But in this case, it was replaced by another. Harvard's deal with St. Mark's says the school provides reunions with set-up, clean-up and all its facilities for a standard fee. The school's business manager, Edward J. Gotgart '68, is serving as co-chair of his 25th Harvard reunion this week.

It's 11 a.m. on Memorial Day, and Harvard Police Lt. Lawrence J. Murphy is alone at the office. He's not sitting in the 29 Garden St. police station, where he currently presides as the officer-in-charge while Chief Paul E. Johnson undergoes medical treatment. Instead, he's set up at a desk in the Medford office of Cavalier Coach Corporation, the primary bus company for reunion week.

Murphy works closely with Cavalier Coach--so closely, in fact, that rumors of possible financial ties between the lieutenant and the company have circulated around the police department for years.

But Murphy says he spends time at the bus office in order to work out the maze of Commencement bus schedules, and that he has no personal relationship to the company. The Massachusetts secretary of state's office does not list Murphy as either a director or owner in the company.

The cozy working relationship between the lieutenant and the bus company is very lucrative for Cavalier. The reunion requires dozens of buses, including 22 at a single time for this week's trip by the Class of 1968 to the Boston Pops.

Murphy's close ties with both Harvard and Cavalier insure that the relationship between the two will grow and prosper to the great benefit of the bus company. Cavalier has been employed by Harvard reunions for more than a decade, sources say.

Murphy says Cavalier is not the only bus company employed during reunion week. The Yankee Line bus company gets significant business as well.

But the permanency of the relationship between Harvard and Cavalier, through Murphy, is all but written in stone. The checklists Briefer uses year after year to plan the 25th reunion remind her to schedule a meeting with Murphy and Cavalier President Joan Libby in mid-winter.

One of the largest and most lucrative contracts related to Commencement and reunion activities is held by Interstate Rental Service Inc. of Boston, a special event services company.

Interstate provides and sets up at least 26,000 chairs, hundreds of tables, several platforms and some of the tents which go up around campus during Commencement week, according to Interstate employees.

This contract, like others relating to reunion activities, has been held by only a handful of companies over the last quarter of a century. According to one Interstate worker, who spoke on condition of anonymity, Harvard has been hiring Interstate for more than 20 consecutive years.

"We do this every year, though fully only for the last 15 years," says the worker, who has been with Interstate for 23 years. "Until 15 years ago, someone else subcontracted the job out to us, but [Harvard] liked us so they never called them back," he says.

Interstate, according to job supervisor Edward C. Kennedy Jr., provides the tables, chairs and other rental items for Commencement not only for the Yard, but also for all of the undergraduate houses, Harvard Business School, Radcliffe and the area surrounding the biology labs.

Because of Harvard's minimal supervision of Interstate's work, some Interstate employees are paid a full day's salary for only a few minutes of work, according to the Interstate employee.

Interstate is not subject to the kind of close University scrutiny that would ensure the efficient use of labor resources, Interstate employees say.