Harvard Alumni - Class of 1961

Biannual 1961 Class Dinner Highlights

This year we honored four Classmates for their contributions to the Class and society at large:  Bob Anderson, John Hancock, Gus Schumacher, and Judith Rogers.  Here are the Citations that were presented with their awards.  Also included are the 2018 Class Poem by Patricia Cleary Miller, and an account of Tom Blodgett’s experience at the World Masters Match in Malaga, Spain that were featured. 

Citation and Award honoring Bob Anderson

Presented by Bill Gallagher

Introduction

To watch Bob Anderson play hockey was a joy.  Superb skills with an athletic, effortless grace, and playmaking savvy… those certain qualities that even among high talent stand out in a way that most of us can only envy. I know… I was a near permanent benchwarmer on the freshman hockey team, and therefore had a great seat to see all of Bob’s games and plays up close and personal.  And the seat was free! Bob captained that team.  It compiled the second best won/lost record in 62 years of Harvard hockey.    A squad that legendary coach Cooney Weiland termed “the best two-way team I’ve coached in my 11 years here.” A three year letterman, Bob was elected to First Team All Ivy and to First Team All New England.

Professional

Following Harvard and the Marine Corps, Bob, now married to Judy, went on to Law School. Then followed a distinguished and successful career at law firms large and small as well as, on the corporate side, serving as legal counsel for prominent businesses. The 10 years prior to his retirement he served and Senior Vice President, Secretary and General Counsel of Boston Scientific Corporation.

Harvard

We especially honor Bob this evening for his service to Harvard and our Class. He was our 40th Reunion Chair in 2001, a poignant and highly successful gathering that closely followed the tragedies of 9/11.  Currently he chairs the John Harvard Society for our Class, and the Legacy Gift branch of Harvard Development, of which he has been a member since its founding in 1989.  

Friends of Harvard Hockey

It is an understatement to say Bob is and has been a major force in the Harvard athletics world for decades.  It would not surprise anyone to learn that as a member of the Friends of Harvard Hockey, serving as its president for 12 years, he created:

1. The William J. Cleary, Jr. Ice Hockey endowment fund. 
2. The annual F of HH fundraising golf tournament.
3. And importantly, the Robert G. Anderson AB 1961 Athletic Director’s Discretionary Fund which Bob established at the time of our 35th Reunion to support men’s and women’s hockey programs.  The six figure fund, to which Bob was a substantial donor, now generates more than $15,000 annually for the F of HH budget.

Varsity Club

The Harvard Varsity Club since 1886 has been dedicated to fostering the ideals and preserving the traditions of Harvard athletics.  Today it supports a vibrant community of over 30,000 current and alumni Harvard students, athletes, parents and friends.  Not only been a longtime member, Bob has been active on its many Committees, its Advisory Board and its Governing Board, of which he was both President and Chairman spanning the years 2003 to 2009.  In addition to the demands of general oversight, during his tenure, a Lifetime Membership Program was established for which he personally recruited founding members, including ten from our own class, the most of any.

He was directly involved in negotiating the largest gift in HVC history, a seven-figure amount that is now part of a total endowment nearing $7,000,000, a seven fold increase from the time he first became president.

Additionally, with his lawyer’s hat on, Bob led the Club through the demanding process of revamping its outdated By-Laws so that its future mission and objectives would be legally secure.

For these and many other reasons, Bob in 2015 was presented with “The Harvard Varsity Club Award,” the club’s highest honor. It is given only to recipients of exceptional merit in recognition of their “preserving the traditions, fostering the ideals, and advancing the interests of Harvard athletics and the Harvard Varsity Club.”

Conclusion

Bob, on your 50th Reunion report, you state that one of the good decisions you made in life was coming to Harvard, additionally noting that our cherished institution was referred to by some as Preparation H !!

So, in thanking you this evening for your high standards, tireless work, and your enduring commitment to scholar athletes at the college, we, your Class of 1961 colleagues at Preparation H, are pleased to give this Award to you for your many accomplishments and contributions.

Thanks, Bob, and congratulations.    ▼ 

Citation and Award honoring John Hancock

Presented by Joel Henning

John and I met in Chicago at a pre-freshman year “mixer” (as we used to call them).  I don’t remember whether we got on and had a lively conversation there because we were both interested in theater, or because we were both shy, wonkish public school graduates terrified of the prospect of Harvard and its private school students.  Previously, I had thought private school was a euphemism for “reform school,” and no one went there unless he was a delinquent.

