Jim Ljunglin, Nick Long, and Tilo Samter '57 attended their 50th anniversary reunion on campus in June and were inducted into the 50-Year Club at a banquet in the Commons. This room is the former Freshman Dining Hall which '57 "christened" in the spring term of 1954 after having done the same for the adjacent dorms the prior fall. Jim and Nick disputed which building was really D Dorm where they had lived. So much for memory after 70! (It's now Hall Hall.) Also attending the reunion were Art Gajarsa '62 and Brian Dean '97. Art, a judge on the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington D.C. and vice-chair of the RPI Trustees, had just been awarded the New Jersey Intellectual Property Law Associations's Jefferson Medal at their annual banquet. In his acceptance speech, Art cited the continuing value of the US patent system to the nation and its serving as a model for many countries. Art recalled that Thomas Jefferson, himself a renowned inventor, served as a patent examiner in the early republic until his duties as Secretary of State in the Washington administration required his giving up this avocation. Brian, a former President of the Rensselaer union, and his wife have acquired a residential investment property in Troy, which they see as growing in prosperity.
John White '62, a physicist retired from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, is an expert on the mechanics of baseball pitching and hitting. At the request of the coach, John was spending the month of September on campus helping to train the RPI team.
Jim Ljunglin '57