Belmont Hill the bulletin for belmont hill school
summer | fall 2015
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“Everybody gets knocked down from time to time – it’s how you get back up that matters.” richard i. melvoin head of school
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contents
features
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chapel talk
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william l. byrnes ’40
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global education
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commencement 2015
departments 14
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coaches’ corner
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corporation news
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alumni & family events
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alumni reunion weekend
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class notes
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faculty & staff news
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in memoriam
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our mission
Belmont Hill is a community dedicated to developing boys in mind, body, and spirit. In a school that challenges and supports students in and beyond the classroom, we strive for excellence, honoring clear thinking and creativity, competition and teamwork, tradition and vision. Valuing difference, we seek students, faculty, and staff from a broad range of backgrounds who will embrace honest effort, curiosity, courage, and compassion. Working together, we seek to foster in each boy good character, commitment to service, global responsibility, and a passion for lifelong learning.
Front Cover: Portrait of William L. Byrnes ’40
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chapel talk
HITTING THE WALL Remarks delivered by Head of School Rick Melvoin on March 30, 2015
In September of 1978, I finished up preparations to run the Chicago marathon, my first attempt at the legendary 26.2-mile distance. Although a runner in college, I had focused on the 400 meters, and running four or five miles seemed like long distance, much less 26. But after college, as a running craze swept the country, I started doing more road races. That summer, I logged a lot of miles in preparation, averaging about 55 miles per week. The big fear that marathoners have, and that people talked about, was “hitting the wall.” The theory is that even with good training, if you ran too hard too early, you would deplete your reserves by about the 20-mile mark and would crumble. As a reasonably fit 28-yearold, I didn’t really buy it. I had trained hard, and I was healthy. Marathon day dawned warm and sunny, and my first 20 miles were terrific: 67 minutes for the first 10 miles, 69 for the second 10 miles, on pace to break my goal of three hours. And then I hit the wall. I couldn’t quite believe how completely I fell apart, how slow I got over those agonizing last six miles. It was a humbling and painful finish, the closest I would ever come to my three-hour goal. I had not thought much about that marathon, or that
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wall, for a long time. Maybe I was simply trying to forget the pain, but I did manage to complete two other marathons, and while they were slower, I ran smarter. But that memory of hitting the wall flooded back over me last month when alumnus Jay Civetti ’97 returned to Belmont Hill and talked with the Third Form about leadership and brick walls. Mr. Civetti is a wonderful man: energetic, charismatic, the youthful head varsity football coach at Tufts University. He was a great citizen of our school, winning one of the three major faculty awards at graduation, a student who lifted our spirits with great skits at school meetings. (You Third Formers or Saturday Night Live fans who saw him recently can imagine him imitating Chris Farley). Yet Mr. Civetti focused much of his recent talk on the fact that he hit several walls during his time at Belmont Hill. That jarred me: this upbeat, successful man talking about failure. But he offered an important reminder that this school was never easy for him. He fought a losing battle with Spanish for years; he got lots of C’s, in fact struggled to get B’s. But he got through. More than surviving, he thrived. Why was that? For one thing, he had faculty who believed in him. For another, he took the faith that faculty had in him and combined it with unusual positive energy and grit. Third, he found areas
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Hitting the Wall
chapel talk
of success, not just in athletics, but also at school meetings and as a real leader. But perhaps most important, he understood then, even as he understands now, that there is value in adversity, that there is much to be gained in adversity. To put it in terms that sailors use, everybody gets knocked down from time to time – it’s how you get back up that matters. He remembers hitting those walls – but also getting past them.
“ …on the theory that hitting a
wall means that there is an obstacle between you and your goal, if your goal is a worthy one, then I hope that turning around is not you.
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What do you do when you hit a wall? As I think about it, there are perhaps four ways that you might respond. Some people walk away, turn around, and go back the way they came. And there are times when one wisely turns away. Sometimes you need to consider whether the goal is a wise one, or whether the timing is right, or whether the goal is realistic. Still, Mr. Civetti suggested that, in general, simply turning around was not his way, or the Belmont Hill way, and I agree. On the theory that hitting a wall means that there is an obstacle between you and your goal, if your goal is a worthy one, then I hope that turning around is not you. How else might you respond? Three more choices. One is that you might try to go through the wall. Well, maybe…sometimes…actually, I admire people who try to go through walls – but they often end up with concussions. One has to be smart about whether one can in fact get through a wall.
But you might go around the wall, or attack it from a different angle, or go along the wall until you find a place you can cross over. In other words, there are times to be smart and strategic, to look for options. See if the wall is really as tall and strong all along its length as you first thought. Examine the dimensions of the wall; take a closer look. Maybe you want or need to go straight over that wall. How do you do that? You might have the strength, or perhaps you make yourself strong enough to be able to climb over. But maybe you get help: you work with a partner, or a team, or a teacher. In this case, one and one can add up to much more than two. In fact, I would urge you to realize, and remember, that there is nothing
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wrong with asking for help or getting help. In fact, I see it as a sign of strength, not weakness, a sign that you know what you can do, and know how much more you can do with the help, the teamwork, of others. All of this takes me back some three weeks to the end of the third quarter. There was a lot of pressure on many of you students as you finished the quarter. Especially with snow days messing up the normal rhythm of school for so many weeks, a lot of work came late in the quarter; a lot of people were tired. But you pushed through. So too can mid-year or year-end exam periods be tough. With so much else going on in your life, you sometimes hit a wall. We as a faculty never want to put you at risk: the goal is not to have a wall come crashing down on you. Yet a spate of tests and papers and projects can be a crucible, a daunting test. I am not sure you all know what a “crucible” is, so let me explain. By definition, a crucible is literally a container in which metals or other substances may be melted or subjected to very high temperatures. Yet “crucible” also means a place or time of severe tests or trials. Wikipedia suggests that a crucible is that container “that can withstand very high temperatures.” I think this word, this metaphor, is apt here, because it reminds us that sometimes in life things are hard. In fact, I would guess that for most boys who graduate from this school, Belmont Hill has been challenging, and those temperatures have gotten really high at times. But so long as that heating up is purposeful, and you can come through that in healthy ways, there is something about that experience that is salutary. Maybe hard work at Belmont Hill is the hardest you will ever face – but I doubt it. Instead, I expect that while this may be the hardest you have worked to this point in your life, at other times you will have to work a good deal harder, often with stakes much higher. But you will have built up strength and endurance by virtue of your work here; you will have learned how to handle difficulty. Some of you older boys may reflect that
you lived it in the transition from the Middle School to the Upper School. Others may have seen it in the challenges of a particular course. For some it may be an advanced placement course; for Mr. Civetti, Spanish 2 was a great challenge. Walls also appear in other places. There might be the particular passage in a piano piece that you just can’t get, or the speech in a play that you struggle to memorize; it might come in the form of a set of gates in a ski course that you just can’t run cleanly, or the difficulty of getting a curve ball over the plate, or getting the steps right in the hurdles. The point is that we each face our own challenges. They also come at different times in our lives. For some the walls rise up not in secondary school but in college, or they arise in graduate school versus college. Or perhaps they loom in preparation for medical school boards or law boards. Or the wall appears when the boss at your job demands more than you think you are capable of. Actually, I sometimes worry more about the boys at Belmont Hill who never fail here, who never have to confront a wall, than those who have done so, because we are all going to hit it, sooner or later. Again, the ultimate questions are: How do we handle such challenges? How do we handle adversity? The fact is that we all hit walls: that is part of life. In fact, for you to be the person of good character that we hope you will become, we purposefully offer many challenges to you. We expect you to be honest; we expect you to be a person of integrity; we expect you to be a person who cares about and for others, who looks beyond himself. As you consider these worthy goals, I also ask you to add to your list the values of perseverance and commitment. We all hit the wall sooner or later. Sometimes some of us feel like we hit one wall and get past it only to hit the next one. But I urge you: don’t be afraid of those walls. Indeed, as we head into this final quarter of the year, you might even think of a wall as a gift, for the reward comes not only on the other side, but often in the process of getting there.
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william l. byrnes ’40
Bill Byrnes ’40 (right) with his son Randy Byrnes ’65 at Belmont Hill’s Commencement in June 1965.
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75 + 50
=1 written by
Dr. Richard I. Melvoin, Head of School
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william l. byrnes ’40
Bill Byrnes ’40 celebrating his Belmont Hill 75th Reunion in Florida with his son Randy ’65.
confused about the title of this piece? welcome to bill byrnes math. Actually the math is quite simple. This year, Bill Byrnes, a member of the Belmont Hill Class of 1940, celebrated his 75th reunion. Add to that the remarkable fact that Bill is entering his 50th year of service as a member of Belmont Hill’s Board of Trustees. So add this 75th celebration and these 50 years of service…and you get one special man. I am sure that everyone who knows Mr. Byrnes has his own stories. As Head of School I can offer a couple. For one thing, among a talented and dedicated Board of 33 trustees, Bill may be the most careful reader and commentator. Mr. Byrnes does not make it to Board meetings very often anymore; he spends almost all of his time in Naples, Florida. But every few weeks I get a phone call. “Rick, this is Bill Byrnes. How are things up there?” “Fine, Mr. Byrnes.” “Good to hear. Well, I was reading the minutes from the last Board meeting and in the third paragraph on page four, you indicate that….” And we are on our way into a substantive discussion of key trustee issues, with Mr. Byrnes always offering insight and wisdom.
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Then there is the Mr. Byrnes who made one of his calls a few years ago. “Rick, my son Randy [Class of 1965 – himself a 50th reunioner this year] and I have been thinking. We would like to do something for the faculty, and we have an idea about some particular summer grants. They should not be just for travel, but we want to help faculty go on trips that they might not otherwise be able to afford where they can bring back to the classroom specific lessons and ideas. Do you think you would like to have a fund to support this?” Would we like this? I could not say yes fast enough. Then there is the Mr. Byrnes who made the gift to create the Byrnes Library to honor his father, the man who served for years on the Board’s Executive Committee, watching over school activities, and also on the Investment Committee, guiding the School’s investments to assure its future. Yet what remains enduring for me is the man who, whether in person or on the phone, is a model of grace, elegance, kindness, and wisdom. He is always supportive; he always keeps the School’s interests foremost in his mind, yet he moves us forward in so positive and constructive a manner that you don’t quite realize that he has helped you change your thinking, sometimes dramatically, without being made to feel foolish. A final story. Several of us hoped to get Mr. Byrnes up to school this past year, ostensibly for his reunion but in truth so that we could honor him, unveil the new portrait of him that his son Randy had commissioned (surreptitiously), and pay homage to this singular man. Smelling something amiss, he would have none of it. Instead, three of us went down to Florida and had a quiet celebration. But it is a measure of this man that he wanted no fuss made over him. So add humility to his list of virtues. Every time I speak with Mr. Byrnes it is a pleasure; every time he speaks to us he makes our school better. We are all extraordinarily fortunate that our school has been so blessed by this extraordinary – indeed singular – man.
“If I had to say what is the definition of a gentleman, it would be Bill Byrnes. Bill has given as much to Belmont Hill through his love and thinking as he has through his generosity.” Bill Achtmeyer ’73
“If we are fortunate enough to have examples in our lives, someone to look to, guide, and say this is the way it ought to be done, I think it’s Bill Byrnes.” John Grady ’66
“I always wanted to be Bill Byrnes because I had heard a lot of Bill Byrnes’ stories over the years.” Chris Clifford
“He’s just one of those folks who gives amazing advice but without actually ever telling you that you are about to have an ‘E.F. Hutton’ moment.” Jon Biotti ’87
Mr. Byrnes’ panel carving from 1940.
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william l. byrnes ’40
“I think it’s safe to say that Bill Byrnes is one of the columns upon which Belmont Hill is built. He cares a great deal about the School, but it doesn’t end there. He cares about the people, the traditions, and the quality of education for these young men.” Jack Connors
“At Belmont Hill, we endeavor to have boys grow up to have strong character. And Bill Byrnes is the personification of what we look for in terms of a good citizen, a competitor, intellectually curious, loyal, and committed. He is all of that in one.” Tony Ryan
“If you need to get a long view of some problem that needs to be addressed, some risk we are taking or something like that, you can’t go to a better person than Bill Byrnes.” John Pike ’49
“He was right in with the leaders of the class, and I’m sure he got in an equal amount of trouble like all of us did, but nothing significant, obviously. He was just a wonderful guy to have as a friend.” Fez Morse ’40
The 1940 Yearbook: William Leo Byrnes.
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The Class of 1940.
bill byrnes’ accomplishments 1955–1957: Belmont Hill Alumni President 1956–1957: Executive Committee 1958: Started as a stock analyst (one month before Ned Johnson joined the firm, and consequently became his career-long compatriot and friend). 1960: Promoted to Vice President and Fund Manager of Fidelity Capital Fund, one of Fidelity’s first growth funds. 1963: Became Executive Vice President and Assistant to the President, Mr. Edward C. Johnson, Fidelity’s founder, for whom he had great respect. 1966: Became President of Crosby Corporation, the distribution arm of all Fidelity funds.
1967: Became President and Chief Operating Officer of FMR Corporation, the parent company of Fidelity Investments. 1970–Present: Board of Trustees at Belmont Hill 1972: Moved to London to establish Fidelity International Limited. Fidelity becomes the first domestic mutual fund company to set up a worldwide investment organization. Served as President of FIL and established Fidelity offices in Hong Kong, Tokyo, Europe, India, and the United Kingdom. 1980: Returned to Boston as Vice Chairman, FMR Corporation. 1986: Belmont Hill School Alumni Award Recipient 2014: Retired as Chairman Emeritus. www.belmonthill.org
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global education
STUDENTS AND FACULTY EXPLORE SPAIN, CUBA, AND CRESTED BUTTE, COLORADO This past June, three groups of students and faculty kicked off their summers on trips to Spain, Cuba, and Crested Butte, Colorado. The intent of each excursion was to expose students to different cultures and experiences in order to broaden their outlooks and expand their worldviews. (Left) Belmont Hill students shared a game of futsal with local young Cubans. (Below) Students among the classic old cars in Cuba.
cuba Mr. Hegarty and Mrs. Montanaro traveled with 11 boys and felt privileged and excited to be amongst the first American school groups to visit this amazing island. The group all agreed that Cuba is unlike any other place that they had ever visited. Evidence of communism, socialism, and capitalism is apparent everywhere and in the Cubans the group met. The students and faculty had the opportunity to meet and talk with several Cubans and even to play a game of futsal (a modified form of soccer) with some very
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talented young Cuban men from a neighborhood in Old Havana. In another exchange, they met a man who had opened up a food stand off the back of his small house. The opportunity to speak with Cuban citizens (in Spanish) allowed the students to begin to understand the enormous changes taking place in Cuba right now. To visit Cuba at this point in time was a special opportunity that the whole group truly appreciated.
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spain Mr. Harder and Ms. Tift took a group of nine Middle School boys to Spain, for a 10-day trip that included a weeklong homestay in Asturias, two days in Madrid, and a two-day excursion to the Picos de Europa National Park. In Gijón, Belmont Hill students spent a good deal of time interacting with students from a local school. The group was there for the end-ofschool festivities, including a field day, musical and dance performances, and a huge allschool fiesta for students and their families.
(Top) At a rock outcrop in the Picos de Europa National Park, with a view that included a summer residence of the former Kings of Spain, Alfonso XII and Alfonso XIII. (Left) In the Plaza de España, in Madrid, in front of the statues of Cervantes’ Don Quijote and Sancho Panza.
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global education
Students on a whitewater rafting expedition.
Belaying from a sheer canyon wall gets a thumbs-up.
colorado Dr. Buckley, Ms. Vailas, and Mr. Moronta, along with 16 rising Form V and Form VI boys ventured to Crested Butte, Colorado to participate in Belmont Hill’s inaugural Wilderness-Guide-in-Training Program with the worldrenowned Irwin Guides. During eight days of action-packed, high-adrenaline adventures, the Belmont Hill boys took on every new challenge with courage, determination, enthusiasm, and much laughter. The training program was split between a mountain
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and a river curriculum. Days in the mountains consisted of climbing the vertical rock faces of Cement Creek Canyon, a technical ascent of Mount Crested Butte’s Guide’s Ridge, and a summit of snow-capped Mount Baldy with ice-axes. The whitewater curriculum included running the rapids of the Gunnison and Taylor Rivers in rafts and kayaks and fly-fishing for rainbow trout in the calmer pools of the Roaring Judy River. Each day, the Belmont Hill boys learned from experts in their fields with an incredible ratio
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of 2-3 “trainees” per Irwin Guide. From camping under the Colorado stars and learning to cook delicious meals in the field to captaining rafts in record high water and belaying peers up a sheer canyon wall, the boys acquired lifelong wilderness skills and invaluable leadership experience. It was truly an incredible and memorable trip for all, one the School hopes to continue for years to come.
Commencement 2015
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Senior Dinner
commencement 2015
senior dinner May 19, 2015 1. The Class of 2015 at the Senior Dinner. 2. Mackenzie Rush, Michael Grant, Evan Chaletzky, and Casey Bobo. 3. Casey Young and Jeff Fast. 4. Harry Kraft and Rick Melvoin. 5. Matthew Harrity, Eric Dawson, Steven Kaplan, Mathias Asheber, and Charles Schwartz. 6. Albert Caldarelli, Donnell Patterson, and Colin Ward.
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7. Jeff Fast and Patrick McNamara. 8. Ian Arthur, Charley Michalowski, Hilal Dahleh, James Russo, and Thomas Wynn.
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Prize Day
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prize day May 19, 2015 1. Middle School prize winners. 2. Andrew Herrera ’19 with parents Juan and Prisca. 3. Seamus O’Donovan ’15 recognized by Jack Finnegan for his appointment at the U.S. Naval Academy. 4. William McCormack receives an award at Prize Day from Head of School, Rick Melvoin.
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5. Upper School prize winners. 6. Quillen Bradlee ’15 and Charles McConnell ’15 enjoy Prize Day. 7. Director of the Upper School Don Bradley with his wife Christine and son Colton Bradley with Colton’s certificate of appointment from West Point. 8. Jovan Jones ’18, Ethan Roberts ’18, and John Haase ’18 at the Prize Day Picnic.
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Faculty & Staff Recognition
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faculty & staff recognition For 35 years of service: Donna S. David For 25 years of service: Andolin A. Bailey Dorothy R. Griffin For 20 years of service: Lauren M. Hamilton Kevin C. Young For 15 years of service: Steven J. Armstrong Arlette A. Doherty Joseph P. Marzilli Tyson A. Trautz
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For 10 years of service: Keith M. Carey For 5 years of service: Jared R. Courtney ’97 Jay A. Bounty Kara Z. Buckley Stephen N. Feldman Willis Negron
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1. Stephen Feldman, Kara Buckley, Jared Courtney, and Willis Negron. 2. Steven Armstrong and Tyson Trautz. 3. Kara Buckley. 4. Stephen Feldman. 5. Keith Carey. 6. Casey Young.
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Baccalaureate Address
BACCALAUREATE ADDRESS Address delivered by Steve Armstrong on June 7, 2015
Good afternoon. Thank you very much for that warm welcome, and thank you, Mr. Melvoin, for that kind introduction. When Evan Chaletzky stopped by my office nearly two months ago and asked if I would speak on behalf of the faculty this afternoon, I naturally asked, “Why me?” Ever gracious, Evan replied, “Well, Mr. Armstrong, it only seems appropriate, you’ve been with us a long time.” Very true…Middle School Director, history teacher, advisor during your Forms I and II years, freshman hockey coach during Form III, and Upper School history teacher, and advisor in Form V…yes, we
have spent a good deal of time together, and here we are at the end of the road. My first memory of your class, believe it or not, dates back well before your Belmont Hill days – to James Russo as he dominated the soccer pitch with the Belmont Second Soccer Red squad. He also dominated the ice with the Belmont Mite A’s. He went by Jamesie back then. And after returning from several years in London, Will Treanor also frequented the streets of Belmont making his presence known in the hallways, fields, and the rink. Unbeknownst to me at the time, they were my introduction to your class.
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Baccalaureate Address
with the class that you had read three of his biographies. I didn’t stand a chance after that. I hope Yale’s history professors are ready for you. And more AP U.S. History memories – how about John Driscoll wearing a sweater with the United States flag on it on test days. What spirit. I remember as well losing a gun control argument to Connor Metz, and that discussion leading to another about hunting in Maine. Poor Noah Levine – this was your third history class with me, a distinction amongst your peers. I heard you were contemplating a history major in college: way to go.
I suspect several of you as incoming First Formers questioned your choice of Belmont Hill when you got 50 pages into The Once and Future King, your grade’s required summer reading. Do you remember this book? What a tough read. Sorry about that one. Camp Burgess. Two days of ropes courses, the climbing wall, a night hike, war canoe, and Mr. Sweeney around the campfire telling stories of his days growing up in Reading. How about John Powers’ chariot for Greek and Roman Field Day? That was professional grade; the standard by which all subsequent chariots have been measured. As you boys may recall, that chariot was housed in my office for an entire year. Harry Porter joined us in Form II. I remember thinking that I had never met a more gracious and humble 8th-grader. Then Joe Melanson joined us the following year, and I had the same exact thoughts about him. Could we have two finer young men on this campus? Joe’s “Most Likely” in the yearbook, by the way, was that he would be the nicest, most genuine person you’ll meet. Evan Chaletzky: How could this moment pass without mentioning your haircut back in Form I? Along with that visual, I will always remember your leadership, which is well beyond your years. I suspect I will remember as well your Commencement speech delivered tomorrow. Chris Bracken: You will always be my favorite U.S. History teacher. This role reversal was never clearer than when we studied Teddy Roosevelt. While I shared with the class that I had read the textbook, you shared
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I vividly recall stepping onto the bus for the Form IV end-of-year paintball excursion and noting that Colton and Mr. Bradley were sporting matching camouflage fatigues. In seeing their evil grins, I quickly realized why Mr. Curran and I were invited to chaperone. Over the next several hours we learned of your paintball prowess, and just how much pain and paint you two could inflict. I recall so much of the recent senior talent show. Benny Wanger and Myles Walsh offered a stirring rendition of “Go the Distance” from Hercules. Their tunics, however, were problematic. With arms rested, they fell to mid thigh. But with celebratory raised arms at the skit’s conclusion, their tunics rode way, way up. Speaking for everyone else who was in this chapel that morning, we were all a little uncomfortable with the amount of leg on display. And 25 years from now when you boys return for your reunion, you will still be talking about “The Dance.” Dressed in complimentary tights and headbands, Jack Wilhoite and Eric Rolfs dazzled us all with their interpretive dance titled The Struggle Against Temptation. I hope you two are able to continue with this passion in college and beyond. Know that Ms. Tift forwarded the talent show video to Bowdoin and Northwestern – their dance team directors will be contacting you in the fall. Coaching freshman hockey with this crew was quite an adventure, and Charlie McConnell provided me with a most unique experience. In a lopsided game early in the season, and after explicit instructions from me not to engage in any pointless verbal banter with the opposition, Charlie proceeded to, as the boys call it, “chirp” one of our opponents, right in front of our team bench and me, no less. Needing to deal with this breach in behavior, I proceeded to “invite” Charlie to remain
on the bench for his next few shifts. The next time his line was due to go out, his linemates turned to me and asked, “Who is going out for Charlie?” I replied, “No one.” Thus, these confused boys jumped onto the ice to play as a line of two instead of three. Thanks to Charlie, this was the first and only time in 25 years of coaching that I had a team play shorthanded when we didn’t have to. On another occasion, later in the season and before the third period of a close game, I once again offered very straightforward instructions to my team. This time, I communicated that the key to winning the game would be to avoid taking penalties – to stay out of the box. But before the first minute of that final period had elapsed, within a mere 45 seconds of the drop of the puck, there in the penalty box sat Charlie McConnell, Charlie Michalowski, and Pat McNamara – my entire starting line of forwards. It is nearly impossible to take three penalties in under a minute, but in a scene reminiscent of the Hanson brothers from the movie Slapshot, there sat Charlie, Charlie, and Pat.
“ As you graduate from
Belmont Hill to the adventures waiting ahead, know that this school, that this faculty, is grateful to have taught, coached, directed, and advised you.
And finally, the virtual memory machine Robert Caputo. I could fill this entire address with Robert stories, but I’ll share just two. In Form II, I got the best of Robert on the football field when we went one-on-one and I tackled him to the ground. Robert, I know what you’re thinking right now, but it doesn’t matter that your back was turned as I snuck up from behind. I still tackled you.
My second and all-time favorite Robert memory takes me back to Form II U.S. Government. One of the assignments for the boys that year was to write a short speech and deliver it to the class. Predictably and led by a giggling Harry Kraft, half the group had to leave the classroom as Robert began speaking – they couldn’t stop laughing. Disheartened, Robert proceeded to limp through his speech with a skeletal crew remaining to listen. Early on in class the following day and hoping to get back to business as usual, I called on Robert with a simple question. Little did I know that I was about to learn a lesson about the power of a silent protest. Upset still that his classmates were unable to sit and listen to him the day before, and somehow mad at me because of this, Robert decided that a day of silence would prove his point. In response to my initial question, he revealed to me the knuckles on his right hand on which he had written the word ON, and then his left hand with the word STRIKE. He then proceeded to sit through the entire class without saying a word, but more than happy to display his right hand, then his left, any time I asked him a question. Robert…if the goal was to have Harry Kraft and others take you seriously, your logic was flawed.
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Quite a mix of memories, certainly, and there are many, many more that I have of this group. I wish we had the time. But I know what you boys are thinking right now. Mr. Armstrong, where is the message? This is our Baccalaureate ceremony, and protocol dictates a message that will change our lives, that will remain relevant to each of us for years and years. So not to disappoint, let me shift gears and, as a history teacher, offer you one final Belmont Hill history lesson.
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Baccalaureate Address
As those of you in my U.S. Government and U.S. History classes know, Harry Truman is my favorite president. Now, Truman does not belong on a pedestal, that is not how I view him. On the contrary, he was a man of many shortcomings. In fact, President Truman’s political career emerged out of a series of early professional failures, as well as through his ties with Tom Pendergast, the leader of Kansas City’s political machine. Your American Pageant history textbook, the one you boys have put out of your minds since the end of junior year, refers to Harry Truman as the average man’s, average man – in some ways a fair assessment, and certainly not a ringing endorsement. More importantly, however, American Pageant goes on to offer a more pejorative view of Truman. It states that he was “small in the small things.” Perhaps a couple of examples would help us understand what that looks like. In 1950, the world was captivated with the early stages of the Korean Conflict and the UN’s actions to save South Korea – and it wasn’t going well. It was also the year that President Truman’s daughter, Margaret, was unfavorably reviewed by Paul Hume of the Washington Post on her singing performance at Constitution Hall. In response, Truman wrote Hume a scathing letter blasting him for his negative review. Famed historian David McCullough, in his Pulitzer Prize-winning biography on Truman, tells us that the president wrote to Hume saying, “Some day I hope to meet you. When that happens you’ll need a new nose, a lot of beefsteak for black eyes, and perhaps a supporter for below.” This
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response, at this point in history, strikes me as hardly presidential – a small action on Truman’s part. Here’s another example of Truman’s smallness. After President Roosevelt’s death in April of 1945, a true time of sorrow and uncertainty in our country, Truman was to be immediately sworn in as president by Supreme Court Chief Justice Harlan Stone. As Truman raised his right hand, Justice Stone began the presidential oath of office with “I, Harry Shipp Truman.” Failing to recognize the significance of the moment and with a determination to have his own way, Truman repeated the beginning of the oath with his own edit… “I, Harry S. Truman.” While a presidential inauguration is indeed a big moment, I think most of us would have chosen not to correct the Chief Justice in this situation. But I like and admire Harry Truman nonetheless. He was an accidental president filling the unfillable shoes of Franklin Roosevelt. A small man from Missouri and the last U.S. president not to attend college, he was thrust in with giants Churchill and Stalin in shaping the post-World War II landscape. As an example of just how unprepared he was for the Executive Office, consider that Truman was not informed of the Manhattan Project and the possibility of atomic weapons while he served as vice president. He was only informed of this after he became president. So while your American Pageant textbook does rightfully declare Truman “the average man’s average man,” and “small in the small things,” it also goes on
to express accolades for our 33rd president for what he accomplished in office. In fact, it goes on to proclaim that he was “big in the big things,” and this is what I appreciate most about him. Let me offer a couple of examples of Harry Truman at his best. In 1948, President Truman took the bold initiative to desegregate the United States military. In issuing Executive Order 9981, Truman not only shifted unalterably the position of the U.S. military towards race, he provided a crucial jump-start to the nation’s future Civil Rights movement. Doing so, however, was politically costly. During the Democratic Convention that same summer, many Southern Democrats, seeking a pro-segregation platform, walked out on their president and their party. Truman knew that desegregating the military might lead to this, that it could splinter his party and jeopardize his upcoming re-election, but he placed principle over politics in establishing that all men could serve this country equally. This was indeed a big moment for the president and the United States. The firing of war hero General Douglas MacArthur on April 11, 1950 also tested President Truman’s resolve. During the early stages of the Korean War, an insubordinate MacArthur had defied his Commander-in-Chief by publicly stating his desire to spread the war into China. MacArthur even proposed the option of using nuclear weapons. And so, amidst a storm of a pro-MacArthur public adoration, Truman relieved the general from his duties. David McCullough reports on this situation with an editorial from the Chicago Tribune in which the newspaper proclaimed, “President Truman must be impeached and convicted. His hasty and vindictive removal of General MacArthur is the culmination of a series of acts which have shown that he is unfit, morally and mentally, for his high office. The American nation has never been in greater danger.” It could not have been easy for President Truman to fire General MacArthur, a hero who returned to ticker-tape parades in the streets of several American cities. But he did, and it was the right thing to do. Harry Truman was big in other big moments as well. Few presidential legacies boast a list of accomplishments so steeped: support of the newly founded United Nations; issuance of the Truman Doctrine to contain communism; implementation of the Marshall Plan; a successful Berlin Airlift; creation of the United States Air Force; recognition of the new State of Israel, and of course, his comeback victory over Republican Thomas
Dewey in the election of 1948. Yes, Truman’s record on the big things is impressive. So despite his many flaws, despite that he could be little and petty at the wrong times, Harry Truman remains my favorite president. I learn so much from him. First and foremost, he teaches me to avoid being small in the small things. I admit, this can be a real struggle. I’m not always good at this. A colleague of mine once shared, “If it doesn’t matter in five years, don’t worry about it.” Wise advice, but with the daily demands of work and home, I can and do lose sight of the truly big things in my life, instead getting caught up in what often proves trivial. Just as importantly, Harry Truman also teaches me lessons about character, lessons about the risk of making the hard decision, and the lesson that the phrase “the buck stops here” was much more than a sign on his desk, that it propelled him to take personal risk for public good. While he got a lot wrong, through his conviction, he also got a lot right. And thus, that is the beauty of Harry Truman – he teaches us what is important, and he teaches us what is not important… to be “big in the big things,” but not “small in the small things.” And that is my final history lesson for you. So, gentlemen, I am truly honored to have had this opportunity to share a few memories and a few ideas with you this afternoon. Thank you for this gift. I will remain forever grateful to the Class of 2015. Sometimes we wrongly believe that education is a one-way street with lessons flowing only from teachers to their students, but as I hope you can tell from the memories that I have shared today, you have impacted me greatly, just as you have impacted each of your teachers. As you graduate from Belmont Hill to the adventures waiting ahead, know that this school, that this faculty, is grateful to have taught, coached, directed, and advised you – it has been our pleasure. And just like your parents, we are proud of what you have become. As I close, please accept my best wishes as you head on to your next stop, the college world. You guys will have a blast. Please come back often and tell us all about it. And finally, good luck as well with the ongoing battle of differentiating the truly important from the unimportant as you continue your development into the biggest of big things, becoming men of great character. Thank you and best of luck to each of you.
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commencement 2015
Commencement Address
COMMENCEMENT ADDRESS Address delivered by Charles C. Kenney on June 8, 2015
Thank you to John, Evan, and Rick. Congratulations to the graduates. Congratulations to the parents and thank you for making the sacrifices necessary to provide your son with a superb education. To grandparents, siblings, and other friends and family members, welcome. In 2006, my wife Annie, our daughter Elizabeth, and I sat in those seats when Charlie graduated. It was such a great day. As Rick mentioned, Charlie was an officer in the United States Marine Corps, and I want to recognize two graduates who will also be serving our country. Colton Bradley is headed to the United States Military Academy at West Point and Seamus O’Donovan is going to the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis. Boys, would you rise please?
