Class of 1956 ReUnion Chair Robert Hodges retired in January, but that doesn't mean he'll retire to the living room. “When a retiree plunks his body on a couch and watches TV for 14 hours a day,” Hodges has observed, “he's often dead within a year.”
Hodges plans to ski, swim and kayak, and he'll play tennis and a little golf. He'll teach a Revolutionary War history course at Ocean County College, not far from his home in Forked River, N.J., and turn the family genealogy he's been compiling for more than a decade into three books. He's busy because he knows that time is not unlimited.
“I'll be 72 in April,” he says. “I'm almost halfway through my life.”
Hodges and other members of his graduating class are also devoting boundless energy to establishing a Class of 1956 scholarship to commemorate their 50th ReUnion in May.
“The scholarship is really an endowment that funds an annual scholarship,” Hodges says. “It continues giving into perpetuity. In this way, the Class of '56 will be remembered forever.”
Hodges and others on the ReUnion Committee are soliciting donations from classmates, and they hope to raise far more than the $25,000 minimum necessary to establish a single scholarship. “We expect to shoot past that.” he says. “We're anticipating the largest class gift to the College we have ever made.”