Sunday, November 10, 2019
Don and Chuck Malcolmson were the head cheerleaders Fall 1952 when I was a “freshette”( second wave feminism was years later and all women enrolled at Queens were in a faculty known as Levana despite their area of study).
Queens had not won an Intercollegiate championship since my father was an undergraduate 30 years earlier, but Queens was known for its school spirit.The student bleachers at the old Richardson stadium were overflowing every football home game. If ,as a cheerleader, you sought refuge under these bleachers during a rain storm,you risked suffering a head injury by being struck by a discarded”dead soldier” from some of the other kind of spirits being imbibed Above you.
Don kept the Queens school spirit flowing by making sure his cheerleading team was ever vigilant and untiring .
He set the example for this in a manner that was infectious.
Throughout his later years this same quality of infectious enthusiasm radiated from Don both in his professional and interpersonal relationships .
His wife LIZ and I were in the same year, class of ‘56 , reunions for which she organized for decades .Don was always in attendance until recently when his health prevented his doing so. He remembered us over the years , made us welcome back and essentially became an honorary member of our class.
None of us can predict the kind of legacy our life will earn . But in retrospect his was predictable from an early age.
His was a life well lived, as I’m sure those of us who knew him over his long life would concur And now celebrate.
Thanks Don for being you.
Nancy Stewart Elgie
