Hands Off?
Ellen Paul (security) kept a close eye on most of the 11,200 people who visited Cherished Possessions: A New England Legacy this summer and fall at the museum. A list of "mosts" she compiled includes the most frequently asked question ("Where is the blue dress?") and items most touched (bed cover and Bombay chair), rules notwithstanding. Current museum attractions include Memorial Project Vietnam and the Maine Crafts Association's 20th anniversary exhibition, 20/20 enVision.

PBK from Near and Away
From Worcester to Sweden and Cincinnati back to Lee, Maine, recipients of this year's Phi Beta Kappa Undergraduate Scholastic Achievement Awards cover some ground. Honored during Family Homecoming Weekend were Matthew Guy-Hamilton '05, Worcester, Mass.; Emilia Tjernstrom '05, Kalmar, Sweden; Alexandra Funk '06, Cincinnati, Ohio; and Morgan Maxwell '06, Winn, Maine. Top performers in their classes, these are stunning students all.

Like It or Not
Yet another college guide has hit bookstore shelves--The ISI Guide 2004: Choosing the Right College: The Whole Truth About America's Top Schools. Its ideology, expressed in an introduction by William J. Bennett, advocates a strong core curriculum focused on "the best that has been thought and said by those Western thinkers whose ideas have formed our political, religious, and cultural landscape." That, Bennett writes, is what "best serves students, even in this age of multiculturalism and globalization." Agree with the ideology or not, the authors did an unusually thorough job researching Colby, and they say students mentioned Jeff Kasser (philosophy), Andrea Tilden (biology), Catherine Besteman (anthropology), George Welch (math), Peter Harris (English) and Bevin Engman (art) among Colby's best teachers.

FTE Goes to ES for GIS
Three decades after Colby's Environmental Studies Program was founded, the program got approval to hire its first full-time, tenure-track faculty member. The ES program has been staffed heretofore by professors based in other departments or programs, but in October trustees approved one of the 10 new faculty lines in the Plan for Colby to hire a faculty member with specialties in GIS (Geographic Information Systems) and domestic policy issues. GIS is used in many scientific and social science disciplines. The new person, who should begin at Colby next fall, eventually will be housed in the proposed Diamond Building for social sciences and interdisciplinary studies as part of the Goldfarb Center for Public Affairs and Civic Engagement.

Winners Were in Lorimer
Despite going head-to-head with the final Red Sox victory and their own Cubs' Waterloo, this year's Lovejoy Award recipients, Steve Mills and Maurice Possley of the Chicago Tribune, pulled in a good crowd to Lorimer Chapel on October 15 and then inspired listeners with tales of the criminal justice system. During the convocation a cell phone in the second pew kept a small group informed, as the Sox won game six. Those listening did not heed President Bro Adams's earlier advice. "Remember," he prophetically told those distracted by the game, "this is a Greek tragedy."

A Request Fulfilled
In 1955 a young man stood in Colby's new hockey rink and said, "In all humility, I ask only that I be granted the resources, the ability and the life-blood to enable me to continue to assist young men and women to attend Colby." It was Harold Alfond H'80, for whom various facilities and scholarships have been named, and his quote was turned up by College Historian Earl Smith, who read it at the October 10th dinner to honor the Alfond and Levine family as the C Club Family of the Century. Needless to say, Harold's wish 48 years ago came true beyond Colby's wildest expectations.

Carrying Water for Kerry
When Michael Cuzzi '98 accepted a job in Manchester, N.H., this fall as advance site lead with Senator John Kerry's presidential campaign he discovered a strong alumni contingent already at work. Cuzzi, who spent two years in Eustis as the AmeriCorps coordinator for literacy programs, now works with Jean-Michel Picher '96, Alison Silberman '00 and Spencer Hutchins '03, all of whom are on Kerry's campaign or senatorial staff. Emily Boyle '06 is a Jan Plan intern at the campaign's New Hampshire headquarters.

Johnson Pondering
A query about aquatic life in Johnson Pond unearthed a few facts about the oft-photographed body of water--some, perhaps, little known. The six-acre pond was excavated in 1939 and named for Franklin Johnson, Colby's 15th president. The College needed the fill to landscape the terraces in front of Miller Library. In 1997-98 it was drained and dredged to remove silt and nutrients that contributed to algae blooms and afterward was stocked with rainbow trout, some of which survive today, according to Keith Stockford (PPD). Bass, sunfish and carp also inhabit the pond now, though how they got there is not known. Anglers take note: John Sweney (English) reminds that the pond is protected--closed to all fishing. It's true that an erstwhile dean once gave local kids permission to fish there, but he had to do some fast talking when the warden arrived. Digging another pond to provide material for building the Colby Green was an idea entertained briefly but ultimately rejected.

Remember, It's in Waterville
On Mapquest.com, Colby, Maine, is a location 10 miles west of Caribou and three miles south of Sweden. That's where Colby Road crosses an abandoned railroad grade. It's 235 miles northeast of Waterville, but unsuspecting travelers occasionally end up there looking for a college. The weekend before Thanksgiving a mother from Syracuse, N.Y., picked up her daughter in Lake Placid in the middle of the night to visit the College armed only with directions from the AAA. She called admissions to say they would be a bit late for a morning interview. When she arrived in Colby, Maine, she called again. More than six hours late, the daughter had her interview, the pair ate a hasty meal in the dining hall, and they were southbound that evening.

He Paid Deerly
At 7:05 a.m. on November 24, a three-point buck crashed through a plate glass window into a hallway area in the Hillside complex. Seriously injured, the deer moved into the Leonard lounge before it collapsed. Police were called and had to destroy the animal. Condolences and kudos to the PPD team that had to clean up an extensive mess. Too late for the deer, but hominids should know that most (not all) of Colby's campus is a Maine Wildlife Management Area, and it is all posted against hunting by any means. Contrary to some published reports, it is not a wildlife refuge. In all of Waterville, discharge of firearms is illegal.

Insufficiently Well Known
In addition to entries about Connecticut's Nut Museum and New Hampshire's Horse Cavalry Museum, a new book, Unknown New England: Landmarks, Museums, and Historic Sites You Never Knew Existed, by Jon Marcus, has three entries under Waterville, Maine--the anti-gravity stone out by the Colby Green, the Colby College Museum of Art and the Redington Museum and Apothecary downtown. Marcus would get his name in bold here if were he a Colby grad; he went to Bates.

Remembering Al
Colby lost a dear friend when Elias "Al" Corey, Maine's premier big-band leader, died November 9 at 86. Al conducted and played sax at every Governor's Ball since 1950, performed at many a Colby graduation and reunion from the 1940s through the turn of the century and for 28 years gave free summer concerts at the Gould Music Shell. We remember Al for his sense of humor, his generosity and the kindness he showed to all. The Morning Sentinel story noting his passing is at www.centralmaine.com/news/local/154883.shtml.