{"id":10265,"date":"2015-12-03T15:31:29","date_gmt":"2015-12-03T22:31:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/?p=10265"},"modified":"2015-12-03T15:32:53","modified_gmt":"2015-12-03T22:32:53","slug":"peak-profile-ed-pelz-38","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/2015\/12\/peak-profile-ed-pelz-38\/","title":{"rendered":"Peak Profile: Ed Pelz ’38"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"<\/a>

Ed Pelz at his home in Bennington, Vermont. Ed still reads voraciously, ever the inspirational student.<\/p><\/div>\n

Arriving at Colorado College in the fall of 1934, Edward Joseph Pelz \u201938<\/b> must have had no idea what lay in store for his future. Pelz arrived at a Colorado College on the upswing. The presidency of Thurston J. Davies (1934-48) had seen the college acquire new property, upgrade student housing, and hire new faculty despite the economic hardships of the time. <\/p>\n

\u201cI loved my time at Colorado College,\u201d said Pelz during a call to his Bennington, Vermont, residence. A lively conversationalist at 97, Pelz waxed lyrical about the \u201cforward-looking\u201d college he joined when he arrived in Colorado Springs. <\/p>\n

An economics major as well as class president at CC, Pelz graduated summa cum laude<\/i> in June 1938. That previous December, Pelz had applied for the Rhodes Scholarship to study at the University of Oxford. Competing to be one of 32 U.S. finalists for the scholarship, Pelz made it to the semi-finalist stage in \u201938, but didn\u2019t make the final cut. One of the Rhodes cohorts that year was future Supreme Court justice Byron White, \u201ca far more important man than I,\u201d said Pelz. Undeterred by his initial faltering, Pelz reapplied for the Rhodes in the fall of 1938, and this time was chosen as one of the Rhodes Scholars for 1939.<\/p>\n

\u201cBy the first week of September \u201939, two of the recipients were already in England,\u201d Pelz recalled. \u201cThe rest of us were due to leave by boat over the weekend, so I said goodbye to my boss on the Friday.\u201d On Sunday, Britain declared war on Germany. On Monday, Ed \u201chad to run back to my boss and beg for my job back!\u201d<\/p>\n

Fortunately, Pelz continued working at the publisher\u2019s association in New York until July 1942 when he was called into active service with the U.S. Navy. <\/p>\n

His start in the Navy was hindered by \u201cmy grandfather, a Prussian aristocrat, [who] had come to the U.S. when he was 20 years old.\u201d As the U.S. was directly involved in a war effort against Germany, his family history raised some questions. \u201cMy naval commission was delayed by four months while they researched my family,\u201d he said with a laugh. <\/p>\n

\u201cI spent the initial four months as a civilian intelligence officer. After that, I was shipped overseas to Europe, the Mediterranean, Suez Canal, and Persian Gulf \u2014 just to name a few.\u201d <\/p>\n

While stationed in England, Pelz managed to take a trip to the University of Oxford to visit the college where he would have studied, Brasenose College. \u201cI had a wonderful visit with the college,\u201d he said. \u201cThey still list me as an alumnus, which is just tremendous!\u201d<\/p>\n

After the war, about half of Pelz\u2019s Rhodes cohorts took up the offer to study at Oxford. Pelz, having had two children during the war, declined. <\/p>\n

Father to four children, and husband to a \u201cgenius of a wife,\u201d Pelz returned to the U.S. to work for the New York Times<\/i> as a personnel benefits coordinator. A 40-year career in the media industry followed, one that he still feels \u201cdamn lucky\u201d to have had. One of his sons, Sanford Pelz \u201975<\/b>, majored in physics at CC. <\/p>\n

His grandson Ben Elbow \u201900<\/b>, graduated magna cum laude<\/i> majoring in sociology.<\/p>\n

Daily, Pelz remains as curious as ever. \u201cI\u2019m surrounded by all sorts of stuff,\u201d he said, laughing. \u201cI\u2019m an old man with lots of obsessions, particularly economic ones. I still absolutely love Colorado College, and I\u2019d do anything I can to help it out.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Ed<\/a>

Ed Pelz as a Colorado College senior, in 1938. Taken from the Colorado College Nugget, Vol. 39, 1938<\/p><\/div>\n

\n

Editor\u2019s note:<\/b> In the Winter 2015 issue of American Oxonian<\/i>, the magazine of the Association of American Rhodes Scholars, Kathrin Day Lassila featured Ed Pelz, \u201cthe last surviving member of the Rhodes Scholar Class of 1939 and, to the best of anyone\u2019s knowledge, the oldest American Rhodes Scholar\u201d in her \u201cFrom the Editor\u201d column. It is thanks to her piece that we were inspired to reach out to Pelz and interview him for the Bulletin<\/i>. To learn more about AARS, visit americanrhodes.org.\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Arriving at Colorado College in the fall of 1934, Edward Joseph Pelz \u201938 must have had no idea what lay in store for his future. Pelz arrived at a Colorado College on the upswing. The presidency of Thurston J. Davies (1934-48) had seen the college acquire new property, upgrade student housing, and hire new faculty…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[17],"class_list":["post-10265","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-december-2015","tag-alumni-profiles"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10265","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10265"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10265\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10273,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10265\/revisions\/10273"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10265"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10265"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10265"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}