PARTY! PARTY! PARTY!
Some 60-plus members and friends of the Mile High Chapter of Gallaudet University Alumni Association (GUAA) celebrated the birthday of Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet [10 December 1784] on 6 December 1996, at Racine's in Denver.
Kelly Gibbs gave a brief outline of the life of T H Gallaudet, after whom the university is named.
The eagerly-awaited featured guest speaker, Dr Mervin D Garretson, a native of Wyoming, a graduate of the Colorado School for the Deaf and the Blind (CSDB), and long-time faculty member at Gallaudet University, was unable at the last minute due to illness to attend. His faxed speech was delivered by Stephen M Nover, a Gallaudet graduate and Ph D candidate at the University of Arizona, who happened to be visiting Colorado.
Garretson's speech covered his impressions of the "7 Presidents of Gallaudet", starting with Edward Miner Gallaudet, son of T H Gallaudet -- the only president Garretson was not personally acquainted with. Succeeding presidents of GU include Percival Hall (whose three children, Percival Jr., Jonathan, and Marion Fisher, taught at GU), Leonard M Elstad (who opened Gallaudet to all schools of thought), Edward Merrill (who envisioned Gallaudet as a university), Lloyd Johns (the first real non-"Deaf-token" president), Jerry Lee (business manager par excellence who presided over Gallaudet's expansion), Elizabeth Zinser (the one-week president whose appointment sparked the famous "Deaf President Now" ((DPN)) revolt), and I King Jordan (first deaf, and current, president of the world's only liberal arts university for the Deaf.
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