I feel a particular connection to this class. For a brief period in the fall of 2011, Charlie had some time off from the Marine Corps before a particularly intense training period at Quantico, Virginia. He could have spent that time any way and anywhere he wanted. He chose to spend it here on campus helping Mr. Martin coach the eighth grade football team. 20 boys from that team are in this graduating class. I have come to know a number of these boys through sports, and I was at a lacrosse game when Don Bradley invited me to attend the senior talent show. Alex Santangelo, executive producer; unforgettable rap performance by Jack Tamasi, Chris Bracken on the viola, Harry Kraft and Sultan Olusekun as Bruce Springsteen and Clarence Clemons.
Head of School Rick Melvoin, Charles Kenney, and Board of Trustee President Jon Biotti ’87.
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Class of 2015 President Evan Chaletzky and Head of School Rick Melvoin.
The big winners were Jack Wilhoite and Eric Rolfs – boys, please stand up. Jack and Eric won for “interpretive dance.” They look like interpretive dancers, don’t they? A historic moment. First time since the School was founded that the words interpretive dance and Belmont Hill were used in the same sentence. Did I detect some controversy after the show? No offense to Jack and Eric but one wonders: should that trophy have gone to Benny Wanger and Myles Walsh singing Disney’s Hercules theme? Whether money changed hands the night before we don’t know yet… Benny is fine with it I am sure – just a few days after the talent show Benny pitched a perfect game for the Belmont Hill varsity baseball team against Nobles. Possibly the first perfect game in Belmont Hill history! Our son Charlie would have been over the moon about Benny’s perfect game. He loved sports more than academics, though he also had great affection for many of his extraordinary teachers. Charlie had such a special feeling for one teacher, in particular, that when
Alexander Santangelo receives the George vonL. Meyer III Memorial Prize from Head of School Rick Melvoin.
Charlie procured his very first fake ID he got it in the name of Chris Butler! I apologize for breaking the basic rules of commencement speeches. I have no advice for you. The idea that I could tell you something you have not learned from this faculty and from your parents would be pure hubris on my part. I will not tell you that you should go off to live in an ashram rather than to earn gobs of money on Wall Street. In fact, I hope you do earn gobs of money so that a gob or two can be donated here to the School. Bev Coughlin is ready to receive those checks. I will violate the latest fad in commencement speaking which is to tell you graduates that you are nothing special. A teacher at Wellesley High School gained notoriety telling the graduates there they are not special. But I know many of you boys, and I know this school, and I believe you are incredibly special as students, athletes, and as people.
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commencement 2015
Commencement Address
Head of School Rick Melvoin with graduate Jonathan Innocent.
Copey Coppedge, Annie Detmer, Rick Melvoin, Elizabeth Kenney, and Charlie Kenney.
I am here for a very simple reason: to honor this school that I love and to thank you all – the Belmont Hill community – for what you did for our son and for all you have done and continue to do for our family. Charlie was many things in his life but maybe, more than anything else, he was a Belmont Hill boy. He arrived on campus as a 12-year-old boy and graduated a young man of 19. He often said: “I grew up at Belmont Hill.’’ And so much of what he accomplished after Belmont Hill can be traced back to the cultural DNA of this institution: character. You boys arrived here with character from your families and your own innate sense, and you leave here today with your character refined and strengthened. Charlie’s aspiration here, as early as the eighth grade, was a product of the Belmont Hill culture and who he was at his core. His aspiration was not to be the best player on a team, but to be the best teammate on every team. Semper fidelis. This aspiration to be the best teammate is captured by his favorite expression. Given Charlie’s performance
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in Latin, Mr. Richards, it is ironic that Charlie’s favorite phrase involved two Latin words: semper fidelis. Semper fidelis – always faithful. The motto of the United States Marine Corps. Charlie’s guiding light long before he was a Marine. Honoring the concept of semper fidelis means getting outside yourself – adjusting your lens so that it is more broadly focused than on your own ambitions. So that you see the needs of those around you – of your parents, siblings, your friends, and teammates. And of people in our communities who are hurting, who are in need. Semper fidelis means not being stingy with your love for your mom and dad, for your annoying younger brother or sister. We come into this life with an unlimited supply of love and kindness to give. No one in human history has ever used up one’s allotment of kindness, of love. But that doesn’t mean we can’t try. A number of you have experienced loss, and when you lose a precious loved one you deal with the spiritual dimension and the human dimension simultaneously. From the spiritual dimension we seek meaning. Since Charlie started at Belmont Hill in 1999, I have been convinced that the meaning of life is beating St. Seb’s
in football, hockey, and lacrosse. And maybe that is the meaning of life – who is to say? Even as we seek a spiritual path we live our lives day-to-day and at some point the clouds part – it all becomes pretty clear. We are here for each other. There is no question that purpose and meaning in life are derived from individual insight and achievement, but only when we also bring meaning and joy into one another’s lives. This is about being the best teammate. This is semper fidelis. On this campus I find answers in both the spiritual and human dimensions. Charlie’s spirit lives here in this sacred place. I feel his presence every time I am here. And I feel the deep connection to the community here – to you boys and the faculty – to all of you – and I am so grateful to you for that. Students enjoying Commencement on the Chapel Lawn.
Commencement speaker Charles Kenney finds a hockey puck left on the podium.
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Commencement Address
For our family, you students and faculty and staff have embodied semper fidelis. There are so many examples – moments of kindness, consideration, and warmth – from you boys. One comes from that 2011 eighth grade football team – a card sent to Charlie by the boys. It came with a note from Coach Martin: “Charlie, this was the boys’ idea. They made the card and had everyone sign it. The team was undefeated – the last game we had two interceptions for touchdowns and we won 28-12. My best to you and your unit. Let your men know that the boys at Belmont Hill appreciate their service. Coach Martin.’’ The boys designed a card with the Belmont Hill and Marine Corps logos along with the picture of a football. The card was signed by, among others, Tommy Wynn, Seamus O’Donovan, Harry Kraft, Benny Wanger, Cam Chiarelli, and Charlie Durbin. Eighth grade penmanship not always legible. The lacrosse team has made us part of the family. Tim Sullivan, Chris Butler, the boys, and their parents – we thank you for that. Another way the Belmont Hill community has been ever faithful has been the creation of the Charles F.
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Kenney Prize – awarded on Prize Day last Friday to Evan Chaletzky. The description reads in part that Charlie was “an ideal friend and teammate.’’ On the darkest day of our family’s life, Rick Melvoin walked into our home and with him came the spirit of the Belmont Hill community – to embrace us, to hold us up. It was not long after that day when our friend Copey Coppedge called and asked to sit down with Annie and me. Two of Copey’s boys went here, and Copey has served on the Belmont Hill Board for 25 years. He said that with our permission he would like to start a scholarship fund in Charlie’s name. He kicked it off with an incredibly generous gift, and he raised the dollars needed to sustain the scholarship. Annie, Elizabeth, Charlotte, and I want to thank Rick and Copey and all of you boys and families and this amazing faculty. You boys, this faculty, this community – have answered our most fervent prayer. Thanks to all of you, Charlie’s memory and spirit will live here in this sacred place forever. Thank you. Semper fidelis.
commencement 2015
College Choices
COLLEGES ACCEPTING MEMBERS OF THE CLASS OF 2015 Amherst College
Emory University
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Assumption College
Fairfield University
University of Rhode Island
Auburn University
Fordham University
Rice University
Babson College
Georgetown University
University of Richmond
Bates College
Gettysburg College
Roger Williams University
Bentley University
Gustavus Adolphus College
Rollins College
Boston College
Hamilton College
Salve Regina University
Boston University
Harvard College
University of Southern California
Bowdoin College
Hillsdale College
Southern Methodist University
Brown University
Hobart and William Smith Colleges
St. John’s University – Queens
Bucknell University
College of the Holy Cross
University of Tampa
University of California – Los Angeles
Lafayette College
Temple University
Case Western Reserve University
Lehigh University
Trinity College
College of Charleston
Loyola University – Maryland
Tufts University
Colby College
Macalester College
Tulane University
Colgate University
Manhattan College
Union College
University of Colorado – Boulder
Massachusetts College of Pharmacy & Health Science
U.S. Military Academy at West Point
Colorado College Columbia University Connecticut College Cornell University Dartmouth College Davidson College University of Denver Dickinson College Drexel University Duke University Eckerd College Elon University Emerson College Emmanuel College
University of Massachusetts – Amherst University of Michigan Middlebury College New York University Nichols College Northeastern University Northwestern University University of Notre Dame Oberlin College Pace University University of Pennsylvania Princeton University Providence College
U.S. Naval Academy Vanderbilt University University of Vermont Villanova University University of Virginia Wake Forest University Washington and Lee University Washington University in St. Louis Wesleyan University College of William and Mary Williams College College of Wooster Worcester Polytechnic University Yale College
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Coaches’ Corner 32
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coaches’ corner
Alpine Skiing
Alpine Skiing STEPHEN FELDMAN, Head Coach For the Alpine Ski team, the season started off with a bang, taking home a victory on the first ISL race of the season. This opening victory set the tone for the remainder of the season for what was an unusually small and young team. Competing against some of the League’s most talented teams in years, the Belmont Hill skiers fought hard for top finishes. Although they didn’t have the good fortune of taking home any more outright victories other than the first race, there was much success throughout the season. After taking second place in three consecutive ISL races, the team headed to Cannon Mountain for the Class A NEPSAC Championships on a beautiful February day. Due to the success of the team in previous years in this event, the six racers and two coaches who made the trek north had high expectations. However, NEPSACs quickly turned from a ski race into a war of attrition, with falls and disqualifications abounding for all of the
teams in the competition. Because of falls from some of the team’s top skiers, Belmont Hill took home fifth place out of the 16 teams competing. Even if this wasn’t the coveted result, the team still placed well and two skiers earned All-New England awards. After two more races to close out the season, the team finished second overall in the ISL standings, behind only a very talented Middlesex team. Two skiers ended up with All ISL awards and one with an All ISL Honorable Mention. Both the coaches and the captains were happy with the season’s outcome and all skiers had a good time on the slopes. Next year, with Harrison Rohrer ’16 and William Cannistraro ’16 as senior captains and with Robert Jahrling ’17 as an experienced junior, the team looks to have another successful season.
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coaches’ corner
Basketball
Basketball AL MURPHY ’98, Head Coach
The 2014–2015 varsity basketball team had a very successful year. They finished with a 20-5 record overall, and 13-2 in the ISL. The team qualified for the NEPSAC Class A tournament. This is the first time in a decade the team has made the tournament. Most importantly, this group played a selfless brand of basketball that made them fun to coach and be around. They brought a buzz back into the gym, and the School responded to their energy. Nine seniors (captain Hilal Dahleh, captain Sultan-Farouk Olusekun, Evan Chaletzky, Matthew Harrity, James Russo, Nathaniel Trznadel, Myles Walsh, John “Jack” Wilhoite, and Jesse Wims) led the team on the floor, while five seniors (Jack Tamasi, Ian Arthur, Jonathan Innocent, Robert Caputo, and Christopher Byrne) helped out in various managerial roles. Their enthusiasm and camaraderie were examples of why we love our school as much as we do. They represented us extremely well.
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The team started the season out with a big Class A win over Loomis and then knocked off Rivers in a huge league clash. After a letdown with Nobles in overtime, the team came together. They responded to adversity with a 5-1 record over the holiday break. Highlights included an overtime win versus Taft, an almost comeback win versus Trinity Pawling, and big wins over Mariannapolis Prep and Brimmer and May. Coming out of the break, the team really found its groove, not dropping a game in January. A highlight of the season was a game against BB&N at the TD Garden. It was an experience the team will never forget. The School showed tremendous support, and created an outstanding atmosphere to go with the historic backdrop. After struggling to get into a rhythm in the first half, the team came out firing in the second half and put on a great display of team basketball. It was unbelievable.
Some of the highlights of the remainder of the season included a wonderful battle versus rival St. Sebastian’s. St. Seb’s took a lead late in the second half, but the seniors did not give up closing a 6-point deficit in the last 1:30, including a game-tying 3 from Dahleh with 30 seconds to go. Jovan Jones ’18, played the role of hero, hitting the game-winning put-back as time expired. In the playoffs, the team traveled to Suffield, CT. Foul trouble and injuries put the team in a 13-point deficit going into halftime. Suffield built the lead up to 18, but the team came together and cut the lead to 8, but could not get over the hump. Dahleh, Olusekun, and Wims earned All League Honors, and Dahleh earned all New England Honors while Olusekun was All New England Honorable Mention. Next year’s captains will be Austin Masel ’16, and David Mitchell ’18. Thank you to all the coaches in the program, especially Corey Cofield whose help and insight were among the main reasons for our success. Thank you to Mr. Negron and Mr. Wade in the Equipment Room. Thank you to Mr. Young and his staff for all of their support.
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Hockey JEREMIAH McCARTHY ’94, Head Coach The varsity hockey team was led by Charles “Charlie” Barrow ’15, Cameron Chiarelli ’15, Christian “C.J.” Layton ’15, Charles “Charlie” McConnell ’15, and Mark “Charley” Michalowski ’15. After stumbling out of the gate in the opening games of the season, the team’s trip to the Lawrenceville Tournament was an early highlight, with the team playing in the finals to double OT before succumbing to Choate 1-0. From New Jersey, the boys then headed to Buffalo, NY and the Nichols Tournament. Again, the team had success, going 3-0 before losing to eventual champion Brunswick in the semis. After the Nichols Tourney, the boys kept it going, registering only one loss in their next 12 games, including an 8-game unbeaten streak. There were great victories over Milton, Thayer (twice), Lawrence, Andover, and others, along with wild ties versus St. Seb’s (5-5) and Cushing (2-2). A five-game streak without a win (three ties, two with St. Paul’s) was ended with a victory over Brooks in the final game of the regular season on Senior Night. Belmont Hill qualified for the Large School Tournament and made it to the finals, defeating Berkshire and Thayer before losing to Brooks at
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St. Anselm’s at Sunday’s championship game. The final home game, Saturday’s semifinal win over Thayer, had the Jordan Athletic Center rocking, with a full house and the student Loop cheering section rowdy. Next year’s captains are David Giunta ’16 and Brian Matthews ’16. They are joined by classmates, Matthew Barrow, Eric Butte, Cameron Connors, Richard “Ricky” Cronin, and Christian Faggas. The underclassmen are Michael Armstrong ’17, John Copeland ’18, Evan Daddario ’17, Eric “Jack” Eselius ’17, Jonathan Folsom ’17, Samuel Hesler ’17, Peter O’Connell ’17, and Christian O’Neill ’17. Thanks for a great season to coaches Fleming, Balben, Rivellini, Halverson, and Metcalfe. Special thanks goes to managers Maximillian Rudzinsky ’16 and Seamus Clair ’17. Extra special thanks goes to everyone who supported the team, including faculty and staff, family and friends, The Loop, Mr. Cunningham, Mr. Negron, Mr. Wade and the cage staff, Mr. Doherty and Mr. Chin, and Keith Carey and the rink/ Zamboni crew.
coaches’ corner
Nordic Skiing
Nordic Skiing FRAN KIRBY, Head Coach With a young team of skiers improving with each race, the highlight of our season was definitely the second place finish in the Weston Sprints, an annual event comprising 14 varsity high school teams from the eastern Massachusetts area. The “A” team scored a total of 69 points in their second place finish. What is really promising for the next few years is the 35 points that our very young “B” squad amassed. This enabled them to finish fifth overall, allowing them as our titular JV team to defeat eight varsity teams in the process. John Power ’15 finished in third place in the finals, amassing 26 points through the preliminaries, semis, and finals. John also earned a spot on the Massachusetts State team, which competed in the sectional competition in Fort Kent, Maine as part of the Junior Olympic competition. In the New England and Lakes Region Championships, we finished a rather disappointing sixth place in both
events. However, what was promising was the strong improvement the younger skiers demonstrated. Thus, the team and the coaches look forward to a more impressive season next year. Given the results of the Weston Sprints competition and the two championship races, the team finished the season with 25 wins and 17 losses – something we all feel is a pretty good record for a “rebuilding year.” Coaches Kirby, Courtney, and Zamore want to thank our exceptional outgoing captains, John Power ’15 and William Malloy ’15, for their truly outstanding leadership this year. We also want to mention our tremendous debt of gratitude to their parents for their unstinting patience, hard work, and generosity in making this a most enjoyable season. In closing, congratulations to next year’s co-captains, William Weiter ’16 and Henry Swain ’16. Yes, they have some “big boots” to fill, but we know that they will be equal to the task.
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coaches’ corner
Squash
Squash BOB BROWNELL, Head Coach
I have coached many teams in many different sports during my career. This year’s group is the most talented I have ever had the privilege of working with in any sport, at any level. Our résumé speaks for itself:
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undefeated ISL champions for the sixth consecutive year;
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regular season record of 16-0;
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second place team High School Nationals;
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second place team New England Interscholastics; and
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Jackson Tournament champions.
We enjoyed both individual and collective successes. Co-captain Timmy Brownell ’16 won the U.S. Open
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in December – an unprecedented achievement for an American male. He went undefeated in the ISL and for the second consecutive year was voted ISL League MVP and Boston Globe All Scholastic. Co-captain Clark Doyle ’15 was again dominant at the # 2 slot, finishing third in New England in an extremely talented flight. His epic five-set win in the National finals was absolutely exhilarating, and revealed Clark’s steely determination. He will join teammate Spencer Anton ’15, our #3, at Princeton next fall. Spencer lost only to a single opponent all year, both in five sets. He has enjoyed a spectacular career at Belmont Hill and we will miss him. Co-captain-elect Blake Gilbert-Bono ’16 was New England champion at the #4 position and his wins versus Brunswick at both High School Nationals and New England’s were breathtaking. Jack Bell ’18 lost only to a single opponent all year at #5 and was a rock of stability and consistency for our team. He remains a premier performer at national tournaments, and he continues to
get better and better. Alexander Kurtin ’17 played #6 and finished third in New England. He improved dramatically this year, and Alex remains a superb competitor. James Bell ’17 was New England finalist at #7, and his performance at the High School Nationals was an inspiration to this coach. He finished his season undefeated in the ISL. Thomas Wolpow ’16 was our most improved player and played #8 most of the season. He fought through some tough injuries this season, but Thomas enjoyed some pivotal wins and he will continue to get even better. John “JP” Champa ’17 ran neck and neck with Thomas all season long, and their challenge matches were great for each other and indeed for our entire team. Robert Williamson ’17 is right there beside JP and Thomas as well, and he certainly projects to be an important contributor at the varsity level next year. I can’t thank co-coach Guillermo Moronta enough for his help and support every day. He keeps us organized and we would be completely rudderless without him. I am completely grateful to Guillermo for more reasons than I can name. Our athletic director, George Tahan, has supported our program behind the scenes for years, and I am truly indebted. Most importantly, I thank the boys and their parents. I am honored to stand beside them, and this season has been truly sensational.
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Wrestling DON BRADLEY, Head Coach
While the 2014–2015 winter campaign was one beset by ill fortune on a number of fronts, the core of the team still standing by season’s end had accomplished much of which to be proud. Pre-season losses of captains Ryan Kelley – family relocation – and Joshua Fischer ’15 – soccer injury – were only the initial setbacks that included a wave of football injuries that left us little room to spare as the normal attrition set in. Weight class 113 was a forfeit the entire year as was 220 until the very end. Add in five school snow days and seven matches thus erased from the schedule and it was a challenging winter to say the least. Nonetheless, with the unmatched coaching of Dave Leonardis and Todd Davis and leadership by captain Peter Tedesco ’16, the boys went on to compile a 13-2 season and place second in the Graves Kelsey and third
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in New England. Ryan Williams ’17, still eating to make weight, started us off at 106. A forfeit later, “murderer’s row” commenced with New England champion Seth Israel ’18 at 120, captain-elect Sean Rayment ’16 at 126, and Graves Kelsey and New England champions Philip Conigliaro ’18 at 132 and Peter Tedesco at 138. At 145, Tyler Christopher placed second in the Graves, followed by Juan Carlos Fernandez del Castillo ’16 at 152 and Frank McField ’16 who also placed second in the Graves at 160. Captain-elect Dean “DJ” Demetri ’16 had a strong year at 170 as did William Ryan ’17, Graves champion at 182. Other than Patrick Forde ’15 at 195, who won “most pins in the least time” honors at the Graves, and Mackenzie Rush ’15 at 220, all of these guys will be returning next year as will junior heavyweight Alexander Afeyan ’16.
coaches’ corner
Wrestling
At season’s end, Pete Tedesco, the “Outstanding Wrestler” of the Graves Kelsey, was unanimously re-elected as captain and awarded, along with Phil Conigliaro, the Gilbert S. Jordan Trophy for “Outstanding Contribution.” At the National Preps, Pete was seeded #2 but injury curtailed his quest for first. Phil, seeded 9th, wrestled back to 4th place and earned All-American Honors. The William “Bingo” Emerson trophy for “Greatest Improvement” was shared by Pat Forde and Seth Israel, while the Henry B. Sawyer Award for Sportsmanship was bestowed upon Will Ryan and DJ Demetri. With a strong Middle School program behind us and the return of so many strong veterans, the team looks forward to next season. Great thanks to all the coaches including Steve Kaplan and Joe McMullan. Great thanks as well to our wonderful parents and all the good folks in the athletic department who support us so greatly.
Team Record
13-2
72-12
Governor’s Academy
47-24
St. Paul’s
54-21
Milton Academy
57-12
BB&N
55-18
Suffield Academy
66-18
Lawrence Academy
66-12
Thayer Academy
40-36
Roxbury Latin
53-24
Northfield Mt. Hermon
46-18
Avon Old Farms
39-40
Phillips Exeter
52-21
Noble & Greenough
70-12
St. Sebastian’s
24-46
Brooks
59-18
St. Mark’s
2nd Place
Graves Kelsey
3rd Place
New England
25th Place
National Preps
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Baseball MICHAEL GRANT, Head Coach
With a 13-2 ISL regular season record, an overall record of 17-4, a perfect 8-0 record at home, and a second-place ISL finish, the varsity baseball team concluded yet another wonderfully successful season on the diamond. The season was punctuated by a thrilling end-of-season victory over archrival and previously undefeated BB&N, 5-1. The season opened with much winter weather through our first three weeks of practice, and with 18 inches of snow still on the field by opening day, the first five contests were moved to turf fields in Worcester, MA. Still, the boys battled the elements and their opponents, showing tremendous resiliency and talent, with the only blemish on their League record a pair of one-
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run losses. Perhaps the highlight of the season came against Nobles, where tri-captain Benjamin “Benny” Wanger ’15 threw what is believed to be the first perfect game in school history. Not to be outdone, fellow tri-captain Charles “Charlie” McConnell ’15 finished the season with a league-leading 29 stolen bases, and a near-perfect 60-62 career stolen base mark, both of which are believed to be school records. The season was defined by outstanding pitching, stellar defense, and aggressive base running. The pitching staff posted a team ERA of just .970, striking out 110 hitters in 101 league innings. Tri-captain and closer John “Jack” Wilhoite ’15 led the team with a .636 ERA, while Benny Wanger added a .729 ERA
coaches’ corner
Baseball
and 52 strikeouts in 48 innings of work and Armand “AJ” DiFillipo ’16 finished with a perfect 7-0 record and an ERA of 1.08. Those pitchers were supported by impressive team defense, with a fielding percentage of .944 led by shortstop Charlie McConnell, center fielder Austin Masel ’16, and third baseman Christian Faggas ’16. On the base paths the squad was amongst the most aggressive in New England, and swiped 69 bases in just 76 attempts. With a .328 team average and 107 runs scored, the offense was also quite strong. AJ DiFillipo led the ISL in RBIs (22) and finished second in hitting (.479). Austin Masel finished third in the ISL in hitting (.468), while Jack Wilhoite led the team in homeruns and was second in RBIs (17). Belmont Hill garnered much-deserved recognition from the ISL coaches. Five players were named to the ISL All League team—the most of any team in the League—Charlie McConnell, Benny Wanger, Jack Wilhoite, Austin Masel, and AJ DiFillipo. Two players earned All League Honorable Mention, Robert Caputo ’15 and Noah Levine ’15. Benny Wanger was named ISL MVP and Globe All Scholastic, the third straight Belmont Hill player to win the award. The team also honored four players at our year-end Spring Sports Assembly. Charlie McConnell won his second consecutive Langdon Prouty Jr. Baserunning Trophy, while Jack Wilhoite and Robert Caputo were honored with the Henry B. Sawyer Sportsmanship Award. William “Charlie” Blank ’15 was recognized for his tireless work ethic with the Most Improved Player plaque, and Benny Wanger was named the team MVP. This talented and deep senior class will surely be missed by the baseball program next year. In their three-year run with the program they accumulated a 40-5 league record and 52-7 overall record, winning two ISL titles. As the first class to play exclusively on Gallagher Field, they defended our home field with great pride and competitiveness, losing just two League home games in three years. We undoubtedly thank Eric Rolfs, Robert Caputo, Noah Levine, James Russo, Charlie Blank, Colin Ward, Jack Wilhoite, Benny Wanger, and Charlie McConnell for all of their contributions to baseball at Belmont Hill.
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Crew CHRIS RICHARDS, Head Coach Following the loss of a large group of talented seniors to graduation last year, 2015 looked to be a rebuilding year for the Belmont Hill Crew. It turned out to be a great one. The brutal winter in Boston forced our hand in late February, and with dubious prospects of getting any on-water rowing over spring break in Boston, we arranged to take a group of 24 rowers and coxswains to Orlando, Florida. Our week of training at South Orlando Rowing Association (SORA) was both very productive and a great team-bonding experience. We returned to a finally melted Charles River and had three solid weeks of rowing leading up to race season, including a spirited scrimmage with Deerfield which gave a good sense of the competition lying ahead. The racing season was terrific overall. What we lacked in size and erg scores, we made up for in toughness and determination, and our early results were dominant. Commanding sweeps of Pomfret, Middlesex, BB&N, and Nobles were followed by a truly outstanding team performance at the Wayland Weston regatta against most of the best crews in our league in early May (victories for the first, third, fourth, fifth, and sixth fours and a second place finish for the 2V4). The racing was very tight, however, and Groton responded to a disappointing day for their crews by coming back the following weekend with a vengeance, sweeping us on the Charles. Given that some on our team had never lost a race in a Belmont Hill School uni, this represented a critical moment in the season: How would the crews
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respond to suddenly becoming the pursuer rather than the pursued? The answer came a couple of days later when we did our final erg test of the season and almost every guy on the squad set a personal record. We swept St. Mark’s to end the regular season, and headed into the New England Championships seeded second at all four boat levels. At NEIRAs the crews raced well. The fourth and third boats captured silver behind strong Groton crews, while the race of the season for a Belmont Hill crew came in the second boat final, where our guys bounced back from two big losses in the weeks before to simply dominate an undefeated Groton crew and take home the gold. Making the victory even sweeter was the fact that it represented the tenth consecutive year of Belmont Hill School winning the 2V4 trophy at NEIRAs! The first boat final was a battle of four terrific crews (Deerfield, Old Lyme, Groton, and Belmont Hill), and while we rowed a very determined race we finished just out of the medals. The considerable success we had this season was due in large part to the exceptional teaching of Coaches George, Stone, Dent, and McDougal and to the strong leadership of captains John Power ’15, James “Jamie” Mazzio-Manson ’15, and Andrew Wilkins ’15. Hopes are high heading towards next year, where our goal is to recapture the NEIRA team crown which was wrested from us this spring. Heading this charge will be captains-elect Jens Odegard ’16, Thomas Ruggles ’16, and Christopher Wilkins ’16.
coaches’ corner
Golf
Golf CHARLIE DOAR, Head Coach Led by a talented, experienced group of seniors, the 2015 Belmont Hill golf team had high expectations entering the season. Once the snow finally melted in mid-April, we traveled to Watertown, CT to compete against traditional non-League powers, Taft and Deerfield, in an 18-hole stroke-play tri-match. Medalist John Lazor’s one-under 70 propelled Belmont Hill to a statement win. After 10 straight victories to start the season, we halved a highly competitive tilt against Andover at Indian Ridge Country Club, exchanging crucial putts coming down the stretch. Entering the final week of the season, we tried to maintain our undefeated record and win the regular season title outright. As is often the case in golf, things didn’t unfold as expected, and we lost three of our final six matches. Despite these disappointing results, the boys had done enough to share the Walworth Trophy with BB&N for the best regular season record in ISL play. On May 18, our top five players travelled to Olde Scotland Links in Bridgewater to compete against 13 other ISL schools in the Kingman Tournament, an 18hole stroke-play contest. Our individual scores were all in the 70s; however, we didn’t play our best golf and finished tied for third.
While Christopher Byrne ’15, Joseph Melanson ’15, and Filip Flenhagen ’15 combined for a 23-9-8 record this year, our co-captains and All League honorees Joseph Lynch ’15 and John Lazor ’15 showed us the way. With an ISL match-play record of 14-2, Lynch’s only losses came on the final day of the season against two very worthy competitors. Lazor’s record of 11-1-4 against each team’s top player and an even-par 72 at the ISL Kingman Tournament earned him the Globe All Scholastic Award as the best player in the League. We wish John well as he continues his golf career at Dartmouth College this fall. Our five seniors represented themselves, the team, and the School admirably through their competitive spirit, winning habits, and gentlemanly approach. Their legacy was cemented when, after already earning a share of the regular season title, the 2015 Belmont Hill golf team won the Moonves Sportsmanship Award as voted on by ISL players and coaches – an extremely rare, yet deserving combination of achievements. Some new faces will populate next year’s varsity golf roster. They will owe a lot to this year’s squad – particularly its seniors – for leaving the program in such strong standing.
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Lacrosse TIM SULLIVAN, Head Coach
Finishing the season with a 14-2 record, the 2015 varsity lacrosse team successfully battled its way through a particularly intense and challenging ISL schedule, winning its second ISL championship in the last three years and finishing the season as the sixth-ranked team in all of New England. Belmont Hill is now tied for first place having won 11 ISL titles since 1989. The senior class of Alexander Santangelo (captain), Charles Durbin (captain), Evan Chaletzky, Matthew Harrity, Mackenzie Rush, William Treanor, Matthew O’Neal, Thomas Wynn, Reed Junkin, and Christian “C.J.” Layton has amassed a 43-5 record over the last three years, leading all NEPSAC lacrosse teams in winning percentage. At the conclusion of the season, the team was awarded the Jeffrey Parker Memorial Sportsmanship Award by the ISL. After a pre-season that saw the team scrimmage Xaverian Brothers, Deerfield, Greenwich, and Darien High School, the team opened its season by beating Phillips
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Andover by a score of 8-7. The defense, led by Layton in net, Harrity, Santangelo, Rush, and Treanor was able to hold a team that would go on to average 14 goals a game on the season to their lowest output all year. The veteran defense would lead the team for the early part of the season as it posted a 7-6 victory over reigning ISL champion Thayer and also a 6-3 win over longtime rival Roxbury Latin. An early season loss to Governor’s Academy proved to galvanize the team for the remainder of the season. After that setback, the team responded by outscoring St. Paul’s and Milton Academy 27 to 14 to set up a showdown with rival St. Sebastian’s. Belmont Hill played its best game of the year in a thrilling 10-8 victory, which included a crucial goal by goalie Junkin, three goals by O’Neal, and one goal and four assists by John “Johnny” Hincks ’16. The team then won handily over St. Mark’s, Lawrence, and St. Georges to set up a showdown with Nobles. Trailing 6-1 with 18 minutes
coaches’ corner
Lacrosse
left to play, the team would respond with a fury scoring seven unanswered goals to win 8-6. On that day, Wynn (1g, 1a), Durbin (1g, 4a), and Jake Haase ’18 (3g) led the comeback effort. After a 9-8 overtime loss to Rivers, the team responded with victories over Middlesex, Brooks, and BB&N to clinch the ISL championship. From the first day to the last, the team played as a cohesive unit at both ends of the field and in doing so led the League in goals against average, letting up just over five goals per game. Alex Santangelo and Charlie Durbin were awarded the lacrosse Alumni MVP Award. Will Treanor and Matt Harrity earned Team Most Improved Player. Mack Rush earned the Henry B. Sawyer Sportsmanship Award. Durbin, Santangelo, Layton, O’Neal, Wynn, and Rush were named All League and Junkin, Harrity and Treanor received All League Honorable Mention Honors. Finally, Alex Santangelo was named Academic All-American. Next year’s captain, Johnny Hincks, as well as a strong nucleus of 14 letter winners, will lead the team in 2016.
