| All great colleges depend upon the
life-long support, interest, hard work, inspired ideas and love for
the College from their strongest and most committed alumni. Joanne
Trogler Reynolds, Class of 1958, has been such an alumna for Bates,
with wide interests, expertise, leadership and support for her
college. Jo Reynolds graduated from Bates in 1958 with a degree in
history, and in an era when there were only six varsity sports for
men, but none for women. For a woman of Jo’s high levels of
athletic and outdoor interests, the wonder is that it did not
poison her affection for her college. She chose Bates over
Swarthmore and Oberlin so she could learn to ski. As a student, she
did all with athletics that women could do: she played basketball,
field hockey and lacrosse on intramural teams, and spent winters on
a synchronized swim team, that included, since Bates did not have a
pool, walks back from Auburn with their hair frozen solid. After
graduation in 1958, in an early sign of her taste for both
toughness and adventure, she drove 2,400 miles all over the
Southwest with two dozen Girl Scouts on an archeology trip. In
subsequent years, she went on to run marathons, play serious
tennis, become an avid downhill skier and ski instructor, give
life-long service to the Girl Scouts, climb Mt. Rainier, and do
serious hiking in Switzerland, Bhutan and Nepal. At the age of 54,
Jo fulfilled a life dream and through-hiked the Appalachian Trail
solo, covering 15 miles a day for over five months from Georgia to
Mount Katahdin in Maine. Six months after her graduation, Jo
married Grant Reynolds '57, and they have lived the Batesie
marriage that all of you here tonight have heard of. Their home in
Maryland has become a quite literal Bates home away from home.
Several years ago, asked if Bates students doing internships in
Washington might live in their house while Grant and Jo spent the
summer in Vermont, there was a pause for consultation and the
answer came: “The rent is mowing the lawn.” Several
years of Bates interns have found the Reynolds house a wonderful
alternative to dorm living, and this year’s two interns are
settling in as we speak. Jo was for 27 years a highly successful
real estate broker in the D.C. area, and her business sense, superb
listening ability and experience with complicated finances served
her clients well, but it also gave her a set of skills and
leadership for Bates. In June of 1988, Jo was elected to the Board
of Trustees, and her common-sense and thoughtful approach to the
work is evident in her committee work: she served both on the
Conference with Students, and College Funding Committee. For three
years Jo chaired the Bates Fund Committee, one of the largest
fund-raising responsibilities that Bates can ask an alumna to
assume. Jo’s and Grant’s support for Bates also speaks
to the breadth of their affection and understanding about what a
college should offer. They make yearly gifts to Bates, but also
have established a permanent Reynolds Book Fund to support
purchases for the library, and a Reynolds Scholarship. There were
also two gifts that will touch the hearts of rowers here tonight.
In the mid-1980s, Jo and Grant gave the Bates crew team their first
boat, a new 4 with a cox called the “Jonathan Y.
Stanton” and two years later bought them their first 8, named
the “Ernest P. Muller.” This weekend, the women’s
crew team just finished at the NCAA Championships with its best
finish ever, second place. The national-level athletes who come to
Bates to row are following in the footsteps of Jo Reynolds, who
came to ski. They have enjoyed her support with their first boats,
but are also following in her footsteps as a disciplined and
passionate athlete. For her tireless enthusiasm and support for
Bates, and for her lifelong dedication to athletics and the outdoor
life, we are proud to offer membership in the Bates Scholar-Athlete
Society to Joanne Trogler Reynolds. |
A lifelong athlete and a lifelong supporter of her alma
mater
|
