Sally Lovegren Merchant '83
Mount Desert, Maine

Mom Thanks
Thank you for featuring the stay-at-home Colby mom in your latest issue. I have felt left out until now! I am a stay-at-home mom to my one-and-a-half-year-old daughter and have felt guilty for not "using" my degree for a "higher" purpose. I'm glad to see other Colby grads care so much about their kids, too. Keep up the great work.

Marie (Joyce) Fletcher '84
via e-mail

That Pioneer Spirit
Thank you for reporting on the 25th anniversary of women's ice hockey at Colby.
Women's ice hockey will be an Olympic sport in 1998, and Colby should be congratulated for its part in making it happen. Sue Yovic Hoeller '73 gave it its beginning; another woman gave it respect.
Elizabeth "Betsy" Blackwell '78, captain of the 1977-78 team, died following a boating accident shortly after graduation. In the spring of her senior year, however, she had sought and received support from the Maine Human Rights Commission in her effort to encourage the College to treat all athletes equally.
Her success was bittersweet, it came at some emotional cost, but I am sure that if Betsy were alive today with her wonderful spirit, her steel-rimmed glasses and her love of team, she would be as proud of the success of women's hockey as are all of us (Gordon Jones '40 and Harold Alfond, L.H.D. '80, in particular) who in one way or another supported the program.
Not so long ago in Los Angeles, I saw an exhibit featuring women who made a difference. Among them was Elizabeth Blackwell (1821-1910), the first woman awarded an M.D. I don't know if Betsy was related to Dr. Blackwell in fact, but she must surely have been connected in spirit.
T.S. Eliot said, "our beginnings never know our ends." Colby is a testament to that truth; so is women's hockey. May their annual beginnings continue to reap successful endings.

Frank P. Stephenson '62
Ojai, Calif.

One Who Got Away
I read your piece on Josh Woodfork in the alumni magazine with tears in my eyes. For two reasons. First, it was a moving tribute to a most deserving individual. Second, I will always think of Josh as the one who got away. I tried hard, as did several others at Denison [University], to get him to come here, and in the end it was a photo finish. I really believe he struggled with the decision.
It's very obvious, now, that he made the right one. Colby provided an environment in which his extraordinary qualities could be tested and where he would grow and thrive. That might not have happened in quite the same way at another college.
[Awarding Woodfork] the Condon Medal was the perfect way to send him off to what will certainly be a distinguished future. Good for you.

Lorraine Wales
via e-mail

Lorraine Wales is the former director of the student union, campus activities and cultural affairs at Denison University in Granville, Ohio.--Editors

A Worthy Tribute
I thoroughly enjoyed reading your article on Josh Woodfork and the many contributions he has made to Colby.
Your feature brought back very fond memories of the time I had working with Josh. A very well-deserved story for a very inspirational individual.
Many thanks.

Bryan Raffetto '95
via e-mail

Not in Harmony
I have just finished reading "The Face of Change" by Sally Baker and am saddened and angered regarding two issues mentioned. One was the fact that "Colby `is not ready'" for multicultural housing. That Colby is "too divided a community racially, and we don't understand the issues well enough . . . we're not there yet" is sad. If not now, when? If not there, where? These are supposed to be the best and the brightest of our young students.
It is evident that Colby needs to teach its students to understand and even celebrate diversity. I am on the faculty of a State University of New York campus and many of us actively incorporate this into our teaching. I was angered when I read that a poster of Joshua Woodfork, an outstanding young man, was defaced with that abhorrent, age-old epithet. As a student at Colby in the '60s dating a minority student, I understood the discrimination at that time. I do not understand it now. Colby faculty must effect change so that all its students, especially Joshua Woodfork, and indeed, all people, are accorded the intelligence and dignity they deserve.

Linda Wakefield-LaRou '65
Poughkeepsie, N.Y.

Worthwhile Reading
I was excited to see the article "Recommended Reading" in your April 1997 edition. As an avid reader and a frequent business traveler, I always take a good book wherever I go. I would like to see reading lists become a regular addition to Colby magazine. Perhaps an abridged list of what students are reading in classes, or as this article in April suggested, a list of favorites by faculty, staff and students.
Colby fosters a community of learning that continues even after graduation. Discussions among my fellow Colby alumni often center on "what are you reading?" The magazine could provide Colby graduates a way to connect with the current curriculum and many varied departments on campus today.

Jennifer Milsop Millard '90
Hoffman Estates, Ill.

An excellent idea and one that we have discussed in the past. We will explore making a reading list a regular feature.--Editors

Hits Close to Home
Thank you for the article "Living With HIV" in the April edition of Colby magazine. As impressed as I am by the students in Pepper and at Colby, I am disturbed by the fact that until [Jody] Hartley's visit, many at Colby still saw AIDS as a distant disease. I am baffled that students at Colby are still learning, or worse, had no knowledge of, the emotional issues of the disease.
When I graduated from Colby in 1982, we were just beginning to hear and read the vague news reports of the strange new disease that we now know of as AIDS. In the 15 years since, our knowledge of this disease and the access to information about it has increased phenomenally. Yet in that 15 years, it was not until the April article that I saw the words AIDS and HIV mentioned in Colby magazine.
During that time, as I suffered the loss of two close friends to the disease and the diagnosis of many others, I often wondered what effect HIV was having on my fellow classmates and the students of Colby. Surely, Colby has not remained untouched by the ravages of the plague. There must be members of the Colby community whose lives have been as touched as mine by this disease, yet we read nothing of it, except for reading between the lines in the obituary section about the alumni in the age group to have been affected by the disease.
Isn't it time that our alumni publication should acknowledge and explore these issues? Or is Mayflower Hill somehow immune from AIDS, still under the delusion that the disease only affects certain people who are somehow not our kind?

Scott R. Sophos '82
via e-mail

Why the Change?
Congratulations on a very readable issue! As for the [addition of '40s] columns in Alumni at Large, I wonder if the members of the Fifty-Plus Club were consulted before they were lumped under a label "Early Years Correspondent." Is it possible that because some classes like to keep their identity beyond 50 years this change was introduced? Maybe the cutoff should be after 55 years.

Marjorie Gould (Murphy) Shuman '37
via e-mail

Although we did not consult all members of the classes affected by the change, we had heard from many 1940s alumni who wanted individual class correspondents. Also, because of the large number of alumni (almost 2,000) being served in the "Fifty-Plus" category by a single correspondent, we thought it best to shorten the time period in which multiple decades are represented. The Early Years was selected to refer to these collective classes since they no longer are bound by a specific cut-off year.--Editors