William Robertson, July 22, 1997

[from Jerry Schnitt TC 69, Bill’s freshman roommate]    Bill attended Yale for only one year. Having been an all-state basketball, football and baseball player in Oregon, he tried out for football in the fall (beat out at quarterback by Brian D). Freshman basketball,  he left at six weeks; he hated the coach and quit the team. He didn’t try out for baseball in the Spring.

He had sufficient character to confront a group of guys that were making fun of a rather eccentric classmate. Told them that it  wasn’t right.    They actually listened to him.

The summer after freshman year he got his girlfriend pregnant and did not return, rather finishing college on the West Coast. He became a reporter for the Portland Oregonian and came to Washington DC partly because he was friends with the junior senator from Oregon.

I lost track of Bill after that. Tony Kaiser (TC 69)  told me that Bill became involved in local politics and headed an agency in Portland which developed a tunnel through the mountain that separated Portland from the land east of town.

Unfortunately Bill never gave up smoking  and succumbed to lung disease in his 50s.