Nevertheless, we jointly got involved in the Harvard theater scene.  One of our first projects was passing out flyers for a production of “’Tis Pity She’s a Whore.”  John quickly became a highly sought-after theatrical director while I became a sometime actor, sometimes in his productions, and a frequent theatrical producer, which led to me being elected president of the Harvard Dramatic Club. 

The next year, John and others urged me to stand for reelection, which meant that our little cabal could continue to control the Club’s meager resources, but I was challenged by one Michael Ritchie.  Thanks to John and our cohort, I soundly defeated him.  This did not entirely discourage Michael, who went on to direct Robert Redford in “Downhill Racer” and Walter Matthau in “The Bad News Bears” with Tatum O’Neill.  Alas, Michael passed on years ago.

After we graduated, I chickened out and crossed the street to Harvard Law School, but John’s artistic career flourished.  His first post-college gig was as the Artistic Director of the new Loeb Drama Center, where he directed among others Jane Alexander and Faye Dunaway. 

He later became the Artistic Director of The Pittsburgh Playhouse and the San Francisco Actor’s Workshop, where he staged a dazzling and raunchy production of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” with costumes and sets by the artist Jim Dine.  It traveled to New York where it won an Obie, and was described in one review as “brutal, vulgar, and erotic,” and, “the most original and arresting [Midsummer] I’ve ever witnessed.”  Another critic reported that “Demetrius . . . had a light bulb in his codpiece which flashed on and off whenever he was feeling amorous.  And Helena, a maiden, was played by a man 6 feet 4 inches tall.”  That critic concluded: “It is often said . . . that the best directing is the least obtrusive.  John Hancock, in the tradition of Reinhardt, Meyerhold, and Tyrone Guthrie, is clearly not letting that worry him unduly.”

John worked closely on several Tennessee Williams plays with the playwright, who wrote in his book “Memoirs” that Hancock was "the only director who has ever suggested to me transpositions of material that were artistically effective."

Hollywood clearly beckoned.  One of John’s first films was “Bang the Drum Slowly,” based on Mark Harris’s cherished baseball novel.  John discovered Robert DeNiro for that film.  In Time Magazine, Richard Schickel wrote that it was “[Very] possibly the best movie about sport ever made . . . but the genius of [Hancock’s] movie lies in its introduction of the one subject that superbly conditioned young men rarely think about: death.”  Roger Ebert wrote, “In its mixture of fatalism, roughness, tenderness and bleak humor, his movie seems to know more about the ways we handle death than a movie like ‘Love Story’ ever guessed.  Four stars.”

I remember when John screened it for me before it opened.  I asked him how he got on with the producer, Maury Rosenfeld, whom I knew.  Surprisingly (since I knew Maury to be a son-of-a-bitch), John said he was grateful for Maury.  “Why?” I asked.  “Because,” explained John, “everybody hated Maury so much that the entire company bonded together.” 

John’s “Sticky My Fingers, Fleet My Feet,” about touch football, was nominated for an Academy Award.

He went on to direct – among other films – “Let’s Scare Jessica to Death,” the prison drama “Weeds” with Nick Nolte and Joe Mantegna, and the holiday family movie “Prancer” with Sam Elliott and Chloris Leachman, as well as a number of films with his beautiful and talented wife, Dorothy Tristan, often jointly written by John and Dorothy.

John served as a Trustee of the American Film Institute, and was active also in TV production, including directing episodes of “Hill Street Blues,” and “The Twilight Zone.”

He now teaches film at Second City’s new Harold Ramis Film School, but also continues to direct.  I watched a day of filming this past summer on John’s current production, “The Girls of Summer.”  That film as well as his previous one “The Looking Glass” took on a number of Harvard’s Signet Society alums as interns, which I helped him recruit.  

I’m not going to mention John’s many awards beside the aforementioned Obie and the Oscar nomination, because time is short and I do want to mention that he is also an elegant and skillful furniture maker, beekeeper and former owner of pick-it-yourself apple and peach orchards.  We were kept healthy in Eliot House by the frequent bushels that he received.

