CLASS OF 1966 | 2026 | FALL ISSUE

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A 60th class reunion is a special occasion, ours being no exception. Eleven us attended in person, May 22–24: Essel Bailey, Alexander Blount, Jonathan Clark, Rick Crootof, Bill Dietz, Alberto Ibargüen, Dan Lang, William Rhys, William Sigafoos, Jim “Sandy” Van Kennen, and yours truly. Another 14 joined in on a Zoom meeting held that Friday afternoon: Tom Broker, Bob Dannies, Bill Fehring, Steve Giddings, Blaine Hibbard, Jack Knapp, Dave McNally, Jonathan Monro, Barry Reder, Tom Richey, Phil Shaver, Bud Smith, Hardy Spoehr,and Doug Werner.

It was a feast of fellowship, the highlight being President Roth presenting in the chapel our Essel with the University’s Outstanding Leadership Award.

It also nourished many a fond memory. Dan Lang recalls being “somewhere between surprised and unconvinced by what, to me, is a new posture toward intercollegiate athletics at Wesleyan. This might not qualify as a favorite, but it is a brain-worm memory that I am still trying to get my head around. . .  Also, I was glad to see that 60 years and the age that goes with it are just numbers. We are not hiding our lights under a bushel.”

Will Rhys’s “favorite moments involved spending more time with those whom I knew of only tangentially when I was a student: Alberto, Essel, and Bill Dietz . . . and seeing the new science building.” Alberto’s “favorite moments came in catching up with my old roommate and friend of a lifetime, Bill Dietz; honor[ing] my friend Essel Baily on his distinguished alumnus recognition; and re-meeting friends I hadn’t seen in decades. I also truly enjoyed feeling the energy on campus and sensing that Wesleyan continues to evolve with changes in the world, remaining as relevant today as when we were there.” Rick Crootof “can’t say I have a favorite memory, it was the overarching gemütlichkeit, the goodwill of being still alive and among friends . . . it was rainy and cold, but very warm.” Dave McNally recalls an earlier “return to Wesleyan . . . the year after we graduated, because the campus looked the same (including our dining hall, later torn down), my Commons Club fraternity was still in business (it was euthanized several years later) and occupied by people I knew, and Willie Kerr was on hand and as effervescent as always.” 

I have so many good memories, one being able to catch-up with my catcher on the baseball team, Dan Lang, who has gone on to an impressive career as economist (for many years he was a professor of economics at the University of Toronto). He remembered m]y curveball, praising it. Not so much the fastball. Another is a walk I took to Olin Library, where I lived half my life at Wesleyan, and then on to Eclectic, passing a spot where I heard that President Kennedy had been shot. Eclectic is now a University residence; I was fortunate to encounter a group of students who live there, proud to be doing so and wanting to know about my years at Eclectic. We talked for over an hour. Then on down High Street to Downey House, which has been redone as a place for receptions and meetings. The English Department still occupies the upper floors; at the top I encountered in spirit Joe Reed and Richard Wilbur, two of my mentors. Wilbur’s lines, “We fray into the future, rarely wrought/Save in the tapestries of afterthought,” came to mind. The only professor I met from our years was Karl Scheibe, who looks like he could step right back into the classroom. He remembers with pride Phil Shaver. A shout-out to Professor Ruth Johnson who introduced us to the new science building, which she was instrumental in planning and building.

I wish all of you could have been there, the houses surrounding the campus, which were showing their age in our day, have been refurbished. The campus is bustling, sporting the new, handsome science building, the not-so-new athletic center, the landscaping gorgeous, College Row, as always, venerable and magnificent. 

As a segue into other news, Alberto proudly writes that “my granddaughter will be part of the Wesleyan Class of 2030. She will be the third generation of Ibargüens, unlikely as that may seem, following my son/her father, Diego ’97, and me.”

Dale Walker writes that he is “retiring this fall after 32 years running a Christian recovery program at the Capital City Rescue Mission in Albany, New York. Dale became a pastor in 1975, started an inner-city church in Albany, and has been designing and writing Christian discipleship curriculums for the last 50 years, some of which he hopes to publish during his retirement.” 

Jonathan Monro sends this amusing missive and photograph: “Thought you’d like this photo of (from left) Sandy Van Kennan, Rick Crootof, and I from 2021, having successfully scaled the heights of Mount Agamenticus in York, Maine—all 692 feet of it.”

Ever wonder how Hardy got his name? I thought it might be from the novelist and poet, Thomas Hardy. Not so. “The real story is that when my grandfather heard my parents named me Alexander after my father, he said, ‘We’ll call him Hardy.’ The question remains: why did he call me that name?”

On a sobering note: 232 of us graduated on that June 5th day, 1966. The University prepared a list of those of our 56 classmates who have died. If you would like a copy of the list, send me a note.

We end with a hortatory injunction from our classmate in South Africa, John Stremlau, who writes: “We don’t have much time left so make the most of it!”

Here are two more photographs.