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Sailing CHRISTOPHER ZAMORE, Head Coach With the youngest team in recent history led by junior co-captains James Collins ’16 and Lucas Jurgensen ’16, the varsity sailing team grew enormously in its skills throughout this season. Iced in for the first week and busy rigging a brand-new fleet, a set of Zimm 420’s, the team finally got out on the water just several practice days before its first meets. We lost our first two sets of races to Dover-Sherborn and Wayland, going on to beat Hingham and Pingree. We then lost to St. George’s, Tabor, and St. John’s Prep before a series of successful fleet race scrimmages with Winsor and local practice partners Winchester High, with whom we share facilities at Winchester Boat Club. These large fleet practices helped us pick up much needed speed. In the last weeks of the season, we first traveled to Maine Maritime Academy in Castine, ME. Skipper James Collins was called over at the beginning of his first race and didn’t hear the judges so he began our series with an on course side (OCS). He and his crew, Jacob Whitney ’17, B Fleet skipper and crew Jack Murphy ’18, and Ryan Goldstein ’18 refused to let the setback get in their way, and they
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slowly climbed from eighth place on the first day to finish in third out of 20 teams at the end of the second day. With a change in our exam schedule, we were able to enter the Massachusetts State Championship at MIT for the first time in many years. In two days of tough sailing in puffy and shifty winds, the team finished fifth out of 28 teams. Again, James Collins and Jack Murphy skippered with Jake Whitney, Ryan Goldstein, and Lucas Jurgensen rounding out the team. Spencer Kim ’16 and Maximillian Rudzinsky ’16 added steady support. Up-and-coming skippers Stephen Pellegrino ’19 and James Eysenbach ’19 also helped out as crews, and Armin Thomas ’17 and Edmund Whelan ’19 both added to the team as first-year crews. We were lucky enough to have the help of coach Zach Orlov, who took time off from his job to come coach the team. The team wants to thank Winchester Boat Club for their continued support of our program.
coaches’ corner
Tennis
Tennis KATIE McNAMARA, Head Coach The varsity tennis team finished its season with a 13-3 record and a quarterfinal finish at the New England Prep School Team championships. All League award winners Benjamin Lebowitz ’16 and Jack Ablon ’17 both finished the season with only one loss. As doubles partners they were unbeatable. Captain Charlie Schwartz ’15 had a great record at #4 singles and was awarded All League Honorable Mention for his efforts.
with classmate Charles Danziger ’16. Nicolas Valette ’16 received the team sportsmanship award. Having only graduated Schwartz, the team returns all of the above-mentioned players along with John Paul Champa ’17, Scott Jackson ’17, Jack Daley ’17, Douglas “Ford” Chope ’18, and Andrew Lee ’19.
Owen Greenwood ’17 was voted the team’s Most Improved Player from last season. Ben Lebowitz was the team MVP, and he will captain the team next year
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Track FRAN KIRBY, Head Coach
As we gathered as a team the week before Spring Break, we had to first shovel the three feet of snow remaining on the track. Everyone pitched in and shoveled. We did not make much progress, but there emerged a strong strain of camaraderie among coaches and athletes that carried us through a season of many spectacular performances by veteran athletes and so many pleasant surprises later on from our first-year team members. Weather-related delays caused early meet cancellations and effectively kept us from having any productive practices until the first week of April. So eager were our newcomers that we soon found the ideal events for most, and many were quick in their progress in competing admirably in many events left vacant from last year’s graduation. During the dual meet season leading up to the championship meets, we amassed a very respectable record of 11 wins and three losses. We looked forward to a good showing at the ISTA event, which we were hosting once
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again this year. Milton and Thayer took the measure of our squad, and at the end of the meet we settled for a third-place finish. At that meet, however, there were two astounding performances. Sultan-Farouk Olusekun ’15 broke the school long jump record with a prodigious distance of 23' 4". Lucas Ribeiro ’15 launched another discus throw well over 180'. The 4x400m relay team (Spencer Anton ’15, Frank McField ’16, Sultan-Farouk Olusekun ’15, and Harrison Porter ’15) also took first place by a wide margin. For the next week, we assessed our strengths and weaknesses at practice, made the necessary adjustments, and felt that we were ready for what the Fates would send our way. At the New England Championship meet, Lucas Ribeiro, Sultan-Farouk Olusekun, William Cannistraro ’16, and the aforementioned 4x400m relay team took first place in their respective events. As the meet went on, however, we coaches noticed that many of our novice athletes were bolstering our point total by
coaches’ corner
Track
earning important points for fourth, fifth, and sixth places. In that regard, James Feinberg ’17, Dean “DJ” Demetri ’16, and Joshua Pradko ’15 played important roles. In a very exciting final event, the 4x400m relay, we placed first, thus, assuring us of winning the entire meet. Having lost the preceding week by 19 points, we made an incredible turnaround by defeating our opponents by ten points. None of this could have happened without the dedication, energy, and expertise of my superb staff: coaches Vailas, Harder, Fowler, and Anam. Many thanks to this season’s superb captains Harry Porter, Lucas Ribeiro, Sultan-Farouk Olusekun, and Will Malloy ’15. Congratulations to next year’s captains Frank McField, Jake DeCaprio ’16, Will Cannistraro, and DJ Demitri. A footnote to the season is the post-season success of Sultan-Farouk Olusekun, John Pappo, and Lucas Ribeiro at the New Balance National Track and Field competition in Greensboro, NC. Sultan-Farouk finished 18th in the nation in the long jump and Lucas claimed the title of National Champion for the discus, throwing 187' 7" and winning by one inch. Lucas is the first athlete in Belmont Hill history to win an event at the track nationals. He also had the opportunity to compete with the Top 10 in the United States in the “Chicago Land Throwers” meet. John Pappo competed in the Freshman Mile and finished 14th overall.
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corporation news
CORPORATION DINNER April 17, 2015 At the annual Corporation Dinner meeting on April 17, two new trustees and eight corporators nominated by the Committee on Trustees were elected to serve. The Committee on Trustees strives to nominate to the Board and the Corporation individuals who represent the many different facets of the School and who have shown a passionate commitment to Belmont Hill School by their many contributions of “time, talent, and treasure.” The committee also strives to maintain a healthy balance on both the Board and Corporation of alumni, parents of current students, parents of alumni, and friends. The bylaws of the School stipulate that members of the Corporation elect both their own members and the members of the Board of Trustees.
2014–2015 COMMITTEE ON TRUSTEES Ruthanne Fuller, Chair
Jason H. Hurd ’90
Jon M. Biotti ’87
Emmett E. Lyne ’77
John M. Connors III ’85
Carl J. Martignetti ’77
Julie H. Durbin
Marlyn McGrath
Marsha Feinberg
Richard I. Melvoin
John T. Grady, Jr. ’66
Taggart M. Romney ’88
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Danielle A. Heard
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1.
Walker Coppedge ’94, David Antonelli, Copey Coppedge, and Charlie Kenney.
2.
Warren Cross ’83, David Bright ’83, and John Carroll ’89.
3.
George Lynch ’88 and Joe Curtin ’80.
4.
Annie Detmer and Latoya Hankey.
5.
Chris Wadsworth and David Weinstein.
6.
Tony Ryan and John Grady ’66.
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elected to the board of trustees
CHRISTOPHER JOHN HADLEY Chris is a managing director at Berkshire Partners, a Boston-based private equity firm. He earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of Wisconsin and an M.B.A. from the Wharton School of Business. He lives in Belmont with his wife, Connie, and their four children: John ’19, Luke, Eric, and Michael. Chris is a board advisor for Able Boston, a mentorship-driven educational nonprofit in Boston, and a trustee and member of the investment committee for the Dana Farber Cancer Institute. In his spare time, he enjoys coaching Little League baseball.
TAGGART MITT ROMNEY ’88 Tagg lives in Belmont with his wife, Jennifer. They are the parents of Allie, Joseph ’20, Thomas, Johnny, David, and William. He is a managing director at Solamere Capital, a private equity firm in Boston. He sits on the boards of multiple corporations, including LogicSource and WeBoost. Tagg has a bachelor’s degree in economics from Brigham Young University and an M.B.A. from Harvard. At Belmont Hill, Tagg serves as a class agent and on his class reunion committee, on the Parents Fund committee, and he is a member of the Committee on Trustees. He has been a member of the Corporation since 2009. Tagg is a member of the Cambridge Stake High Council of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He enjoys water and snow skiing, hiking, science fiction, and Boston sports.
elected to the corporation
JULIE HANSON DURBIN Julie and her husband, Mike, live in Newton and have three children, Charles ’15, Claudia, and Eliza. Julie earned a bachelor’s degree at the University of Notre Dame and a J.D. from Indiana University and has worked as an employment attorney for Bankers Trust and as an independent consultant. She is a member of the New York and Illinois Bar Associations. At Belmont Hill, Julie has served as Parents’ Council president this year and as a member of the Committee on Trustees. She has also served as a Form parent and has participated and led many Parents’ Council endeavors. In addition, Julie has served on the Parents Fund committee for six years and this past year co-chaired the Form VI effort with her husband, Mike, and with Patti and Jonathan Kraft ’82. Julie volunteers for the Volunteer Lawyers Project and is an active supporter of MetroLacrosse. She is also an active committee member and volunteer at Newton Country Day School and St. Ignatius Church. She and Mike are members of the President’s Circle at the University of Notre Dame. She enjoys running, skiing, and yoga, as well as supporting her children’s various sports and activities.
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corporation news
CARL PHILIP FANTASIA ’93 Carl lives in Lexington with his wife, Caroline, and their three children, Ryan, Nick, and Avery. He has worked for two hedge fund firms, Tudor Investments and SAC/Point 72 Capital, over the past 10 years and is currently in the process of launching his own firm, Ferry Street Capital, which will be based in Boston. He received a bachelor’s degree in mathematical economics from Wake Forest University. At Belmont Hill, Carl serves as a class agent and on his class reunion committee. He has been involved with the Big Brothers Big Sisters organization, and enjoys golfing and coaching his children’s sports teams.
G. CLIFFORD GOODBAND III ’97 Cliff and his wife, Elizabeth, live in West Roxbury with their two children, Connor and Cate. He is deputy director of the Boston Regional Intelligence Center for the Boston Police Department. He earned a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice from Northeastern University in 2002 and a master’s degree in 2003. At Belmont Hill, Cliff serves as a class agent and on his class reunion committee. In his professional life, he has received recognition for his analysis and intelligence work with the Boston Police Department from the Department of Youth Services and the Springfield Police Department. He is also a two-time recipient of the James D. Fox leadership award, named for the Chief of the Newport News Police Department. He volunteers for the Pan Mass Challenge Belmont Kids Bike Ride, coaches Little League baseball, and enjoys fishing and reading.
GARRETT DONALD HATTON ’05 Garrett is an associate with Alcion Ventures, a real estate private equity firm in Boston. He has a bachelor’s degree from Colby College. Garrett lives in Boston and is a mentor at the Excel Academy in Chelsea. He is a member of the Outreach Council for Heading Home, an organization that provides housing and support services to low-income and homeless families and individuals in the greater Boston area. At Belmont Hill, Garrett serves as a class agent and on his class reunion committee. In his spare time, he enjoys running, skiing, traveling, and Boston sports.
JAMES TERRY HINTLIAN JR. ’78 Jamie is a partner in the life sciences practice at Ernst & Young. He has a bachelor’s degree and master’s degree in operations research from Cornell University, and also an M.B.A. from Cornell, where he also occasionally teaches operations management. He and his wife, Carolyn, live in Winchester. They are the parents of William ’17, Katherine, and James III. Jamie is active with Best Buddies International, an organization that provides job opportunities, leadership development, and self-advocacy for people with intellectual disabilities. He is also active with the Massachusetts Down Syndrome Congress and has been honored for his leadership. An avid rower, Jamie is on the board of Community Rowing, Inc. and on the race committee for the Head of the Charles Regatta. At Belmont Hill, Jamie serves as a class agent, a member of the Parents Fund committee, and on his class reunion committee.
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CHARLES COLIN KENNEY Charlie is a consultant and author who lives in Jamaica Plain. He is the author of three novels and 11 works of nonfiction focused largely on health care innovation. His 2012 book Transforming Health Care was awarded the Shingo Research Prize. His latest book, A Leadership Journey in Health Care, was published in May. He serves on the faculty for the Institute for Healthcare Improvement in Cambridge. Charlie remains active at Belmont Hill, particularly in his support and participation in the School’s athletic program. He and his wife, Anne, are the parents of two children, Elizabeth and the late Charlie ’06. After graduating from Brown in 2010, Charlie served as an officer in the United States Marine Corps. He died in 2012, yet his name and memory live on at Belmont Hill through a scholarship fund and a prize at the School.
EDWARD EUGENE MADDEN JR. ’88 Ted is a senior vice president at Fidelity Investments. He earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of Vermont and a J.D. from Boston College. He and his wife, Amy, are the parents of four children: Emery, Molly, Edward (Daniel) ’20, and Thomas. At Belmont Hill, Ted serves as a class agent and on his class reunion committee. He also serves on the board of directors of the University of Vermont Alumni Association and was president from 2011 to 2014. In the past, he has been a board member at the University of Vermont Foundation and Life Resources, Inc. JENNIFER LYNN STIER Jennifer is a managing director and the chief operating officer for Highfields Capital Management, an investment management firm in Boston. She has been named one of the 50 leading women in hedge funds and has a bachelor’s degree from Bucknell University. She and her husband, Seth, live in West Newton with their children Jared ’18 and Sarah. She is a trustee of the Fessenden School, where she serves on the audit committee and previously served as treasurer, chair of the investment committee, and on the executive committee. She is involved with the Friends of the Israeli Defense Forces, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, and Combined Jewish Philanthropies. Jennifer is also on the endowment board of trustees for Temple Beth Elohim. At Belmont Hill, Jennifer serves on the Parents Fund committee. She enjoys fitness activities, including rowing, biking, cross-training, and boxing.
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Alumni & Family Events
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alumni & family events
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mothers of alumni valentine luncheon February 12, 2015 1.
Jane Otte, Jill Hatton, Beth Ramsey, Karen Pagliarulo, and Meg Morrissey.
2.
Amy Kuhlik, Tracey Cannistraro, and Deepali Gulati.
3.
Maureen Champa, Jean Ulfelder, and Barbara Bailey.
4.
Faculty member Donnell Patterson introduces the B–Flats.
5.
Mary Lagatta, Jane Sughrue, and Lucille Cesari.
6.
Carolyn Curtin, Julie Kenary, Leah Morris, and Laurie Plumb.
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alumni & family events
vero beach, florida reception March 16, 2015 Hosted by Wendy and L.T. Hill 1.
Truman Casner ’51, Cinnie Casner, Richard Casner ’76, and Jennifer Casner.
2.
Wendy Hill, Gracia Dayton, Tom Resor, and Bruce Dayton.
3.
Lisa and Dale Dutile.
4.
Sean Rayment and Daphne Rayment.
5.
L.T. Hill and Michael Grant.
6.
John Brooks ’60, Christie Brooks, Anne Marie Warren, and Tom Warren ’60.
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1 parents fund celebration May 21, 2015
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Parents Fund Chairs Ann and Tony Ryan thanked the Parents Fund Committee for a great year. The event was hosted by Bunny and Rick Melvoin in the Howe House. 1.
Chris Awtrey ’86 and Sloane Awtrey.
2.
Tony Ryan, Jennifer Bergantino, and Paul Bergantino.
3.
Daphne Rayment, Allison Pellegrino, and Jennifer Metz.
4.
Betsy Danziger, Portia Durbin, and Ann Ryan.
5.
Marc Wolpow, Art Greenwood, Peter Flaherty, and Tagg Romney ’88.
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alumni & family events
katharine wrisley atkins (kwa) women’s series March 31, 2015 An Evening of Fashion with Karen Pagliarulo (P ’05) and Peggy Dunford 1.
Peggy Dunford and Karen Pagliarulo – the evening’s presenters.
2.
Lisa Antonelli, Lynne Gaynor, and Setta Stephanian.
3.
Sarah Gosselin and Assia Eyuboglu.
4.
Jan MacLeod, Karen McGraw, and Raeann Duff.
5.
Louisa Diermendjian, Arlette Doherty, and Paula Wright.
6.
Barbara Guilfoile, Julie Durbin, Lora Farkas, and Lynne Gaynor.
7.
Julia Weeks, Eileen Patch, and Connie Page.
8.
Katie McNamara and Ann Neczypor.
9.
Ann Cuervo and Gracia Dayton.
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10. Diane London and Carolyn Hintlian.
for more information about
the kwa women’s series, please visit us online:
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9 KWA COMMITTEE (In Formation) Margy Dunn P ’10 Co-chair Lynne Gaynor P ’04, ’06 Co-chair
Jill Hatton P ’05, ’14 Betsy LeBlanc P ’03, ’08 Elena Loukas P ’07, ’12 Leslie McCafferty P ’98, ’00, ’05 Bunny Melvoin Mary Lou Monaco P ’82, ’83, ’86
Kathleen Buckley P ’13
Jayne Mundt P ’07, ’09, ’12
Susan Cohen P ’05
Ann Neczypor P ’04
Julie Durbin P ’15
Karen Pagliarulo P ’05
Lora Farkas P ’04, ’13
Kathy Whelan P ’99, ’05
Anne Foley P ’99, ’01
Simone Winston P ’10, ’16, ’20
Thuy Ha-Ngoc P ’00, ’06
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alumni & family events
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alumni spring social June 2, 2015, Harpoon Boston Hosted by the Multicultural Alumni Partnership
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PJ Lee ’10, Jason Hurd ’90, Rick Melvoin, David Walker ’82, and Caleb Collins ’93.
2.
Elijah Agard ’09, Dan Regis ’08, Kristin Williams, and Emeka Ekwelum ’08.
3.
Josiah Wilde ’80, Jim Burnham ’73, and Brian Bixby ’70.
4.
Rob Butler ’06, Fred Young, and Peter Evans ’04.
5.
PJ Lee ’10, Keith Hoyte ’83, and Michael Rudzinsky ’11.
6.
Elijah Agard ’09, Chris Brown ’06, Joe Curtin ’80, and AT Desta ’05.
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alumni reunion weekend
alumni reunion weekend | may 15 and 16
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John Shane ’50, Sam Parkhill ’55, and Bill Cornish ’68 at the Alumni Weekend Visiting Day on Friday.
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Nathan Yuen ’10, Holly Gettings, and Bobby Alexander ’10.
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Eric Sanders ’95, Kate Sullivan, and Dan Sullivan ’95.
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1960 Classmates and their spouses at the Friday evening reception. From (l-r): Don Hurley, Nancy Mae Hurley, David Morrison, Susan Morrison, John Welch, Marylou Welch, Sandy MacMahon, Jim MacMahon, Emily Weller, and Steve Weller.
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On the Friday of Reunion Weekend, alumni are invited to a guided tour of campus as well as a luncheon. A visit to the woodshop to see Form VI students completing their panels is always popular.
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The Classes of 1950, 1955, and 1960 celebrated their reunion with a dinner on May 16 in the Byrnes Library. In addition to hearing from Head of School Rick Melvoin and Board President Jon Biotti ’87, they were treated to a B-Flats performance under the direction of Donnell Patterson.
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Matt Murphy ’00, Lauren Murphy, and Rob Palladino ’05.
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50th Reunion celebrants Rick Howe, John Lintner, Peter Gilpatric, and Leslie Lintner at the Friday evening reception.
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Peter Dale ’70, Art Zervas ’70, and Harris Contos ’70.
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Stephen Johnson and Jean-Paul (Don) Ouellette at the 45th Reunion dinner.
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Steve Kasjarian ’80, Traci Melcher, Jim Philliou ’80, and Chuck Melcher ’80.
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An annual tradition led by Rick Melvoin, guests gathered in the Hamilton Chapel on Saturday evening for a memorial service for deceased faculty and alumni. This year’s readers, from (l-r): Lee Navins ’00, Art Norton ’60, Jerry Jordan ’85, Randy Byrnes ’65, Rick Melvoin, and Jeff Drucker ’90.
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5th Reunioners Joe Cookson, Tom Muse, Kevin Connors, Alex Starr, Jeff Schimmel, and Bobby Alexander.
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1975 classmates Joe Henley, Jeff Bacon, Jamie Pious, and Carey Smith.
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Will Forde ’05, Garrett Hatton ’05, Marshall Nevins ’05, and John McAlpin.
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1990 classmates Seth Wilson, George Pantazelos, Sean Hurley, and George Hasiotis.
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Jeff Eaton ’55 and Hugh MacMahon ’55 toured the new Melvoin Academic Center on May 16.
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Allison Popeo, Bob Popeo ’85, Andrew Shepard ’85, Cheryl Shepard, Brad Feldman ’85, and Cheryl Graham.
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Class Notes
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class notes
1941
75 TH REUNION
MAY 13 & 14, 2016
1946
70 TH REUNION
MAY 13 & 14, 2016
okayed the move. We are both in good health for our ages. All three children, spouses, and seven grandchildren are doing well. My best wishes to my remaining classmates.”
1950
1949 FRANK DICKINSON writes, “We moved to Blacksburg, VA to be closer to our daughter Jan and son David. Son Glenn in California
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From GERRY MALONEY comes: “After graduating from Belmont Hill, I went west for university studies, receiving my B.A. in history from Stanford University. A mem-
ber of the Air Force ROTC unit at Stanford, I served as cadet colonel and captain/senior coach of the rifle team. I was commissioned a 2nd lieutenant in the Air Force in 1954. I served as a fighter pilot (F86 Sabrejet) with the 311th Fighter Squadron in Korea, as Air Force liaison officer and forward air controller to the 24th U.S. Army Infantry Division, Korea, as USAF liaison officer to the U.S. Navy Carrier USS Shangri-La, Japan, and was assigned to fly with the Nationalist Chinese
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Bill Byrnes ’40 celebrating his Belmont Hill 75th Reunion in Florida with his son Randy ’65.
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The Avery Family attended Alumni Weekend luncheon on May 16: Chris ’79, Paul ’75, Paul ’47, Mary, and Linc ’73.
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Jane and Dick Wilson ’48 at their home in Dennis, MA in July 2015.
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Gerry Maloney ’50.
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Class of 1950 – 65th Reunion Dinner – May 16, 2015. From left to right, David Clarke, Mary Clarke, Ted McDavitt, Linsay Meisner, John Shane, and Denise Shane.
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A certificate of appreciation was given to Tom Stetson ’50 for his Korean War service from 1950 to 1955.
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Air Force in Taiwan as a jet age Flying Tiger. I returned to the U.S. to command at Webb Air Force Base in Texas and was the youngest squadron commander in the USAF. Released from active duty in 1958, I served in the Air Force Reserve with a return to active duty for the Cuban missile crisis. During reserve assignments at Travis Air Force Base, I initiated two staff studies whose recommendations were adopted worldwide by the Air Force. Assigned to the USAF Academy admissions counselor group, I commanded the group for Massachusetts. In 1985 I retired as full colonel. Continuing my service to country, I became a member of the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company in Massachusetts (remember Lexington and Concord), was
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commissioned in the Massachusetts State Guard in Worcester and promoted to brigadier general in 1990. In 1991, I was appointed commander of the Massachusetts State Guard by Governor William Weld and promoted to major general. I also served as military aide to the Governor. My experience in the military was paralleled by achievements in business. During my California years (1950–1970), I was involved in sales, marketing, and real estate development projects, including introduction of 3M’s first tape cassettes, the first fax machines, and supervising construction of the first thousand-unit garden apartment project in northern California. In 1970, I returned to the Boston area and took over as president of G. S. Maloney Co.,
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Inc., a general contracting firm centered on painting and maintenance work (including six major oil companies), and the preservation of historical buildings. I founded U.S. Coatings Collaborative, Inc., and as its president led innovation for asbestos removal in the eastern United States. I produced the first approved encapsulant and the first movie on asbestos removal, receiving awards for excellence from Governors King and Dukakis. Active in community affairs, I was chief of staff of the Shriners, a member of the Legion of Honor of the Shrine, and vice president of Sojourners. I dedicated leisure time to my family and my passions for history, flying, sailing, and shooting. I won the National Sailing Championship in 1950,
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Dave Cummins ’52 in Tucson, AZ in March 2015.
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Judie and Ely Pierce ’52 in Tucson, AZ in March 2015.
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Sharon and Peter Burch ’55.
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Tom Hunt ’55.
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Class of 1955 60th Reunion Dinner, May 16, 2015. From left to right, front row: Herb Yood, Tom Hunt, Sam Parkhill, Neil Blacklow , and Hugh Nazor. Second row: Don Millard, Bob Togneri, Marcia Togneri, Ann Hunt, Susan Federer, Marjorie Blacklow, Sharon Burch, Ted Davis, Barbara MacMahon, and Hugh MacMahon. Back row: Jeff Eaton, Bob Repetto, Tony Federer, and Peter Burch.
set 34 national shooting records, was U.S. Rifle Champion in 1960, ’61 and ’63, and was part of the U.S. International rifle team, which was second in the world in competition. I won the National History Award as a Stanford undergraduate, renovated historical buildings as a contractor (the JFK birthplace, the Amy Lowell House, Cambridge City Hall), and served as president of the (Myles) Standish Shore Neighborhood Association and president of the Duxbury Homeowners Association. I moved to Jacksonville, FL in 1998 and live in Queens Harbour. I continue boating and my active civic life. I served as commodore of the Queens Harbour Yacht Club, a governor of the Queens Harbour Club, and president of the Queens Harbour Veterans Group. I was a member of the U.S. Coast Guard Auxiliary and taught boating classes for the Coast Guard and the state of Florida. I received the 2005 award as outstanding member of the Auxiliary. I am a board member of the Fleeting Landing Retirement Community, chair of the board of trustees of St. Augustine Lighthouse and Museum, a member of the Jacksonville World Affairs Council, and a communicant at Christ Episcopal Church, Ponte Vedra Beach. I am often sighted in the company of retired Ambassador Marilyn McAfee. My son, Christopher, and my daughter, Katherine, both live in New England.”
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1952 WILLIAM J. CLEARY JR. has been elected to the Eastern College Conference (ECAC ) Hall of Fame as part of its inaugural class, a 25-member group that spans the entire 75-year history of the ECAC. Honorees for the first-ever class have been selected for outstanding achievements, service, dedication, commitment, and contributions to the ECAC championships, sponsored sports, programs, and events. The class was officially inducted on April 17, 2015 at the ECAC Hall of Fame Gala and Induction Ceremony held at the Matrix Conference & Banquet Center in Danbury, CT. As a college hockey player, Cleary remains a popular name in the Harvard record books, holding or sharing seven team records. In 1955, he was an All-American selection. He played for the United States 1956 silver medal team and then led the U.S. to gold in 1960, leading the team in scoring. After stints as the freshmen and assistant varsity coach at Harvard, Cleary took over the reins as head coach of the Harvard hockey team. He was behind the bench for 19 seasons, leading the Crimson to 324 victories (the most in the program’s history). Following his coaching career, he spent 11 years as the John D. Nichols ’53 Family Director of Athletics before retiring in 2001. His contributions throughout his life to the game of hockey have not gone unnoticed: He was the 1993 recipient of the Hobey Baker Legend of Hockey Award; 1997 recipient of the Lester Patrick Award; named to the NCAA Ice Hockey 50th Anniversary Team; and was the U.S. Hockey Player of the decade for 1956–1966. He was an inductee in the International Ice Hockey Hall of Fame and the United States Olympic Hall of Fame.” This from HENRY THOMAS: “Ingrid and I are pleased to have become great-grandparents. And at such a young age, too!” JUSTIN SMITH reports that he is still living on Chesapeake Bay.
1954 HANK CHILDS writes, “We’re still enjoying sun and fun in the fabulous Villages and can’t believe we have been here for 10 years, now. We don’t miss New England winters one iota–or the masochism required to endure them–especially this last one!”
1955 PETER BURCH recalls attending Belmont Hill in Grades 5–12, “but missing my junior year, which I spent in India. I graduated from Princeton University in 1959 and received my medical degree from Johns Hopkins Medical School in 1963. After a one-year internship in pediatrics at Duke University Hospital, I returned to Johns Hopkins for a residency in ophthalmology. Following two years of service with the Navy in Bethesda, MD, I joined Dr. David Parke in an ophthalmology practice in Meriden, CT and continued in practice from 1969–2000. My wife Sharon and I are blessed with four children and four grandchildren. Retired for the past 14 years, I do a bit of local volunteer work, and especially enjoy performing as a member of the Humble Bees musical group. At the time of this writing, I am eagerly looking forward to reconnecting with my classmates at our upcoming 60th reunion.” HAL ESTABROOK writes, “After 51 years in the family insurance business, I retired at the end of 2011. The business is now run by my son, Hank, and nephew, Tom Chamberlain. Deborah and I have four children and nine grandchildren. Four grandchildren are in elementary or high school, and four are in college (Curry College, Colgate University, and the University of Vermont), with one matriculating at Dickinson College this fall. The oldest graduated from East Carolina University and is pursuing a career in hospitality. I have been spending a large part of my time volunteering with the Massachusetts National Guard doing financial counseling for the service members. This is a pro bono military program started by the Financial Planning Association of Massachusetts. I led the group of 30 volunteers for
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two years, and we won a national award of Pro Bono Group of the Year from Financial Planning magazine in 2013. The MA Guard appreciates our work with the troops, and as an expression, I was given the Commanders Award for Public Service at the Wellesley Armory in 2011. Along with another FPA member, we started a financial counseling program for Homes for Our Troops. This organization provides mortgage-free homes for the most severely wounded warriors. Many are double amputees, being victims of improvised explosive devices (IEDs). These veterans receive homes that are specifically built for their disabilities. The FPA provides a planner for each home recipient, who then does a pro bono financial plan for the veteran and his/her family. I enjoyed the 60th reunion.” From TONY FEDERER comes: “10 years ago Suzanne and I had just bought a condominium in North Conway, NH and were in the middle of downsizing and leaving the university town of Durham after 40 years. We enjoyed full-time life in the White Mountains until the summer of 2011, when Suzanne woke up from a nap blind in one eye. Her jaw pain of preceding days turned out to be temporal or giant cell arthritis. A month later, she had a second attack and lost vision in the other eye. Vision loss from GCA can be very sudden and is permanent but should not get any worse over time. Consequently, we investigated retirement communities on the Maine coast and moved to Ocean View at Falmouth a year and a-half ago. (It seems our class has a proclivity to move to this area.) Here we can get to lots of activities just across the street from our “cottage,” which is a two-bedroom, one-floor house. We are adapting well to her blindness. For instance she cross-country skis and kayaks with Maine Adaptive Sports, and she still does most of the cooking. Hiking, backpacking, and even running over the past 10 years enabled me to become the fifth person known to have hiked all the trails described in the AMC White Mountain Guide. I am still birding (since Davis and Benda got me started in seventh grade) and I finished
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last year with 178 species seen, using only bicycle and foot power from home. My running lately has focused on trail races, including on snowshoes, and sometimes I’m the only 70+ runner, but there is a guy my age from Kittery who beats the pants off me. Other activities include skiing, playing my autoharp, cranking my antique circular sock machine, heading the Ocean View library committee, and trying to keep up with four teenaged grandchildren, two of whom live a mile from Belmont Hill. After 40 years of sailing my Mirror dinghy, I have given it to a friend in New Jersey. I have also given up various kinds of environmental action. Six years ago I finished writing a book called Ecoshift: The Movement That is Transforming the Relation of Humanity to Earth, and printed and distributed 100 copies. But it needed severe rewriting, which I did not have the energy to do. In the book I tried to be optimistic that humanity could change its ways, but particularly because our severe human overpopulation is not even being discussed in the U.S. any more, I have become too discouraged about the future to keep fighting a lost battle. On the positive side, I have recently returned to science, looking at long-term weather and streamflow data from the Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest, some of which I gathered as far back as 1958. This involves my BROOK90 hydrologic model, which, to my great gratification, is being used around the world, particularly to investigate effects of climate change on streamflow. Entering ‘CA Federer’ at scholar.google.com provides more evidence that my life’s work in forest science was satisfactorily productive. Perhaps receiving the Physiographic Prize in the Fifth Form got me started on this path.” DAVID GOLDBERG writes, “My favorite teacher was Bert Moore. When I was dating Dorothy, we heard about the Bay of Pigs invasion on the radio in a small restaurant. I said, ‘I may be wrong, but I don’t see how this can work.’ From Form IV history, I knew that émigré counter-revolutions were defective. Was Dorothy ever impressed by my intellect!” TOM HUNT writes, “This note is an update
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to my thoughts as of 10 years ago. Much that was good in my life continues to please. My wife Ann and I celebrated our 50th wedding anniversary last year with a grand party arranged by our daughter Jennifer, mother of our grandson Maxwell. Since our last regular reunion in 2005, our daughter Susan and her husband Paul Wiggins have given us two new grandsons, Elliott, almost 3, and Darcy, seven months. Susan, an M.D. with residency at Duke, is now a hospitalist in Seattle at the University of Washington and at Seattle Children’s. Her twin Diana, who earned a Ph.D. from MIT, is doing synthetic organic chemistry, working on the development of novel antibiotics at Tetraphase, a small pharmaceutical development firm in Watertown. In retrospect, I have been extraordinarily fortunate in many ways. I had the chance to do basic physics research for nearly 25 years at the Ford Motor Company Scientific Laboratory and following retirement subsequently for 12 years at a small company I formed in Ann Arbor in 1990. The academic freedom I enjoyed at Ford was exceptional, and I had the chance to mentor a number of students, including three whom I shepherded successfully through their Ph.D. work. I am continuing to do some consulting with a small company in San José that is pursuing commercialization of the technology my company was formed to develop. Ann and I continue to be quite healthy and athletically inclined. Ann is swimming competitively in local and national meets, and I am playing volleyball some six hours a week and in the yearly national tournaments. I had a brief interruption last year when I had both knees replaced because my original equipment was not doing too well. The surgical outcome has been very successful. As a hedge against probable future age-related infirmity I have taken up swimming, an activity in which I have evident room for significant improvement. Looking ahead a bit, health permitting, I hope for more active years since I am having fun both playing and just being. I am pleased to be and I enjoy growing older but I
hope to postpone growing up for a few more years.” HUGH MacMAHON writes, “I retired from the practice of law in 2006. In 2009, my firm, Drummond, Woodsum & MacMahon, published a book on Maine legal history, Progress Stability, and the Struggle for Equality: A Ramble through the Early Years of Maine Law, 1820–1920. In 2011, my book on the history of Cleaves Law Library in Portland, one of the country’s oldest law libraries, was published on the 200th anniversary of its founding. For the past three years, I have been teaching Maine legal history at the University of Maine School of Law in Portland. I am now looking forward to trying to catch up on many neglected maintenance issues around the house and at our camp in Sebago. Time just goes too fast. I wish my classmates all the best!” BOB TOGNERI reports, “I spend much of my time volunteering at the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute and going to classes at the University of Cincinnati. I’m a househusband, as my wife is still working in the financial world. We enjoy music (symphony, opera, and the large Cincinnati Theater), art and, of course, the Red Sox. We spend a lot of time each summer on the Cape and in the Berkshires.”
