Dear classmates,

It’s officially Reunion month on the Hill! I hope to see many of you back in Gambier this May to celebrate our belated 50th Reunion year at what will certainly be a weekend to remember since alumni are FINALLY able to reunite on campus again after two years of virtual gatherings. The sense of isolation that has accompanied the past two years has been challenging to navigate, but having the support of you all, my Kenyon family, has continued to brighten the darkest parts of this pandemic for me — thank you! 

Last fall, I hope you heard about (and perhaps supported!) the new Kenyon Access Initiative. We are eight months into our five-year partnership with the Schuler Education Foundation to increase access to Kenyon for exceptional students with limited resources. Our extended Kenyon community has enthusiastically responded by making more than 1,113 gifts to support this unique initiative, helping to create new scholarships that will be awarded to students we are enrolling now. In further great news, applications this year hit another record, up 14% over last year.

This spring, the College continued its commitment to integrating environmental stewardship into its curriculum, campus operations and campus culture. They also announced the news that Lisa Schott ’80, who since 2010 has served as managing director of the College’s land trust, the Philander Chase Conservancy (PCC), will step down from that position at the end of June after a nearly 40-year career with Kenyon. This news and more was shared in Kenyon’s new quarterly Green Newsletter. If you don’t already receive it, I encourage you to sign up for it at bit.ly/Green-Kenyon.

As summer approaches, Kenyon is preparing to welcome several groups of alumni back to campus. First, more than 100 members of the Class of 2020 and their families have registered to attend their belated Commencement taking place on the Hill May 22. On May 26, many of us and our classmates from the Classes of 1970, 1971 and 1972 will be kicking off Reunion Weekend a day early with special 50th Reunion programming. And then, as you know, all alumni are welcome back to campus May 27-29 for what promises to be the biggest alumni  
gathering in the College’s history! If you aren’t able to make it back for Reunion this year, I hope you’ll plan to attend one soon.

To change things up a little for this class letter, I asked the other class agents on our committee to do me a favor: write a few paragraphs in light of the next (!) attempt to celebrate our 50th reunion.  I got some great responses – take a look!

Brenda Bremner summarized her experience nicely. 

Unlike most, I was at Kenyon for only two years. And my perspective is that of one of two "girls" who arrived as Juniors. As such, I was very often the only female in the classroom. I arrived in the Autumn of 1969 to a fraught new world. The reception was not uniformly welcoming. When "warm" it was not always comfortable.  But the landscape was lovely and we learned to fit ourselves into it and abide alongside each other. We were brought together by the Draft Lottery, Kent State, "war and rumors of war", the music that poured from windows from Old Kenyon to Dorm One, and fears general and particular. But sometimes, say, when the hillsides exploded in jonquils or at endless post-lunch games of Botticelli, "to be young was very Heaven." A favorite Kenyon professor's mantra was "words matter." They did. They do. Ours. Our teachers'. The ones we discovered, declaimed, debated, declined, and dreaded. What we said, and what we meant in those days when we never thought we'd be this impossibly old. Fifty years on, "like it or not."

Norm Schmidt had the following thought.

I grew up in the NE Ohio snow belt and so should be used to major snowstorms but the big snows the last part of January and early February were pretty annoying. I listened to the weather folks talk about the storms and they mentioned that the winter of 1978 was even worse. They chuckled about how many in their audience had not been born yet. I remembered that snowy, icy winter very clearly, I was teaching and coaching at Brush High School in the Eastern suburbs of Cleveland but none of the weather folks talk about the snows of 1960.

That was the year that my brother and I received Flexible Flyer sleds for Christmas. We had a great sledding hill on our land. When the snow was right, we could start at the top, take a couple sharp turns at speed, cross the snow-covered dirt road and go all the way over the bank and onto the Chagrin River. The winter of 1960 the snow was right. We put those sleds to good use.

The big snows this year caused consternation because I’m not much of a snow shoveler anymore. A few days after the first big snow I realized I needed to get more sunflower seeds for the birds and the squirrels so I needed to get out of the driveway. I grabbed the snow shovel and started on the driveway apron. I noticed the custodian at the school across the street was working on his snowplow on the front of his pickup. I thought, “Wouldn’t it be nice . . . . “, but figured it was just a dream and slowly moved the snow. Moments later the pickup was at my driveway and the custodian opened his window and suggested I move out of the way. I smiled and moved.

He has plowed two more times and I have been able to get out easily. Could it be that I look old? Perhaps he decided a quick snow removal was preferable to a 911 call. We are mature and like my favorite custodian, I want to see smiles on the faces of my classmates. Get yourselves to Kenyon this spring so we can celebrate and smile.

And me?  Well, I have some fond memories as well. Here’s my list:

All of the excitement and achievement at Kenyon today can be traced, in part, back to our support. Kenyon relies on our gifts to the Kenyon Fund to support every aspect of students’ experience today, from seminars to scholarships. I hope you’ll join me in making a stretch gift this year in honor of our belated 50th Reunion. We know first-hand how a Kenyon education can impact one’s future — not just professionally, but personally. When we support Kenyon’s current and future students, we help make a Kenyon family like ours a possibility for many more.

Thank you!
Pete Holloway

P.S. Scroll down to view the 1971 class notes.