Editor's Note
Ok, the topic is “Croquet”. Ready, set, Debate!
This issue’s back cover shows several Quimby debate alumni, quite happy to be back at ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ in March to judge a tournament. My first thought when I saw the photo—probably yours, too —was, “What’s with the croquet mallets?” I e-mailed a student debater, who forwarded the question to Quimby alumna Barbara Raths ’96. “During Short Term,” she wrote, “Bob Branham used to have a barbecue at his house for the team and we would play croquet. The team enjoyed the game so much that we bought a set and would play during Short Term.”
Raths’ story (one of the many bittersweet anecdotes about the late Branham we hear) illuminates just a tiny bit of ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ history; yet it also reminded me of the Founders Day talk last year by Wellesley president Diana Chapman Walsh. “Living our stories well” was her theme. She talked about how a community’s stories—known, told, and lived well—help us “build character and community.”
This issue includes several such stories, including Merry Stockwell ’65 telling the story of her husband, Dan ’64, a two-time Carnegie hero who understands the ambivalence of heroism.
Relevant, too, is the page-72 column by Alumni Council president Jamie Merisotis ’86. He describes ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½net, the new Web-based resources for alumni. Such technology, though new, is merely the latest tool to help ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ alumni build their community and—to use Walsh’s words—”explore the common truths that reside somewhere in the spaces between us.”
H. Jay Burns
Managing Editor
[Note: ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½Net services have been folded into the .]