CLASS NOTES
Carl “Sandy” Perkins
Dr. Carl Wakefield Perkins III, M.D., known to all as “Sandy” during his years at Northfield Mount Hermon, died unexpectedly of a heart attack on May 11, 2015, at the age of 67, while vacationing in the south of France. Perkins was a thoughtful, precise, dedicated physician who led NMH’s O’Connor Health and Wellness Center for 22 years. He officially retired from NMH as director of Student Health Services in 2010, but stayed on part time until 2014. Perkins was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on March 11, 1948, one of three sons of Carl Wakefield (Jr.) and Ruth Jean (Gibson) Perkins. He attended schools in Norwich, Connecticut, and graduated from Norwich Free Academy in 1966. In 1970, he received his bachelor’s degree cum laude in chemistry from Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts. He earned his medical degree in 1974 from Saint Louis University in St. Sandy Perkins Louis, Missouri, and was elected to Alpha Omega Alpha Medical Honor Society. During this time, he married, and he and his first wife, Kathi, had two sons. After his internship and residency at Charles S. Wilson Memorial Hospital in Johnson City, New York, Perkins was certified by the American Board of Family Practice in 1977, and joined a small family practice group in White River Junction, Vermont. He also held part-time posts at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center and Alice Peck Day Memorial Hospital in Lebanon, New Hampshire; served as regional medical examiner; as school physician in Hartford, Vermont; and was involved with hospice and other community-based health care programs. Perkins’s other interests included singing, playing guitar, running, skiing, camping, and fishing. In 1987, Bob Latourelle, a friend and former fraternity brother who worked in the admission office at NMH, told Perkins of an opening for a physician at the school. Perkins and his family, which now included an adopted son, Khun Porl, moved to NMH in September 1988, taking up residence in Duley House across from the Northfield campus. At NMH, Perkins continued to make music, ski, and run, and he biked the round trip from his home to O’Connor and back. He also served as the school physician in the Pioneer Valley Regional School District, part-time emergency-room doctor at Baystate Franklin Medical Center, and doctor for the Franklin County House of Correction. Tim McCabe wrote in a 2010 retirement tribute that Perkins was a “knowledgeable, respectful physician” who had “ushered in a new era of medical practice” at NMH. “Recognizing that the words ‘infirmary’ or ‘medical center’ had negative connotations, Sandy used the term ‘health center’ instead. Sandy also brought mental health services under the umbrella of health services because he felt they naturally complemented each other.” Perkins’s former assistant, Mary Parrott, called him “a nice, easygoing boss, but more important, a terrific doctor who went the extra mile for his patients.” Sandy Perkins is survived by his second wife, retired NMH psychologist Mary Beth Whiton; sons Dustin ’91 and Jason ’93, their spouses and their mother; son Khun Porl; nine grandchildren; two stepchildren; and two brothers and their families.
Carroll Rikert Jr. ’34
Carroll Rikert Jr. ’34, trustee emeritus of Northfield Mount Hermon, died peacefully at the Cayuga Medical Center in Ithaca, New York, on June 12, 2015, at the age of 97. Rikert was a lifelong supporter of Northfield Mount Hermon; he served as a trustee from 1951 to 1981. At his 80th reunion in June 2014, he received the Alumni Association’s annual Lamplighter Award, NMH’s biggest alumni honor, for his service to the school. Born in Greenfield, Massachusetts, on March 31, 1918, to Carroll and Dorothy Rikert, young Carroll was the first of four children and the only boy. As a child, he lived in North Farmhouse on the Mount Hermon campus, where his father was director of the physical plant. According to a memorial tribute prepared by his family, Rikert found joy in the physical work of the school. “Farm tasks provided a source of adventure and accomplishment through his childhood and young adulthood. Riding in a truck with Rene Phelps, loading hay wagons in Purple Meadow, emptying a railcar of coal destined for the school heating plant — all provided a wonderful education and a source of lifetime pride.” Rikert attended local schools before enrolling at Mount Hermon, and he graduated at 16 in 1934, just three months before the murder on campus of Headmaster Elliott Speer. He entered Harvard, earning a bachelor’s degree in history in 1938 and an M.B.A. in 1940 from Harvard Business School. He served briefly as an ensign in the United States Navy during World War II and then began a career as a CPA with the accounting firm Haskins & Sells, first in New York City and then in Orange, New Jersey. Rikert met his future wife, Jane Wilson, at their fathers’ 25th Harvard reunion; they married in 1943 and eventually had four children. In 1946, Rikert joined the financial office at Brown University, and then, six years later, he became the business manager at Middlebury College, where he would spend the next three decades. In 1964, he was named treasurer of the college, overseeing personnel, the physical plant, and the finance office. Over the next 19 years, Middlebury’s endowment grew from $15 million to more than $100 million, due in large part to Rikert’s fierce fiscal restraint. He advocated for Carroll Rikert Jr. operational transparency and initiated the push to extend retirement benefits to staff as well as faculty, earning the respect and the fondness of the community. When Rikert, an avid skier, retired in 1983, Middlebury named a women’s skiing trophy after him and, a year later, named its Nordic ski area at Breadloaf for him and Jane. After retiring, Carroll and Jane Rikert moved to Rockport, Maine, where they got involved in local organizations and traveled frequently: England, China, Egypt, and Alaska were among their trips. In 2000, they made their final move to Ithaca, New York. Jane Rikert died in 2006. Rikert is survived by his children, David Rikert ’63, Rachel Rikert Burbank ’65, Hannah Rikert Morvan ’66, and Jon Corson-Rikert ’69; their spouses; 11 grandchildren; and 16 great-grandchildren.
fall 2015 I 95