Class Notes, Sep-Oct 2022

Your scribe has two deaths to report. Jim Nippes died suddenly on May 16^th, 2022. From the Jackson, Mississippi Clarion Ledger:

He graduated from the Hopkins School in New Haven, Connecticut, in 1965; from Yale University in 1969 with a double major in Physics and History; and from the University of Mississippi Law School in 1973.

After receiving an LLM Degree in Tax Law from the University of Miami in 1974, he moved to Jackson and practiced law with a focus on complex corporate and real estate transactions with tax consequences, until retiring five years ago. Jim was highly respected by his peers for his technical expertise, document drafting, and congenial personality.

In 1980, Jim met, fell in love with, and married Maggie Marsh. Jim and Maggie were partners in life, and their family became the center of his life. He was a loving husband, father, and grandfather. Their home in Madison and Scrooge’s restaurant were the preferred places for large gatherings of family and friends. Jim was a constant presence at school functions and every sporting event of his son Marsh, his daughter Ginny, and his grandchildren Joseph and Kimberly…Sports and personal fitness were important to him. He was an avid fan of the New Orleans Saints and the Philadelphia Phillies. He enjoyed weightlifting and exercised religiously every day. Jim enjoyed reading history books, working the daily New York Times crossword puzzle, playing video war games, and was anxiously awaiting the arrival of his new flip phone…

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Chuck Resor died April 24^th, 2022, in Jackson, Wyoming. Excerpts from the Jackson Hole News:

“Much of Chuck’s young life was spent dutifully following a rigid academic path. His time in Wyoming provided an important contrast to the stiff eastern lifestyle. Out west, khakis were traded for blue jeans, tennis shoes for cowboy boots, and the confines of ivy-laden institutions for airy log cabins.

When Chuck graduated from Yale University in 1969 he took a job with The City College of New York helping students in the Bronx receive their GEDs. Teaching granted him a deferment from the Vietnam War. However, watching his students, who were essentially his contemporaries, be drafted while he, the son of the sitting Secretary of the Army, was able to avoid mandatory service, did not sit well with him. So Chuck enlisted. He volunteered for the infantry and became an Airborne Ranger. By the time Chuck finished officer candidate training, the Army was only sending West Point graduates to Vietnam, so he never served overseas.

Following the Army, Chuck returned to Yale University for law school. After law school he took a job clerking for a circuit court judge and later an appellate court judge. It was during his work for the appellate court that Chuck made his break with the expectations that had influenced his early life and decided to move to Wyoming…In the late 1970s Chuck spearheaded the legal opposition to a lawsuit filed by the sewage plant in Teton Village that would have allowed effluent to be discharged across the Snake River Ranch into the headwaters of Fish Creek. Following an unexpected yet favorable court ruling, Chuck enshrined the temporary legal victory by collecting downstream landowner signatures on a petition that designated Fish Creek as a Blue Ribbon Trout Stream, thus protecting the stream in perpetuity.

Soon after, Chuck and a group of other conservation-minded Teton County residents joined and formed the Jackson Hole Alliance for Responsible Planning, or what is today known as the Jackson Hole Conservation Alliance.

Perhaps Chuck’s most visible contribution to local conservation is the role he played in preserving the Walton Ranch, which lies east of the Snake River along Highway 22. At that time there wasn’t a legal mechanism to make such a large conservation gift without being hit by prohibitive gift taxes. Chuck was able to come up with a solution that allowed Paul Walton to fulfill his wish and preserve the ranch and its iconic vistas forever.

In 1981 Chuck married Nancy Nickel… Marriage and fatherhood began a new chapter in Chuck’s life. His dedication to his children would lead him in new directions.

Chuck’s mother, Jane Resor, a Minnesotan and a relentless advocate for youth sports, started Jackson Youth Skating while Chuck and Nancy were on vacation in 1989. When they returned Chuck learned that he had been appointed president of the newly formed JYS. He oversaw JYS from its inception, in a now-defunct tennis bubble in the Aspens, to the outdoor ice rink in Wilson, until its eventual arrival at the Snow King Center, for which he fundraised tirelessly. From the very beginning Chuck instituted financial aid in the program, ensuring that all budding figure skaters and hockey players in the valley had an opportunity to participate….

In 2000 Chuck released the Flashmaster, an education device that taught and tested basic arithmetic tables… Chuck claimed the device was “the best thing to happen to education since fear and guilt.” …Pragmatic to the end, he died as stoically as he lived, comforting those by his side by telling them it was “really no big deal” and that he expected death to be like “a really good night’s sleep.”

Chuck will be remembered for his honesty, his kindness, his humility, his uncompromising morals, his dry sense of humor, his toothy smile, his inexplicable love for riding his bike up the Old Pass Road, his unconventional restaurant orders and so much more. He will be dearly missed.”

(More information and pictures for these classmates are available on our class website at Yale1969.org.)

For those of us who keep on keepin’ on, Lang Wheeler will again host his biannual pre-game brunch at his house in Cambridge. For details contact Lang at langwheeler@gmail.com. Hope to see you there!