The orchards were inherited from his delightful parents, whom he called “Big Dog” and “Burly.”  And they were.  I remember when I would drive through Rolling Prairie, Indiana to pick John up for our return trips to campus.  They couldn’t have been nicer, but their enormous size never failed to intimidate me.  At meals, I felt like Goldilocks at the table with the Three Bears.

As you  would expect from a 62-year relationship with this remarkable fellow, there have been tussles as well as great times between us.  When he was directing me in a play in the College, we actually had a physical fight.  That’s right, 5’7” me and 6’ god knows how many inches him.  It was – believe it or not – a draw.  Which brings me finally to when he confessed in the Freshman Union that he was afraid of me.

I have never since been so deeply surprised and, in a way, honored.  John, I have never been afraid of you, but have always been in awe.      ▼

Citation and Award honoring Gus Schumacher
Presented by Alan McClennen, and Accepted by Susan Schumacher

August Thomas Schumacher – Gus to all of us, was born in Lincoln, Mass, my home town.  Although born in Lincoln, he was raised on Schumacher Farm next door in Lexington.  Schumacher Farm was three miles from Woodbridge Farm in Lincoln where I was raised.  We never met in our childhood.  Gus was raised and schooled in the town where, “the shot was heard around the world”.  I was raised in the town where Minutemen hid behind trees and stone walls and harassed the redcoats as they returned to Boston.  I knew of Gus only from the regional sports pages and his state championship running prowess, since his relay team included the son of my English teacher.  Our paths never crossed in college.  Gus was running on the land with enough speed to get close to the Olympic trials, while I was focused on pulling a strong oar on the Charles. 

Education

After Gus graduated from Lexington High School., he went to Harvard and received a BA in Economics, cum laude, in 1961.  He attended the London School of Economics and Political Science, and also spent two tours at the Harvard Business School.   His first stay there was focused on agribusiness, and the second was focused on the importance of food during the energy crisis.

Government Service

Gus’s career included 38 years of public service.  He began at the World Bank as a livestock economist appraising beef and cattle ranches in South America and East Africa.  With that experience he pursued research at the Harvard Business School and then went back to the World Bank, and worked in 27 countries around the world.

In 1985 he was called back to Massachusetts and appointed Commissioner of Food and Agriculture by Governor Michael Dukakis, where he served for 6 years.  Those of us who attended our 25^th reunion will remember the spectacular displays of Massachusetts Grown Products at several of our events.  Those presentations were Gus Schumacher in his element.  In 1990, Gus returned to the World Bank and spent several years focused on the restructuring of the farm sector of Central Europe after the fall of communism. In 1994, the Clinton Administration called and Gus was appointed as the Administrator of Agricultural Service.  In 1997, Gus was confirmed by the Senate as Undersecretary of Agriculture for Farm and Foreign Agriculture Services.  That appointment lasted until the Supreme Court determined that George Bush was the next President. For the rest of his life, until his untimely death on September 24, 2017, Gus created and ran a non-profit program called Wholesome Wave. It was during this 16 year “retirement” that Gus found his true mission – using a system of vouchers for needy folks to purchase fruits and vegetables at farmers markets, thus making available a healthier diet for the beneficiaries while supporting local farmers.

Conclusion

I want to share my personal experience with Gus which occurred when we both retired to Orleans on Cape Cod. It is my firm belief that as Gus travelled the world, he carried our most current Class Report.  When he had a spare minute, he would just call a former classmate in the area, introduce himself and engage in a conversation.  One day the phone rang at my home, and there was Gus on the other end.  I remembered him, we talked and soon got together and discovered we had many mutual interests.  We were two people with over 80 years of combined experience in all levels of government:  Gus at the federal and State levels, and me at the local level. 

At the time, I was chairman of the Orleans Open Space Committee.  You guessed it.  Within a short period of time I was on the way to purchase an abandoned farm for the Town of Orleans.  Traditionally, all our acquisitions had been for conservation purposes, but with Gus’s encouragement we included agriculture as an acceptable use, over the strong objections of our Finance Committee.  That site now has small tenant farmers, and they provide fresh produce to our local farmer’s market, which Gus helped to strengthen. 

