Members of the Classes of 1943 and 1968 return to campus this weekend for their 50-year and 25-year reunions.
Both classes graduated while the United States was at war, World War II for the '43s and Vietnam for the '68s.
What follows are profiles of three alumni whose lives were shaped by their Dartmouth experience.
George Munroe '43
George Munroe '43 fought in World War II, played professional basketball, and chaired Dartmouth's Board of Trustees.
At Dartmouth, Munroe served as treasurer of Palaeopitus, the senior honor society that advises the College President.
As a basketball star, Munroe led the Ivy League in scoring his junior year. The Big Green finished second in the NCAA championships his senior year.
Munroe was called to serve in the Navy in April of 1943, immediately after the NCAA tournament. He served on a battleship in the Pacific and received his Dartmouth degree later.
After the war, Munroe attended Harvard Law School for a year but did not have the money to continue. To make ends meet, he played one season of professional basketball with the St. Louis Bombers of the Basketball Association of America, the predescessor to the National Basketball Association.
Munroe arranged to be traded to the Boston Celtics for the following season, where he played home games while attending Harvard Law School.
He finished law school, and went to Oxford University on a Rhodes Scholarship. He then spent three years working as a lawyer for the U.S. High Commission on Germany in Bonn.
Munroe later served on the U.S. Court of Restitution Appeals in Nuremburg which "tried to restore property to persecutees of the Nazi Regime," Munroe said. "Many of the former owners had been exterminated, or were scattered around the world," he added.
Since returning to the United States, Munroe has spent most of his career as a business executive in the mining industry.
Although retired, Munroe still serves on the boards of directors of several corporations, including the New York Times and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
He served on Dartmouth's Board of Trustees for 15 years, chairing the Board from 1988 until 1991.
Munroe will receive an honorary degree in today's ceremony.
Edwin Bock '43
Edwin Bock '43 fought in World War II, traveled throughout much of the world, and is currently a professor at Syracuse University.
Bock was Editor in Chief of The Dartmouth in 1942-43, and noted the newspaper's changes during his four years at the College.
During his freshman year he said The Dartmouth was firmly isolationist regarding World War II, thus pitting it against the interventionist views of College President Ernest Martin Hopkins.He said The Dartmouth favored the New Deal and earned a liberal reputation by sympathizing with striking marble workers in a Vermont quarry.
By the end of 1940, the editorial policy had changed, andThe D supported Hopkins' interventionist viewpoint.
Bock remembers writing an article about a speech given by former U.S. Senator H. Styles Bridges on December 7, 1941. Bridges was speaking in Lebanon in support of U.S. intervention when he was suddenly called from the podium and informed about the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.
Bock had a front-page story on the next day's issue which he said gave him "Dartmouth journalistic immortality."
Bock joined the Army after graduating from Dartmouth in 1943 with a major in political science. He fought in both Czechoslovakia and Japan.
After the war, Bock moved to England and served as a "very junior instructor" at the London School of Economics until 1953.
He then returned to the U.S. and worked for subsidiaries of the Ford Foundation. His job involved extensive travel to India, Pakistan, Nepal, Indonesia and Thailand.
Bock moved to New York in 1964 to teach at Syracuse University. He is now a Professor of Political Science and Public Administration at the University's Maxwell School.
Bock cannot attend his 50th reunion because of commitments.
Frederick Stockwell '43
Frederick Stockwell '43 is the current president of his class. He has climbed in the Alps, the Himalayas and the White Mountains and has four children, 10 grandchildren and three great grandchildren.
At Dartmouth, Stockwell was a member of the now defunct Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity, and served as president of the Interfraternity Council his senior year.
Stockwell said he recently found a letter written to him by President Hopkins stating that the "outrageous drinking has got to stop."
"Things haven't changed a bit in all these years," Stockwell said.
Stockwell also served on Palaeopitus and participated in the Dartmouth Outing Club.
After graduating, Stockwell lived outside of Boston, and eventually buying out the real estate company he worked for.
He retired and moved to Grantham, N.H. in 1984, where he remains an active skier, mountain climber and photographer.
He has climbed in the Alps and the Himalayas. He is also in the 48 Club, a group whose members have climbed each 4,000- foot peak in New Hampshire.
Stockwell is finishing his five- year term as class president and will introduce President Freedman at the 50 year dinner on Saturday.
Richard Ridgway '68
Richard Ridgway '68 considered pursuing a career in law but was unable to resist his true love, the classroom, and now serves as headmaster of the Berwick Academy in Berwick, Maine.
During Ridgway's days at the College, the heated debate was whether or not the military should be permitted to recruit on campus. Ridgway called the issue "very politicized" and said the position of Palaeopitus was that anyone should be permitted to recruit on campus, provided that the recruitment took place from a single location.
After graduation, Ridgway entered graduate school at Columbia University to study international affairs. He was drafted and spent two years in the service, but didn't go to Vietnam. "I was one of the fortunate ones," Ridgway said.
He said he grew to love learning so much at Dartmouth that he realized while spending a term at Harvard Law School, "I've got to get back to the classroom," so he began looking for a private school to teach at.
Ridgway taught history and international affairs and coached the football team at the Kimble Union Academy, south of Lebanon.
Ridgway called his four years here, "an amazingly liberating experience for me intellectually."