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as its president. I’m active in professional businesses and organizations both locally and internationally. I’m a member of the American Society of Real Estate Counselors, a past director and chairman of the Artery Business Committee, and a past president of the Greater Boston Real Estate Board. I’m the former chair of the Boston Municipal Research Bureau, chair of the Taubman Center for State and Local Government at Harvard, as well as the chair of the School of Social Science, Urban Affairs and Public Policy at Northeastern University. From 1979 to 1996, I was a member of the Boston Coordinating Committee, i.e. ‘the Vault.’ I have served many organizations, including the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (former overseer and trustee), the Massachusetts Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (chairman, council of fellows), the Boston Zoological Society (former chair), the Museum of Fine Arts (board of overseers), the Combined Jewish Philanthropies (director and past chair), am a member of the board of the New Center for Arts and Culture, and am on the board of the United Way of Massachusetts Bay. Most recently, I’ve been appointed as director of the Old North Foundation and trustee of Tufts Medical Center.”
1960
TONY BELLUSCHI writes, “In recapping the last few years since our 50th, I shall only describe where an architectural graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) is at this time in my life in the beautiful Pacific Northwest. My busy professional career in the last nearly five decades has often taken me around the world, and I have many frequent flyer miles to show for it. However, the thrill of a new project is getting less exciting and more challenging if I have to spend 15 to 20 hours or more and go through several airports and metal detectors. I only like new projects if I can drive to a meeting, but there are sometimes exceptions. I’m very happy to be in the autumn of my career versus the spring. I also feel much better for today’s young architectural graduates since there is much more work now than five years ago in most architectural firms. A few high points stand out over the last many years. In 2003, I was awarded a fellowship in the American Institute of Architects. I was just completing my four-year tenure as chairman of the board of trustees at RISD in Providence, and I am now on the executive committee of the board of governors of the Pacific Northwest College of Art in Portland. I also serve on the executive board of the Architectural Foundation of Oregon, both very active organizations in the Northwest. My monograph entitled Urban Places, Public Spaces: The Architec-
1957 FRED BOOTH writes, “I retired from the construction industry (Turner Construction) and have taken up voice acting as a new career.”
1959 BOB BEAL writes, “I graduated from Harvard College with honors in 1963 and from Harvard Business School in 1965. I was vice president of the Beacon Companies, investment builders, from 1965 to 1976, and joined the Beal Companies in 1976 (now known as Related Beal) and serve currently
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Bob Beal ’59.
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Retired faculty member Richard “Whitey” Morange and Tony Oberdorfer ’57 at the Alumni Weekend reception on May 15.
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Class of 1960 – 55th Reunion Dinner, May 16, 2015. From (l-r): seated: Art Norton, Steve Weller, Emily Weller, Jeff Stonberg, Larry Feinberg, and Jim MacMahon. Standing: Alex Norton, Rick Wile, Bob Kargman, Jacqueline Wile, Marjie Kargman, Ann Wadsworth, Chris Wadsworth, Marylou Welch, John Welch, David Morrison, Mike Morgan, Susan Morrison, Carol Fremont-Smith, Paul Fremont-Smith, Sally Patrick, Gerry Patrick, Nancy Mae Hurley, Don Hurley, and Sandy MacMahon.
ture of Anthony Belluschi was published in 2006. Anyone who would like a copy of the book can email me at ABelluschi@aol.com and I’ll be pleased to send you one. My wife Marti, who was a well-known advocate for traffic safety in Chicago, has been a great help to me in the last 23 years as we have navigated our way through our lives with my company merger in Chicago, business and family issues, moving to Portland, and assisting with two exhibits at Oregon museums. We split our time between our primary Portland home, our Lake Michigan log cabin in northwest Indiana as time permits (which isn’t enough), or occasional trips to Rome and Lucca, Italy, to see family and friends. Her upbringing was in the Midwest and most of her relatives still live there, mostly in Iowa or in the Quad-Cities area. Two children by my first marriage
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are now both on the West Coast. My son, Pietro, who is 46, lives in San Francisco and has a 13-year-old son, Josson. My daughter, Catharine, 44, lives in Los Angeles and has 9-year-old twins, a boy and a girl, Axel and Sofi. Catharine is a home designer/artist, as well as a graduate of RISD. Her husband, Bryan Paulk, is an independent writer for various television shows, most recently for Jimmy Kimmel LIVE! Life is just as complex when you don’t go to an office every day. I am currently juggling my architectural consulting practice in Portland, investments in Arizona, serving on two boards, and unpacking boxes from our recent move. I spent the better part of four years renovating and expanding the family home in Portland, and it has received awards and was featured as the House of the Month in the February 2015 issue of
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Architectural Record. Hopefully, 2015 will continue with the strong economy, some affordable health care in our country, and less conflict overseas. The current administration has been saddled with every kind of problem and has not quite figured it all out yet. Even though we like the President —after all he is from Chicago, our home for 30 years—we have to ‘hope’ that some of his strategies prevail. Time will tell, and if we don’t go under from too many new taxes and a bloated government, I remain concerned that our kids and grandkids will be saddled with terrific burdens for many years. I hope the next decade brings all of us good health, new hopes, as well as interesting challenges. I see TOM DiMARE fairly often (see photo of us fishing) and PAUL FREMONT-SMITH from time to time, and I hope we will continue to get together when time permits. I loved seeing all the Class of 1960 in May
and look forward to our 60th in 2020.”
between the Islands and Marin County, CA.
DAVID BROOKS writes, “As I am certain most other classmates must feel, 50 years have passed all too swiftly. Let me give a brief overview of my life since Belmont Hill. I graduated from the University of Massachusetts in 1964 and ended up working for Allied Chemical and several derivations thereafter, retiring after 30 years in 1996 after managing business groups and the sales and distribution functions. This career gave me a great opportunity to learn more about people, places, and the business sector. During this period, we lived first in New England, then the Bay Area of California, next New Jersey for several years, then in Pittsburgh for a couple of years, and then finally back in San Francisco, where we decided we wanted to stay. However, after nine years our company had other ideas, and we again moved back to New Jersey for the final 10 years, serving in a variety of executive positions.
My experience began with 14 other very young boys in the fifth grade and I believe eight of us graduated with the Class of 1960. To this day I can remember the original roll call for daily attendance: Arterton, Brooks, Davidson, Delaney, Evans, Fallwell, Ladd, MacMahon, Meyer, Nickels, Norton, Sweeley, Turran, Varkas, and Welch. The eight of us were fortunate to have the longest experience, but we all got our quality education from the likes of Messrs. Hamilton, Jenney, Willey, Morton, Maxwell, Densmore, and all so many other talented teachers and administrators. They prepared us well for life outside of Belmont Hill. Our trips to the East Coast are now few and far between, and we weren’t able to attend the reunion, but to all, we extend our warm Aloha!”
I married Judith Meader in 1965 and we were blessed with two lovely daughters, who in turn have married and given us seven grandchildren. After our stint as corporate vagabonds, we decided that we wanted to again live on the West Coast to be closer to our immediate family. Both daughters and their husbands had graduated from UC Davis and Berkeley, and had established their career paths in California. One daughter, a dentist, is married to a periodontist; the other daughter is a Ph.D. adolescent neuropsychologist married to a chemical engineer. After several years of semi-retirement, during which I served on several boards, my engineer son-in-law and I decided to open a company that has been making acquisitions and operating each after restructuring. Our family enterprise is prospering in today’s tough business climate, but as expected, not without challenges. I hope this will keep me young at heart and focused in mind. Technology allows me to manage our business with a minimum of travel, quite unlike my earlier experience, and we do so from our main office in the Bay Area and from my home office in Hawaii. Judy and I split our time
STEVE HOOD writes, “As a ‘newly minted graduate’ back in the early 1960s I remember locating information about the Class of 1960 at the very end of the listings in the alumni Bulletin. Alas, each year our class inches further from the back and closer to the front of the list. I guess this means we are getting old. As a 30-year resident of Alabama, I’ve not been able to attend Belmont Hill functions in recent years but want you to know that my hopes, thoughts, and best wishes are with you and members of the faculty, staff, and student body. In view of your interest in the Old Days, I offer the following memories. I was not a strong student in those days. When I entered in the Fourth Form, groups and cliques were already established. PAUL FREMONT-SMITH and I were the only new kids on the block. Although some of you graduated cum laude, I graduated ‘Lordy how come!’ HENRY SAWYER ’32 conjugated a new Latin verb in my honor: ‘Flunko Flunary Faculty Bounce ’em.’ Belmont Hill now has a varsity golf team. Belmont Hill also basks in the excitement of the annual Henry B. Sawyer Golf Outing. But it was not always this way. Back in the ’60s neither a varsity golf team nor an alumni golf tournament were a reality. Indeed, they were not even on the drawing board. There were a number of students who wanted to start a golf team,
and Henry Sawyer tried to work behind the scenes to support such a venture, but alas, it was not to be. RON BURKE ’59 and I met several times with the athletic director, Bill Croke. The Burke and Hood families belonged to the Winchester Country Club, and our parents had arranged to have this club become the ‘home venue’ for Belmont Hill golf. Mr. Croke realized that there was an excellent chance that this venture would succeed and feared the golf team would ‘steal’ students away from the tennis, baseball, and crew teams. Our effort was doomed to failure. The golf team sank in the Charles River, double faulted on the tennis court, and was ruled out of base on the baseball diamond. Another idea that fell by the wayside concerned the class yearbook. When DAVE HILL and I learned that we would be on the same page, we had a great idea for combining the little sayings that follow our name. We pulled our cars up close to each other, with the front bumpers actually touching. I sat on the hood of Dave’s car and he sat on the hood of my car. We wanted to combine our two pictures and short phrases into just one: Hill sitting on Hood’s Hood Hood sitting on Hill’s Hood At Belmont Hill Although I was not a strong student while at Belmont Hill, I turned things around and eventually earned a Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin. Professionally, I have authored/co-authored 10 books or book chapters, 30 professional journal articles, 28 articles for newsletters and Internet sources, given 59 professional conference presentations and workshops, and given talks to faculty and students at 28 different colleges and universities. As a university professor and speech pathologist for 30 years, I have taught thousands of students in undergraduate, master’s, and doctoral classes, and in professional workshops. By the time I retired as a full professor, I had been department chairperson and director of the Speech and Hearing Clinic at two different universities. My major area of clinical work has been in the area of stuttering, where I have been privileged
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and honored to help hundreds of children, teens, and adults to speak more fluently and more effectively. Personally, Nancy and I have been married for more than 40 years, and have raised one son and one daughter. We now have two grandsons. As a matter of fact, we plan to move to North Georgia in order to be closer to our kids and grandkids. Unfortunately, we will still be far distant from Belmont Hill.” ALAN KLINE writes, “We are anxiously awaiting our tenth grandchild. Favorite teachers: Mr. Max (Maxwell), Mr. Ross, and Mr. Togneri. Vision for the future: Take life one day at a time.” This from MIKE MORGAN: “It was fun to reconnect at our 55th reunion this spring and see classmates again at the class dinner. 2015 has been a year of transition and change. I ended my assignment as Episcopal priest-in-charge of a predominately African-American congregation in Germantown (Philadelphia), PA, remarried, relocated to North Jersey in the shadow of New York’s Statue of Liberty, and then accepted still another ‘call’ as interim rector of a parish in Scotch Plains, NJ. Along the way, I returned briefly to Cambridge, MA for an Episcopal Divinity School (EDS) alumni gathering and was genuinely surprised to receive the 2015 Distinguished Alumni/ae Award, presented annually to graduates who have done outstanding work in advancing the EDS mission of justice, compassion, and reconciliation for all, either within the seminary community or elsewhere. My acceptance speech was mercifully brief—primarily because I was stunned speechless!” From GREGG ROBINSON comes: “There was an incredibly nurturing community at Belmont Hill. I have lasting friendships and fond memories of a time when we were sheltered from the vicissitudes of life.” JOHN WELCH reports, “I’m glad to report that life has been good to me since our 50th reunion. My daily routine has changed drastically since I retired from a nearly 45-year stint as a general surgeon. My career path was focused on a surgical
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career after leaving Belmont Hill: Harvard College and Medical School and a five-year residency at Mass. General Hospital, with a year of research in England interposed. After working at Womack Army Hospital at Fort Bragg, NC for two years in a post-Vietnam ‘Berry Plan’ commitment, I joined a surgical practice at Hartford Hospital in Hartford, CT, where I worked until 2012. I happened to read a rather elegant 50th reunion report today by MICHAEL NIGRO ’62 when I was looking at some past Belmont Hill Bulletins. His experience was similar to mine. As a surgeon, your daily routine includes sick patients, busy OR schedules, emergencies and night call, and lots of paper work. It is very difficult to ‘taper down’ this lifestyle significantly when approaching retirement if you want to support your colleagues in a group practice, especially since malpractice premiums continue high, even for a surgeon who stops working in the operating room. I admittedly experienced some trepidation when I walked out of the hospital freshly retired in December 2012 since my career had been so exciting and fulfilling. I have read numerous times that it is a mistake to leave a job that has occupied you night and day ‘cold-turkey.’ My solution was to take a world cruise within days of my retirement, the ‘trip of a lifetime.’ Marylou had travelled far and wide while I was working, and it was time to play catch-up. We travelled to Europe, the Middle East, Southeast Asia, Australia, New Zealand, and Africa. This was quite an eye opener. Lasting impressions: standing alone in front of a huge pyramid in Cairo; transiting the Suez Canal; the skyline in Dubai; lush rainforests in Sri Lanka and Mauritius; gold-leaf Buddhas in Bangkok; the Bund in Shanghai; the harbor and Victoria Peak in Hong Kong; the birds, inlets and mountains in Milford Sound, New Zealand; the hillside botanic gardens in Wellington; the incredibly active harbor in Sydney; the expansive view from Table Mountain in Cape Town; the fascinating Namibian desert; and the flowers of Madeira. The influence of the Portuguese, Dutch, and especially British colonizers could
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be seen everywhere. Poverty and wealth. Bucolic scenes and chaotic cities. A trip like this brings the New York Times to life. I also remember waking up one morning realizing that I had lived under a life of stress, constantly carrying around thoughts of doing a difficult operation on a sick patient, or worrying why a post-operative patient was not improving. I never had taken more than 10 days off, and truly I was now experiencing a ‘perpetual vacation.’ I am spending most of my time now fulfilling some of my hobbies, but ironically I don’t have time to do them all. I am an outdoor person, and gardening, golf, and skiing take up quite a bit of my time. Exercise, especially riding a bicycle or going to the gym, is fun. Not being very efficient (I take all day, it seems, to do a few menial tasks), I haven’t found enough time to play the organ or piano; to enjoy painting (I took many classes on the cruise); or to read all the magazines and books I have in stacks. Most of all, Marylou and I enjoy a happy marriage. Our children, grandchildren, grandnephews, and grandnieces occupy much of our time. We all congregate at Lake Winnipesauke in the course of the summer, and I have the good fortune of staying there for months at a time. We are comfortable in our new home in a condominium community in Bloomfield, CT. Your residence just takes care of itself when you jaunt in all directions. At the time of this writing, I look toward the reunion in May 2015 and am anticipating another long trip around the entire continent of South America during the winter and, I hope, good health. My memories of Belmont Hill are strongly etched in my mind. I have kept close contacts with classmates like ART NORTON and TOM WARREN, and reunions have renewed my friendships with a number of others. How lucky we were to get such a great education in our teens! I think back to Roger Duncan as I read bad grammar, and I cringe. Latin with Mr. Jenney, Shakespeare with David Aloian, reviewing the New York Times ‘Week in Review’ with Mr. Calder, chemistry experiments with Mr. Richardson, creating a panel with Angelo Togneri—
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experiences that I will never forget. Our school was immature in those days but full of spirit on the athletic fields and on the ice. Now it is grown up and revered, and I am thankful to be part of the tradition.”
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55 TH REUNION MAY 13 & 14, 2016
1962 The Chapel-Hill Chauncy Hall School in Waltham has named ALDEN HARRINGTON as its new treasurer for its board of trustees.
1964 From PETE BRUNO comes: “We’re really retiring and moving to care for grandchildren—holding our breath and hoping.”
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1960 classmates Tom DiMare and Anthony Belluschi on a three-day fishing trip on the Rogue River in Southern Oregon, October 2014.
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Judy and Dave Brooks ’60.
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Steve Hood ’60.
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Tom Warren ’60, John Welch ’60, and Arthur Norton ’60, February 2014 ski trip to Revelstoke, British Columbia.
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Rick Wile ’60, Jacqueline Wile, Mike Morgan ’60, Paul Fremont-Smith ’60, and Carol Fremont-Smith at the 55th Reunion dinner on May 16.
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May 16, 2015 Grand Reunion Dinner, from left to right: Alan Rice ’63, Gail Rice, Tony Oberdorfer ’57, Sallie Brainard, and Dave Brainard ’58.
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Ellen and Jonathan Lovell ’63 of San Jose, CA visited the campus on June 23, 2015.
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1965 TOM AMON writes, “In the 50 years since graduation, I have had the good fortune of reliving high school through my three sons. The unfortunate fact was that this meant reliving calculus and Beowulf. So I called in help. 50 years ago, we called what I did ‘cribbing,’ but I learned to call it ‘delegation.’ My wife Carol, a federal judge, had to coach the boys through homework, freeing me to cheer at sports events. The priorities I had established at Belmont Hill were redeemed, and karma for all those prison sentences she dealt out was satisfied by the misery she endured trying to get my sons to focus on derivatives and infinitesimals. Acorns, tree… To paraphrase William Hurt in The Big Chill, 50 years ago we knew everything there was to know about each other, but
with time we know nothing. That provides a valuable opportunity for reacquaintance. Nothing should cloud the joy of seeing how things turned out for most of us, or the grace of sympathy for those for whom things didn’t turn out as hoped. We came out of an era when ‘swappin’ lies, swattin’ flies, firing the odd shot here and there’ looked to frame our futures. A jolt from 1950s youth. But any change was only an adjustment to the momentum the School gave most of us towards adulthood. As I write this, it doesn’t seem like 50 years—but I am sure it looks like 50 years! I have learned the key to not aging, though:
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hang out with younger people! My wife and I were recently at a dinner party and one of our contemporaries asked: ‘Do you all have your cemetery plots yet?’ At that moment, we resolved to find younger friends! So if you see me hanging out with the Class of 1990 reunion weekend, come on over and say hello!” From RANDY BYRNES: “Just the facts, Ma’am. Post Belmont Hill: University of Pennsylvania, B.A. history, 1969. United States Navy, Lt. (jg), active duty, 1969–72 aboard USS Wm. R. Rush (DD714). Harvard Business School, M.B.A., 1974. Career in office building/real estate development primarily in Washington, DC area. Present: semi-retired, trying to remain relevant. Family: married Cheryl (1988). Five children, ages 15–37. Having dispensed with the obligatory curriculum vitae, I shall reflect on the time since we received our diplomas on the Chapel lawn on that sunny morning of June 4, 1965. So if you will indulge me . . . As it turned out, 1946–47 was in many ways an ideal time to be born. We were Americans endowed with liberty paid for by previous generations. Our fathers’ generation had just saved us from a cataclysmic fate had the Second World War been lost. We were about to embark on decades of prosperity where the forces of the free market would allow upward mobility for so many as never before seen in any other country. And at Belmont Hill we were afforded the finest educational experience any young boy and his family could aspire to. As in all times, of course, there were societal problems: injustices, numerous tragedies, and international conflicts. No generation has been or will be free of such events, for these are caused by human frailty. Yet for the 51 of us who were fortunate enough to graduate from Belmont Hill, life was full of potential. However, our culture began to change during our college years and would never
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be the same. This was disruptive for many of us. From my perspective, we entered a period of narcissism and hedonism. Rules were replaced by rights. Middle class morality was scorned. Outlandish standards of sexuality, language, and popular culture permeated our society. Hard work and sacrifice were supplanted by consumerism and entertainment. As a pampered generation with a sense of entitlement, many were bored easily and turned to ‘sex, drugs, and rock and roll’…and political activism in search for meaning. The balance of the ’60s and the decade of the ’70s became a mix of moral relativism and political absolutism. To me, this cultural evolution that began after our Belmont Hill graduation has brought us to where we are today: a largely fragmented society, where the battle for advantages via politics has Balkanized our society into angry single-issue groups, each grasping for that to which they feel entitled. The sense of community we knew as kids has largely disappeared. As a nation, we are now far less disciplined and lack a common purpose. (I truly doubt that today’s population would en masse muster a similar effort to defend America with such purpose and vigor as our fathers did in WWII.) Additionally, we have largely become a nonjudgmental, secular society, where illegitimate births are no longer stigmatized, drugs are legalized, marriage is redefined, and victimization has replaced personal responsibility. The upshot of this is a society far different (and worse, in my opinion) than that in which we grew up. Having spent most of my career and having raised my family in the Washington, D.C. environs, I must admit to a constant struggle with cynicism. I see elected representatives who are more self-serving than selfless and who lie with such ease. I see ever-growing federal government intent on indiscriminate meddling by unwieldy and now increasingly politicized bureaucracies (EPA, DOJ, IRS, OSHA, BLM, HHS, etc.), which seem to have become a powerful fourth branch of government never envisioned by our Founding Fathers. Sadly, I also see out-of-control spending (always
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dubbed ‘investments’ of course) which will inevitably catch up to us…or our children and grandchildren. These factors and the ever-present scandals perpetrated by the next bad Washington, D.C. politician have weakened people’s trust in government as an effective means of promoting liberty. So does all of this make me a certifiable curmudgeon? Perhaps. Yet while I worry about the America that my kids and grandchildren will inherit, I am filled with gratitude for all that has been bestowed upon me. Now at 68 years old, I look in the mirror and see my dad (who fortunately is still with us.) I look at my hands and, seeing spots there, I remember my grandfather whom I loved so much as a boy. I write a sentence and am sure to be careful with structure and punctuation lest I betray Henry Sawyer or Roger Duncan. These and other memories inspire and sustain me to this day. Health, family, friends, my faith, my country, and time have all been a gift that I hope never to take for granted. There are so many others on this planet who have little or none of these advantages. I will remain ever thankful to my parents and so many Belmont Hill teachers, for it is their shoulders upon which I have stood for the last 50 years. Finally, I am grateful for all of you, my classmates, who set such a high standard for academic excellence, healthy ambition, and ethical behavior. (Most of the time anyway!) Thank you all.” EDWARD COUNIHAN shares his journey: 1965–1969: Syracuse University, B.A., English Literature; 1969–1972: Suffolk University Law School, J.D.; 1973: Bates College of Law, Houston, TX; National College of Criminal Defense Law & Public Defenders Lawyers; 1974–1978: General practice of law, Cambridge, MA.; 1978–1985: administrative assistant in the abandoned property division, office of Massachusetts State Treasurer, Robert Crane; 1985–2008: Attorney, Committee for Public Council Service; 2008–2014: General practice of law; Interests and hobbies: jazz, jazz piano, tennis, golf, mystery novels, and detective stories.
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Class of 1965 - 50th Reunion – May 16, 2015 – From left to right, first row: Ted Counihan, Ken Martin, Linda Martin, John Lintner, Leslie Lintner, Peter Bowen, Jane Bowen, and Peter Gilpatric. Second row: Tom Amon, Susan Petrlik, Carol Amon, Damon Spilios, Randy Byrnes, Susan Murray, Peter Mueller, and Robin Murray. Third row: Jean Koslowski, Bob Goldkamp, Marilyn Fenollosa, and Chip Broadhurst. Back row: Tom Koslowski, Richard Baker, Fred Carr, and Mike Fenollosa.
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Cherry and Tom Frost ’65.
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TOM FROST also shares his post-Belmont Hill experiences: 1969: Lehigh University, B.A. in economics; 1970-71: Mellon Bank, Pittsburgh; 1971-93: Frost Company (New England Wholesale Distributor of Outdoor Power Equipment – owner); 1993-98: Eagle Wire Rope Corporation – owner; 1998-2015 (retired in January): Merrill Lynch, vice president. In 1971, I married Cherry Myrick, R.N., who currently works at Winchester Hospital
Breast Care Center, and we have three children: Cheri Glennon (Randolph Macon), who’s married, has three children, and lives in Stony Brook, NY; Brittany Graffagnino (Furman), who’s married, has two children, and lives in Atlanta, GA; and Brad (Bates), who’s married, has one child, and lives in Charlestown, MA. We’re living next to salt water and fresh water—Charlestown Navy Yard and Barrington, NH (Swains Lake). I’m very much
enjoying life and am thankful for good health, a rewarding career, and a wonderful family.” PETER GILPATRIC writes, “My years at Belmont Hill were very demanding but very enjoyable, giving me great opportunities in academics and sports. I then spent four wonderful years at Ithaca College, high above Lake Cayuga’s waters, where I earned a B.A. in history. My entire business career has been in the
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Tom Amon (left) ’65 and his family.
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Robin Murray ’65, Leslie Lintner, and John Lintner ’65 at the Alumni Weekend Reception on May 15.
insurance industry. It started at Liberty Mutual Insurance Company in Boston as a personal lines underwriter. It has included working for numerous companies and surplus lines wholesale brokerage firms in the Boston area, including opening a U.S. office for a Lloyd’s of London reinsurance broker. One of the most enjoyable positions was serving as the program manager for the AIG/Willis Mountain Guard Ski Program for six years. I was able to see and ski the best ski areas in the United States and had a race team at the AIG Ski Challenge Charity at Stowe, VT for 10 years. In 2009, I left AIG to head up the property division of the newly formed middle market division of Liberty Mutual in the Boston home office. Due to a corporate reorganization in 2010, my position was eliminated, and I was assigned the position I now have as senior property referral underwriter. Funny how it works out—I started my career at Liberty Mutual and will end my career there after many other stops in between. In June 1991, Suzanne Moschitto, a reading specialist from Medford, and I were married at Belmont Hill. On a hot steamy Saturday with HENRY SAWYER in attendance, we said our vows in the Hamilton Chapel with a reception following in the LaCroix Room in what was then the
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‘new’ gymnasium. From a family standpoint I did things a little backward, as my son Colin was born in June 1994. He has been an absolute pleasure, and I am so glad I did not miss the experience. Currently he is attending Fairfield University at the Dolan School of Business in its Class of 2016. Suzanne is retired after 35 years of teaching, and I am thinking about retiring from Liberty sometime after Colin graduates. If I do, I would like to work on a part-time basis mentoring and training younger associates at a large insurance agency owned by a close business friend, but only time will tell. My close connection with the Alumni House staff over the years as class agent, past president of the Alumni Association, and a member of the Corporation has been a wonderful and rewarding experience. As of this writing, I hope to see as many of you as possible at the reunion and look forward to hearing what’s been happening in your lives.” From JONATHAN HUBBARD comes: “I have temporarily mislaid subjects but will try to communicate with verbs and objects (regrets to Messrs. Plummer, Willey, and Duncan). After (1) repeating the Fifth Form, (2) compiling the worst wrestling record in
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Belmont Hill history, and (3) carving the dullest panel ever, I entered Harvard under its mistaken assumption that I had lettered in hockey. Ha! I graduated with honors, but needed two years of summer school due to a catastrophic freshman year. I avoided military service due to a history of ear infections. In 1970, I met future Young Bride (YB), who was on a semester hiatus from the University of Chicago to study Spanish in Cuernavaca, Mexico. I married YB in 1976, after working as an AP stringer in São Paulo, Brazil, maintenance electrician in Chicago, and trust officer in a Portland, ME bank. With two small sons, I moved with YB to Lincoln, MA and lived with parents for 10 years (this was very hard on YB). After getting an M.B.A. from BU, I became an investor relations/corporate communications professional for a series of Boston-area firms that either acquired other companies or were acquired themselves. (Never discount the old boy network, as I was hired for the first investor relations job by CHIP BROADHURST.) At YB’s urging, we moved back to the Chicago area in 2001, where I worked as a corporate communications consultant for eight years before retiring. After getting her
M.B.A. and working for years in textbook sales, YB finally retired last year. Yes! There are many benefits to Chicagoland, including friendships with numerous in-laws, plus a wonderful summer cottage on northern Lake Michigan. Retirement is proving quite pleasant, despite YB mandating moves to smaller and smaller homes, resulting in painful downsizing. Ouch! Also, wish that I didn’t have to fly back to New England to find hike-worthy mountains. The whole Midwest is very flat. I’m not attending the 50th reunion, alas. I have mixed thoughts about Belmont Hill. Fred Calder was the best teacher I ever had, hands down, and the current headmaster apparently is capable and inspiring, but I wish the School was coed. I’m not holding my breath on that one, though! Lastly, a quick shout-out to BILL KARELIS, whose book on meditation and several too-brief phone conversations are much appreciated. Keep up the good work, my friend.” JOHN LINTNER writes, “I began my 25th reunion autobiography with the line, ‘Still Tex after all these years.’ Events have continued to accumulate, many with much joy, but I find myself increasingly the same at the core. I wouldn’t have thought that I would see much of my father in myself, but I do, not just in the face, but also in habits and inclinations. Tennis is new since my time at Belmont Hill. I got started through the back door, in a sense, because I was asked to work in a tennis camp sponsored by Rumsey Hall School, where I first worked after college. The school needed a liaison to the camp, someone employed by the school and also working at the camp. Having taught summer school the previous summer and finding that I was exhausted by November, I thought that tennis camp would be a little more relaxing, and it was. I remember remarking that I played better tennis when I was in better shape, 10 or 20 years ago. Now, I am quite content to be playing tennis at all. I sing the mantra, ‘No injuries, no injuries,’ every time I step onto the court.
