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Keeping in touch with classmates sometimes can be a challenging task for an alumnus pursuing a career. For David Norton ’04, however, it’s just another hobby.
Norton recently received the Huhn ’24 Class Correspondent Award, given to a correspondent “who actively seeks out and includes many classmates from diverse regions and walks of life.”
Norton regularly compiles emails and letters from classmates into a column submitted for the Class Notes section of Alumni News. He is proud of doing this because it helps alumni maintain a sense of community.
“It’s the one section of the magazine that really keeps classmates in touch,” he says. “Someone from the development department once told me that of all the sections in the Alumni News magazine, the Class Notes section is where most alumni turn first.”
Norton, an international affairs graduate, doesn’t just compile friendly emails, however.
Since graduating, he has worked as an English and creative writing teacher at a private school in the Washington, D.C. area and oversees the student newspaper, which he started.
“The paper eerily resembles The Lafayette student newspaper for which I was an editor for a year,” he jokes. “It’s been a very rewarding experience.”
Norton finds that working on Class Notes isn’t just a way to find out news about alumni.
“One of my favorite stories about keeping in touch with classmates, which I think speaks volumes about the perks of the job, is an instance involving the last Alumni News deadline,” he says. “While I was compiling the column, I came across a two-month-old email from a classmate who said she had just moved to Berkley for grad school. So I called her up, and we had coffee two days and two time zones later.”
Norton says he is honored to be recognized by Lafayette and is looking forward to continuing his work in the future.
“Having the College single my column out for recognition is extremely humbling, but it’s also encouraging to know that I’m doing my part to keep my class connected and keep the life of the college vibrant,” he says.