Deceased June 6, 1990

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In Memory

As I was completing the class notes for the Fall 1990 issue of Amherst, I learned that Dave Hall had been killed on June 6 from injuries sustained when his motorcycle was hit by a swerving car near his home in Ruidoso, NM. Ironically, my column had ended with a piece on Dave. I had written: "Finally, from Dave Hall, who is still working on the Robert Frost bronzes ordered by classmates at reunion ('two delivered, three more to go'), word that he and wife Bernita just finished co-directing a run of Frederick Knott's Wait Until Dark for the Ruidoso Little Theater in Ruidoso, NM, where they live. 'I've got lots of time to work on art now that Bernita is back as director and VP of the corporation for Little Rascals Day Care, now a subsidiary of Warp Speed Light Pens, Inc. Hurray!' It's good somebody is still carrying the '60s banner, even if, as George told us, we were really the end of the '50s."

When gentle Dave wrote that to me through the Alumni Office in May, he thought, as we all do, that he had "lots of time" for whatever. Tragically, he did not.

David was part of a long line of Amherst men, beginning with his great-great-grandfather, Henry Martyn Smith, in the 1860s; his grandfather, Henry Smith Lieper, Class of 1913; and his uncle, Henry M. W. Lieper, Class of 1941.

David came to Amherst from Cranford High School where even before college he was known for his artistic bent. While at Amherst, David won the Skowras Prize for his woodcut of a head from Degas' sculpture of a young dancer. After Amherst, David earned his master's degree at Ohio State Univ. and taught art at Washington and Lee and at the Univ. of Guam. He moved to New Mexico 10 years ago.

His mother, Carrell Lieper Hall, writes from her home in Westfield, NJ:

"David's work has been recognized commercially in many media. Original designs in cast gold wedding rings, fine woodwork in carpentry and wood construction, a wide variety of sculptures in ceramic and cast bronze as well as in oil, pastels and polychrome fiber glass figures. A large bronze piece, 'The Hanging Man,' is in a lobby at the Univ. of New Mexico."

And, of course, all of us at reunion remember the bust of Robert Frost he presented as his gift to the college. While David did not, as he thought, have "lots of time" to finish his life's work, he did have enough time to leave us a lasting legacy of his artistic spirit. Would that each of us were so blessed.

In addition to his mother and his wife, Bernita, David is survived by his father, Homer; his daughter, Denise Stringham, of Alamagordo, NM; a brother and three sisters.

John Cooper '64