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Photos from 2001 WAIS Conference (John Eipper, USA, 05/15/12 3:46 pm)

It's spring cleaning time at WAIS HQ, and I spent part of the weekend going through a box of old photographs.  Since I'm the nostalgic type, it was a very slow process:  each picture conjured up an album of memories.  I found some images from the first WAIS conference I attended, the 2001 meeting at Stanford, 28 July through 1 August 2001.  They were taken on my 1970s-vintage Nikon 35 mm.  (Who remembers that celluloid curiosity we called "film"?)  Just six weeks after the conference, on 11 September, the world would change forever.  In a real sense, then, these photos are testaments to an earlier age.

The first image shows Prof. Hilton chairing a panel on 30 or 31 July (RH's 90th birthday), in the Tresidder Union.  Note the low-tech World Association of International Studies banner in front of our Founder; it appears to be a dot-matrix print job. 

Can anyone identify the other speaker?

Prof. Ronald Hilton at WAIS Conference, Stanford, 30 or 31 July 2001.  Photo by JE.

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The next next photo is the final day's gathering at Prof. Hilton's home, the legendary Hesperides.  In the group on the left, I can identify only Prof. David Hooson (with beard), who passed away in 2008; in the other group we see Prof. Hilton on the extreme right, and Les Robinson next to him.  (If Les is reading these lines, greetings!)  I cannot identify the gentleman to Les's right (with glasses and white jacket).  Can anyone help?

 At the Hesperides (Ronald Hilton home), 1 August 2001.  Photo by JE.

Finally, here's a shot of Les Robinson and Prof. Hilton from the same gathering.  Note the turkey on the shelf behind the eagle figurine.  Prof. Hilton proposed at the '01 conference to name the turkey the Official Bird of WAIS.  Maybe we should finally make good on his wish.  RH must have been channeling Ben Franklin, who judged the turkey a more practical and American bird than the bellicose and decidedly untasty eagle.  Wasn't this particular figure a gift from Les?

Les Robinson and Ronald Hilton, 1 August 2001.  Photo by JE.

I'm overjoyed we've preserved this slice of WAIS history.  I should clean house more often.  In a future post, I'll share some unpublished pictures from the 2006 conference, Prof. Hilton's last.  By that time I had "upgraded" to digital photography.  Interestingly, I am already on my third or fourth digital camera since '06, and my venerable Nikon FM still works like a charm.  There must be a lesson to be drawn here.

WAIS 2001 Conference Photos (John Eipper, 05/18/12 4:19 pm)

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