This weekend, thousands of Dartmouth alumni will return to Hanover to take part in Homecoming festivities. Although celebrations may be somewhat more somber than in the past because of the Sept. 11 attacks, the revelry, for the most part, will go on as always.
A special "service of remembrance" for alumni victims of the attacks will be held at Rollins Chapel on Sunday at 11 a.m.
Nine Dartmouth alumni lost their lives as a result of the attacks.
Six -- Juan Cisneros '99, Christopher Colasanti '90, Kevin Crotty '80, Brian Dale '80 (also Tuck '81), Jeffrey LeVeen '68, and Richard Woodwell '79 -- attended Dartmouth as undergraduates. Kevin Connors '73 and Thomas Theurkauf '81 graduated from the Amos Tuck School of Business. Paul Ambrose was a member of the Dartmouth Medical School House Staff from 1996 to 1999.
Most of the other events planned, such as the torchlight parade, Dartmouth Night, and the football game are Homecoming mainstays.
Official festivities will begin when alumni gather at 7:00 p.m. tonight on Crosby Street to form the Dartmouth Night Torchlight Parade.
After marching through Hanover, ahead of the Freshman Sweep, alumni will gather around the traditional bonfire at 8 p.m.
Smaller events will include a series of "mini-reunions" for individual classes and athletic games between alumni and students.
Fifty-two classes, from the Class of 1932 to the Class of 2001, will hold reunions during Homecoming this year.
Typically, Homecoming sees the second-largest number of alumni returning to Dartmouth. Only on Commencement and Reunion weekend, when 4,000 former students typically return, do more alumni visit Hanover.
Alumni who spoke with The Dartmouth said that they have found that little has changed about Homecoming since their undergraduate days.
Justin Ahorn '83 spoke about the excitement of building the bonfire, running around it and going to football games.
While Parker Albee '61 attended Dartmouth more than 20 years before Ahorn, he, too, vividly remembered the bonfire, the excitement prior to the football game and the beauty of the fall foliage surrounding Hanover.
Albee laughingly remembered showing up for the Homecoming game warmly wrapped in a raccoon coat his alumnus uncle had given to him.
"Not many men wore raccoon coats to football games, even then," he recalled.
Although Hanover has become more "spread out" and traffic has increased since Albee's undergraduate days, the spirit of the campus has not changed since he attended, he said.