaissance, so he's probably gone ahead of the rest." Custis could have heard from Jon as recently as Thursday, but missed the chance. She got home from work to find messages from friends saying that Jon was interviewed on Fox News earlier. "That helps that someone else has seen him and he's OK," Custis said. "It was better than not hearing any news at all."

We are told that since war is now a fact, all dissent about it must cease. We must support our troops and our president. Critics of President Bush's failed diplomacy are told to ''Fermez les bouches,'' and are declared to be on the slope to treason. By what logic, however, is a war that millions thought unjustified and immoral before it occurred now made justified and moral by the fact of its occurring? Are those who opposed the war now simply to acquiesce in silence and ignore our own consciences? Of course not. The Vietnam experience reminds us that wartime protest is a legitimate and powerful expression of rights for which Americans fought previous wars; and make no mistake, it was protest that ended the Vietnam War. — The Rev. Peter Gomes '65

While those who support or oppose an Iraqi invasion have made their feelings clear, it's likely that many Mainers are ambivalent about war, said Richard V. Wagner, a psychology professor at Bates College and a co-editor of the textbook "Peace, Conflict and Violence: Peace Psychology for the 21st Century." It's understandable for people to be confused when there are so many unanswered questions, Wagner said. "This is a highly complex set of issues on a variety of different levels," he said. "We've got a situation where the U.S. is basically starting a war . . . and we don't have enough information to judge the rightness of it."

Eric Chasalow '77, professor of composition at Brandeis University and director of the Brandeis Electro-Acoustic Music Studio, has been selected to receive a 2003 American Academy of Arts and Letters Award in Music at the Academy's annual ceremony in May. The award honors outstanding artistic achievement and acknowledges a composer who has arrived at his or her own voice. In addition, Chasalow, who studied composition with Mario Davidovsky at Columbia University, released a new CD of chamber, electronic and orchestral music -- titled Left to His Own Devices -- on New World Records in February. An audio archivist as well as composer, he uses traditional instruments, synthesizers and recordings from everyday life in his compositions.

Carolyn Ryan '86, who oversaw the Globe's coverage of the 2002 gubernatorial elections as Metro political editor, became assistant managing editor/Metro of The Boston Globe on March 1. A native of South Weymouth, Ryan joined the Globe in 1999 as deputy city editor. She will oversee the city desk, New England coverage, state politics, and specialists in health, medicine, science, higher education, environment and immigration. ''State political coverage has reflected Carolyn's characteristic competitiveness, infectious enthusiasm, and keen interest in lively writing and strong presentation,'' said Editor Martin Baron. Ryan, who began her career at the Patriot Ledger in Quincy, served as State House bureau chief for the Boston Herald and covered the Clinton impeachment trial.

Jason Wentworth and Sandrine Chabert are out to shake up an industry not known for rapid changes. Wentworth and Chabert, who are married, bought the rundown Washboard Laundry in Portland last spring and have since made it a place friendlier to both its clients and the environment. In particular, they've replaced old, inefficient laundry machines with state-of-the-art models that use less power and water. The research Wentworth put into finding efficient machines is paying off in his other job as environmental coordinator at Bates. He said the company that runs the college's coin-operated laundries for students will install more efficient models this summer, saving the college about a million gallons of water a year and significant money on energy bills.

For nearly 60 years, Elizabeth Hobbs '51 has spoken out against war. Her first protest came in 1946, when, as valedictorian at her Portland High School graduation, she advocated against another world war. Last week, Hobbs joined two dozen other Maine writers for a Portland Poets for Peace reading, held to protest the White House postponement of a national poetry symposium. First lady Laura Bush shelved the symposium upon learning that some invitees planned to express antiwar sentiments. But artists, Hobbs says, have always provided a voice of reason during times of conflict. "An honest artist will show all sides, and not just rah-rah for our side," she says. "Our side is the human side, and we had better not forget it."

Maine activists and politicians have played an important role in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge oil-drilling debate, and have been especially busy lately as politicians debate midnight riders and other back-door tactics that would open the door to drilling. Two of them are Jill Morrissey and Tim Leach '99, activists from Kennebunkport who travel the Northeast giving slide shows on Arctic issues. Morrissey was working on her graduate degree in environmental education and participating in a protect-the-Arctic campaign when they met. Leach had spent time in Alaska interviewing residents, oil workers, indigenous people and scientists about the drilling issue. Morrissey and Leach teamed up a year ago and have been touring together ever since.

Freshman legislator Ben Cline '94 quietly made a statement about his views on the separation of powers in Virginia's government. It happened at the end of a busy floor session in the House of Delegates on Jan. 30. The last bill the House handled was an innocuous measure establishing standards for testing school employees for HIV and hepatitis. The bill already had passed the House and Senate unanimously, but Gov. Mark Warner had proposed minor amendments. Ninety-seven House members voted to accept Warner's proposed changes. Cline, in his fourth week on the job, cast the lone "no" vote. "For the governor to become the 141st legislator really struck me, so I took a principled vote against that power," Cline said last week.

After 17 months as interim dean, Richard Gelles '68 has been named permanent dean of the University of Pennsylvania's School of Social Work, University President Judith Rodin announced yesterday. Gelles came to Penn in 1998 as a faculty member and now also serves