Last Word A Legacy of Lessons Learned

When Dustin Meltzer ’05 addressed students at the annual Senior Dinner, he recognized a member of the Class of ’23. She was fearless and courageous, he shared. She studied physics, algebra, and English; played basketball and tennis; enjoyed skiing and hiking around campus; and performed Shakespeare her senior year. That student, Laura Fellows Meltzer Class of 1923, was Meltzer’s grandmother and would be celebrating her 100th reunion this year. Here, he looks back at his trajectory to Kimball Union and the lessons he’s learned from his family’s more than 100-year span on The Hilltop.

In a world before LinkedIn and Google, my grandmother found her first real job in Cleveland. Today, the drive from Meriden to Cleveland is just shy of 10 hours, but her journey on dirt roads and in primitive automobiles, we presume, took much, much longer. There were two problems: She didn’t have a car; nor did she know how to drive. Unfazed by these two obstacles, she found something she could afford at a dealership, got a quick driving lesson right then and there in the parking lot, and off she went, with plenty of road between here and Cleveland to figure it out.

She taught me that when life presents an obstacle, be fearless and figure it out. Hop in a car, learn how to drive, follow your heart, and make it work.

By 1964, she was back in New England, raising two teenagers with her husband. While spending a week in Enfield, New Hampshire, on Mascoma Lake as the school year approached, she fondly recalled her time at KUA more than 40 years prior. As family legend goes, she asked my father, “Dale, how would you like to go to KUA?” Moments later, the entire family was traveling by boat down the lake to pay a surprise visit to Headmaster Fred Carver at his summer cottage. With the boat anchored, the family approached the house with my dad still wearing his swim trunks. After an impromptu interview, Dale Meltzer ’66 was KUA’s newest enrolled student.

Weeks later, he moved into Densmore Hall and wrote his own KUA story by working on the school newspaper, yearbook, and even starting a radio station, WKUA, from his dorm room. The most important part of Dad’s KUA story, though, may be making a lifelong friendship with a classmate, John Kluge ’66. They have stayed close since their time here as students, through thick and thin and life’s highs and lows.

I learned from Dad and Kluge the importance of keeping your friends in your life no matter what. You will need them, and they will need you too.

Fast-forward to 2001 as I arrived on The Hilltop. In the years to come, I’d enjoy 11 seasons of theater activity, where I’d discover a passion and learn the true meaning of hard work. I found satisfaction and purpose inside the walls of Flickinger Arts Center. I learned to believe in myself, to blossom as an artist, what it means to be a good friend, and so much more.

In the years following my graduation from KUA, life took me on a journey to Ohio, Chicago, London, and back to the Upper Valley, where I returned to KUA. It’s where I work today alongside my best friend from high school and my wife.

The lesson I can share: Come back—whether to visit friends and teachers; to see the musical, a game, or graduation; for reunion; or, eventually, maybe, one day, to work here. Come back. K