Dear Classmates:
Another year has passed and there is less than a year to go until
the Rutgers Class of 1962 meets in New Brunswick for our 50th class
reunion. I am sure you share with me the warm feelings for your classmates
that your four years "on the Banks" gave to you. I am sure
you will agree that the people we met and the friends we made among
our classmates were an important part in who we all are today.
Your class
officers are already busy working on plans for our 50th reunion to
be held May 11-13, 2012, less than a year form now. At the recent
2011 reunion, I joined with reunion chair Tony Oliva and committee
member (and University Trustee) John Hendricks and attended the Old
Guard dinner to begin plans for our class' induction into that august
body. It was amazing to see the heartfelt bonding that was occurring
among the Class of '61. I know that you will experience the same feeling
if you attend our 50th reunion next year. Our Old Guard dinner will
be Friday night (May 11) of reunion weekend. Our own class bash will
be the following Saturday night (May 12), at an on-campus venue to
be determined. Don Resnicoff has agreed to be conductor and music
chairman but we need more musicians to join Don's combo playing songs
from the 60's and 70's of our college days. Please contact me (sjfreedman@nmmlaw.com)
or Don (DResnikoff@finkelsteinthompson.com)
directly.
Barry
Pavelec, class vice president, is working on a new and improved class
website which will keep you advised of news of the reunion and class
news in general. Go to www.rutgers62.org to stay informed. Be sure
to send Barry (barryjpavelec@msn.com)
your email address to receive reunion news directly. Barry, Tony and
I are continuing to meet with University officials planning the reunion.
Our Campaign/Class Gift Committee is being formed and Jay Cranmer,
Mickey Diamond, John Hendricks, Steve Lefelt, Dick Anderson, Bill
Lyons and the ever present Tony Oliva have volunteered but they need
more members to share the work.
We do
not want the reunion to be just the work of a few but we want all
of you to give us your input and hopefully participate in the actual
planning and execution of the events. One of the things we want to
do is to honor those classmates who over the past 50 years spent a
great deal of time contributing to the cohesiveness of the class by
working on a number of projects such as past reunions, fundraising,
event planning and communication.
We will
be forming a class committee to decide who should be awarded the Class
of '62 "Class Service Awards", small tokens in recognition
of their outstanding contribution to us all over the past years. We
are looking for both volunteers to serve on the committee as well
as nominations.
On another
plane, I had the pleasure of awarding our annual RC Class of 1962
Presidential Public Service Award of $2500 to the RU Student Chapter
of Engineers Without Borders-USA, a New Brunswick campus student group
that among other things, helps build water treatment plants in underdeveloped
nations. We are particularly pleased that this year the award returned
to the New Brunswick campus and honored a student group after being
awarded to faculty and staff at Newark and Camden in recent years.
2012 will
also be another opportunity for us to elect new class officers to
serve over the next five years and plan our 55th reunion and once
again, I am calling for both nominations and volunteers for these
important posts. The most important thing that each of you can do
is help us reach out to the many classmates who may not have kept
in touch with either the University or the class and urge them to
both read the website, provide their email address and most importantly,
if at all possible, attend next May's super event. I am sure all of
you have groups such as fraternities, athletic teams, campus military
organizations and extracurricular activities that played an important
part in forming your own circle of friends. Your enjoyment of the
reunion will be enhanced by having these classmates present, so give
them a call or send them an email, and let's all reconnect and try
to bring back, if only for a few days, that terrific feeling we had
when we were young, a mere 50 years ago.
Warmest
personal regards,
Stuart Freedman
Back
to Home Page