Our last adventure together did not directly involve traditional agriculture, but rural development. I had been elected to the Orleans Board of Selectmen and sat as Chair of our local Community Preservation Committee. A local non-profit proposed to build 15 units of housing for adults with autism.  I worked with the proponents and was successful in raising town funds to purchase the property.  That was just the first step.  They now needed construction funds.  Enter Gus, who said the Federal Department of Agriculture had a grant program for rural development activities.  Gus guided this project through the Federal bureaucracy and on the last day of the Obama presidency, the grant was approved for $3.7 million and the project is now almost ready to break ground.  “Thank you, Gus.”

During our times together Gus and I had many conversations about how we could marshal our then 100 years of combined government experience to encourage others to participate in government service.  That project is ongoing. Gus, the person and his experience are an inspiration for anyone who wants to pursue this path.

Gus – We miss you.     ▼

Citation and Award honoring Judith W. Rogers

Presented by Carmine and Beth Gentile

Judge Judith W. Rogers, an outstanding student, a major contributor to creating the modern District of Columbia government, a loyal alumna, and a distinguished jurist, does honor to our Class. The trajectory of her career from its professional beginnings to judgeship is marked by exemplary and dedicated service in the public interest and in the interest of our University. 

Education

Judge Rogers prepared at the Dalton School in New York City where Geoffrey Gund ’64, brother of our classmate Gordon, taught for many years.  Taking Dalton’s motto to heart, “Go Forth Unafraid,” she left the cozy confines of Dalton, enrolled at Radcliffe, and found herself in the cavernous lecture halls of Harvard.  During her four years of navigating between classes on a bicycle in all kinds of weather and attaining a thorough grounding in the liberal arts, she managed to outperform the vast majority of her Harvard male counterparts academically, winding up Phi Beta Kappa. 

Enlightenment even came to Harvard Law School which found her irresistible and admitted her as one of only 15 women who graduated in 1964 in a class of over 500 – at a time when there were no women or minority law professors on the Law School faculty.  While serving as a judge, she earned an LL.M in 1988 from the University of Virginia Law School, the second oldest continuously operated law school in the country, and in 1992 an Honorary Doctor of Laws from the District of Columbia Law School.

District of Columbia Government

If Washington D.C. were a state, its 700,000 population would rank it larger than two states, nearly as large as four others, and its ten-year percentage population increase, 15%, would be the highest of any state in the country.  Yet when Judge Rogers emerged on the D.C. scene in 1964, Washington was run by Congress with virtually no self-government.  Subject to a short San Francisco hiatus, Judge Rogers devoted her pre-judicial career to bringing a large measure of self-government to Washington, D.C. 

After a clerkship for judges in the D.C. juvenile court system and service as an Assistant U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia and, ever the pioneer, only the third woman appointed to its Criminal Division, she began to focus on improving D.C. government and extending its authority to areas normally reserved for the states.  She did this as an attorney in Main Justice, as General Counsel to the Congressional Commission on the Organization of the District of Columbia, as Legislative Assistant to the Mayor and ultimately as Corporation Counsel, an office now rightfully called Attorney General.  Using these positions as her platform, Judge Rogers played a significant role in democratizing the District of Columbia government and its court system and giving the District’s residents their rightful say in the District’s governance.

Judicial Service

As the saying goes, politics and war make strange bed fellows.  Judge Rogers managed to bring together Presidents Ronald Reagan and William Jefferson Clinton, each of whom appointed her to high judicial office.  In 1983, President Reagan appointed her to the District of Columbia Court of Appeals, the D.C. equivalent of a State Supreme Court.  She was the Court’s Chief Judge for four years when, in 1994, President Clinton, not to be outdone by President Reagan, selected Judge Rogers for the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, viewed by many observers as the second most powerful Court in the nation. 

Throughout her judicial career, she has spearheaded efforts to root out sexism and racism from the nation’s court systems.  Her judicial opinions encompass a broad spectrum of litigation, including civil and criminal appeals, decisions by the many federal agencies that regulate much of the nation’s business, and issues under the US Constitution.  These opinions fill more than two bookshelves in her chambers.

Awards and Service to the University

Suffice to say that Judge Rogers’ awards and recognitions, which are too numerous to mention, have been granted by professional organizations of lawyers, the D.C. government for effective representation of its interests before Congress, and even grassroots citizens’ groups in gratitude for her work on behalf of the City. 

