4 6 | L E H I G H B U L L E T I N N O T E S He remindedme that he worked on getting our 50th reunion hats. Just caught John Claude Rousseaux after a dufers round of golf in the heat. He thought I was calling fromWrightsville Beach, N.C. —I wish! Lukie is still playing tennis and pickleball but is living with Parkinson’s disease. They did travel to see children in Copenhagen but had plane connection problems. Sandy and PeteMitchell do all their shopping in Delaware threemiles from their home in Pennsylvania. Pete is 89 and fne—remember, he came to Lehigh on the G.I. Bill. His sciatica and legs are bothering him, but he survived pancreatic cancer! He just had to tighten his belt. Bruce Gilbert did get to run in the Penn Relays. There were eight lanes, and hemanaged to fnish eighth! He is using Uber but managed to get to lunch with Ron Vaughn. Izzie and Larry Trerotola are in good health. He related that he and Dick Newkirk sold the place they jointly owned in Colorado, where they skied and went fy fshing. Dick is moving to Idaho with family, and Larry is fy fshing in Pennsylvania (well stocked). Bob Hirsch is now rooting for the Baltimore Orioles since moving to Baltimore. He is fne, but Elle is not. Their daughter does a great caretaking job. He is thinking of hitching a ride with Dick and Louise Briggs to the reunion. He, too, has not missed a fve-year reunion. Bill Glosemanaged to get through sixmonths without driving because of recurring amnesia, but all is well. Lehigh called him to carry our class fag in the First-Year Student Rally. He toldme the Cedar Crest area of Allentown is changing, with three-lane highways and the building of 920 new houses! Ron Vaughn called that he is physically OK, but his A-fb is kinder than Bruce Gilbert’s. He drives Bruce to lunches and, hopefully, for football games and reunion activities. He walks but doesn’t run and has a heart control valve. He told me that LU wrestling just got a PSU transfer who fnished seventh in nationals. He just had a phone call with Bob Holcombe and his wife—they sounded cheerful. He flled me in that Bert Keats and Ted Lethen ’56 both passed away. Dave Saunders emailed all his fraternity brothers that he and Sally had a short spring trip to Ft. Myers but that Sally can no longer walk, and he is left to do all the housework. We received an email from Matt Darragh ’05 and Emily Shutt Darragh ’05 (now of Chicago) that they have a daughter Molly to go along with son Ethan. But their other news was that their next-door neighbor when in Orchard Park, Lyle Roberts ’50, died suddenly. We miss him somuch! He was born in Jenkintown, Pa., and was a lifeguard on the Jersey Shore, where hemet his wife of 72 years, Sally. He was themost accomplished Lehigh engineer that I ever met. The knowledge and technology he advanced kept millions of people safe as humans harnessed the power of the atom. See his listing in In Remembrance for more on his incredible achievements. Our best memory of Lyle was running at themat Hudson’s SeafoodHouse inHiltonHead and eating all the soft-shell crabs that we could! Spent some time in Rehoboth Beach in the North Shores neighborhood 10 houses from President Biden, with roadblocks, sand pits, tents with dogs when he is there, 24-hour CIA when he’s not—does not think about renters. Gary’s Barbershop, where the coaches get cut, really think that the Bufalo Bills will do it this year and win the last game—the Super Bowl. Greekers to Bert Keats, Lyle Roberts, Ted Lethen and all those working onmaking our 65th reunion a success, includingMarianne Bux! ’59Bob Teufel, 1 StokleaDrive, Emmaus, PA 18049. (610) 967-2049 (H); (610) 393-0565 (C); rteufel@aol.com John Canova and I used tomuse when planning this column, “Does anyone really read it?” Well apparently so, as our “Lehighnowand then” in a recent issue drewnot just comments, but sparked a controversy. Nothing like the global warming debate at our last reunion between Scott Armstrong and Beall Fowler, which ended in a drawas the engineers in our class sidedwith Scott and his statistics, while the business and artsmajors and spouses foundBeall to bemore animated and easily understood. No, this startedwhenwe mistakenly creditedBeall with a claimthat students nowattend one semester less of class time over four years thanwe did. Our sourcewas the Lehigh then and nowarticle penned by Don Talhelm that appeared in our Lehigh ’59@50 50thReunion yearbook. According toDon, “In 1955, the length of a semester was 15weeks of classes, six and one-half days per week. This has changed so that now the semester length is 14weeks and Saturday classes only amemory. The average number of credit hours taken in 1955was 17.4 credits per semester for the entire university. Today, the number of credit hours has been reduced to an average of just under 16 and nearly constant for all colleges. Playwith those fgures for a fewmoments and you realize theClass of 1955 received nine semesters of classroom instruction compared to theClass of 2009.” According toBeall, “In a recent Alumni Bulletin, I was quoted (Editor’s note: mistakenly) as having said that students nowattend one semester less of class time over four years than we did. I’ve not been able to fnd the source ofmy statement, and worse yet, I can’t fgure out how I reached that conclusion! I do know that there is one less week of class time per semester than therewas in our day; in the ’70s, I think the fnal week of classes was transformed into aweek of ‘RCS’, reading, constitution and study, preceding the start of fnals.” So even though your astute class scribes misidentifed the source, the conclusion is still valid: today’s LU students are payingmore for less class time. And Bill McCurdy poses another question that is beyond our pay grade to answer. “I found the ’59 news article in the recent Lehigh Alumni Bulletin to be very interesting and enlightening. Over the years my impressionwas that the engineering enrollment at Lehigh was stagnant while the enrollment in arts and sciences was increasing. Using the statistics in your article, the undergraduate enrollment in engineering was [total student enrollment times the percentage of the engineering college enrollment] 2,683X.58=1,556 ‘then’ and is 5,451X.25=1,363 ‘now.’ This is a reduction of 12.4 percent. This is surprising since the demand for engineers has certainly increased substantially in the past 63 years.” True, Bill, but so has the competition from other schools that have not only enhanced the quality of their programs but alsomay present a better scholarship program to frst-generation students. Add to your “Lehigh is everywhere” fle:My grandson, Bobby Michaelis ’16 and his wife, Nikita RishiMichaelis ’15, were inParis recently on a belated honeymoon and opted for a bike tour of the city.Whilewaiting for the start, they started chattingwith a fellow rider, who turned out to be Bill Feus ’87, son of our departed classmate and perennial reunion chairman, Fred Feus. Andwhile thinking of re-
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