Letters from alumni about Professor Richard Challener ’44

November 10, 2002

I have just been reading the November 6 Alumni Weekly and learned of the death last month of my old friend and classmate Dick Challener (Notebook). We had not been in touch in recent years, but his death is a shock.

In your article, you do not mention Dick's wife, Martha, and I wonder if she is still alive. If she is, I'd like to write her a note of sympathy.

Alex Ardrey ’44
Lynchburg, Va.

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September 27, 2002

I was saddened by the news of Professor Richard Challener's passing, because I remember him well, and fondly. In the fall of my senior year, I had the pleasure of taking his course on American Foreign Policy, and serving him breakfast.

I worked off part of my tuition as a DFS breakfast cook in the Student Center when it was in East Pyne. Professor Challener used to eat breakfast in the Student Center a couple of times a week. After a time, I knew his order by heart, although, sadly, I can't remember what it was. Sometime during the semester, I screwed up the courage to introduce myself, and was delighted when the great professor asked me to join him now and again at his table for a few minutes. He would sit in a booth all the way in the back, read his paper, smelling of pipe tobacco and venerable wisdom, and quiz me gently about the readings. In the photo album I keep in my head of my four years at Princeton, this is one of my favorites.

With respect and sadness,
Charles D. Collins '88
Norwalk, Conn.

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