But she has not neglected the University.  She served two terms as a Trustee of Radcliffe College and several years as a Member of the Visiting Committee to Harvard Law School. 

Conclusion

Judge Rogers, to paraphrase the charge on the Dexter Gate to Harvard Yard, you entered the College to grow in wisdom, and departed to promote the public good.  We your classmates give you this Award in appreciation of your public service which enhances the reputation of our College and your Class of 1961.▼ 

The Game Goes On
'61 Class Poem for 2018
By Patricia Cleary Miller

To 2016 Honorees

Carol Lieberman, Newell Flather, and David Crosby,

And 2018 Honorees

Robert Gene Anderson, Champion for Athletes, especially Women's Sports

John David Hancock, Champion for Artistic Filmmaking

August Thomas Schumacher, Champion for World Food and Passionate Government Service

Judith Wilson Rogers, Champion for Jurisprudence:

Heralds of Light and Bearers of Love

In gratitude for your decades of service and friendship
to our class, to our country, to the cause of Peace

Hit the line for Harvard, our Harvard wins always,
and give the grand old cheer, friends, when the Harvard team goes by. 

Long ago launched on destiny’s sea,
we try to be heralds of light and bearers of Love.
Ever one in singing of our love and loyalty,
we strive to rise calmly through change and through storm
as the world on Truth’s current glides by.

Though 1961 was just yesterday,
and our Autumn is already here,
bright leaves still flash gold vermilion.
Boston weather can be warm-cold, sunny-rainy
with fog and snow and wintry mixes,
but we watch together as the game goes on.

Win or lose, the food tastes good.
Beat Yale 29-29, or yes, or no, our friendships hold.
In this clean well-lighted place
we thank whatever gods may be
that we can still eat, drink, and be merry.

Along our winding river, we stroll
together as the game goes on.    ▼

Tom Blodgett's Spanish Track Adventure

As told by Newell Flather

While we were reminiscing at our 1961 Class Dinner, Tom Blodgett shared some of his recent (Sept. 2018) Decathlon experience in Malaga, Spain.  There he was at age 79, competing against mostly 75 and 76 year old Europeans.  As he said, this was his practice for age 80 competition, “when I will be the youngest in the group, not the oldest.”  On Day One, he finished off the 100 meters, long jump, shot put, high jump, and the 400 meters. 

Tom explained that he was so tired from Day One that he could barely jog under the stands during the one-hour wait for the 9 am First Heat of the 80 meter hurdles.  Only two weeks before in Peterborough, NH, he had only been able to clear two hurdles in a row and do it twice.  Now, he was faced with eight hurdles in front of the stands full of spectators.

To go back a bit, Tom was second in the World in Eugene Oregon at age 50.  At age 76, he had both knees replaced, so this was a bit more daunting.  However, since the knee replacement, he has been working to regain his form.  For the last year, he has practiced twelve 150-yard straightaways once a week, alternating long and short strides to avoid injury.  Taking it more seriously this year, he bought a plane ticket.  USATF required a fax of a non-refundable ticket for registering for the competition.

Ushered out to the starting line at 8:55 am (2:55 am EDT), Tom waited while the other four runners got into their starting blocks (which he couldn’t use). The eight hurdles Tom said, “. . . looked like they went on forever.”   How to possibly get through this?  “Get set,” and the gun went off.  Tom said he had programmed himself to run five steps between hurdles, and made it through the entire course without touching a hurdle, finishing only 4.0 seconds behind the winner.  They were taking three steps between the hurdles.  Next time, he will see if three steps will work for him. 

There is some real danger to the competitors.  In the next heat, three of the six runners fell, and two were not able to stand unaided.  They had to drop out of the competition. 

Tom, however, did go on to complete the discus, pole vault, javelin, and 1500 meters – getting a significant heel bruise in the process.  He scored points in every event, and ended up placing 7^th out of the 11 competitors.  He says, “I pretty much trotted through the 400 and 1500.  I was not running for time.  I wanted to be sure I could finish.”  A memorable experience under the Spanish sun.

Prior to his return, Tom visited Alhambra in Granada, including the room where Queen Isabella gave Columbus permission to sail for the New World. 

Our thanks to Tom for setting the bar at a high level.   ▼