Lawyering did not work out as I had hoped, but much of the experience that came with law school and trying law with a firm and with the Waterbury Superior Court is valuable experience. I see how working in private school education is a very good fit for me and see it even better after being in the law for a little while. Marriage is wonderful. Leslie and I have been married 49 years. Together with our children Robyn, 46, and Todd, 44, we are enjoying wonderful family times. Fairly often we see Robyn and her husband, Matt, a middle school principal, and their two children, Eli, 16, and Mackenzie (Mack), 14. They live in Torrington, about 40 minutes away from us. Less often, two or three times a year, we see Todd, his wife Fiona, and their two sons, Rowan, 13 and Breckan, 11. We have established and maintained a weeklong Camp Lintner during the summer. It has floated from our home in Connecticut to Dewey Beach, DE, to Lake Sunapee in New Hampshire, and now to Old Orchard Beach in Maine. I do miss teaching English. I moved away from it because I began to feel buried by piles of compositions that needed grading. While those compositions were a welcome challenge when I was younger, they became burdensome later on. I find that I have been memorizing poems periodically. That started as an outgrowth of my teaching English at Kent School. Before that, I had not done much with Middle English. I had read and fallen in love with Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, but not in Middle English. I had not read much of The Canterbury Tales. At Kent, juniors were reading British Literature, and many teachers required their students to memorize the first 18 lines of The Canterbury Tales in Middle English. As a new teacher I thought that I should adopt that tradition, so I did, and I began to feel a little hypocritical that I couldn’t do what I was asking my students to do. Hence, I did that memorization—and found it revealing. The recitation helped a lot with the sound of the Middle English. It also reminded me that such memory work was not so hard. Since then I have memorized several poems
including many by Robert Frost. One in particular I shared at our reunion. Retirement is coming but not this year. I have been working as a college counselor at Kent School since 1999 (first as an English teacher, until 2002). Recently, I have been asked by the headmaster to do some research that largely replaces my work with current students. I am now working with alumni to find out year of graduation, type of degree, major, and so on. That is different and a welcome task for the moment. I continue with the same title and status as fulltime teacher. I coach tennis, indoors during the winter with intramurals, and outdoors in the spring with our boys’ third team. I also serve as chairman of the disciplinary committee. As I think about what to do with myself after I stop working full time, I think about more music (choir, guitar, learning better to read music), a book club maybe (at a library or my own), and travel. Gratitude is a feeling I find myself cultivating. I celebrate it. I count my blessings, and they are many. An education at Belmont Hill is among those blessings. Thanks to everyone who had anything to do with it: teachers, administrators, parents, and especially on this occasion of our 50th anniversary of graduation, you, my classmates.” PETER MUELLER writes, “I have been looking at the 50-year summaries since I started as a member of the ‘Tyler Road Gang’ as a 5th grader; in those days we had the Lower School and a really small class, I think about 15 kids. Amazingly, nine of us from the same neighborhood were in the same class. We often got together on weekends and holidays and played football, hockey, and baseball in those idyllic days of the late ’50s. Belmont Hill in those days was a small conservative school that stressed academics and athletics; I survived thanks to people like Messrs. Sawyer, Morton, Calder, Ingham, Richardson, and many more; the old hockey rink was visible from my bedroom, and I spent many hours cleaning the ice and skating. I still love the feel of skating outside on a cold day, though I don’t go too much these days.
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I graduated from Belmont Hill happy and naive. Like many of us, the college experience, exposure to different people, and the Vietnam War shaped me for years to come; I played hockey at Harvard for three years (freshmen didn’t play varsity in those days), but by the end of my senior year, I was more interested in being with my roommates, learning about the SDS, and reading The Strawberry Statement. I was glad to be exposed to the ‘real world.’
particularly hockey. My son ZACH ’02, now 30, went there, and although the School has changed considerably, he also found some great teachers who mentored him.
I was scrambling to get into medical school at the end of 1969 and was lucky to make the University of Cincinnati. (The director of admissions was a Harvard graduate.) Moving to Ohio was eye opening for me; I realized that I had grown up so provincial that I didn’t even realize that leaves changed color in the fall outside of New England.
ROSS MAYBERRY writes, “I was sent to Belmont Hill at the age of 15 in 1964 with an IQ 0f 150, undiagnosed PTSD, and undiagnosed/unnamed ADHD. Small chance that I would thrive, and yet I did, in my own way. For the longest time I thought that the school didn’t help me, but, upon reflection, the people at Belmont Hill did help me—a lot. No, I did not go to Harvard or Yale or any other name-brand school. I did no homework and studying was not in the program for me. I took another route. Since there is some chance that I may retire in the near future in the Falmouth/Megansett area, where my family has lived for almost 100 years, I thought I would tell my story in case anyone has an interest in rekindling a relationship. You choose. It should not be a great surprise that Roger Fenn Duncan hated me. I was smart, undisciplined, and uncontrollable, and he didn’t like that. I’m sure he was trying to reform me, but it was well before we understood much of what boiled beneath the surface in teens. I was told in Fourth and Fifth Form that I had racked up the largest number of detention hours in the history of the School. I served five hours concurrently every hour on Saturday mornings. Otherwise, the monitors would never get a summer break. Now they weren’t going to throw me out, as they did my buddies Jeff Jones, Steve Bell, and Whit Porter, not with a dead father and a famous grandfather. They were going to reform me! Good luck. I was really incorrigible. I’m the only person I know that had his driver’s license revoked nine days after his 16th birthday (fact.) My only claim to Belmont Hill fame is that I wrote much of the biweekly Panel from 1965 to 1967,
While there I met my wife, Susan Wendel, who was one of three women in her class. (Things were different then.) She had gone to Simmons, so both of us were happy to move back to Boston after five years there. After medical school, I went into radiology. I was lucky again because as I began to specialize in the new modalities that were just developing, I latched on to interventional radiology, basically image-guided (CT, ultrasound, X-ray) minimally invasive surgery. Because I was at the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, I was in on many of the early developments in this specialty. My boss was a great mentor, and, shockingly, even without PAUL ZOFNASS, BILLY KARELIS, or JACK REED helping me, I wrote a number of publications on this new field. This led to many invitations around the country and the world, which exposed me to new friends and adventures. I remain at the MGH where I have been for the last 40 years, though I know I must step down in the next few years. Personally, Susan and I have three children and four grandchildren, and feel lucky that they are close by and we can see them often. Though I don’t see my Belmont Hill friends much, I still go to the School (I live in Lexington) and watch sports events,
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Like everybody else it is hard to believe that 50 years have passed since our time at Belmont Hill, but I feel lucky to have started there.”
1967
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despite being on academic probation and barred from participating. You won’t see my name there that much. Despite the names on the bylines, I did most of that writing. Thank you, Mr. Burnett. So, I did OK, in my own way. My friends, JOHN FULHAM, LINC HOMES, and CHARLIE OSBORNE, cared about me, protected me, and defended me. Others, KEN RICHARDSON and GREG AUDITORE—and teachers, George Seeley among others—stood by me. Girls from Dana Hall—Leslie Watt (R.I.P.), Lee Hall, Beth Cannon, Cheryl Forte, Jane Herrick— were kind to me well beyond anything I could offer back. So what happened to this Belmont Hill goofball? What is the point of this? It’s a happy ending. So, I worked as a laborer on the docks in South Boston for a year after college, got a full scholarship into a Ph.D. program in comparative religion, graduated with an M.A., lived and taught high school in Greece for three years, attended the Jung Institute in Zurich for a year, nailed a 780/690/690 on the GREs, and came back to the U.S. to get a Ph.D. in psychology. I was hired as the first non-vet war protestor in the Viet Nam Vet Center system. I won several awards in that system over the next five years, during the time when Viet Nam vets were considered outcasts in our society. Since then I have been a full-time single father to three darling daughters (one with the Yale M.B.A. I could never have gotten), written movies, headed two health care organizations, pitched in the Seattle hardball league against pro and semi-pro players, and taken part in advanced Buddhist mindfulness training. I have been a Ph.D. psychologist during that time, helping those who, like myself, had some tough breaks. Many of them have healed. I am not rich and I am not famous. But I’m OK. I’m really OK. I needed to say this.” www.rossmayberryphd.com ALAN WOODWARD is proud to share that he was honored by the Massachusetts Medical Society as the 2015 recipient of its Lifetime Achievement Award given to a member of the Society who has made a lasting contribution to the practice of
medicine over a lifetime and who has made significant contributions to the goals of the Society. He received the award, the Society’s most prestigious honor, at its annual meeting in Boston in May 2015.
1968 SCOTT ANDERSON writes, “I’m retired, living in Falmouth. I’m sharpening my hockey skates, enjoying life, and working out every day.”
1970 From BRUCE AMSBARY comes: “The past
five years have flown by with lots happening as you can see below. Unfortunately, I missed the 45th reunion due to another commitment that we couldn’t change, but I know that you all had fun catching up and having a good time! Nothing will stop me
do something besides what her B.A. had prepared her for. On her own, she took the necessary science prerequisites so that she could enter Simmons College’s nursing program. She graduated from there in May of 2013 with a second bachelor’s degree and
from being at our 50th! Best wishes to you all.
is currently working as a pediatric psychiatric registered nurse at Franciscan Hospital for Children in Brighton, MA. She loves the work she is doing and is happy with the seven-minute commute from the condo she recently purchased in Watertown. We are now finally ‘empty nesters.’
Our son, Scott, after seven years of living in Nashville, moved a year and a-half ago to settle in Brooklyn, NY. As he has said, Nashville was too conservative for his music interests, which he is taking up in NYC. He will still need his day job! Our older daughter, Sarah, was married to Bret Eytinge in April 2014 in Seattle, WA. She works as the associate director of admissions for the Foster Business School at the University of Washington, and her husband is an audit manager for Boeing. They are firmly settled in Seattle, but she travels internationally extensively for her job. In addition, she earned her M.B.A. from the Foster School in June 2015, receiving the outstanding student award in the evening program by the unanimous choice of the business faculty. Our younger daughter, after graduating from Mount Holyoke in 2009, found that she really wanted to
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My wife Betsy retired last fall after seven years as the student billing manager at the Walnut Hill School for the Arts in Natick. She is currently involved in various volunteer activities, bridge, golf, and tennis. In June, I retired from full-time work at the Rivers School, where I served as director of finance and operations/assistant treasurer for 28 years. I convinced them to keep me on for three months in a part-time capacity to help in transition and training for the new people they will be hiring. We have been working on a transition plan for the last three years. Thankfully, I am leaving the place with a Rivers alum who I trained in my place. It has been a very rewarding career, and I hope to do some consulting and volunteering once October rolls around. In 2012, I was recognized at Rivers’ Alumni Weekend for 25 years of service to the School, and a month later at the Prize Day, I was awarded the National Business Officers Association (NBOA) Will J. Hancock Unsung Hero Award in recognition of dedicated service to Rivers and the profession. I was humbled to have received these special recognitions. I am also honored to serve on the Audit Committee for Belmont Hill. Both Belmont Hill and I have benefited from this relationship.
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Ross Mayberry ’67.
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Amsbary Family – Dana, Bruce ’70, Bret Eytinge, Sarah Eytinge, Betsy, and Scott.
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We have been lucky to be able to travel all these years. Having worked most of the summers due to seasonal workload, that made it possible for us to travel at off-season to some very interesting places over the last five years, including Hawaii, Scotland, Alaska, Budapest on a Danube River cruise, New Orleans, Louisiana, the Caribbean Islands, and an extended week each summer on Lake Champlain. All in all, life is good. We will have some downsizing to do over the next few years. It’s amazing how you accumulate so much. And travel will surely be in the cards.” BRIAN BIXBY writes, “I have to say that everything has gone according to plan—as if I really had a plan. I was able to attend my first-choice college, Brown University, which had a ‘new curriculum’ devoid of distribution requirements, and where students could create their own major. Mine was urban studies, which subsequently has become a department at Brown. I then was able to avoid the draft and attend Northeastern University School of Law, the only such school that had a co-op program. That enabled me to choose from several job offers. I spent 10 years at Ropes & Gray, 10 years at my own firm, Cuddy Bixby, and since then have been a partner at Burns & Levinson LLP, where I chair the private client group. Christine and I eloped the weekend before I started work at Ropes & Gray, and we have been married ever since. This is the 38th year. We have a son, Benjamin, who started a little business ultimately acquired by Google in 2014, and now lives in
Palo Alto, CA. And our daughter, Meredith, moved last year from L.A. to San Francisco. And perhaps best of all, 2014 also gave us our first grandchild, Max Bixby, named after my grandfather. Life is good.” This from PETER DALE: “When I attended Belmont Hill, cars had ashtrays and cigarette lighters, telephones were black and had rotary dials and real bells. Televisions used tubes, had rabbit-ear antennae and at most six channels. Typewriters used carbon paper; cameras used film. A long-distance call was a special event and dimes were needed for payphones. There were no personal computers, no Internet, no email, no smart phones and no apps. There was no Facebook, no LinkedIn, no Twitter or Tumblr; no friending or unfriending, liking or unliking. Life was simple—maybe not better. Belmont Hill’s teachers were crackerjack and taught us to think and learn on our own—independently. That is their legacy and what I’m grateful for, what I value. They drove VW Beetles, smoked pipes, and wore gray trousers, red loafers, tweed jackets, and bow ties. They brought their dogs to class—golden retrievers, of course. They drove school buses, carpooled with students to the Hill, and ate cookies and milk with the rest of us. Many were given nicknames due to the rigor of their courses or just for the fun of it. They cared about our education, and we knew it. At 16, a summer job with Belmont Hill’s buildings and grounds crew allowed me to learn to drive standard transmission on two Willys Jeeps and a Ford dump truck. I repaired the Eliot House stairway balusters with broken hock-
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ey sticks and cleaned an electric coal feeder for one of the dorms, where I witnessed the July 1969 lunar landing on an ancient console TV. The Keller Rink was outdoors; the poor man’s Zamboni was an artful creation. The soccer field always needed work. At that time, out of need I suppose, Belmont Hill was thrifty in the Yankee tradition. I miss that attitude but not the reality. I haven’t kept in touch with my classmates aside from receiving HENRY MAGNO’s welcomed choral news exchanges and following NICK DOWNES’ cartoon humor in Barron’s. I am now semi-retired and winding down the salon business after 20 years. I have recently become engaged to Melissa Norton, a tech-savvy book person (5,000 volumes and counting). She is intellectually curious and has made me more so. Above all, we are good companions. At last, as my sun begins to set, I finally seem to have my day in the sun and hope to have enough time to enjoy it. Best wishes to all.” CHIP GOGAN writes, “My favorites among many good Belmont Hill teachers were Henry Sawyer ’32, who gave us confidence in our writing; Roger Duncan, who imparted nautical wisdom and natural history in teaching us Moby Dick; Herbert Mattlage, who taught us plane geometry with the help of “Joe Pythagoras”; Donald Stewart, who introduced us to the pilgrims of The Canterbury Tales; and Harold Prenatt, who listened to us so well. My education and work post-Belmont Hill: Hampshire College B. A.; selling Oriental rugs; Boston University M.Ed.; teaching English as a second language, Iran; Chamberlayne Junior College; Harvard Graduate School of Education, doctoral studies; Harvard Recycling & Surplus. I made the best decision of my life when I married Frann Addison in 1982. We bought our first house in Maynard in 1984, our son Josh was born in 1986, our son Zach followed in 1990, we moved to our current
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Brian Bixby ’70.
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Robert “Chip” Gogan ’70 with his wife Frann Addison at the 2014 Clearwater Hudson River Revival Festival.
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Class of 1970 - 45th Reunion - May 16, 2015 - From left to right, front row: David Cancian, Hal Thayer, Tom Ulfelder, Arthur Zervas, Harris Contos, and Peter Dale. Second row: Henry Magno, Marcia Herrera, Ted Eaton, Jean Ulfelder, Jean-Paul (Don) Ouellette, Alan Cath, Dorothy Contos, and Melissa Norton. Third row: Stephen Johnson, Tom Siebert, Lynne Zervas, Susan Samuelson, and Bill Samuelson.
house in Acton in 1998, and Josh and his fiancée Grace will get married later in 2015. I continue to find deep satisfaction in helping members of the Harvard community divert their discards for reuse, recycling, or composting. The most glorious aspect of my career to date has been providing surplus reusable furniture, clothing, books, computers, and supplies from the wealthiest university in the U.S. to over 300 charities and needy individuals from Greater Boston, the Caribbean, Central America, Africa, and elsewhere around the world. We have recovered 25,000 tons of reusables, raised $900,000 for Harvard Habitat for Humanity though their ‘Stuff Sale,’ and helped Harvard affiliates and neighbors save an estimated $100 million in avoided purchase costs. My favorite hobby is sailing boats designed by Phil Bolger of Gloucester. Frann and I have had several
sailing adventures around southern New England and hope for many more coastal cruises further north and south. Every year we volunteer at the Clearwater Festival on the Hudson River (where the photo was taken), a slice of heaven for all who love folk music, justice, and wooden boating. Best to all Hillies! God willing, see you soon and again at the 50th.” STEPHEN JOHNSON writes, “After our 25th reunion the vantage point was a middle distance between high school years and our unfolding future. We were making choices, cracking codes, and telling stories. We were making sense of the world and expressing our interests and passions. We were building families and careers. Animated by purpose and opportunity, hopefully we understood our tremendous good fortune. Today on our 45th reunion we have moved on from that middle place,
now closer to the finish than from the beginnings we shared together so long ago. There are still opportunities though there are fewer choices. We have our memories and at night we dream. I have been incredibly fortunate in so many ways. I hope you have been, too. Enjoy the time that remains, despite and because of, as Jorge Luis Borges writes in Elegy ‘… to have grown old in so many mirrors …’” JEAN-PAUL OUELLETTE (Don’s professional name) writes, “I pursued filmmaking after completing studies in literature and graphic design when I moved to Los Angeles, apprenticing to filmmakers Russ Meyer and Orson Welles and mentored by television directing legend Don Richardson. I worked for such companies as Cannon Pictures, New Line Cinema, Orion Pictures, and Roger Corman’s New World Pictures. I directed the second-unit action
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Class of 1975 - 40th Reunion - May 16, 2015. From left to right, front row: Don Smith, Geoff Allison, Rachel Levine, Kent Richardson, Tony White, Chris Owens, and Bill Sweeney. Second row: Peter Sullivan, Pamela Burkes-Smith, Bill MacCracken, Leslie Armstrong, Jeff Bacon, Joe Henley, Louise Blanchette-Goodhue, David Goodhue, Rob Bradlee, Martha White, Jamie Pious, Jeannette Hermann, Gary Barrett, Debby Sweeney, and Carey Smith.
sequences for the Hemdale/Orion film The Terminator, directed by James Cameron and starring Arnold Schwarzenegger. I wrote and directed the cult horror films H. P. Lovecraft’s The Unnamable and its sequel. I have worked as an international television co-producer and produce documentaries, industrials, and indie films. I work as a screenwriter and script consultant. I consult with independent producers; developing projects from concept and script through breakdown, budget, marketing, and funding documentation. I am on the board of the Woods Hole Film Festival, teach at Emerson College’s professional screenwriting program, and am the author of The New Elements of Standard Screenplay Format. I am looking to return to production after my short film was accepted at the 2014 Cannes Film Festival and a preliminary probe into the current state of the industry at the 2014 American Film Market.” A recent article in the Lincoln Journal featured two 1970 graduates DAVID
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CANCIAN and RICHARD GILES. Best of friends, they are still teaming up today as tournament bridge champions. ART ZERVAS writes, “I seem to be approaching a ‘stage’ where I feel like the main character near the conclusion of 2001: A Space Odyssey—gone through one hell of a journey and it all makes perfect sense, and then again, no sense at all…time dilation?”
1975 GEOFF ALLISON writes, “It has been a long time since I have been in touch with Belmont Hill. I could use the excuse that I live in the fast lane with major obligations. A busy executive is always on the run with no time for the pleasantries of life. This would not be the case with me. The last time I attended a reunion at Belmont Hill, I lived in Lincoln, was married to Lesley, had a son, Joshua, and daughter, Alexandra, and was working at Raytheon. Life was great! I
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had the big job, a family who is the Cleavers, and I really thought that life could not get any better than that. I was wrong. After working in big business for over 31 years, I left. Lesley and I decided to pay off our major debts, and I decided to do something different. I started a handyman business where we help people who are unable to do things for themselves. I started it without any major thoughts or intentions, and now I have two people working for me. It has turned out to be a rewarding experience in which I find people are thankful beyond belief. It is a simple process but the outcomes are tremendous. This turn in lifestyle had to be the biggest change I could have ever imagined. Or so I thought. In August 2014, our son Joshua and his wife had a son. I thought that parenthood was a great deal of fun and full of joy. Lesley and I have found that being a grandparent is even more amazing! It is incredible to hold a little guy that is from your gene pool, but
in a whole new way. The time spent with a grandchild is infinitely more valuable and rewarding than I ever thought it could be. We were at our daughter Alexandra and her husband’s farm in Vermont two weeks ago. When we arrived we all greeted each other. Alexandra then showed us a card for some free swim classes for expectant mothers. Wow! Another grandchild is on the way! Life is grand!” From RACHEL LEVINE comes: “Well, it is often said that, ‘Everything changes.’ I think that I personify this statement. Professionally, I have recently made a very large transition. I was nominated in January by Governor Tom Wolf to be the Physician General of Pennsylvania. I am now working very closely with the Secretary of Health and the Governor’s Office on medical and healthcare issues facing Pennsylvania. It is completely different from my previous work and is very exciting and rewarding. I have maintained my academic appointment as a professor of pediatrics and psychiatry at the Penn State College of Medicine. I have left the campus, however, and my previous work as vice chair for clinical affairs in the Department of Pediatrics, and chief of the
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Division of Adolescent Medicine and Eating Disorders at Penn State’s Hershey Medical Center. I have two wonderful children. David is 19 years old and is finishing his third year at Bowdoin College in Maine, studying government and political science. Dayna is 18, graduating from high school, and will be attending Skidmore College next year. She is interested in the visual arts and psychology. I need to let you know that Martha and I have been divorced. This has been very difficult, but we remain good friends and co-parents of our children. I am dating a wonderful woman, Louise, who lives in Sarasota, FL, and we are maintaining our long-distance relationship. Oh yes, I almost forgot. I have changed my gender. I am transgender, and I transitioned about four years ago. I guess that I specialize in transitions. You all knew me as Rich and my name is now Rachel. This is obviously something that I have been dealing with for many, many years, and I feel wonderful about my transition. I am now very comfortable and feel very free and empowered. I appreciated everyone’s acceptance and support as we met for our 40th reunion and enjoyed seeing everyone.”
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1976 MARK MILLEY recently was recommended by Secretary of Defense Carter to become the next Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army. General Milley is the head of Army Forces Command at Fort Bragg, NC. Milley will be honored with the Belmont Hill Alumni Award in November.
1980 BEN BIRKETT writes, “Met my wife at 18. Married at 21. Father at 22. Small business owner at 24 (restaurant). Father a second time at 26. College Grad at 31: After the second child I just had to get out of that 80 hour work week and sold the biz. Of course you all remember Mr. Pettit. He really preferred to digress from a point more than he did to follow it. Who was in class the day he pointed us out individually and made predictions? He predicted I’d be first one married. I thought he was picking on me. Can anyone beat October 1, 1983? I’ve been a peddler for a long, long time. The past 22 years advocating for, developing, managing, selling the natural and organic goods that you are buying now because you are getting old and feeling mortal, finally, and which your children are focused on as the ‘new normal.’ Okay, I know that you may not believe me but normal has kind of caught up with me. Homeowner over 20 years, fully employed, respected in my industry with great grown kids and a granddaughter. Still married to the same girl. Oh, and I’ve got that same bald spot on the dome that most of you do. Bake? Actually, most folks may know me better now for another type of bake which I have also become quite good at—the
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Rachel Levine ’75.
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Don Smith and Pamela BurkesSmith at the Alumni reception on May 15.
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Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter, General Mark Milley ’76, and Admiral John Richardson.
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traditional New England clambake built in a custom-made iron pan over rocks on the shoreline and steamed in seaweed. I hope everyone is well.” ANDY BROWN writes, “For a class that forced a re-write of the protocol for completing panels, I’m impressed with the overall zeal in sharing stories. My panel would have been the cover of the album for the soundtrack to an independent film called The Harder They Come. What relevance this Jamaican crime drama had for a scion of the middle class growing up in Lexington I have no idea. I’m sure it was the reggae… After Belmont Hill, I packed my bags and went north to Colby College. I was joined by a group of Hillies including BOBBY McLAUGHLIN, GEORGE MOSES, and GREG NEMROW. Just down the street at
Bowdoin were KERRY LYNE, JOE CURTIN, CHRIS SIMON, and JEFF WEBSTER. We enjoyed an enormously healthy rivalry with Bowdoin and were often sharing a soda or two on road trips involving football, hockey, and rugby games. Colby was a great experience, and I am still drawn to the north woods of Maine for fishing and other outdoor activities. I took some time between my sophomore and junior years at Colby to backpack across Europe with PETE CASLER and then in the fall traveled to San Diego to play club rugby. At the time that area had a regular influx of Kiwis and Australians playing club level, and it was a real shortcut to learning the finer points of the game. I came back to Colby just in time to find my fraternity working its way out of double secret probation under the guidance of my former roommate and house
president BOBBY McLAUGHLIN. (I can say with the benefit of 30 years’ hindsight that it was high comedy.) I ended up in the graduating class of 1985 after taking that one semester off. After graduating with a B.A. in American Studies (fun quote: My advisor—and chair of American Studies—said this to me about carrying that as a major: ‘Brown, you won’t be qualified to do anything, but you won’t be disqualified from doing anything either.’ So true.) I again succumbed to my wanderlust and drove to Alaska to work, ostensibly in construction, as there was a purported building boom underway in Anchorage. (During my college summers I worked on building crews as a carpenter.) I think in hindsight it took so long to get to Alaska that the building boom petered out by the
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Ken Chicos and Kevin Plunkett at the Class of 1980 – 35th Reunion dinner on May 16.
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Class of 1980 - 35th Reunion - May 16, 2015. From left to right, front row: Gillian King, Diane London, Julie Chicos, Carolyn Curtin, Gwen Kane-Wanger, Rob Faulkner, Don MacDonald, Ken Chicos, Jim Schelzi, and Karen Schelzi. Second row: Justin Kermond, Dan Hunt, Jamie King, Margo Pezaris, Jack London, John Pezaris, Josiah Wilde, Joe Curtin, Dorothy Simboli, Anthony Simboli, David Wanger, Andy Brown, Greg Clark, Chuck Melcher, Gary Martin, Sharon Martin, Steve Kasarjian, Don Stewart, and Greg Sullivan.
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time I arrived! Luckily the salmon season was just getting started, so I shot down to the Kenai Peninsula and worked the salmon run for most of that summer and then took the long way back to Boston visiting college friends along the way. At the end of that year, 1985, I undertook a grand backpacking tour of New Zealand and Australia (again with PETE CASLER—he was easy to beat in gin rummy) and two Colby buddies. In total, the trip duration through New Zealand and Australia was about eight months. Pete stayed on a work visa in Wellington while I traveled with the rest of the crew to Sydney and took up a job as a greens keeper at a municipal golf course in Woollahra (Suburb of Sydney). After replenishing travel funds we hitchhiked up the east coast into Queensland, after which I flew back to Boston…and returned to a more sedentary existence.
I still see and stay in touch with many classmates, although KEN CHICOS only returns my calls during leap years, so I’m excited to reconnect with him in 2016! I’m looking forward to seeing everyone for the reunion and have enjoyed reading these recaps. Belmont Hill was a wonderful and treasured five years of my life. Maybe I’ll start that panel some day.”
I met my wife, Anita Meyer, in 1989 and after a brief five-year courtship we were married on the shore of Sebago Lake in a ceremony attended by Nate, Justin, Kerry, Peter, and Bobby. In 2007 we welcomed the birth of our daughter Ava. We currently live in Melrose.
JOE CURTIN writes, “After graduation, I headed off to Bowdoin with WEBBIE, KERRY, CLARKIE, JIMMY D., and SIMES. It was, without question, one of the four most fun years of my life—certainly up to that point in time, although I don’t think anything can compare with raising a family and chasing kids around at athletic events all over creation. But I’m getting a bit ahead of myself. I was fortunate to remain relatively injury-free despite playing football with KERRY during that time. When it came time to leave Bowdoin, I came back to Belmont Hill, where I taught Form II History, worked in the Alumni/Development office, and coached varsity football, 9th grade basketball, and lacrosse. I loved every minute of that and learned as a faculty member how incredibly committed the Belmont Hill faculty is to the boys who go there. While there, I decided to accept one of the offers I had from NFL teams for a free agent tryout so I trained hard, headed down to Giants Stadium, roomed at the Peter Pan Motel with an enormous former Mississippi State/USFL tight end, got my shot and headed back home. I didn’t know until years later that the guy who was timing the 40-yard dashes turned out to be none other than Bill Belichick from Wesleyan, who greeted me with the comment, ‘You’re a long way from Brunswick, Maine.’ I think he’s still waiting for me to finish that 40.
In 2001, I left the high tech field to start my own construction company, as I still like to play with toys. I have been fortunate to ride out a few build/bust cycles, was kicked upstairs, and now am working on keeping the pipeline full and developing a specialty building practice in advanced energy-efficient homes.
So, knowing my athletic career was over, I took a turn at being the world’s worst stockbroker, which gave me plenty of time to fill out law school applications. I got into B.C. Law, started working at Mintz Levin here in Boston, and have been practicing as a trial attorney and employment lawyer for the past 25 years. It’s been fun to help out
I worked for my dad until 1991 running a distribution operation for heavy-duty truck parts in New England. In 1991 we sold the business and I transitioned into the world of software, holding roles in software support, product management, product development, and product marketing at a company in Newton. When I relocated to Boston I was lucky enough to reconnect with NATE LEONARD, and we became roommates for two years. We split an apartment just outside of Coolidge Corner where we had many a fun night with JUSTIN KERMOND and the aforementioned MR. CASLER.
a bunch of the guys on this email thread, and the pleasure has been all mine. I’ve had some pretty cool cases, including a massive class action with 220 plaintiffs suing my client, a bank, for its role as custodian of their Bernie Madoff accounts. Luckily, after a five-week trial, we were able to convince the jury that despite how horrible it was that millions had been stolen from these plaintiffs, the Bank shouldn’t be responsible for what Madoff hid from everyone, including the SEC, for years. I also have one of the defendants in the 38 Studios case DAVE CROSTON mentioned, so thanks to him for being part of that initial loan team. On the family front, I have been happily married to my wife Carolyn for 26 years. We have three kids, all very different, as kids tend to be. Mikaela is 23 and working, thankfully, for Sapient in NYC. She went to Wesleyan, was a two-time soccer captain and actually set the record there for most games played by a Wesleyan women’s soccer player (62) and was part of the winningest four-year senior class in over three decades. Those games and tailgates were an absolute blast. Our middle son JOHN ’14 loved Belmont Hill and has just finished his first year at Bowdoin just behind JIMMY DRISCOLL’s daughter. He too plays soccer— how did that happen? Finally, we have 13-year-old LUKE ’21 (he plays football) who is heading to the Hill in the fall, so I only have another decade of tuition bills to fund. Argh! In addition to my kids, I get to watch DAVE WANGER’s son (DANNY ’13) play for the Polar Bears, which has been cool. Luckily, I get to see many of you guys around town and I hope to see many of you more often. I particularly enjoyed reading about everyone’s exploits and am amazed at guys like CHRIS SIMON, who is in incredible shape and just won a national championship in hockey at our age. That’s incredible. By the way, his wife is my awesome dentist, if anyone needs a dentist. Well, that’s about it. Thanks again for a fun weekend and please keep supporting the School.” This from JIM DRISCOLL, “If CHRIS
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Connie and Buddy Bates with Justin Kermond ’80 at the 35th Reunion dinner on May 16.
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London Family –Diane, Emily, Jack ’80, and Ben ’17.
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Chuck Melcher ’80.
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Martin Family - Colin (Villanova, ’16), Sharon, Gary ’80, Courtney (High Point University, ’18), Kasey (Winchester High School, ’16), and Mowgli and Berkeley.
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Harold Prenatt, Rob Faulkner ’80, and Don MacDonald at the 35th Reunion dinner on May 16.
