News and Updates

Robert W. Dickgiesser died unexpectedly in his sleep on September 19, 1997, at his home in Woodbridge, Conn. Bob majored in engineering sciences at Dartmouth and graduated from the Thayer School of Engineering in 1970. He was president of Charles J. Dickgiesser Co. of Derby since 1972. While at Dartmouth Bob was active in the Conservative Union, Republicans at Dartmouth, the Outing Club, the Chess Club, and the Dartmouth Society of Engineers and was a member of Sigma Nu fraternity. His level of activity did not diminish after graduation.

Ernest Doane Grinnell III was not your ordinary Dartmouth student. Though he helped in the financial end of WDCR enough to end up on the 1969 Directorate with me, I never knew him until maybe Junior year, though I wonder why because it would seem so difficult not to know who he was. Yet one did certainly have to get to know Doane to appreciate him. Having just heard that he died on March 17, I guess I realize that appreciation was never enough.

Robert M. Tyler Jr. died September 15, 1993, while on a mountaineering and wildlife-observation trip in British Columbia. At Dartmouth Bob was a member of the Tabard. He received his law degree from George Washington University and served a two-year clerkship at the U.S. Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Va. In 1975 he joined the firm of Elam and Burke and became a partner in 1980, serving as the senior council of the firm's appellate section.

We do not have a published obituary. 

Dear friends,” reads Oscar Romero's card, “it saddens me to report that Peter Komanecky died in Washington, D.C., of AIDS–related complications on August 30, 1992. He is survived by his lover Radames Lozada of Alexandria, VA, his parents, Paul and Eve Komanecky of Binghamton, N.Y., and brothers.”

A photo of his gravestone in the Mount Comfort Cemetery in Alexandria, VA is included below. 

Michael N. Olschan died December 5 as a result of an aneurysm in the carotid artery. At Dartmouth Mike was an active member of Zeta Psi. Although a premed biology major, Mike entered the family business after graduation and eventually formed his own company, Retail Service Associates, distributors of non-food items to stores in New England and along the East Coast. Mike was active in the Dartmouth Club of Bridgeport. He is survived by his parents, his wife, Marjorie, and five children.

David James Norden died on November 8, 1991, at his home in Hampden Sydney, Va., following a short illness. At the time of his death, Dave was the director of the Eggleston Library and Fuqua International Communications center at Hampden Sydney College, where he was also a lecturer in Russian.

After graduation, Dave did post-graduate work in Russian at Yale and received his master's degree in library science from Long Island University.

He is survived by his parents, his wife, Gail, and a son.

No published obituary is available at this time.

Richard H. Jordan, an internationally known Arctic archaeologist and Professor of Anthropology at the University of Alaska-Fairbanks, died of a heart attack at his home in Fairbanks on January 19, 1991. Alaska was Dick's birthplace and spiritual home. He graduated from high school near Scranton, Penn., and joined us after a year as an exchange student in Holland.

Gifford Foley died Sunday, July 1, 1990, while performing an airplane stunt over the Niagara River in Buffalo.

An experienced pilot with thousands of hours in the air, Foley was also a U.S. Marine Corps veteran who served in Vietnam and received a Silver Star and two Purple Hearts.

A resident of South Salem, he was recently appointed to the position of chief financial officer at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

On January 4, 1990, RICHARD JAMES FELMEISTER died at home in Houston, Texas.  Richard was single, and the cause of death is not known.  His father, Ralph Felmeister, lives at 2311 Coles Avenue, Scotch Plains, NJ 07076.