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Roger Aaron '64, '65Tu: Dartmouth Alumni Award Recipient, 2010-11

Doug Wise

Virginia A. Aaron (right) was presented the
Dartmouth Alumni Award on behalf of her late
husband, Roger S. Aaron '64 '64Tu by Marty
Lempres '84, president of the Alumni Council,
at the 205th Alumni Council meeting on
November 2, 2012.


Your Dartmouth College application included the following entry, "I shall continue to strive to fulfill my quest for knowledge throughout the rest of high school, college and life." Your success that followed in academia, the legal community and your personal life is a reflection of the fulfillment of this promise.

Raised in Shaker Heights, Ohio, you looked forward to traveling east to attend Dartmouth College. Excelling academically, you were a member of Phi Beta Kappa, graduating magna cum laude, while earning citations in history and economics along the way. The honors program of your economics major provided you with the opportunity to participate in small seminars which you thoroughly enjoyed. No less active outside the classroom, it would appear you discovered how to accomplish more than the typical person in a 24-hour day. Activities included participation on the track team, freshman council, undergraduate council, the Dartmouth College News Service, and Pi Lambda Phi fraternity. In addition, you were a member of Casque and Gauntlet senior society, and served as senior editor of the Aegis and as president of Green Key. Appreciating your leadership qualities, your classmates elected you class president for the five years following graduation.

Additional degrees followed from the Amos Tuck School of Business and Yale Law School. In 1968, you joined the prestigious law firm of Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & Flom, where you have remained for over forty years. Recognized as one of the most accomplished corporate and securities attorneys in the nation, you continue to serve as a senior partner in corporate practice and as a member of the firm's Policy Committee. In 1996, the Dartmouth Lawyers Association honored you with the first Daniel Webster Distinguished Dartmouth Law Alumnus Award, recognizing your "qualities of excellence, integrity, loyalty, and dedication to the best interests of clients, the legal profession and the College."

Noting on many occasions the impact your years in Hanover had on your life, you have dedicated a great deal of time giving back to your alma mater to provide similar opportunities for today's students. Much of your volunteerism has involved, in your own words, "the extraordinary class of 1964." In addition to serving as class president, you have been head agent, co-chair of several reunion giving committees, class agent, and a member of the class executive committee. You were also a member of the major gifts committee for the Will to Excel Campaign, served on the Rockefeller Center Board of Visitors, and currently participate on the President's Leadership Council.

The amount of time and effort you have expended on behalf of Dartmouth College could not have been possible without the support of your wife, Ginny. Married for forty-four years, you noted in your 25th reunion book that she is "the central force in shaping and molding me and our family." Life came full-circle for you and Ginny when your sons, Peter '92 and Todd '96, graduated from Dartmouth.

In appreciation of your extraordinary dedication to your alma mater, profession and family, it is our honor to present you with the Dartmouth Alumni Award.