Although a member of our class, he spent an extra year at Hopkins to better prepare himself for college. He roomed with Don Ferguson who was then a freshman at Yale.

Matt went on to become a respected subrogation attorney in New York City where he founded and headed his own firm.

The photo shows Matt delivering that eloquent address. A year later, he would die of lung cancer. Bob Schulz, Rick Ross, Bill Sarris, Mark Esposito, Dick Hutchinson, and Karl Crawford attended the funeral. As Matt had asked, the recessional music was Take me out to the ball game!

"On Friday, May 31, 1996, in one of those unsettling turns of fate I found myself in Washington, D.C. on business. I had gone out early to run on an exquisite morning. My soul took me to the Lincoln memorial and then to the Viet Nam Veterans Memorial. I paused there, at panel 34 I believe, as I do on every visit to D.C. to think back to Don Ferguson and his thousands of silent peers who were not as fortunate as I three decades ago. This time my thoughts also turned to Matt D'Alessio.

I had been moved by the generous, eloquent words of appreciation he spoke in memory of Don at our 30^th reunion. Don had served for a time as Matt's academic guide, counselor, and tutor. It was an extraordinary and disquieting tribute from a man I once knew as "Stinger."

I knew at the time that Matt was seriously ill, and as a physician I knew how ill. Standing in front of the polished granite wall of names and Washington that day, I silently wished Matt well.

And perhaps he heard, because unknown to me then, he was to be buried that very morning.

I can write nothing that would adequately convey my sorrow at the loss of another of our classmates. Someone that I really got to know only long after we left HGS. Someone who had become mature and accomplished, yet remained endlessly and cheerfully faithful to the friendships of childhood. And I can write nothing that would say more about him than did his own kind tribute to Don one brief year ago. I hope that you may join me in remembering Matt…."