Dr. Thomas A. R. Keech, class of 1856, and Mrs. Keech, of Washington, D. C., celebrated at their home, 416 B street, northeast, on April 13, 1909, the fiftieth anniversary of their marriage. The house was beautifully decorated with cut and potted plants. A collation was served. The family are of English descent, having emigrated and settled in Southern Maryland about 1750. Dr. Keech is a son of the late Rev. John Reeder and Susan P. Keech.
Dr. John Herbert Bates, class of 1907, of Forest Park, Baltimore, a former resident physician of Bay View Hospital, and until recently a resident physician at the Church Home and Infirmary, has located at 4002 Main avenue, Forest Park.
The third annual banquet of the General Alumni Association of the University of Maryland was held Thursday, April 22, 1909, at the Eutaw House, Baltimore. About 90 were present. The affair was a thoroughly enjoyable occasion, but more enthusiasm would have been evident if more of the members of the various faculties had been present. The Pharmaceutical Department, with less professors than the other departments, had most members present. The speeches were witty and instructive, and teemed with expressions of loyalty to the University. As oft iterated and reiterated, this body is the only real live alumni body at the University of Maryland. It has been doing since its inception, and is still doing, and if the University ever be rejuvenated much of the credit will be due to the constant agitation of this body for a larger and better university. Most alumni banquets consist of a feed, good, better or worse, as it might happen to be, and a slew of speech artists of more or less renown, who bubble over with big words of encouragement and prediction, but rest on their oars here. Indeed, the societies exist for a banquet once a year and a cyclone of hot air. What do words accomplish? Nothing. It is action that the University of Maryland needs, and more than anything else men of action—strong men, broad-minded men, men who can subordinate their success to the success of the institution, men in every sense of the word. I am glad to say the General Alumni Association has an abundance of men of such character among its membership who are doing something for the good of the Old University, and who have an object in view. What is this object? The creating of ways and means for the betterment of the University.
At the business meeting immediately preceding the banquet the following recommendation of the special committee appointed for the purpose of formulating a plan for the participation of the alumni in the management of the University was adopted unanimously.
The plan provides that the Board of Regents of the University shall be enlarged by the addition of five members, one each from the five departments, who shall have had their degrees for 10 years or more. It provides for the election of a committee on nominations, to consist of the president of the association and one representative from each of the five departments. This committee shall select three representatives from each of the five departments as nominees for the alumni in good standing in the association to vote upon. Votes may be cast in person or by mail. After the election of the five members of the council they shall determine by lot who are to serve for one, two, three, four or five years, respectively.
Any vacancy is to be filled by the remaining members of the Alumni Council from the department from which the member was originally chosen. The secretary of the General Alumni Association shall act as the secretary of the alumni regents, who shall select their own chairman for one-year terms.
The committee consisted of the following well-known alumni of the five departments of the University:
Medical—Dr. B. Merrill Hopkinson and Dr. E. F. Cordell.