Stepson Tom Walker, Hank, wife Belle, stepson R.B. Walker, taken at Lake Martin AL.<\/p><\/div>\n

KENYON MEMORY BOOK<\/p>\n

\u00a0It is difficult to quantify the impact that Kenyon has had on my life, but there is no question that it has been substantial.<\/p>\n

We all arrived in Gambier as teenagers with the baggage that those formative years imply, and left Gambier as reasonably-mature, young adults.\u00a0 And what wonderful years we spent in between: meeting new people, gaining new confidence, learning to be independent\u2014becoming gregarious human beings and leaving the sometimes awkward high school years behind.\u00a0 \u00a0I suppose the boy-becomes-man experience is not unique to Kenyon, but Kenyon was unique to me.<\/p>\n

To this day I am grateful for the skills acquired, lessons learned and friends made at Kenyon.\u00a0 They are all a part of what I have accomplished and who I am.\u00a0 And for that I owe the College a debt of great gratitude.<\/p>\n

My accomplishments at Kenyon were not academic.\u00a0 I played basketball my freshmen year\u2014an 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.\u00a0 I was co-editor of the Collegian with Richie Rubin\u2014a position with little redeeming social value and seemingly resulting in frequent social upheaval.\u00a0 As a senior I was elected President of Delta Tau Delta\u2014the highest honor I have ever been paid by the greatest group of guys I have ever known.<\/p>\n

After graduation, I left Kenyon with the typical liberal arts mentality\u2014I hadn\u2019t a clue what I wanted to do in the world.\u00a0 I thought that being an actor, like fellow Alum Paul Newman, would be fun\u2014but I knew that I lacked the talent of the likes of John Binder and Ted Walsh. \u00a0\u00a0With the Viet Nam war in progress and the draft looming, and knowing that I couldn\u2019t endure graduate school after 4 years of undergraduate academic mediocrity (mine, not Kenyon\u2019s), and upon the earnest advice of my girlfriend\u2019s father, I enlisted in the Navy and headed for Officers\u2019 Candidate School in Newport, R.I. in August of 1962.\u00a0 If you have seen the movie Officer and a Gentleman<\/em> you know exactly what Officers\u2019 Candidate School was like, with one exception\u2014in the movie, if you flunked out, you went home.\u00a0 In real life, if you flunked out of OCS, you were still required to do your 3-year tour of duty\u2014but as a Seaman First Class instead of an officer.\u00a0 Being an officer in the Navy was everything my College girlfriend\u2019s father promised it would be.\u00a0 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\u2019 Ward Room was hard duty\u2014though I did receive a Viet Nam campaign ribbon for my sacrifice. \u00a0\u00a0The Navy was such fun (the slogan \u201cJoin the Navy and See the World\u201d 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.<\/p>\n

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).\u00a0 In any event, the foregoing accomplishment was enough to land me a job with a law firm where my father-in-laws\u2019 best friend was the managing partner.\u00a0 It really is true in life that it isn\u2019t what you know, but who you know.<\/p>\n

And the rest, as they say is history.\u00a0 \u00a0I spent the next 40 some odd years practicing law with a host of law firms.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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\u2019t even ask), 5 years with Kasson & Wagner, and the last 5 years with Kasson & Associates.\u00a0 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 \u201cI finally found a partner that I can get along with.\u201d\u00a0 The practice of law has been very good to me\u2014economically and psychologically.\u00a0 And whatever steered me in the direction of the law had its genesis at Kenyon.<\/p>\n

A couple of life accomplishments:\u00a0 In 1973 I was elected to the Cincinnati Board of Education and served on that Board for 5 years\u2014including 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\u2019 strike (as a result of which I was hung in effigy on Fountain Square in Cincinnati.\u00a0 Now that\u2019s a unique life distinction.)<\/p>\n

In 2000 I was appointed by Governor Taft to serve on the Ohio Higher Educational Facility Commission\u2014the entity which provides tax-exempt bond financing to Ohio\u2019s private, institutions of higher learning\u2014including Kenyon.\u00a0 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\u2019s being placed in service.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

I frequently thank Kenyon for giving me the tools to succeed at, and enjoy, life.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n