Obituaries

relationships with her students, families, and colleagues. With a trademark splash of purple, she carried the well-being of the full community in her consciousness and throughout her efforts.

Cynthia Elizabeth Howe H’20, P’06, ’14

Long-serving and beloved faculty member Cynthia Elizabeth Howe died peacefully on September 18, 2022, at her Grantham, N.H., home. She was 65. Passionate and present in her life, she gracefully lived her last five-plus years with ovarian cancer.

Howe was a 32-year veteran of KUA when she and her husband, Murray Dewdney H’20 P’06 ’14, retired in 2020. She arrived at the Academy in 1988, when Dewdney was named director of building and grounds. Howe served as dorm parent of Bryant Hall before taking on many official capacities, including dean of faculty and head of college counseling. Prior to her retirement, she taught in the Gosselin Center for Teaching and Learning, which she established and led for more than a decade, supporting so many students on their journey. Howe and Dewdney raised their children, Tyler ’06 and Morgan ’14, in Frost House.

In every role she carried out, Howe redefined thoroughness and excellence. On a simpler level, all her roles seemed to be opportunities to build deep and authentic

As KUA has embraced a deep sense of belonging for all as a definitive characteristic of our community, many who were fortunate to have passed through The Hilltop since 1988 point to Howe as their source of that safety, comfort, acceptance, joy, and whole-hearted connection. Her legacy at KUA lies in the positive and lasting impact she had on so many individuals and her influence in forging the deep and caring soul of the institution.

James Wright, Former Trustee

A proud U.S. Marine Corps veteran who spent four decades as a distinguished history professor and scholar, James Wright served as 16th president of Dartmouth College and helped thousands of military veterans earn their college degrees. He died peacefully at his Hanover, N.H., home on October 10, 2022, with his wife, Susan, at his side. He was 83 and had been undergoing treatment for cancer.

Wright served as a member of the Kimball Union Academy Board of Trustees from 1990 to 1994 while he worked as dean of faculty at Dartmouth. He brought a strong historical perspective and administrative experience to the Academy.

Known for his sonorous voice and ability to remember former students even decades later, Wright grew up in the working-class community of Galena, Ill. He enlisted in the Marine Corps at age 17 and deployed to Japan during the Second Taiwan Strait Crisis of 1958. Following his service, he returned to Galena in hopes of becoming a high school history teacher and enrolled in the nearby University of Wisconsin-Platteville, where he became the first in his family to earn a bachelor’s degree.

Working his way through college with various jobs, including as janitor, night watchman, bartender, factory worker, and powderman in the local zinc and lead mines, he went on to earn a graduate fellowship to the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he studied the political history of the American West and wrote his Ph.D. dissertation on populist movements in Colorado. Upon finishing his doctoral degree in 1969, he joined the history department at Dartmouth, where he spent the next 40 years teaching and leading the institution he came to love.

A highly prolific scholar, Wright was the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Social Science Research Council Grant, and a Charles Warren Fellowship at Harvard. Wright was elected president of Dartmouth in 1998 and served in that leadership capacity through 2009. He encouraged and empowered students and colleagues alike to make a positive difference in the world around them.

He also shined the brightest of lights on those who served in America’s wars, authoring several books on the subject, including Those Who Have Borne the Battle: A

History of America’s Wars and Those Who Fought Them (2012), Enduring Vietnam: An American Generation and Its War (2017), and War and American Life: Reflections on Those Who Serve and Sacrifice (2022).

Wright’s efforts on behalf of veterans were recognized nationally with the Semper Fidelis Award from the Marine Corps Scholarship Foundation, a commendation from Marine Corps Gen. James Conway, the Commander-in-Chief’s Gold Medal of Merit Award and Citation at the 2009 convention of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, the Eleanor M. McMahon Award for Lifetime Achievement from the New England Board of Higher Education, and the Secretary of the Army Public Service Award.

Wright is survived by Susan; son Jimmy and his wife, Carreen; daughter Ann and her husband, Tom; son Michael and his wife, Sally; and grandchildren Zack, Meredith, Gus, Andrew, Patrick, and Mia. He was predeceased by grandson Adam.

Deaths

Richard Aitson ’73

Ashton Chandler Macdougall Ballou ’88

Harry J. Berwick ’46

Samuel Cummings ’53

Leonard L. Giles ’54

Fielding Holmes ’63

Robert “Bob” Arthur Lovett ’50

Richard McCrudden ’41

Roger Merryman Jr. ’42

David W. Quimby ’72

Irving Sherwood ’50