I used to own the pinball machine that was in the Dartmouth Forensic Union headquarters in Robinson Hall in the Fall of 1973, years before Ken Strange was hired. It was D. Gottlieb and Co.'s, "Snow Derby."
Dartmouth's tournament director of that era had been one of my many high school debate partners and was my business partner in that venture. The machine didn't make much money so we took it out a few months later.
Ken had the misfortune of judging me when I came back to school in 1980, which was likely the last time he ever got to judge someone who had debated in the same academic year that he had. My partner in that round and I were pretty low in the power matchings by that point, so I guess the tournament's judge assignment system must have had a glitch in it. I remember looking for an opening to make an allusion to the pinball machine in my rebuttal but I couldn't develop one. It would have been easier to arrange if Bates debate coach and former Dartmouth (Class of 1973) debater Bob Branham had been judging, since he, himself, had surely played it.
- Michael W. Toland
