Crimson seems to run in his family's blood. Stephenson's son, Thomas S., graduated from the College and from the Business School. His daughter, Nancy Pyle, has a Harvard Ph.D. and works here, at the Institute for International Development.

Stephenson left DuPont seven years ago and headed back to Exeter, where he worked in the alumni office and planned that school's 200th birthday celebration.

After Exeter's 1981 celebration, Stephenson took a job in the Harvard development office and began work on the sesquitercentenary. Several months ago, Stephenson, speaking in the slight Southern drawl since his North Carolina boyhood, described the move to Harvard as "a homecomming."

Stephenson says the celebration he has planned will differ markedly from the 300th he experienced as an undergraduate. In 1936, the University celebrated its birthday with a summer-long series of erudite conferences on the future of academia that culminated in a three-day public celebration.

The sesquitercentenary was conceived as a "family affair," Stephenson says. A public party on the Charles, a folk concert, and other aspects of the 350th labeled as vacuous and glitzy were attempts, he says, to make Harvard's celebration accessible to a broad audience. According to Stephenson, the celebration should dispel such criticism.

"I don't think a lay audience has ever had a menu [of activities] laid out before them of this breadth, depth and variety," says Stephenson.

While working on last-minute details in his office over the Labor Day weekend, Stephenson said in an interview that he wants to take a short vacation, but isn't anxious to walk away from the party he planned.

"It's going to be a let down. You get your juices flowing and your adrenaline is up and what have you," Stephenson says.

And what about his next project? Stephenson has his sights on planning his own 50th reunion, which will take place in Tercentenary Theater next year.

"When you get to be my age, you want to do things you thoroughly enjoy, and I feel--I know this sounds trite, but in my case it's true--that I owe Harvard and Exeter a great deal."