SIMON is going to share then I better get this done. Thanks again to CHUCK MELCHER for being the catalyst in all this, and my apologies in advance to those attending the reunion as I’ll be traveling to a family obligation in Alabama. Yes, for those in the cozy confines of the Northeast, you read that right, Alabama. More on that below. And since I’ve disappeared for the better part of 35 years I’ll give you the full tour. It’s been great to hear the life stories to date. So, from my side…35 years. Almost ridiculous to write that. And I thought my daughter turning 20 made me feel old. And if anyone had told me back then that I’d be where I am now, doing what I’m doing, been where I’ve been and been married this many times, well…I’m sure most of us could say the same thing—not very likely. After leaving Belmont Hill I went to Bowdoin with the five other grads that Chris mentions. Belmont Hill did a pretty good job of preparing me for college, and while the grades at Bowdoin (certainly freshman
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year) at times didn’t reflect that, the work wasn’t that overwhelming. I had a fantastic time at Bowdoin, and as Chris pointed out it was great to have had the base with the other Belmont Hill classmates despite all going in different directions once we got to Maine. I made terrific friends and loved my time there, and ended up as an English major focused on Shakespeare. Put that down to a seriously deluded but entertaining department chair and a long ago foundation from Messrs. Myers and Kistner…My only regret—not taking a year away somewhere warm and overseas… I left Bowdoin for NYC and worked as a trader for five years for two money management firms, and it was a growing time to be there to watch two and half years of up, trade through the crash, and two and a half years of down. I was muddling along when my father visited and pointed out over lunch that I had no marketable skills whatsoever (I believe his specific comment was ‘You know what they do when you go on vacation? They roll out a big wooden Indian that’s just as talented as you’), so I applied to business school to try a different direction. I ended up at Harvard Business School, and no one was more surprised than I
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as I didn’t get into all the other schools to which I applied that should have been slam-dunk. I had a great time, made lifetime friends, and came out to join an energy development startup building power plants. Long way from trading…we were primarily focused in the Northeast, and we sold that after four years. On the personal side right about here ex-wives one and two enter the picture. Here’s where I make Melcher’s personal life look like Ozzie and Harriet join the Armed Forces. The first was a great gal that I had known for 20 years, and I made the rookie mistake of assuming familiarity=compatibility, and got engaged in three months, and married between my HBS years. That’s the bad news, and the good is that we both realized after about three months it was all too fast, and ended it amicably like a Vegas tabloid divorce. About a year later I met another woman in Boston, we were married two years later, moved to Beverly and had daughter Ella. After selling the first company the purchasers asked a core group of us to start an international version of if, which is when I really disappeared. We moved to Miami so I could open the Latin American office, and from there traipsed around South America
for a year looking for projects, after which we moved to Peru. We stayed a year, all forced to learn Spanish (thank God for the 9th grade foundation) fluently and loved it—despite the lack of safety in Lima (we all had bodyguards—strange experience). Peru has great food, scenery, and people, and if you haven’t been to Machu Picchu you’re definitely missing something. We also took the opportunity to travel as much as possible in the region. After a year I was asked to take on a project in Australia, so with new son Will six weeks old (he made it a habit to scream all the way across the Pacific four times per year just to make the trip interesting), we made the trek Down Under, where we stayed for almost four years. We lived in Brisbane, which climate-wise is a bit like Miami, so all was great. I can empathize with Peter’s experience in NZ, as we spent two weeks every year there on vacation. As a whole that was an idyllic time, as both kids were totally portable, and we traveled all over the region though NZ remained our favorite (so much so daughter Ella’s doing a semester there next year—tough duty.) We left there to move to Hong Kong for a year, which was again followed by great travels to Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Japan, and lots of China, after which my tenure there was curtailed by the bad behavior at Enron, who spoiled everyone’s party in the energy development and trading business. 11 of 12 of us founders left the business shortly thereafter, and, not having had enough of living abroad, I took on a turnaround of a transportation business in London. We stayed there for three years and decided to return to the U.S. for my daughter to attend late middle and high school, so we moved back to Miami where I joined a small private equity firm. Whether from that job, the weather in Miami, or all the moves and accompanying giardia from roadside food in places such as Morocco and Laos, my then wife Susan and I decided a divorce was in order. All amicable, though the re-entry into the dating world as a 45-year-old in Miami was a very odd experience…
Sometime after she moved from Miami with our two children, while I moved to Atlanta to fix a healthcare services business. I visited them every other weekend for five years, and we all remain very close. My daughter Ella is completing her sophomore year at Bowdoin (her choice) majoring in environmental studies (definitely her choice) and currently dating a 7-foot junior. Still processing that but his height will make it easy for me to find him if I have to introduce him to my shotguns…. Son William is 16 and at a boarding school outside Philly, and thriving. They couldn’t be more different from each other—she’s total Type A, gregarious, voluble, save the planet overachiever; he’s quiet, analytical, focused, kind…you get the picture. A few years ago I joined some partners and bought a small crude oil refinery and terminal in Houston, so these days I make the weekly commute between Atlanta and Houston to run it. Shortly after moving here I met a fabulous gal from Alabama who had three-year-old twin girls (I know, you’d think I would have learned, and twin girls, no less), and we’re getting married in June (my mother’s response to the news: ‘What do you want, a marching band? It’s number three for you’), leaving me with children ranging from 20-8. All good. Clearly I believe in the institution of marriage, or else I wouldn’t keep trying to get it right… I’ve been gone so long from the Northeast and sadly way out of touch with everyone, even though with some of you we overlapped between Belmont Hill and Bowdoin for 10 years; two of you, JOE CURTIN and CY WILDE, much longer. So, only other regret is not to have tied that tighter, as while living abroad for 10 years and out of the Northeast for much of the last 35 years has been a great experience filled with new friends and experiences, it comes at a cost of community. I envy the stories of GARY, JUSTIN, CHRIS, JOE et al. getting together in the area, and it’s great to hear after all these years. I was reminded the importance of all of this last fall when I ran into Joe C in the fitness center at Bowdoin, where his son John attends as well as my daughter. It
took about two seconds for the recognition to kick in, even after the better part of three decades, and only seconds after that to feel re-connected. That was pretty cool. Now, while CHUCK has extended the invite in Chiraq I’m offering it as well in Atlanta and Houston, so please feel free to reach out if you’re in either area. I’d welcome the chance to connect. And I know some of you definitely connect through ATL on Delta… All the best to all, particularly those at the reunion.” From JACK LONDON comes: “It’s hard to believe it’s been 35 years since graduation. I went off to Tufts along with several classmates and spent part of freshman year finishing up our yearbook. (At least we beat the 1981 yearbook into print!) I met Diane, the love of my life, there, and we married in 1987. I worked a few years in retail (Filene’s and Filene’s Basement–both deceased) and decided if I never saw the inside of another mall my life would not be lacking. I went back to school to Babson for my M.B.A. (1988). I decided I liked working with both people and numbers and went into finance, working for several Boston area banks while Diane went to medical school. (I had to keep my parents happy by becoming or marrying a doctor.) When she graduated and would finally start to earn an income, I decided to quit my job and open my own financial planning firm. That went much better than I ever dreamed of and gave me the freedom to work for myself and earn a good living doing what I loved. Our daughter Emily came along a few years later (now finishing up her sophomore year at Columbia University), and four years later our son BEN ’18 was born (now completing his Fourth Form year at Belmont Hill). As I turned 50, I did begin to wonder what would happen to my business and clients if anything happened to me. One of the drawbacks of a one-person firm is absolutely zero backup, and this began to bother me. Out of the blue came a letter and call from a national firm that was looking to expand in Massachusetts, and after many meetings I decided to join Edelman Financial Services
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and help them open in our state. I figured I had little to lose as I was pretty sure my old boss would take me back if it didn’t work out, but after four and a-half years I have never been happier with the move, and can actually take a vacation without having to call in several times a day for messages. To keep up my love of emergency services, I am a call firefighter/EMT in my hometown of Dover, and a special officer with the Wellesley police, where I take a shift every other week and go out on patrol. And yes, I have had the joy of pulling over my daughter. It’s great fun having a son at the School and getting to spend so much time there. Ben has had several of my old teachers, and thankfully they have not prejudged him based on what I was really like back then! The school has changed over the years but much is still the same. I have to say it’s still a great place, and I am thrilled that Ben has the privilege of attending.”
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TOM LUCAS writes, “My life in the past 35 years. Here goes...Went from Belmont Hill off to Georgetown, where I majored in finance and had more interest in theology and psychology. Appreciated connections with NATE LEONARD and JIM PHILLIOU the first couple of years and played on the tennis team with Jim for one year. And then, re-connected and shared a house off campus with KENT PLUNKETT. During this time I played tennis and represented Georgetown at the squash intercollegiates as the sole representative from a teamless Georgetown. During the summers, I taught at a tennis camp in Craftsbury, VT with JAMIE KING and DAN BALKIN, which was fun and started an affinity for Vermont. After college, I was an insurance broker in Manhattan for two years. My favorite part of that job was having lunch with the clients. Seriously, it was good food and interesting conversation, and the job was decidedly not for me. I then decided to
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1980 Classmates at the 35th Reunion dinner on May 16: Chris Simon, Gary Martin, and Joe Curtin.
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Rick Patrick ’80 stopped by Belmont Hill on a visit to the East Coast on July 28, 2015.
follow in GREG ZAFF’s footsteps and take a tour around the world a couple of years after he did. What started as an eight-month trip turned into an 18-month journey. Returned home with absolutely no idea what to do next, so I decided to move to Vermont in 1988 and followed TYLER WOOD’s footsteps in going to the same grad school counseling program, UVM, and then moved into his old room/suite at St. Michael’s college as a resident director there. He also convinced me to be a part of a program headed up by the Vermont Family Court and UVM extension service that offers a four-hour mandated class for parents who have kids under 18 who are getting legally separated or divorced to help the kids cope through the process. I have now been teaching this class once or twice a month for the past 21 years and recently sat next to Tyler for an annual teacher’s seminar. I received my Masters of Counseling in 1991 and have been a counselor since then, transitioning from being at a community mental health center for almost 15 years in St. Albans, to having my own private practice in downtown Burlington for the past eight years. I love being in private practice as I have been learning new counseling paradigms in the past eight years that have transformed my relationship with counseling and with myself. Before it was talk, talk, talk, listen, listen, listen, talk, talk, talk. Now it is listen, notice, slow down, notice, listen, talk a little. There’s a bit more to it than that, but suffice it to say, I am practicing in a far different, and from what I am told, more effective way than how I had practiced previously. You may have noticed that my e-mail address is dancing elk, which is a bit different. I include the dancing because movement has become a major force in my life. I was exposed to a movement practice
called soul motion about 12 years ago and I loved it, so I pursued becoming a teacher of it. So, on Sunday mornings for the past 10 years, I have facilitated a class that I would call a conscious dance practice. The focus is on slowing down, noticing breath, awareness and how it translates into the body. It also gives me an excuse to troll around for music that would help accompany this movement/musical odyssey. The elk comes from a men’s group thing, which seemed to suit me. I have been living here in the Burlington, Vermont area now since 1988. Since then I have been married once (for 4 years) and have no kids. I just wed for the second time on June 21 to my sweetie Carolyn of 11 years (let’s just say it took me awhile to decide about the marriage second time around) and it was just as I/we wanted. I’m starting to get into golf and all of its subtleties. Still enjoy skiing occasionally and hiking. Was enjoying tennis until about 11 years ago, and that went by the wayside in favor of dancing, partly because of multiple knee surgeries but a result of shifting priorities and interests. I am tall as ever and with a shaved head because otherwise the bald patches would be too obscene.
racing. For several years I was playing pickup hockey at Belmont Hill with the likes of Justin, ANDY BROWN, and other formidable Hillie skaters from classes both above and below ours. While the aprés skating cold beverages at a nearby establishment was always a big draw, I eventually retired as my hockey skills were often likened to that of a stationary construction cone.
My favorite memories from Belmont Hill include: a shaving cream spree with LARS McKIM and CHRIS VINCZE in the dorm, JOHN CALLAHAN knocking on my dorm room door late at night in his tighty whities telling me to shut up so he could sleep, and countless winless trips at night to the squash courts with Mr. Zaff. I was not able to attend the reunion but have been truly enjoying hearing from each of you. You are all in my thoughts and have my best wishes.”
Oh, many of you may remember the nickname bestowed upon me at school: ‘Dirt Ball.’ It followed me to college (a story for the reunion) and has remained with me ever since, although it has been tempered a bit to just ‘Dirty’ or simply ‘DB.’ In fact, I recently received a LinkedIn message from Mr. Ted Burt addressing me by that name. A true term of endearment, and, again, thank you, Justin. I have my health, my family, and many friends…but no hair.”
GARY MARTIN writes, “For the most part, JUSTIN KERMOND’s comments about me are spot-on. During the past 35 years I have become a ‘crooked horse’ following several sporting mishaps (broken collar bone, cracked ribs, three knee surgeries, fractured vertebrae and two partially torn fractured vertebrae and two partially torn rotator cuffs). Despite these flesh wounds I still find myself playing soccer (over 50 league…more like fast walking) and ski
All in all, I have been very consistent over the past three decades…some might say ‘flat-lined,’ but it has worked for me. After college, my brother and I bought the family moving business and ran it for the next 30 years (just recently sold). This June, I will be celebrating my 25th wedding anniversary and clicking off my 50th year of living in Winchester…yet I did take a short hiatus for 3 years one town away. I have three great kids—Colin, a junior at Villanova studying electrical engineering with visions of becoming a Navy SEAL; Courtney, a freshman at High Point University; and Kasey, a junior at Winchester High School, where my wife Sharon is a math teacher. My brother and I currently run a new business called Martin White Glove Delivery, delivering fine furniture along the East Coast.
This from CHUCK MELCHER: “I went to the Naval Academy, as most of you know. It was a questionable decision at best to follow up an all-male junior and senior high school with a mostly male college, but once you’re on the path… My wife tells me I never went to college, I was just institutionalized. (She has a point: I believe, in hindsight, they call the area between the buildings ‘The Yard.’) I spent the next 28 years in the nuclear submarine force, serving in four different
submarines. I loved that. I circumnavigated the globe 12 times, but in a submarine that is not as glorious as you might imagine. Lots of port calls though. (Just so you know, there is a girl in every port; not mine, but they are certainly out there, if you were wondering.) I finished my Navy time up in command of my last submarine. The Navy thought I had not screwed them up enough, so they gave me command of a Naval base, which was a lot of fun and like being a mayor of a city with no elected officials; probably not unlike Donetsk UK/Russia, whatever that is today. Not a lot of support and occasional shelling, but all in all a great job. So sitting there one day as a Navy captain running my own little city, I decided I needed a major life change, as there are only short lists of things that happen to Navy captains after their command tours: 1. Retire, do nothing, and check out pretty quickly. 2. Stay in the Navy because it is a safe paycheck, and spend the rest of your working life in a cloth-covered cube generating PowerPoint slides for career government servants–yay! If you do that really well, you get to become one of them. 3. Hang around in the Navy and hope you win the lottery and get selected to be an admiral, where you essentially do the same thing as in item two, but get to sit a little closer to the fire. 4. Jump ship into the void and get off the government dole. I took option four, which was my third life renewal (I know, I did not tell you about one and two yet.) I took about six months to intellectually transition and reach into the sustainable energy world, where my background has some value. I landed here in Veolia, which is an environmental and sustainable energy company. Generically, if you mess it up, we clean it up (my motto, not the company’s). The official one is ‘Resourcing the World,’ which sells pretty well. Our specialty on the environmental side is cleaning and recycling industrial and municipal water, wastewater and solid
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waste, and running sustainable energy projects. It is the largest global company you never heard of, but was for me very rewarding. They gave me a big elephant to eat, and they don’t look over my shoulder much. Early on the path, I sent my ex down to the minors and banned her from the majors for life, for giving up way too many home runs. That took 10 years to figure out, but it was the best decision of my life, although not one to be particularly proud of (I am adding this verbiage about not ending a sentence with a preposition to avoid ending this sentence with a preposition). It was my first life renewal. A couple of years later I met and married a Navy helicopter pilot (second renewal). Odd matchup–helicopter pilot and submariner–but when you want to get away from each other for a bit, it is pretty easy. She went to command a Naval helicopter squadron as one of the very first women to do so, so there was a lot of forging new ground on her part, and family managing on ours. She was the very first Navy helicopter pilot to be flying nine months’ pregnant. The Navy was not sure what to do with that, but figured if she was okay with it then they dared not say no, and as she will tell you, it was a lot more fun than walking the mall to induce labor in the ninth month. Our oldest daughter was four months old when she deployed to Italy for six months. I deployed three months later, fortunately. Not sure I could have been Mr. Mom for six months… (If you want to know what happened to our kids in the middle, come to the reunion.) I have four kids that I am aware of: Jack, 25, ex-U.S. Marine, now a Marine Reservist, back in College at O.D.U; Andrew, 23, U.S. Marine Reservist, back in college at W.V.U; Grace, 18, just accepted to M.I.T. (so we are looking homeward at last!); and Charlotte, 15, who is last in the chute for great things of her own. Living in Chicago now, in the bluest suburb (Oak Park) of the bluest city in the bluest state in the country (with the highest tax rate in the county and the most in debt, although they do not see that connection). Winters have been really cold, but getting my New England blood type back (Ooooohhhhh Negative) and since I run a dozen
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energy/heating plants, cold Chicago winds smell like profit margin to me. I’m enjoying life and wondering what is next. Out there is a plan to circumnavigate Europe–likely up the Danube and then down the Rhine (better to end near France than in Romania I think, just in case Putin is re-annexing all that, too, by then). That is some years off, but you’ve got to have a plan together. I am not sure about the rest of you, but apparently my body warranty was up around 46 or so, so I seem to be in for repairs more frequently than I used to be, so I will play that circumnavigation trip schedule by ear (assuming I can still hear). I’m looking forward to catching up with those that can make it to the reunion. Catch me on Facebook if you dare step into that morass of crazy opinions, or on LinkedIn if you rather. I will leave a light on for you in the windy city should you get out this way. Only a bizarre snowstorm and a 50-knot wind grounded me in Birmingham and kept me and ANDY BROWN from catching up this past winter.” This from JIM NOYES, “Hi. Tami and I beat BEN BIRKETT’s marriage by a week. We were best friends at 18, best friends now. Met at school, I split to be a rock star, didn’t pan out. Still writing, still performing, songs get better, crowds get smaller. I fell into my job after some insanely hard work to get there, and since I was 33, I’ve been the executive director at a housing authority in one of the poorest and largest counties in Ohio. Tami writes vegan cookbooks. Amazon it. We’ve been vegetarian since 1980, over 10 years vegan at this point. Belmont Hill was cool for me, but I always looked at it like it was infant training, and I didn’t figure who or what I was about ’til later. That leaves me with solid building blocks, but at 18 I pretty much said, screw it, and forged my own thing. So there are names here that I remember, and hope you are all living in interesting times, to quote Terry Pratchett. I’ll be having fun in Ohio during the reunion, and wish the best for all.” JOHN PEZARIS writes, “I left Belmont Hill
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early for MIT. I entered at 16, graduated at 20, but then stayed on as research staff, and eventually, a graduate student in computer science and electrical engineering, on the Ph.D. track. I spent 14 happy years all told at MIT in the Lab for Computer Science getting paid to have fun and do cool things. I saw the writing on the wall that the interesting research was going to industry, and didn’t want to do that, so I took a master’s degree exit and jumped ship for Caltech, where I got a Ph.D. in computation and neural systems, with an emphasis on neuroscience. From there, on to Harvard Medical School for a post-doc, and now I am part of the research faculty at Mass General Hospital in the neurosurgery department, despite being a PhD, not an MD. My laboratory is working to create a visual prosthesis to restore sight to the blind—a working bionic eye. More on that shortly. After a long, long time as a confirmed bachelor, I met my wife about a decade ago. She convinced me, by slow, steady argument and her wily ways, to settle down and have kids. She was sure from the start, but it took her a lot of convincing to make up my mind! We got married in Krakow in a church that was built in the 1600s, and then honeymooned in Greece. The nicest thing that my wife ever said to me was, ‘I wish I had met you earlier so we could have spent more of our lives together.’ In any case, settling down and becoming a family man happened late in life for me, so, now, we’ve got two young girls, one five years old, and one three, despite my being in my 50s. The girls are in turns delightful, beautiful, wickedly smart, and maddening. My wife is Polish, and speaks her native tongue to the girls, and I decided to try and brush up my Greek enough to speak only Greek to them. So the girls are growing up trilingual! We visit Greece and Poland on an almost yearly basis, seeing my in-laws in Poland (my parents are still local in the Boston area), and our friends and more distant relatives in Greece. Both are interesting places, having undergone or being in the midst of socioeconomic upheaval. The cultures
are about as opposite as you can imagine, with the Poles being steady, reliable folk, if somewhat reserved, and the Greeks being hedonists who would give you the shirt off their back if you come have a drink with them (Zorba, the movie, is surprisingly accurate on that count). The girls enjoy their international travels, and we’ve got some fun ones planned for this summer. I’ve been doing lots of travel for my work, somehow having managed to convince enough people that I’m good enough at my research to get invited to give talks all over the place (Mass General being affiliated with Harvard doesn’t hurt, as everyone loves inviting speakers from Harvard). And back to my laboratory’s work. Anyone interested in learning more about it can visit our web page, http://sight2blind.org. We are working on a device like the Steve Austin or Geordy Laforge characters from TV had, only ours is to provide sight to those who have lost their vision from diseases like retinitis pigmentosa, macular degeneration, and glaucoma, or from trauma. We’re about to make our first test implants in an animal model, and if those go well, hope to begin initial human testing in a year or two. It’s certainly audacious (and messianic), but eminently doable, once you get down to it. There’s lots more detail on the web site, including how you can make a donation to support the work.” GEORGE SEWARD writes, “My wife Wendy Woods and I are both consultants. She works in global healthcare while I develop optical systems for medical applications. We split our time between Beacon Hill and Warren, Vermont. I frequently travel with her for business. During the reunion, I will be in South Africa. After Belmont Hill, I studied electrical engineering and physics at Tufts University. During my senior year, an instructor offered me a spot in his research laboratory. As a graduate student, I received a Howard Hughes Fellowship and two U.S. patents for solar energy materials. During a nine-year stretch at a government laboratory, I developed laser and night
vision systems for classified applications. These skills provided a foundation for the design of medical instruments. In 1999, I became an independent consultant. My product designs include a flow cytometer for drug development, a gene sequencer, and most recently, the Omnyx VLX4 scanner which is a digital imager for tissue samples of clinical tests. I truly enjoy my work in optical design, and I frequently recall the wave tanks of Herb Mattlage. His laboratory experiments fed an early interest in the propagation of light, which is a huge part of my current work. After teaching a seminar on the optical design of microscopes, a professional society requested a book on the subject. According to my wife, the book has more equations than text. Actually, the ‘combination of figures and equations’ nearly equals the spatial extent of the text. My rise to the level of an invited author is ironic, because I was certainly not an enthusiastic student of English composition. I must thank Hal Melcher for his successful delivery of the fundamental skills of composition.” This from CHRIS SIMON: Belmont Hill Memories “An ideal place for me to go to school. I think my experience was made better by having a helpful older brother one class ahead. I truly enjoyed my friendships there. We had a great class, and there were some really fun times. I remember the car and bus rides to school with JEFF WEBSTER, and there was always something going on which caused trouble. I remember the sanctioned parties at the McLaughlin house in Woburn and I remember the unsanctioned ones at the MacNamara house in Lexington. I remember the movie afternoons at Jake’s place and remember going to Belmont center for lunches when we were not supposed to. I found the academics just right for me. I also remember getting into Betty’s Rolls Royce in Boston with our fake, smudged Belmont Hill IDs. I remember studying a lot but not being totally stressed out. I studied a lot more at Belmont Hill than
I did at college. I remember the teachers being excellent. Not sure why, but I have lost touch with a lot of classmates. I wish I had not. I still see BOB McLAUGHLIN although it is tough to keep track of what country he is in. BOB MacNAMARA said many years ago ‘Bobby is good for the economy’ and that is still true. JOE CURTIN and I live in the same town and I still see him. Joe is the best. My day is always better when I see him. He still is as positive as the first day I met him. The other person I keep in touch with is KEN MARTIN ’65, my former teacher and coach. I do not remember being close to him at school. Over the years our paths have crossed, though, and we have developed a strong friendship. He is a great friend, father, grandfather, and husband. We mostly get together to golf or go to a game. After Belmont Hill I went to Bowdoin College and had the best time. I was lucky to go with five of my Belmont Hill classmates, JOE CURTIN, KERRY LYNE, GREG CLARK, JIM DRISCOLL, and JEFF WEBSTER. Although we all branched off to new friends I remember having a special connection with them for four years. My best friends today are my friends from Bowdoin. It was the right place for me to go. I loved my friends, my fraternity, and the hockey. Each year got better and I remember not wanting it to end. Oh yeah–I also met my future wife Tina there. After Bowdoin I had no idea what I wanted to do. After briefly playing hockey in Europe I was lucky enough to work side by side with BOB McLAUGHLIN for three years at Fidelity Investments. We had the best time working in downtown Boston. There were many late nights and we made many new friends. After three years, I realized I was not a big company worker and I needed a change. I ended up finding my way into the orthopedic business, and that is where I have been ever since. After working for two
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companies, I started my own business 18 years ago. I love what I do. If an athlete, old or young, is injured, his orthopedic doctors may prescribe a brace for him. That is where I come in. I will measure, fit, and bill for the brace. I have fit thousands of braces over the years. I have fit some Belmont Hill athletes, and that is always fun. I even received a referral several years ago to go to Foxboro and measure Tom Brady for a brace. That was a blast. I feel fortunate to have found a profession that has brought me happiness and a good living.
hard six days a week. I am not sure why, but it makes me feel better and gives me good energy. I also love to play golf. Last summer I lost in my club championship finals to a 17-year-old. This is the third time in my golf career I have come in second. I will keep trying to win it. I also still play hockey. I took a team to Tampa this month to play in the USA Hockey over 50 Men’s National Championships. My team won our division. This was very special because I did it with five of my Bowdoin teammates and three others from my youth hockey days.
Family
Summary
I have an awesome wife, Tina. We live in Wellesley and I am surrounded by family and many close friends. I feel very lucky. Tina and I went to Bowdoin, and I feel fortunate to have married up. She helps me in every aspect of my life. She is also my dentist. We have three wonderful children. They all were adopted from China. I tell my close friends that all guys should go to China by themselves and bring home by themselves a 16-month-old baby boy on a 20-hour plane ride. What an experience! My three children are Stephanie, 17, Samantha, 16, and Justin, 13. I coach Justin in hockey. He and his teammates have a tendency to stay down when they get banged up. I tell them staying down at Belmont Hill was unacceptable if Mr. Gallagher was your coach. He said, ‘If you are hurt and I have to go get you on the ice, you better not be getting up.’ I loved everything about EDDIE GALLAGHER ’65. Three teenagers is a challenge. My kids think I am one step behind them. They do not know that my Belmont Hill classmates prepared me well as a sneaky teenager, and I try to stay one step ahead of them. Also, if anyone is interested, boys are easier than girls at this age. I have a close relationship with my two brothers, KENNY ’79 and KURT ’83. My dad has passed away. My mom lives in Boston. She is as energetic as ever and still tells me what to do. She also totally dotes on my kids, especially the girls.
I hope everyone is well. Life moves fast but remembering the past is a good thing, especially when it is about our time together at Belmont Hill. I look back with great memories on that part of my life.”
Personal Even though I am in my fifties I still am competitive and love to work out. I work out
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GREG SULLIVAN writes, “I’m a professional computer science nerd, living in Newton, MA, happily married for 22-ish years; two kids—oldest, Melissa, is a junior at University of Vermont, studying agriculture; youngest, Jay, is a senior in high school not studying much, but he’s very talented at music and photography. Our home is full of love, and also full of rabbit hair, electronics, pottery, photography equipment, sprouts, ultimate discs, books, musical instruments, and on and on. I consider myself incredibly lucky. I’ve been active in our local Unitarian Universalist church for 25 years, most recently doing 10 years as a ‘lay minister,’ and now taking care of babies each Sunday morning. I also maintain the website. I got my Ph.D. in computer science from Northeastern University in 1997, focused on formal methods and programming languages. For the last 10 plus years, I’ve been doing DARPA-funded research, most recently focused on making computers more secure than they are now (hint: your computer is not secure!). Just this week, I took a new job at Draper Labs, after more than 10 years at BAE Systems. Before that, I was at MIT CSAIL. More job stuff on LinkedIn. I play pick up ultimate Frisbee, and am also on a ‘grand masters’ team, the ‘Huckagener-
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ians.’ Occasionally I fly fish. I try to do yoga, which I credit for keeping me (mostly) able to play ultimate at my advanced age.” This from CHRIS VINCZE, “I, along with many others in our class, started but never finished my panel, a Columbia University lion mascot. Don’t ask why, but it was probably linked to my fantasies at the time. I attended Connecticut College in beautiful New London, CT with SIR CHARLES GRIFFITHS. My lack of achievement at The Hill certainly held me back from college choices, but I was fortunate to land in such a great institution. More importantly, my college choice disappointments in combination with my prep school training helped launch a more ambitious attitude in the next stages of my life, as even today I continue to strive to reach my potential. I played two varsity sports at Connecticut College: rowing for two years, silver medalists at Dad Vail Championships in freshman heavyweight eights. I might add, we had the toughest most accurate navigator coxswain, CHARLIE. Yes, our Charlie. He was also the heaviest, not biggest, cox in all of NCAA D23, probably D1 as well. Sorry Charlie! I also played varsity tennis, captaining successful teams my junior and senior years. Thank you Mssrs. ZAFF and LUCAS for all those practice nights post study hall at the indoor courts. Academically, I double majored in zoology and sociology as a pre med. Even my nemesis, Mr. Bridges, would have been proud of my GPA. My lifelong dream, as well as my father’s, of my being an M.D. faded as I entered BU Medical School. I decided to pursue a master’s and doctorate in public health instead of an M.D. For the record, my dissertation for the Ph.D. is still pending! I never really could be an academic. While studying at BU, I finally ventured outside of a hospital job, working for a startup engineering and consulting business in the Boston area. My partner and I quickly built the business to $7M and sold to a public company in a few years. He, unfortunately, had some bad habits and ventured off into the sunset. Two years later, I became COO and later president and
began a 10-year journey of building a $250M multidiscipline business, consulting, IT, and insurance company. In the meantime, I was quite active in the political world, both regionally and nationally, which was a fulltime endeavor when I briefly retired for 2 years in the early 2000s. After reconnecting with my kids as Mr. Mom, and having an advisory board seat at Governor’s Academy (the school for both my kids), I re-entered the professional world as a managing director and senior VP with Marsh and McLennan, MMC, a fortune 70 financial services and risk management business. I ran parts of the Marsh Inc. business and played with the MMC Private Equity subsidiary. Elliott Spitzer, the former NY attorney general, chose to attack our company, which ultimately led to changes at our CEO level. I chose to re-enter the engineering, consulting and construction management space rather than move to NYC and fight it out with my insurance colleagues for the leadership. That decision was 10 years ago this month. So, I took on a turnaround challenge of a public company, which at one time was a major rival. Fast forward to today, and TRC Companies has become a top 30 company in our global industry. We are having fun doing really cool things to improve our world, from designing and building solar farms on landfills to modeling air emissions from power plants to cleaning up the world’s worst superfund sites. Check out our website for more insights. My other hobbies of politics and policy continue to be a mainstay in my life, having served as finance vice chairman of Mitt Romney’s presidential campaigns and many other campaigns, including for our new Massachusetts Governor, Charlie Baker. I am also very involved and close friends with a current potential candidate for President. As some of you know, now that I have everyone’s email, I won’t be shy about asking for contributions. The country is going to hell, and I am even more determined to reintroduce leadership to the oval office! I am actively involved in our nation’s policy debate on energy and infrastructure, participating on boards and committees at
American Enterprise Institute, the Bipartisan Policy Center, the New England Council and the Republican Governors Association. Finally, on the fun business personal side, I am partnered with one of the top U.S. chefs, Michael Schlow, in two restaurants, TICO, in Boston and D.C. Please go, we can always use the business! Also, I have interests in a number of other ventures, including a startup golf channel, Back9 Network, in Hartford. On the philanthropic front, I am working on a number of initiatives in support of inner-city kids and school curriculums. One such program is ‘e’ inc., a nonprofit based in Boston that I hope to help scale on a national level. This is not easy! On the personal front, which is what really matters, I have been married to Janet, a former New Hampshire native, for 25 years. She is my best friend and partner in everything from golf to politics. In fact, she will be running for MA GOP State Committeewoman this year. We have two children, Gabrielle and Kyle. I am also fortunate to have a 15-month-old grandchild, Harlan McLaren Brennan. What happened to the Hungarian side of things? He rules and my kids are now third in line after our dogs. Gabby works in global marketing at State Street Bank after earning a master’s at Northeastern University. My son Kyle is a freshman at DePaul University studying sports management and playing NCAA Division 1 golf. In fact, I will miss our reunion because I will be playing with him in Chicago. Finally, we reside in North Reading and occasionally in Jupiter, Florida. I do see a few of our Belmont Hill colleagues here and there in Boston. We retain JOE CURTIN’s firm on occasion and he loans me conference rooms regularly. GREG CLARK’s bank, Citizens, is one of our lenders so we keep the business in the family whenever possible! DAVE WANGER and I have lunch occasionally. I will miss seeing you guys at our 35th Reunion.” DAVID WANGER writes, “Gwen and I recently celebrated our 31st anniversary and feel very blessed to have navigated the past
three exciting decades together. We have helped each other through the challenges of graduate school and building two professional careers while simultaneously raising our 3 children, of whom we are very proud. Emily, 23, will begin her studies at Yale Law School this fall after working for a law firm in Manhattan during the past two years. DANNY, 20, Belmont Hill Class of 2013, will start his junior year at Bowdoin College, where he plays as a defensive lineman on the football team. BENNY, 18, Belmont Hill Class of 2015, will be a freshman at Yale College in the fall, where he will also play on its baseball team. My career path has been varied and rewarding. After graduating from U Penn Law School in 1987, I practiced law for nearly 15 years, during which I became a junior partner at Hale and Dorr and then moved laterally to partnerships in a couple of smaller firms. My practice focused on representing clients involved in a range of business disputes. In my late 30s, I seized on an opportunity to make the transition from attorney to business executive, which resulted in my serving for nearly a dozen years as the president of Marathon Realty Corporation, a family-owned commercial real estate company headquartered in Newton. I enjoyed guiding Marathon Realty through several challenging projects, culminating in the lucrative sale of its former warehouse facility and adjoining land in Brighton to New Balance. After closing that transaction and implementing a managerial outsourcing program for the remainder of Marathon Realty’s properties, I briefly returned to the practice of law in 2012 with a small firm in Boston. About 18 months later, I was lured back into the business world by my friend WARREN CROSS ’83. I now serve as the senior VP and general counsel for Cross Services Group, a collection of businesses started and nurtured by Warren over the past 25 years which includes several service companies, a squash and fitness center and commercial properties located in Natick. My roles with Cross Services Group allow me to pursue both my business and legal interests in
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an entrepreneurial setting. Warren and I are continually on the lookout to acquire additional commercial properties in the Greater Boston area.
butter’—its academic and athletic programs—remain vital and top-notch. Both of my boys have thrived and matured there, which has been tremendously gratifying.
