At the 2004 CANE annual meeting at St. Joseph's College in Maine, I was deeply moved that Alison Barker was posthumously honored with CANE's prestigious Barlow-Beach Award. The inscribed silver bowl was presented at Friday's banquet to her husband, Lloyd Hunt, by then CANE president, Jacqui Carlon. Alison was a close friend to many of us and her death was much too untimely. I also featured a two-page tribute to Alison in the Spring 2005 issue of The American Classical League Newsletter (pp. 34-35). This memorial was composed by Ann Wilkins of Duquesne University, Alison's roommate at Wellesley, and by Judy Hallett of the University of Maryland at College Park, another of Alison's Wellesley classmates.

I recall fondly my 36-year association and friendship with John C. Rouman, Emeritus Professor of Classics at the University of New Hampshire, my undergraduate mentor, the recipient of the Barlow-Beach Award and past president of CANE, and member of the board of the Professor John C. Rouman Classical Lecture Series named in his honor at UNH in 1997. John is the one most responsible for my professional career in classics and the one who proposed that I serve as president of CANE which I did in 1993-94.

I recall fondly the many CANE meetings at the end of which Francis Bliss of the University of Vermont and Richard Clairmont of the University of New Hampshire, Resolutions Co-Chairs, delivered Latine their eloquent and witty tributes of that year’s CANE meeting.

John McVey, current President, has aptly stated: "We at CANE are a close-knit group, always eager to discuss, complain or talk about what is going on." My own association with CANE – attending the meetings, and talking with friends and colleagues – is among the highlights of my career.