Stepson Tom Walker, Hank, wife Belle, stepson R.B. Walker, taken at Lake Martin AL.
KENYON MEMORY BOOK
It is difficult to quantify the impact that Kenyon has had on my life, but there is no question that it has been substantial.
We all arrived in Gambier as teenagers with the baggage that those formative years imply, and left Gambier as reasonably-mature, young adults. And what wonderful years we spent in between: meeting new people, gaining new confidence, learning to be independent—becoming gregarious human beings and leaving the sometimes awkward high school years behind. I suppose the boy-becomes-man experience is not unique to Kenyon, but Kenyon was unique to me.
To this day I am grateful for the skills acquired, lessons learned and friends made at Kenyon. They are all a part of what I have accomplished and who I am. And for that I owe the College a debt of great gratitude.
My accomplishments at Kenyon were not academic. I played basketball my freshmen year—an event which was of no significance other than to allow me to associate with Bob Harrison, a good coach and one of the best role models I have ever known. I was co-editor of the Collegian with Richie Rubin—a position with little redeeming social value and seemingly resulting in frequent social upheaval. As a senior I was elected President of Delta Tau Delta—the highest honor I have ever been paid by the greatest group of guys I have ever known.
After graduation, I left Kenyon with the typical liberal arts mentality—I hadn’t a clue what I wanted to do in the world. I thought that being an actor, like fellow Alum Paul Newman, would be fun—but I knew that I lacked the talent of the likes of John Binder and Ted Walsh. With the Viet Nam war in progress and the draft looming, and knowing that I couldn’t endure graduate school after 4 years of undergraduate academic mediocrity (mine, not Kenyon’s), and upon the earnest advice of my girlfriend’s father, I enlisted in the Navy and headed for Officers’ Candidate School in Newport, R.I. in August of 1962. If you have seen the movie Officer and a Gentleman you know exactly what Officers’ Candidate School was like, with one exception—in the movie, if you flunked out, you went home. In real life, if you flunked out of OCS, you were still required to do your 3-year tour of duty—but as a Seaman First Class instead of an officer. Being an officer in the Navy was everything my College girlfriend’s father promised it would be. Three years on the USS Forrestal as an air intercept controller (sitting at a radar scope and controlling jets in mock battle as they hurtled toward each other at 750 MPH), with Filipino stewards to make the bunk in my stateroom, provide towels and collect laundry, and serve breakfast, lunch and dinner in the Officers’ Ward Room was hard duty—though I did receive a Viet Nam campaign ribbon for my sacrifice. The Navy was such fun (the slogan “Join the Navy and See the World” was such truth in advertising) that I thought about making it a career, but internal politics seemed excessive (boy, did I have a lot to learn in that regard)–and, somehow, I thought Kenyon had prepared me for something more consequential than a life at sea.
After the Navy, I enrolled in law school at the University of Cincinnati (at the time, they were willing to take someone with a 2.50 cumulative average from Kenyon) and graduated fifth in my class, Order of the Coif, and Editor-in-Chief of the Law Review (apparently not a particularly note-worthy accomplishment since Barrack Obama achieved the same feat at Harvard). In any event, the foregoing accomplishment was enough to land me a job with a law firm where my father-in-laws’ best friend was the managing partner. It really is true in life that it isn’t what you know, but who you know.
And the rest, as they say is history. I spent the next 40 some odd years practicing law with a host of law firms. The great thing about the practice of law is that you never really have to decide what you want to do when you grow up. I spent 11 years with the firm of Peck, Shaffer & Williams, 19 years with Taft, Stettinius & Hollister, 2 years with Hemmer, Spoor, Pangburn, DeFrank & Kasson (don’t even ask), 5 years with Kasson & Wagner, and the last 5 years with Kasson & Associates. Having been a partner at one time or the other with almost every attorney in Cincinnati, as the sole member of Kasson & Associates, I have been heard to proclaim that “I finally found a partner that I can get along with.” The practice of law has been very good to me—economically and psychologically. And whatever steered me in the direction of the law had its genesis at Kenyon.
A couple of life accomplishments: In 1973 I was elected to the Cincinnati Board of Education and served on that Board for 5 years—including a term as President in 1977 when the District was involved in a desegregation lawsuit, a suit against the State of Ohio for failure to satisfy the constitutional mandate of providing a thorough and efficient system of public education to the children of Ohio, and a 19 day teachers’ strike (as a result of which I was hung in effigy on Fountain Square in Cincinnati. Now that’s a unique life distinction.)
In 2000 I was appointed by Governor Taft to serve on the Ohio Higher Educational Facility Commission—the entity which provides tax-exempt bond financing to Ohio’s private, institutions of higher learning—including Kenyon. One of the highlights of that service was a meeting of the Commission which took place on the Kenyon campus and which included a tour of the new athletic facility prior to it’s being placed in service.
While I love Ohio, maintain a law practice there, and have an apartment there, I currently spend most of my time in Alabama with my lovely wife, Belle, at our house in Montgomery or at our lake house on Lake Martin.
I frequently thank Kenyon for giving me the tools to succeed at, and enjoy, life. I hope to have the time and the opportunity to return to Kenyon a modicum of the benefit I derived from my Kenyon liberal arts education.
Grandchildren Merrell, Bryson, and Kealy with daughter Kim. Photo taken at Lake Martin AL