Gwen has maintained a very busy rheumatology practice for over 20 years at teaching hospitals in Worcester and Boston. About two years ago, she moved her practice to Brigham and Women’s Hospital in the Longwood Medical Area of Boston.
My best to all the members of the Class of 1980.”
My greatest personal loss has been the death of my father in October 2011 from a recurrence of lymphoma. While his passing has deeply impacted our family, I am grateful that he lived long enough for my children to know him well. My mother has carried on the Wanger tradition that she shared with my father of attending as many Belmont Hill athletic contests as possible. Experiencing Belmont Hill as a parent during the past eight years has been wonderful. (It’s been fun to share this experience with classmates JOE CURTIN and JACK LONDON.) The Belmont Hill community has evolved substantially since our days on the Hill—today it is a more nurturing and inclusive place where achievements in the fields of music, art, drama, and community service are widely celebrated rather than relegated to relative obscurity. That being said, the School’s ‘bread and
From GREG ZAFF comes, “Squash has certainly been a defining experience in my life ever since Belmont Hill. Thank you, Mr. Seeley, for dragging me on the court and all but forcing me to play. At the time, when we were Third Formers, I only wanted to keep playing tennis. In college, at Williams, I played squash all the time–during the competitive season and also in the fall and spring. I excelled, especially for someone with a naturally slow first step, had a blast, and went on to play pro squash throughout most of my twenties. You can make a living in squash, but it’s hardly a glamorous one. No matter to me. I totally enjoyed seeing how good I could get, living in sweatpants, hanging out at Coffee Connection more than pretty much anyone (still the best coffee), and being my own boss with only one person to supervise. Closing in on my 30th birthday, I had to figure out what was next. Never did I consider coaching squash or teaching at a club–I wanted to step out of the confines of a squash court. I really had no idea what to do because I had done nothing prior
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At the annual Corporation Meeting in April, Emmett Lyne ’77, Brian Mullaney ’77, and David Bright ’83. David was thanked for his service on the Belmont Hill School Board of Trustees. The Wanger Family – Gwen, David ’80, Benny ’15, Danny ’13, and Emily.
except hit squash balls. Trying to figure out what should be next, all I came up with was something to impact the world, something to help other people. I had the idea of being a National Geographic photographer (I still romanticize about this) but I couldn’t operate a point–and–shoot. I thought about trying to reform the criminal justice system–it’s a total mess no matter what side of the aisle you line up on–but really didn’t know where to begin. I decided to dabble in human service internships and managed a few part-time gigs, while still playing squash, in Massachusetts government with the then-Welfare Department, Parole Board, and Department of Corrections and Housing. I found out pretty early that working in an office wasn’t for me, and working in an office in state government really wasn’t for me. I cared lots for the big ideas and issues overarching these departments, but the reality of the day was paperwork, loads of meetings about nothing, and not enough people willing to take risks to do what was right or at least what they thought was right. I went back to grad school. (Maybe that would clear up my confusion.) I went to the Kennedy School after getting turned down once because they didn’t believe I could handle the workload. Eight years as a squash player was unconvincing to them that I could still read books and write papers, and they could not see much connection between what I had been doing with my time and even a middling career in public service. But I knocked on their door a second time. Never quitting was something I learned at Belmont Hill. My two years at the Kennedy School were terrific. Amazing students and teachers, real conviction all around about the world and right and wrong, phenomenal world leaders right in front of me–people like Gorbachev, Mario Cuomo, George Bush, Bill Clinton, Bill Weld, and so many more. Again, it didn’t matter if you were liberal or conservative, Democrat or Republican. The environment was intoxicating, compelling, and fun to be in. After KSG, I spent two years back in state
government working on affordable housing. But the fluorescent lights and glacial speed in which everything or nothing happened were killing me, so I quit. It was around then, 1995, when I started to develop an idea that would totally change my life. It was to use squash and education to help urban kids. I called my program SquashBusters. I called upon all my squash friends and supporters to help, and off I went. SquashBusters began with Cambridge and Roxbury middle schoolers in 1996. 24 kids, a 15-passenger van, which initially I drove poorly, courts and study space borrowed from the YMCA, Harvard Club of Boston and Harvard. Never in my life did I feel so alive, so happy, so purposeful. The program succeeded–no one really knew if it would– because inner-city kids and squash had never been tried before. It’s 20 years later now, and I still run SQB, or it still runs me. The program now occupies its own youth center, one that we built in partnership with Northeastern 12 years ago, with eight courts and four classrooms. We serve 275 middle school, high school, and college students. We are now in Lawrence, too, borrowing courts from Brooks School and Phillips Academy. The staff is nearly 20, several of whom I am proud to say are SQB alums. Incredibly, there are 18 replica urban squash programs around the country with 1,500 young people involved. I am tremendously proud of all this–really an unimaginable dream and one I trace back to my days at Belmont Hill, where not only did I learn and fall in love with squash, but I also was taught to aim high, push hard, and care about what I was doing. By the way, one of my first SQB participants in 1996, a fellow named Guillermo Moronta, now works as an admissions officer, math teacher, and assistant squash coach at Belmont Hill. Talk about life coming full circle! On the home front, I live in Cambridge where I have been for too long (since 1988) but still enjoy the community. I am married to a wonderful, beautiful, and tolerant woman named Sonja Cantu. We have a 9-year-old daughter, who is the happiest person I have ever met in my life, which
makes me incredibly happy. We have a 12-and-a half-year-old bulldog named Lucy, who has been through thick and thin with us. Life is still very busy and full, which is the way it should be for now. But I do increasingly think about the next chapter, and in it I hope for slower days, less structure and intensity, and lots more warmth. The Northeast winters are, at last, driving me crazy. I appreciate all of you guys. Thanks to the many of you who took the time to write in. It finally got me off my duff to do the same. I promise to be there for our 40th and in the meantime really hope that some of our paths cross and that we might find the time to ‘break bread’ and catch up on the past 35 years.” This from ROBERT YOUNG, “After Belmont Hill I joined a solid contingent of fine alumni at Dartmouth, but didn’t do particularly well. Belmont Hill was harder, and also much more structured: New-found freedoms in college led to some questionable decisions about time management and beer. Amazingly I managed to get accepted to Yale’s Architecture School, where I got my act somewhat together. Perhaps my most challenging and satisfying accomplishment was finally reducing the number of people referring to me as “Bud” down to about 10 regular contacts. I loved every second of my graduate education, and following graduation I co-founded an office in New York with my thesis advisor, winning a number of large cultural commissions, teaching and lecturing at Columbia and Yale, and publishing work on contemporary architectural and urban theory. We had a couple of shows at the MoMA, but never made enough money for the math to work, so I joined an established firm (Polshek Partnership) that paid reasonably well, and really started to build: Scandinavia House, Zankel Hall at Carnegie Hall, and the new entry to the Brooklyn Museum in New York; Oklahoma Civic Center Music Hall in Oklahoma City; Copia in Napa; the Newseum in Washington, DC; and the National Museum of American Jewish History in Philadelphia are a few of the highlights. While designing
a lot, I was balancing success and productivity by destroying personal relationships, and had basically given up on being fulfilled in that part of life when I met my soulmate and future wife, a client(!) at the time. We got married in 2007, and are ridiculously lucky to have made it in just under the biological wire: we have a 2 ½-year-old daughter, Margot Esmee, who has brought a profound appreciation for the concept of empty-nesting in one’s 50s...something we may never experience at our advanced age. However, there are benefits to being a much older dad: since I’ve spent my entire career working with a bunch of whiny babies (most architects), I’m fairly good at the whole patience thing. And by the time she starts to get into real trouble (is that around 12 now?), I’ll be so deeply into dementia it just won’t matter. We’re based in Washington, D.C. at the moment, as my wife Lydia Muniz is an Assistant Secretary of State, in charge of the Bureau of Overseas Buildings Operations: we moved here for her job. I joined Gensler, the largest design firm in the world, where I lead a studio focused on arts, culture, aviation, and urban design. We just finished the competition for the new LaGuardia Airport, and I’m starting a massive new city design in Doha, Qatar. We’ve got a great little house near the Maryland border with plenty of room for guests, so anyone traveling through the District is welcome. Lydia’s appointment will end in 2016, and we’ll most likely return to New York, which despite the crap I get for wearing a Red Sox hat that protects my bald pate, feels like home. Though unable to make it to the reunion, it would have been great to see everyone else balding and sporting a gut. Gary: I’m on to more knee surgery this summer: multiple meniscus removals, and ACL and MCL replacements already. Didn’t start to get hurt until I started in on the old man’s leagues in NYC, on turf, in my mid-30s....:( A special thanks here to Whitey Morange and Harold Prenatt, both of whom, in their own unique ways, inspired and supported
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Class of 1985 - 35th Reunion - May 16, 2015. From left to right, front row: Cheryl Tutun, Marie Donahue, Allison Popeo, Cheryl Shepard, Ronda Rockett, Jamie Resker, Jerry Jordan, Nina Sand-Loud, Keith Loud, Eric Lowrey, and Steve Valenti. Second row: Paul Tutun, Sean Rockett, John Authers, Andy Donahue, Bob Popeo, John Danahy, Andrew Shepard, Brian Golden, Stephanie Sullivan, Chris Biotti, Katherine Biotti, Dave Gifford, Kate Fifield, and Sandy Valenti.
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1986 Classmates Todd Copeland, Phil Privitera, and C.J. Young at Ruth’s Chris Steak House followed by a Bruins game, April 2015.
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Granddaughter of Kristin and Warren Cross ’83. Daughter Kendall Cross Armstrong gave birth to Kaylee on July 30.
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me in my quest to find a meaningful form of creative expression. Which also included getting me to stop playing the drums.”
1981 A recent article in the Lowell Sun featured 1986 Hobey Baker Award winner, two-time U.S. Olympian and Harvard University’s alltime leading scorer, SCOTT FUSCO. Scott opened the Edge Sports Center in Bedford in November 2007 after he and his brother MARK ’79 sold their software consulting business. He is the founder and co-owner of the busy facility with two ice rinks, two lighted outdoor turf fields, an athletic
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Doug Wolf ’84 writes, “Our law firm hosted a craft beer social event in June which pulled in several from the Class of 1984: Rick Brace, Randy Catlin, Joe Tully, and Chris Brown. With a dubious claim of honesty, they told me they simply wanted to spend quality time with me and the beer didn’t really matter. It was perfect weather and a good time catching up with each other.”
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Classmates Chris Biotti and Jerry Jordan at the 1985 - 30th Reunion dinner on May 16.
training center and health club. The Edge is also the home base for the East Coast Wizards club teams in hockey, lacrosse, and field hockey.
1984 DOUG PEW continues to live happily in Seattle with his wife Deirdre and three daughters.
1985 DOMINIC DiMARE writes: “What have I been doing for the last 30 years? I am sure my parents are wondering that exact thing. My most important accomplishments since high school have been my adventures as a husband and a father. Somehow I convinced my wife to marry me and actually stay married to me for almost 20 years. (I may have oversold my virtues as a potential husband.) We have a son named Dominic who is a fourth grader, a Webelos Scout, and enjoys terrorizing his mother by driving the neighbor’s go-cart at high rates of speed. I
have attempted to make up for my shortcomings as a husband through fatherhood, which for me is the best thing ever. I cannot imagine my life without my son and truly enjoy his company. He received his first communion the same weekend as our Reunion, so unfortunately, I could not attend. After my inglorious tenure on the Hill, I matriculated to American University, where I studied history, public communications, and theater. I had a series of fortunate internship experiences, including working for the Democratic Whip in the House of Representatives and several public relations firms. One of my more unique experiences was a backyard barbeque with three friends and Pink Floyd, absent Roger Waters. Despite my poor performance as a student in high school, I excelled in university in large part due to the very solid academic foundation provided by Belmont Hill. Apparently I did learn something in high school. After college, I lived in Europe for 18 months. I worked in the Rotterdam Harbor for a fruit and vegetable import company, where I was able to become conversant in Dutch. The rest of my time in Europe was spent living rough and working black. I returned to the United States after the onset of the first Gulf War, just in time for the accompanying recession. My attempts to gain employment in San Francisco in advertising and public relations were unsuccessful, as apparently both are some of the first items to be cut in corporate budgets. As a backup plan, I was able to find an entry-level job as a policy committee analyst in the California State Assembly Committee on Agriculture. With no immediate prospects in my preferred profession, I thought that policy
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and political work would be a good temporary back-up plan. Nearly 25 years later, I am still working in politics and policy. Along the way, I have worked as a Policy Committee consultant, a legislative director, an interim chief of staff, a junior lobbyist, senior lobbyist, and a vice president of Government Affairs. I earned a J.D. from the McGeorge School of Law in Sacramento, a valuable experience that taught me that while I might have made a good attorney, I would have died of boredom on my way to partner. So I stuck with lobbying. Presently I am a partner in DiMare, Brown, Hicks, and Kessler. We like to consider ourselves a boutique lobbying firm. We represent a diverse array of clients, including California’s largest retail grocery chain and largest LGBT organization, agricultural water districts, California’s electrical grid operator, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and other educationally related organizations. In any given day I work on as many as seven to ten different public policy issues. I am rarely bored. Lobbying is a perfect job for persons with ADHD. With my spare time I also own and operate a winery with my wife Rina and three other partners. We started Elevation Ten four years ago and initially produced about 800 cases of wine. Our production has now climbed to about 1,200 cases and continues to grow. We are definitely a boutique winery, featuring wines from our local Clarksburg American Viticultural Area (AVA) as well as Napa, Sonoma, and El Dorado County in the Sierra-Nevada foothills. On any given weekend you can find me and my wife behind the bar in our tasting room chatting up customers and sipping wine, and that
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Class of 1990 - 25th Reunion - May 16, 2015. From left to right, front row: Kara Kilpatrick, David Kilpatrick, Mallika Marshall, Jason Hurd, Jennifer Drucker, Jeff Drucker, Carrie Pantazelos, George Pantazelos, Nicholas Conlin, George Hasiotis, Anna Hasiotis, Will Halby, and Steve Senna. Back Row: Sean O’Brien, Lynne Graham O’Brien, Dave Shaff, Heidi Shaff, Brian Walsh, Giuseppe Raviola, Emily Raviola, Paul McNamara, Jessie McNamara, Timothy Muldoon, Sibila Gloggler , Sean Leary, Tom Fox, David Korb, Natasha Fox, Gable Clarke, Lawson Clarke, Catherine Stanzler, Jamie Stanzler, Peter Kilmartin, Danielle Kilmartin, Bob Crowley, Kate Crowley, John Callahan, Vivien Park, Meghan Hurley, Byron Dumbrill, Sean Hurley, Matt Peck, and Michael McHugh.
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The Raviola Family – Emily and Bepi ’90 with their children Elio and Emilia.
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totally counts as work. And by the way, we can ship to Massachusetts. The idea for the winery came about from my involvement in starting a charter school in my small town of Clarksburg, CA. Now in its ninth year of operation, the Delta Elementary Charter School is one of the most meaningful endeavors of my adult life. Especially since my 10-year-old son is a student there. (So it will be my fault completely if he turns out to be illiterate, which I am happy to say isn’t likely.) I remain involved in the School as a founding board member, and we are presently working toward opening a second campus. You might ask how opening a charter school leads one to the wine
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industry. Two of my fellow charter school founding board members and I were discussing the success of the School when we started talking about our interests in wine and desire to start a winery. Collectively we figured, if we can start a school, how hard can it be to start a winery? Turns out that starting and running a winery is a lot easier than starting and running a school. On a more somber note, I lost my brother MARCO ’87, whom many of you knew, in a car accident four years ago. I miss him every day. Marco had worked with my father, TOM DiMARE ’60, for almost 20 years and was in line to take the reins of our family’s 87-year-old produce business. His death
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has required me to become more involved in the business and work alongside my father, which I have enjoyed doing. And I would have enjoyed visiting with you at the Reunion to compare advancing waistlines and receding hairlines! I wish you all the best.” From BRIAN GOLDEN comes: “It is amazing how quickly another five years have passed, since our 25th Reunion. I enjoyed seeing everyone in attendance and sharing Belmont Hill stories, as if they happened yesterday. I am, still, working in the golf business and am beginning my fifth season at Sandy Burr Country Club in Wayland, MA. If any of you are in the area and want to
tee it up, please stop by for a round. Maybe we can find a time for a Class of ’85 round at the Burr. All the best.”
1990 GEORGE HASIOTIS lives in Needham, MA with his wife Anna and works at Cambridge Associates in Boston’s financial district. DAVID KORB writes, “As we are now more than twice as old as we were at graduation, I guess I am no longer in my twenties. After graduation I went to the University of California, Berkeley, which lived up to the slogan on a popular T-shirt out there at the time: ‘Berkeley, the Antidote to Education.’ It would have been hard to choose a more different school than Belmont Hill, and it turned out to be a great experience. I continued with crew, competing against many former Belmont Hill teammates, joined a fraternity, studied in London and Barcelona, and (unlike many at Cal) graduated in four years (plus a summer). Following Berkeley, I returned to Spain and then moved to New York in the fall of 1995 to join Citibank as an emerging market corporate debt analyst. After a grueling year, I switched to trading emerging market debt, which I did for the next 15 years at several different banks and broker-dealers. New York in the 1990s and early 2000s was fun, exciting, and a great place to be. Through my emerging market work, I met my wife and we were married in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in 2007. SANFORD WHITEHOUSE was my best man, and a few other Belmont Hill friends made the trip as well. In 2011, with a one-year-old daughter, we decided to move to Boston to be closer to family and hoping to start something new. A year and a-half ago, we launched an educational consulting and concierge business catering to international students studying in the U.S. for secondary school and college. It has been a welcome change. Several of our former teachers have been helpful in getting me started–thank you! During campus visits for work, Mr. Bassett’s (and a few other teachers’) colorful comments
about these schools have been replayed in my head–amusing memories!” From GIUSEPPE RAVIOLA comes: “I’m very blessed to reach 25 years since being a student at Belmont Hill. I continue to have regular contact with the school as a member of its Health Team. My appreciation knows no bounds for the heroic effort, commitment, and passion of the School’s faculty. From my work with Mrs. David, Mrs. Schmunk, Dr. Thompson, Mrs. Richards, Mrs. Hamilton, and Mr. Bradley, I have a tremendous appreciation for the strides Belmont Hill has taken in attending to the mental health needs of its students, and in supporting students and families facing unexpected challenges of life. The efforts of the School to engage with the emotional development and well-being of its students is something for which everyone associated with Belmont Hill can and should feel proud. My training in clinical adult/child/adolescent psychiatry and public health, as well as my travels, have enabled me to develop my skills as a clinician and therapist for children and families, as a consultant to pediatric medical teams in hospitals, and as a global health implementer working with governments in poor countries to develop much-needed community-based systems of mental health care. Since 2008, I’ve been working at Boston Children’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, and as director of mental health for Partners In Health (PIH), an international NGO that delivers healthcare in low-resource contexts across 10 countries globally. Working at Children’s, I have the opportunity to improve systems for child and adolescent mental health in our own state. At PIH, I work with government ministries of health to strengthen health systems through the integration of mental health services. My global health delivery role is, at its most basic, both a teaching and consultation role as well as a team-building role, bringing people together across countries and disciplines to address pressing needs that require multisectoral solutions. Much of the work focuses on advancing the careers
of local in-country leaders while developing systems to care for the severely mentally ill, those traumatized by violence and social marginalization, and those dealing with the emotional consequences of devastating illnesses such as HIV, tuberculosis, and noncommunicable diseases such as diabetes, cancer, and heart disease. In 2010, I experienced firsthand the response to the devastating Haiti earthquake, followed by the Haiti cholera epidemic, and since that time our cross-national team has developed a model care delivery system for mental-health delivery in the Haitian countryside serving 1.3 million people. Over the past five years I’ve worked across teams in Lesotho, Malawi, Mexico, Peru, Rwanda, Haiti, Siberia, and Boston, and have most recently been supporting teams in Liberia and Sierra Leone battling the ongoing Ebola crisis. Fortunately, I have a family who provides me with much-needed balance, respite, and love. My wife Emily and I have two healthy, thriving children, Emilia, 7, and Elio, 2, around whom our lives happily revolve. We live in Newton in the house in which I was raised. My father lives nearby in Boston, still fully engaged in science in his laboratory at Harvard. We spend good amounts of time together ‘off the grid’ in Vermont, enjoy time on Martha’s Vineyard, and love to travel near and far when we can. Thank you to all at Belmont Hill for what you do. And to good friends who have made the journey an adventure.” MATTHEW PECK graduated from Dartmouth College in 1994 with a degree in government and economics. Now a portfolio manager at Caxton Europe, he lives in London with his wife Blaine and their two children, Gillian, 7, and Ewan, 4.
1991 BRIAN SHORTSLEEVE was chosen to fill the new chief administrator position at the MBTA. Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker announced the news, describing
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1995 From BILL ABELY: “The notion that it has been 20 years since Belmont Hill initially struck me as incorrect, but some simple math proves otherwise: four years at Harvard + two years in politics + three years summer–fall 2015
Class of 1995 - 20th Reunion - May 16, 2015. From left to right, front row: Nickolai Bobrov, Kirk McKeown, Justin Monahan, Dan Sullivan, Chris Day, Jeff Evans, and Frank Gorke. Second row: Kara Delahunt Bobrov, Lori Ann Young, Rebecca McKeown, Sarah Monahan, Kate Sullivan, Crystalle Lacouture, Nicole Day, Megan Egan, Courtney Jones, and Kamiko Curran. Back row: Eric Cosman, Alexandra Cosman, Dan Young, Tom Flynn, Joelle Flynn, Catherine Bing, Ben Bing, Scott Stedman, Bill Abely, Todd Speros, Scott Norwood, Dan Egan, Eric Sanders, Jesse Margolis, Jennifer Gorke, and Ford Curran.
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Nick Bobrov ’95 and Kara Delahunt Bobrov at the Alumni Weekend reception on May 15.
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Cliff Goodband ’97 and son Connor at First Communion, May 2015.
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Shortsleeve as the ideal man for the job. “Brian is a proven leader with a successful track record of fixing and running complex organizations large and small and his expertise is exactly what is needed to get the job done,” said Baker. Shortsleeve has almost 20 years of experience working within the public and private sector. He’s also a former Marine Corps veteran.
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at Virginia Law + eight years with Ropes & Gray in Boston + three years as an assistant U.S. attorney in Nashville does, indeed, equal 20. Each of these intervening years has been rewarding and memorable in its own way. As for the present, I truly love my job as a federal prosecutor and am having almost as much fun as I did back in Mock Trial. It is perhaps for the best that I now must navigate the courtroom on my own, without the benefit of exchanging notes of questionable decorum with SCOTT STEDMAN and the rest of the crew. Claire and I are really enjoying life in Nashville, and last year we were delighted for Tennessee-born Betsy to join her native Bostonian sisters Maggie and Molly. I very much enjoyed catching up with classmates and teachers at the reunion in May.”
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SCOTT NORWOOD writes: “After graduating from Belmont Hill, I traveled south to attend the College of William and Mary, majoring in government. I then returned from Williamsburg to the Boston area to work in the IT field. In the course of this, I have worked as a systems administrator for several local companies, primarily in the technology field. I am currently employed at Boston Common Press in Brookline, which is best known for the America’s Test Kitchen series of cookbooks and television shows. It is difficult to believe that it has been 20 years since graduation. I enjoyed catching up with everyone in May at the reunion.”
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Brooks McGraw, son of Heather and Jed McGraw ’98.
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John (Jack) Steven Rothmeier, born on February 19, 2015 to Claire and Jarrett Rothmeier ’02.
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Clare Cawley Murphy, born on June 9. Daughter of Lauren and Matt Murphy ’00.
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Ed Kirby, John Clifford, and Eric Ahlgren at the Class of 2000 – 15th Reunion dinner on May 16.
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Class of 2000 – 15th Reunion Dinner, May 16, 2015. From left to right, first row: Jason Tse, Chrissy Tse, Claudia Canu, Maciek Wojdakowski, Colin Boyle, Lindsey Boyle, Steve Vallarelli, Margot Navins, Lee Navins, and Daisuke Yasutake. Second row: Heejean Parry, Brendon Parry, Melissa Kirby, Ed Kirby, Chip Gibson, Liz Gibson, Lauren Murphy, Matt Murphy, Carrie Allen, and Colin Allen. Back row: Ben Finnegan, Kate Finnegan, Joe Grause, Luci Grause, Kristy Ahlgren, Eric Ahlgren, John Clifford, and Katrina Clifford.
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1998 A recent article in the Boston Globe featured DAN LOMBARD, who tended goal at Belmont Hill, Yale University, and then professionally, both in this country and in France and Sweden. Dan now sees hockey through the eyes of his young son Ciaran, who is four and a-half years old and appears
to have a love of the game. Whether Ciaran follows his father into the net remains to be seen: “He is attracted by the goalie equipment,” Dan said. “He loves the mask.”
1999 GEORGE MALCOLM is now a research fellow at the National Institutes of Health.
2004 BASILE BEATY writes: “I opened my gym (Verdant CrossFit in Boise, ID) seven months ago and I was able to pull a bunch of good athletes from the existing community together to form a team that took third place in the West super region (half of Canada and all the northwest states).
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class notes
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Belmont Hill was well represented when Denys Levin ’04 married Louise Chapman in May 2015. From left to right: Brendan Syron ’04, Sam Gaynor ’04, Danny Gaynor ’06, Alex Snickenberger ’04, Denys Levin ’04, Zander Farkas ’04, Toby Banta ’04, John Meyer ’04, Yanik Bababekov ’04, and Dan Neczypor ’04. In attendance, but not pictured: Mike McGuire ’04.
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Basile Beaty ’04 with his CrossFit team.
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Nick Leader ’05, Courtney Leader, Jamie Waters ’05, and Brian McCafferty ’05 at the Alumni Weekend Reception on May 15.
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Garrett Hatton ’05 and fiancé Sarah Gordon.
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The CrossFit Games occur once a year and are the third and final stage of official competition in the CrossFit world. Making the Games is typically a once-in-a-lifetime occurrence. We will be on ESPN from July 21–26 when we are competing.” Newly minted physicians JOHN MEYER and Freya Van Driessche will marry on August 15, 2015 in Belgium. They will travel in Europe and return to New York for their residencies.
2005 This from WILL BALDWIN: “The day after I graduated from Belmont Hill, I went to volunteer on my first political campaign,
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and I’ve been working in politics and public policy ever since. Following my graduation from Cornell, I spent the next two years as a campaign staffer before moving to Washington, DC and shifting into polling and political research, through which I’ve worked on races in more than 30 states. Currently, I’m a senior research analyst with the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.” GARRETT HATTON graduated in 2009 from Colby College, where he majored in history and played football for the Mules. He currently lives in Boston, where he works for a real estate private equity firm and still spends “too much time” with his friends from Belmont Hill. In September on Cape Cod, Garrett will be married to Sarah Gordon, a fellow Colby alum.
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MARSHALL NEVINS writes, “After graduating from Georgetown in the spring of 2009, I moved to New York to join J.P. Morgan’s Real Estate & Lodging investment banking group as an analyst. In the fall of 2010 I left J.P. Morgan to join Northwood Investors, a New York–based private equity fund focused on real estate investments in North America and Europe. I continue to live in New York and work at Northwood, where I am currently a vice president on the investment team with a primary responsibility for opportunities in the East Coast markets of the U.S.”
2009 NOAH DONNELL-KILMER writes, “For the past two years I have been serving with
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Class of 2005 - 10th Reunion Dinner, May 16, 2015. From left to right, front row: Dan Braunstein, Michelle Pierce, Teddy Pierce, Courtney Leader, Nick Leader, Samantha Beatty, Sean Clancy, Matt Weeks, Jamie Shriner, Abby Cosimini, Latoya Hankey, and Will Forde. Second row: J.T. Balben, Jaclyn Balben, Brian McCafferty, Katie McCafferty, Field Yates, Dan Fuss, Tim Aldrich, and Ben Giso. Third row: Claire Sullivan, Jake Duker, Justin Oates, Miles McAlpin, Geoff Gillman, Joe Tierney , Kevin Keefe, and Mike Pagliarulo. Fourth row: Derek Arnold, Hope Sullivant, Rob Palladino, Vasili Davos, Dean Koutris, Doug Robinson, Matt Sheehan, Frank Cohen, Margaret Holland, and Grayson Holland. Fifth row: John Ramsey , Nick Lehr, Marshall Nevins, Wynne Dillon, Jamie Waters, Sarah Gordon, Garrett Hatton, Ali Jafri, Mike Kiami, Brendan Luby, and Alison Holmes. Back row: Will Baldwin, Hannah Clark, Lauryn Duke, Wes Duke, and Nils Wernerfelt.
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Will Baldwin ’05.
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Frank Cohen ’05, Rick Melvoin, and Ali Jafri ’05 at the Alumni Weekend reception on May 15.
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The Gallup Family – Barry ’06, Maggie Rulli, Henry Lancaster, Vicki, and Barry Sr. at Belmont Hill Prize Day, May 2015.
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class notes
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Three members of the class of 2008 stopped by the Alumni House on April 3, 2015, from left to right: Ben Driver, Jack Wendler, and Andrew Cornelia.
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Emeka Ekwelum ’08, Dan Regis ’08 and John McAlpin at the Alumni Weekend reception on May 15.
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Class of 2010 - 5th Reunion Dinner - May 16, 2015. From left to right, front row: David Mazza, Aman Shah, Kevin Travaline, Jordan Gorelick, Marco Martellini, Patrick Bathon, Ray Allieri, Peter Kaloostian, Ryan Manning, and Jang Kim. Second Row: Joey Dow, Hib Schenck, Ben Porter, Bobby Alexander, Chris Ivsin, Joe Cookson, Mike Trachy, and Nick Ogonowsky. Third Row: Clint Porte, Michael Gangemi, PJ Rufo, Birin Padam, Reed Casey, Mark Dillon, Alex Starr, Will Plumb, and Ted Winston. Fourth row: Kevin Connors, Alec Finigan, Josh Balder, Derek Metcalfe, Peter Swan, Nick Koeniger, Robby Cahill, and Alex Smalanskas-Torres. Fifth row: Jeff Schimmel, Ian Connor, Paul Shea, Tim Strakosch, Nick Tierney, Kevin Clough, P.J. Lee, Sam McQuillan, and John Caldwell. Sixth row: Tom Muse, Bobby Avakian, Andrew Dirks, Andrew Greenough, Bashiru Akinfolarin, and Peter Yanofsky.
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Reed Casey ’10.
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P.J. Rufo ’10 with his family at Boston College’s Commencement.
FoodCorps at a nonprofit called Garden School Foundation in Los Angeles. FoodCorps works on helping kids grow up in healthy food environments by partnering with organizations and school districts around the country. As a service member with Garden School Foundation, I taught cooking and gardening lessons to students from pre-K through 6th grade at two local elementary schools. I thoroughly enjoyed this experience, because I was able to work very closely with the communities and the gardens. Upon completion of this service year, I will be bicycling down the Pacific Coast from Seattle back to Southern California.” HENRY MEYER is living in Boston and working for Navigant Consulting.
2010 After graduating, JACK DesBOIS spent a gap year acclimating to a new regimen for his chronic Lyme disease and co-infections. He also assistant taught the theater program at his middle school alma mater, Glen Urquhart School, and performed and recorded with the Christmas Revels in Cambridge. Upon matriculating at Yale, he very quickly realized his mistake and
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transferred after his freshman year to join his brothers, ANDREW and LEO ’07 at Middlebury. Jack remembers the advice Mr. MacLean gave him about pursuing a career in theater: if there is anything else that you could possibly be happy doing with your life, do that other thing. Jack found that “other thing” at Middlebury, but, unfortunately, it was music. After spending three semesters working toward a joint B.A. in music and theater, he realized he didn’t need to put up with the avant-garde aesthetic of the Middlebury theater department. He switched to a full music major and directed an entirely student-run production of RENT, his third time contributing to a production of the show, the previous time being his portrayal of Mark in Dana Hall’s Bardwell Auditorium during his senior year at Belmont Hill. This past January, Jack got the chance to resurrect another one of his Hill theater ghosts, reprising the role of Tateh in Middlebury’s production of Ragtime. During his time at Middlebury, Jack has acted and sung in countless plays, musicals, concerts, and operas, worked in the theater department scene shop and on the front-of-house staff, designed the lighting for a musical, written several plays (and saw one of his 10-minute plays performed), and is currently writing
songs for a new musical for his senior work. It would seem that not much has changed since his theater-rat days on the Hill, though after three years of singing second tenor in the B-Flats, he discovered that he’s actually a bass and is currently preparing the bass solos from Handel’s Messiah. Jack unfortunately can’t make it to the reunion this time around; he’ll be up in Vermont graduating from college (or, as MR. CARLOCK might correct him, being graduated from college). He sends his regards to the Class of 2010, especially the B-Flats and the boarders. He will be spending the summer in Middlebury interning at the Town Hall Theater and is applying for professional internship positions at regional theaters in New England for the upcoming theater season. After that is a big question mark, though graduate school in the U.K. is an exciting possibility. REED CASEY writes, “After graduation, I made a quick trip down the Mass. Pike to Worcester, MA, where I would spend the next four years at the College of the Holy Cross. While at Holy Cross, I became interested in politics and, as a result, chose to pursue political science as my major. During my sophomore year, I discovered the Washington, DC Semester Program, which allows
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class notes
Sam Meyers ’11, Jeff Ott ’12, and Michael Rudzinski ’11 at the Belmont Hill MAP social at Harpoon Boston in June.
16 students to spend a semester in the capital and requires each student to complete an internship, a thesis, and participate in one class on public policy. I applied and gained acceptance to this program during the spring semester of my junior year. The thesis and class on public policy provided valuable learning experiences, but I was most proud of my internship experience. For my internship, I was fortunate enough to work at the White House in the Office of Presidential Correspondence. It was a true honor to have worked for the President of the United States. Unfortunately, during my time in D.C., I also saw the ugly side of politics and began to search for alternative career opportunities that would be available to me after graduating from Holy Cross. In my search, I discovered Northeastern University’s Graduate School of Professional Accounting and its MSA/MBA program. The program allows students to graduate with their master of science in accounting and their M.B.A. in 15 months and it prepares them to sit for the CPA exam. Additionally, it offers its students a three-
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month paid internship at an accounting firm. Again, I applied and was accepted to the graduate program. I recently completed my three-month paid internship with Ernst & Young, and upon doing so, I received a full-time offer to start in October. I will graduate from Northeastern University in September and I am looking forward to beginning the next chapter of my life and my professional career.” From P. J. RUFO: “Let’s see, since graduating from Belmont Hill, I’ve been up to a few things. First, I attended and have since graduated from Boston College, double majoring in English and philosophy with a minor in Chinese. As of the time this is read, I will have been enrolled in grad school for all of one or two days. I’m at BC again, going for my master’s in secondary education. Predictably, I had a fun time in college, met some great people, went to China the summer after sophomore year, and captained the all-time worst intramural basketball team in BC history (0–44 record over four years). I’ve had some weird jobs since graduation, including restaurant host,
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professional cold caller, some political campaign stuff, retrieving-clothes-from-firesand-water-damage-guy, a brief stint as the head coach of the Park wrestling team, and seven glorious months of unemployment. Looking to the future, my career seems to be heading down the education path. I guess you could say I was inspired by the relationships I made here in the great Belmont Hill environment. In an ideal world, I could see myself back here teaching kids English and how to wear inappropriately colored suits to formal events.”
2011 BRANDON McNALLY signed a free-agent contract with the St. John’s IceCaps (formerly the Hamilton Bulldogs, Montreal’s AHL affiliate) on March 19. Holy Cross senior JACK ST. CLAIR and junior SEAN GUSTIN ’12 were both selected to the 2015 Baseball Academic All-Patriot League team. To be eligible for the team, a student must have at least a 3.20 cumulative grade point average and be a starter or key
Former Belmont Hill rowers at the 2015 NEIRA championships held in Worcester in May. From (l-r): Alexander Richards ’14 (Harvard), Robby Danziger ’13 (Georgetown), Matt Ryan ’14 (Columbia), Henry Ogilby ’13 (Princeton), Mac Manion ’14 (Cornell), and Mihir Gulati ’14 (Columbia).
player in his/her sport. St. Clair is a double major in mathematics and economics and holds a 3.52 cumulative grade-point average. Also named to 2014 CoSIDA Academic All-District team, St. Clair is a two-time member of the Patriot League Academic Honor Roll. Gustin is an economics major with a 3.43 cumulative GPA. He was named to the Academic All-Patriot League last season and is a two-time member of the Patriot League Academic Honor Roll.
on the team with a .331 batting average in 37 games played as the team’s primary left fielder. To be eligible for Academic All-America consideration, a student must be a varsity starter or key reserve, maintain a cumulative GPA of 3.30, have reached sophomore athletic and academic standings at his current institution, and be nominated by his sports information director.
We would love to hear from you and share your latest news with classmates. Please email your news and photos to the Alumni Office at alumni@belmonthill.org. Length and content are subject to editorial approval; some submissions will appear as excerpts. The deadline for submissions to the Winter Bulletin is January 5, 2016.
2012 JAKE LEVINE, a junior at Brown University, was named to the Capital One Academic All-District First Team. Levine, an economics concentrator who holds a 3.76 grade point average, put together an impressive campaign for the Bears baseball team this past spring. He ranked second www.belmonthill.org
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faculty & staff news
FACULTY & STAFF NEWS
JOHN NOAH AMBIELLI, son of former faculty member JOHN AMBIELLI and his wife Celia, was born on February 6, 2015. Baby John joins siblings Eric and Sophia. On May 21, 2015, a celebration was held at the Belmont Hill-Winsor Boathouse dedicating a new crew shell in honor of former faculty member REGGIE HUDSON. He was a volunteer crew coach at Winsor from 1974–76. His family wished to honor his memory by donating a boat, the “Chi Dura Vinci” (“Those who persevere will win”), to the Winsor crew program. Shown with the boat is his son, CHARLIE HUDSON ’73.
THEODORE “TEDDY” BAGLEY FELDMAN, daughter of faulty member STEPHEN FELDMAN and his wife Sarah Bagley, was born on August 4, 2015. Teddy joins big sister Lucy.
Former and current faculty members gathered for the 12th Annual Arnold Luncheon at the Capital Grill in Burlington on June 18. Attendees from left to right, seated: BUDDY BATES, DON STEWART, GEORGE SEELEY, BOB ARNOLD, and HAROLD PRENATT. Standing, BOB CRESSEY, ROSS ROBERTS, DAN BRIDGES, JEFF FAST, and MICHAEL SHERMAN.
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On August 14, 2015, GEN. MARK A. MILLEY ’76 was sworn-in as 39th Chief of Staff of the Army. In attendance from the Belmont Hill School community were (from left to right) Ed Nardi ’78, Sean Sherman ’78, George Favaloro (P ’08, ’13), David Tweedy ’77, AND KEN MARTIN ’65.
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TESSA ELIZABETH GORMAN, daughter of staff member CHUCK GORMAN and his wife Julia, was born on August 18, 2015. Baby Tessa joins big sister Jenna.
In honor of CHRIS WADSWORTH’s 75th birthday in June, a celebration was hosted by BUNNY and RICK MELVOIN on May 26 at the Howe House. From left to right, BUNNY MELVOIN, CHRIS WADSWORTH, Lori Wadsworth, and RICK MELVOIN. Second row: Truman Casner ’53, Cinnie Casner, Sue Seeley, Pat Cross, and Polly Pike. Third row: Hugh Jones, GEORGE SEELEY, MICHAEL THOMPSON, and John Pike ’49. Back row: DAN BRIDGES, BEVERLY COUGHLIN, Theresa McNally, and HAROLD PRENATT.
Former faculty member WHITEY MORANGE and his wife Lena attended Reunion Weekend events.
MICHAEL SHERMAN was honored through the naming of an endowed faculty chair. Mr. Sherman, pictured with RICK MELVOIN, was presented with a Belmont Hill captain’s chair at the conclusion of the final faculty meeting for the year. The occasion was celebrated at a June 10 dinner at the Alumni House with his current and former colleagues, family, and friends. The Michael T. Sherman Chair in Mathematics was established in 2015 by Lyn and TOD RODGER and friends to honor, for a term of five years, a member of the faculty for excellence in the teaching of mathematics and for a broad commitment to students and school life.
Former Headmaster CHRIS WADSWORTH and his wife Lori at the June 10 dinner celebrating MICHAEL SHERMAN. SEND US YOUR NEWS! The Belmont Hill community would love to know what former faculty and staff are doing.
Head of School RICK MELVOIN and CHIP DALEY ’16 at the conclusion of the 2015 PMC Challenge.
Please email: communications@belmonthill.org with your news and, if you have a recent photo you would like to share of yourself, your family, travel, etc., please include it with your message.
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belmont hill memorabilia
Smathers & Branson Needlepoint Wallet An attractive credit card wallet featuring the Belmont Hill Sextant in needlepoint and finished with Italian leather. This slim wallet (4"x3") provides enough room for cards, cash, and an ID, but does not take up too much room in the pocket or bag. $55
Belmont Hill School Captain’s Chair Solid hardrock maple captain’s chair with cherry arms and back with laser-engraved Belmont Hill logo makes a meaningful gift anytime. Shipped directly to your home or office. $475 plus $29 for basic shipping. $19 for one line of personalization. Please allow 4–6 weeks for delivery.
Cufflinks Sterling silver, hand-engraved. $350
Vineyard Vines Silk Belmont Hill Neckties Call for available colors. $75
Tote Bag L.L.Bean nylon tote bag with navy accents featuring an embroidered sextant. $50 front
For your convenience, credit card orders are accepted by phone. Contact Eileen Foley at 617.993.5202 or stop by the Alumni House at 19 Marsh Street.
back
Bike Jersey VOmax cycling jersey. $75
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In Memoriam www.belmonthill.org
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in memoriam
J. MURRAY SMART
John Murray Smart, of Spring Hill, FL and Aruba, died on May 18, 2015. He was 93.
entrepreneurial skills grew this small local enterprise to international status.
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Born in Arlington, MA in 1921, Mr. Smart went on to Dartmouth College, where he was an outstanding hockey player. He interrupted his education for wartime service in the U.S. Air Force in 1944 as a bombardier navigator on Liberator Bombers based in England, for which he was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross. Mr. Smart resumed his studies and graduated from Dartmouth in 1945.
Mr. Smart and his wife lived part of each year in Aruba, where he enjoyed playing golf, competing in several Pro/Am tournaments. They also traveled extensively.
He became a lobbyist with the Independent Insurance Association of Maine. In 1984, Mr. Smart and his wife Delores moved to Florida, where they launched Smart Interiors, which became a successful family home furnishings and interior design business. His
CHANDLER GIFFORD JR.
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Chandler Gifford Jr., of Concord, MA, died at his home on June 21, 2015. He was 93.
and sailing the waters of Maine and Duxbury, MA, where he and his family spent summers.
Mr. Gifford was born in Cambridge, MA, in 1922, the son of the late Chandler and Mary (Nash) Gifford.
Mr. Gifford served as president of Belmont Hill’s Parents’ Association from 1973–75.
He graduated from Trinity College and served in the U.S. Army in Europe during World War II as a forward observer.
His wife of 67 years, Barbara (Benedict) Gifford, died in 2014. Mr. Gifford is survived by his sons, Peter L. Gifford ’72 and his wife Holly (Cleveland), of Concord, and Benjamin O. Gifford ex ’77, of Penobscot, ME; his grandchildren, Samuel S. Gifford, of Concord; Hilary Watson, of Burlington, VT; and Alexander Watson, of Honolulu, HI; and his son-in-law, Peter T. Watson, of Bainbridge Island, WA. Mr. Gifford was also the father of the late Nancy G. Watson, of Bainbridge Island.
Mr. Gifford had great respect for the preservation of land and wildlife and was a member of the Manomet Center for Life Sciences, the Concord Land Conservation Trust, and the Trustees of Reservations. He took great pleasure in tending to his property in Concord since the early 1950s. He also enjoyed crosscountry skiing, walks in the local woods of Concord,
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He is survived by his wife, Delores Smart; his son, Robert Capozza and his wife Lauri; his daughter, Kimberly Backman and her husband Derek; his grandsons Robert Capozza and his wife Lauren; Michael Capozza and his wife Tarah; and Warren Backman; and his great-grandson Evan Capozza. He also was the father of the late John Murray Smart Jr. and the brother of the late Chandler W. Smart ’43 and Wyman W. Smart ’46.
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WILLIAM B. SIMMONS
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William B. Simmons, of Lexington, MA, died on May 13, 2015. He was 91. Mr. Simmons left school in the Fifth Form to join the U.S. Army Air Corps during World War II. He served three and one-half years as a staff sergeant in the 5th Air Force, mainly in New Guinea. He moved to Lexington in 1951 and also acquired a vacation home on Cape Cod.
JOSEPH C. BASSO JR.
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RICHARD M. SHERWOOD
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Mr. Simmons was the husband for 66 years of Barbara (Garfield) Simmons, who died in 2013. He is survived by their children, William B. Simmons Jr. and his wife Debra, of Waltham, MA; Nancy Simmons Dias and her husband Charles Cabana, of Ludlow, MA; and Robert G. Simmons and his wife Karen, of Billerica, MA; his sister, Ann Butler, of Rhode Island; his grandchildren, Jonathan, Emily, Christopher, David, Amy, William, Matthew, and Robert; his great-granddaughter, Alliana; and many nieces and nephews.
Joseph C. Basso Jr., of Tequesta, FL, formerly of Plymouth and Boston, MA, died on April 26, 2015. He was 86.
He and his wife, the late Barbara A. (Driscoll) Basso,
Mr. Basso went on to attend the University of Connecticut then joined the U.S. Navy for flight training. He earned his wings and, after walking away from several night carrier landings, re-entered civilian life in due course. During his career, he worked for the Kenmore Hospital in Boston; Newark Air Force in Maplewood, MN; K.J. Quinn Company, Malden, MA; and J.F. White Contracting Co., Newton, MA.
Mr. Basso is survived by his son Joseph C. (Jake) Basso III and his wife Pamela, of Norwell, MA and his daughter Barbara A. (Penny) Dowd, of Boston; his grandchildren Ben Dowd and Liza and Emma Basso; his sister Natalie Ryan, of Belmont, MA; and many nieces and nephews. He was also the father of the late Thomas D. Basso and Peter D. Basso.
Richard M. Sherwood, of South Dartmouth, MA, died at Luke’s Hospital in New Bedford on April 7, 2015. He was 85.
herst, NH, he served as selectman and on several town committees. He loved skiing, sailing, birding, reading historical novels, and bragging about his grandchildren.
Mr. Sherwood was born in Worcester, MA, the son of Thomas K. and Betty M. Sherwood.
He is survived by his wife of 61 years, Janet Robertson Sherwood; his son Christopher R. Sherwood and daughter-in-law Patricia J. White, of North Falmouth, MA and his son Peter M. Sherwood and daughter-inlaw Sarah Sherwood, of Beverly Farms, MA; his sister, Marcia Sherwood Martin, of Swarthmore, PA; and his grandchildren, Samuel K., Peter M., Jr., Thomas F., Sarah R., and Rita J. Sherwood. He also was the brother of the late Thomas K. Sherwood ’47.
He grew up in Wellesley Hills, attended Kimball Union Academy along with Belmont Hill School, and held degrees in civil engineering from Wesleyan University and MIT. He had a long career as a construction manager that included assignments in Jamaica, Denver, Iran, England, and several U.S. locations. He was the author of A Field Guide to Sailboats. During his 20-year residence in Am-
retired to Cape Cod and later expanded their leisure activity to Tequesta, FL.
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in memoriam
CLIFFORD A. CLARK
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Oliver S. Taylor, of Annapolis, MD, died on September 15, 2014. He was 84. Born in Cambridge, MA in 1930, Mr. Taylor was the son of the late Charles Holt Taylor and Fidelia Leverett Moore. He earned his B.A. from Harvard College in 1953 and a Master’s in Public Administration from Syracuse University in 1955. After an initial career in municipal management in Springfield, OH; Milford, MI; and Auburn, NY, Mr. Taylor went to work for the Model Cities program in Chicago, IL in 1967. Next, he joined the Office of Management and Budget when it was created by the Nixon Administration in 1971 and retired from that agency in 1987. From 1975 to 1978, however, he served as country director of Botswana for the Peace Corps. After his retirement from federal service, Mr. Taylor deepened his involvement in horticulture and music. He established a rehearsal space in his home and for
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managing trustee of the Denison Foundation, and a trustee for the BBH Mutual Funds.
He grew up in Belmont, went on to graduate from He is survived by his wife of 63 years, Patricia Dexter Bowdoin College in 1952, and then attended Officers’ Clark; three children, Deborah Clark Davis (JR), of Candidate School USNR. He saw duty as a navigator Unadilla, NY; Pamela Clark Cochrane (Kenneth), of on the USS Mullany DD528. In 1960, Mr. Clark joined Harvard, MA; and Gregory Randolph Dexter Clark the private bank Brown Brothers Harriman & Co., ’80 (Sara), of Carlisle, MA; eight grandchildren, Matthew, Jessica and Chester Davis, Sarah and Margaret retiring after 30 years as senior manager in Boston to enjoy his retirement with family and golf on Cape Cod. Cochrane, and Zachary, Brodie, and Alexander (Ace) Clark; and his brother, Herbert Randolph Clark ’56. He was a long time member of St. Anne’s-in-theHe was also the brother of the late Rev. David Lang Fields Episcopal Church in Lincoln, MA, where he Clark ’50. served as treasurer. Mr. Clark also was a member of Concord Country Club, Woods Hole Golf Club, and the Long Table Syndicate, and was founder and
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Clifford A. Clark of Concord, MA, died on May 12, 2015. He was 83.
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more than three decades invited musicians of all ages to weekly jam sessions there. He was a percussionist with the Bay Winds Community Band and several rock and funk bands. He led a swing sextet—Spa Creek Swing Band—and the 16-piece big band, Annapolis Junction, which headlined at the King of France Tavern for more than a year. One entire wall of the basement rehearsal space is covered with the signatures of all the musicians who played with him in public. From 1953 to 1984, Mr. Taylor was married to Cynthia Blake Wales and their children survive him: Alison Elizabeth Cullinane and her husband John, of Severna Park, MD; Charles Holt Taylor II of Baltimore, MD; Mary Wales McCoy and her husband Kenan, of Eldersburg, MD; and Caroline Moore Taylor, of Horseheads, NY. He is also survived by his second wife, Barbara Joyce Grisdale, whom he married in 1988; five grandchildren; and four great-grandchildren.
ROBERT N. MacARTHUR
Robert N. MacArthur, of Bayside, ME, died on March 27, 2015. He was 80.
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Born in Winchester, MA, he graduated from Babson College and went on to earn an M.B.A. from Brown University. Mr. MacArthur was a security analyst for Babson United in Wellesley, MA and lived for many years in Boxford, MA.
DAVID W. TABER
David Wendell Taber, of Syracuse, NY, died on February 25, 2015. He was 78.
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Born in Boston in 1937, Mr. Taber was the son of the late Wendell and Frances (Townsend) Taber. He grew up in Cambridge and attended Northeastern University for two years before transferring to the University of Maine at Orono, from which he graduated in 1961 with a B.S. in forest management. In 1968, U. Maine awarded him an M.S. in wood technology. Mr. Taber started his career in forestry in 1961 with the Pennsylvania Department of Forests and Waters. In November of that year he began two years of service with the U.S. Army as a second and first lieutenant. He later worked for the Maine Forest Service and the Pennsylvania State University Cooperative Extension Service and in 1970 became a wood utilization specialist for the
WILLIAM S. HARRIS
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William S. Harris, of Sagamore Beach, MA, died June 24, 2015. He was 77. Born in Boston, Mr. Harris was the son of the late Margaret (Clark) Harris and Chester S. Harris. He grew up in Newton Center and Sudbury, attended the Fessenden School, and went on to the University of Virginia, graduating from the Commerce School with a degree in economics in 1960. He served in the military as a lieutenant in the transportation corps for two years, and was called up during the Berlin Crisis. Following his discharge, Mr. Harris went to work for Keystone, a mutual fund company, and shortly after that, he joined Massachusetts Financial Services as a
He is survived by his wife of 53 years, Betty Buzzell MacArthur; his son, Robert W. MacArthur and his wife Kelly, of Cumberland, ME; and his two grandchildren, Jake William and Luke Mather MacArthur, also of Cumberland.
Cornell University Cooperative Extension Service. He retired from this last assignment in 1995 and worked for two more years as a consultant for the New York Pulp Wood Association. Mr. Taber was honored numerous times during his career for outstanding professional service, including being named by his peers in 1984 as a Fellow of the American Society of Foresters. He is survived by his wife of 54 years, Marcia Jane (Tibbetts) Taylor, of Syracuse; two daughters, Harriet Frances Taber and her husband David Smith, of Brooklyn, NY, and Mary Elizabeth Taber and her husband Ben Gordon, of Saratoga Springs, NY; and two grandchildren, Abraham Taber Gordon and Lena Rose Taber Gordon, also of Saratoga Springs. Mr. Taber was also the brother of the late Frances Dobson Taber.
portfolio manager. He had a long and successful career with MFS and was thought of as one of the most skilled money managers in New England. He married Virginia Mary Giovanella, and they had a son, Kenneth. Mr. Harris was later married to the late Ruth Cates. He retired around 2000 and, as an avid boater and fisherman, moved to Cape Cod. Mr. Harris is survived by his son Kenneth and his wife, Cecelia, of Southboro, MA; his brother Dan; and his sister Carolyn. In his last years, following a stroke, he was cared for by his friend Dan who made his life much more pleasurable than it might have been.
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in memoriam
DAVID A. B. PRICE
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David A. B. Price, of New York City, died on June 9, 2015. He was 71. Mr. Price earned his B.A. at Yale University and for over 40 years was a well-regarded photographer. He was the son of Elaine and David Price.
JOHN A. LITVACK
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John A. Litvack, of Los Angeles, CA, died on March 21, 2015. He was 69. One of the top TV executives of the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s, and often referred to as the dean of current programming, Mr. Litvack had a rare career path in which he frequently switched back and forth between being an executive and working as a director and producer. Born in Newton, MA, he graduated from Columbia University and landed his first job at CBS, holding cue cards on Captain Kangaroo. He rose through the ranks from a grip to assistant cameraman, cameraman, assistant director, and a director on daytime soap operas. He was a soap helmer from 1968–1975, working on The Guiding Light, Edge of Night, and Search for Tomorrow. He helped innovate the look of soaps, trying to make them more cinematic. Mr. Litvack got his first executive position at CBS, where he served as director of daytime programming from 1975–1978 before going back to direct As the World Turns. He served as VP for current programming at MGM TV from 1979–1981 before joining NBC for a five-year tenure as VP for current drama series and VP for drama development at NBC Studios. He worked on some of NBC’s biggest hits of the decade, including Hill Street Blues, St. Elsewhere, Miami Vice, A-, Remington Steele, Amazing Stories, and Knight Rider. He then
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returned to producing, serving as co-executive producer on the final season of Hill Street Blues and doing a development deal with MTM. In 1989, Mr. Litvack joined Disney just as the company was building up its TV operation. He served as SVP for current programming for Disney TV from 1989–1997, overseeing such series as The Golden Girls and Home Improvement. He also helped develop the comedy Boy Meets World. During that time, he also helped start the Archive of American Television. Mr. Litvack then spent seven years at the WB as EVP for current primetime scheduling, helping launch the new network. He oversaw Dawson Creek, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, 7th Heaven, Charmed, Felicity, Popular, Everwood, and Smallville. “John truly loved television,” said Jordan Levin, who worked with him at the WB. “He was committed to his programs, producers, and colleagues; he was incredibly passionate about making everything the best it could be; and he loved to groom and mentor younger creators and executives.” Mr. Litvack is survived by his two sons, Cameron Litvack and Zachary Litvack, three grandchildren, and his brother James M. Litvack ’58.
JOHN O. PARKER JR.
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John O. Parker Jr. died on March 18, 2015, at his home in Skillman, NJ. He was 70.
companies, including Express Scripts, PHT Corp., Medical Present Value, Inc., and Solicore, Inc.
Born in Boston, Mr. Parker was the son of the late John O. and Elizabeth (MacDonald) Parker. He earned his B.A. from Bowdoin College in 1966 and served as a submarine officer in the U.S. Navy aboard the USS Greenfish before earning his M.B.A. from Harvard University in 1972.
An avid sailor, Mr. Parker’s voyages included a transatlantic passage and trips to South Georgia Island and Antarctica, as well as numerous crossings from the Chesapeake Bay to Bermuda, the British Virgin Islands, and Canada. He held a 100-Ton Master’s License from the U.S. Coast Guard. Not limited to the water, Mr. Parker was also an FAA-licensed aviator with private, instrument, high performance, and seaplane ratings.
After starting his career at Corning Glass Works, Mr. Parker went on to serve as chief information officer of Baxter Healthcare, Squibb Corp., Sea-land Corp., and SmithKline Beecham. Upon his retirement from the pharmaceutical industry, he co-founded Care Capital LLC, a venture capital investment firm, and later joined Rho Ventures as a venture partner. Over the years, he served as a member of the boards of directors of several
WILLIAM J. CUNNINGHAM III
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He is survived by his wife of 43 years, Beverly Parker; his son Todd and daughter Hilary; his grandsons Andrew and Kevin; his brother, James T. Parker ’70; his son’s fiancée, Vanessa Alegria; and many in-laws, nieces, and nephews. He was also the brother of the late Ann Parker.
William J. Cunningham III, of Newbury, NH, died at his home on June 19, 2015. He was 41.
He moved to Newbury in 2005 and was a former member of the Lake Sunapee Yacht Club.
Born in Boston in 1974, he was the son of William J. Cunningham Jr. ’56 and Adele (DeeDee) Pardee Cunningham. He grew up in Winchester, MA while spending summers in the Lake Sunapee area in New Hampshire. Mr. Cunningham earned a B.A. degree from Skidmore College and, in 2004, an M.B.A. from the Mason Business School at William and Mary College.
Mr. Cunningham is survived by his parents, William and Adele, of New London, NH and Vero Beach, FL; his sister and her husband, Margaret and Ted Lyon of Winchester, MA and New London, NH; three nephews, James, Andrew and William Lyon; and aunts, uncles, and cousins.
Over the years he worked in marketing for several different companies.
At the time of publication, the School received word of the death of William E. Beggs ’46 on August 21, 2015. A complete obituary will be published in the next Bulletin.
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2015–2016
Board of Trustees Jon. M. Biotti ’87, President William F. Achtmeyer ’73, Vice President Richard I. Melvoin, Secretary Anthony W. Ryan, Treasurer Naomi D. Aberly Dewey J. Awad William L. Byrnes ’40 Mark D. Chandler ’74 Frederick H. Chicos ’72 John M. Connors, Jr. John M. Connors III ’85 Roy F. Coppedge III Carl D. Dawson ’72 Jeffrey D. Drucker ’90 Ronald M. Druker ’62 Warren Q. Fields ’81 Ruthanne Fuller Scott A. Gieselman ’81 Michael S. Gordon John T. Grady, Jr. ’66 Christopher J. Hadley Meredith M. Hall (ex officio) Danielle A. Heard Jason H. Hurd ’90 Gerald R. Jordan ’85 Stephen R. Karp ’57 Jonathan A. Kraft ’82 Emmett E. Lyne ’77 (ex officio) Martin J. Mannion Carl J. Martignetti ’77 Marlyn McGrath Mitali Prasad Taggart M. Romney ’88 Rachel F. Stettler Sarah K. Williamson Marc B. Wolpow
Belmont Hill School Belmont, MA 02478 617.484.4410 www.belmonthill.org We welcome your comments and suggestions. Please address all correspondence to the Bulletin Editor at the above address, or email us at communications@belmonthill.org. managing editor Bill Mahoney editor Leslie Ouellette assistant editor Elizabeth Girioni alumni content manager Amy Hirsch editorial advisor Harold Prenatt class notes & in memoriam Eileen Foley & Harold Prenatt photography John Gillooly, Neal Hamberg, Gus Freedman, John Swisher, Tom Kates, © Benjamin Johnson / Shawmut Design and Construction, Bill Mahoney, and the Belmont Hill School Archives ©2015 Belmont Hill School. All rights reserved. Design by Corey McPherson Nash The views and opinions expressed herein are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Bulletin editors or the School.
REUNION WEEKEND
ALUMNI WEEKEND friday & saturday | may 13 & 14, 2016
Whether this is a reunion year for your class or you just want to catch up with friends, we welcome all alumni and their families back to campus every spring for a weekend of special events.
Class of 1966: 50th Reunion
Class of 1991: 25th Reunion
To join your reunion committee or for more information, contact Jennifer Breslin at 617.993.5208 or breslin@belmonthill.org
Please visit online to register for reunion weekend at www.belmonthill.org/reunion www.belmonthill.org summer–fall 2015
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belmont hill school event calendar 2015–2016 2015
2016
Admission Open House October 3
California Reception January
MAP Dinner October 16
Peggy Corbett Valentine’s Luncheon for Alumni Mothers February 11
Homecoming October 17 Head of the Charles Regatta Belmont Hill/Winsor Boathouse October 18 Grandparents and Special Friends Day for Forms I and II October 19 Better Buy Sale October 24 Katharine Wrisley Atkins Women’s Series Featured Speaker: Ann Marie Wilkins P ’20 November 3
Florida Reception March Annual Corporation Dinner and Meeting April 21 Washington, D.C. Reception April 26 Current Parent Annual Spring Event April 28 Alumni and Reunion Weekend May 13 & 14 Prize Day May 27
Alumni Award Dinner Honoring General Mark A. Milley ’76 November 9
Baccalaureate Service June 5
Recent Alumni Boston Gathering November 27
Commencement June 6
Holiday Hill Shop December 2 & 3
please visit us online for more information or to register for events www.belmonthill.org
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