Bulletin Summer 2009 by St. George's School

St. George’s School P.O. Box 1910 Newport, RI 02840-0190

Non-Profit Organization U.S. Postage PAID St. George’s School

S T. G E OR G E ’S 2009

summer Bulletin

St. George’s School 2009 Summer Bulletin

In this issue: A dream to succeed BY SUZANNE L. MCGRADY The man from Podunk Road BY JAY DOOLITTLE ’56 Fund-raisers meet Annual Fund goal with FITNU Roll over, Aurelius, BY HEAD OF SCHOOL ERIC F. PETERSON So this guy walks into the chapel and ... BY TIMOTHY STACK

P ’09

Geronimo’s ‘turtle man’ BY JOHN LEE Chapel talks: Silver lining BY MEGAN LEONHARD ’09 The bonds of Boothbay BY ANNA MCCONNELL ’09 Confessions of a nonbeliever BY MAX FOWLER ’09 If you decide to let in God BY THE REV. NED MULLIGAN

Prize Day 2009

C OVER

New students 2009-10

The art collection of Charles K. Williams II ’49

Class Notes

BY SUZANNE

STORY:

L. MCGRADY

S t. Geo rge’ s Scho ol M issi on Sta teme nt In 1896, the Rev. John Byron Diman, founder of St. George’s School, wrote in his “Purposes of the School” that “the specific objectives of St. George’s are to give its students the opportunity of developing to the fullest extent possible the particular gifts that are theirs and to encourage in them the desire to do so. Their immediate job after leaving school is to handle successfully the demands of college; later it is hoped that their lives will be ones of constructive service to the world and to God.” In the 21st century, we continue to teach young women and men the value of learning and achievement, service to others, and respect for the individual. We believe that these goals can best be accomplished by exposing students to a wide range of ideas and choices in the context of a rigorous curriculum and a supportive residential community. Therefore, we welcome students and teachers of various talents and backgrounds, and we encourage their dedication to a multiplicity of pursuits —intellectual, spiritual, and physical—that will enable them to succeed in and contribute to a complex, changing world.

Upcoming Events 2 0 0 9 -10 2009 Day Student Student Family Family Picnic Picnic Day

Tues., Sept. Sept. 8, 8, 5:30 5:30 p.m. p.m. Tues.,

Convocation/Classes begin begin Convocation/Classes

Mon., Sept. Sept. 14, 14, 88 a.m. a.m. Mon.,

Alumni/ae of of Color Color Conference Conference Alumni/ae

Fri., Oct. Oct. 99 -- Sun., Sun., Oct. Oct. 11 11 Fri., Parents Weekend Weekend Parents

Fri., Oct. Oct. 30 30 -- Sat., Sat., Oct. Oct. 31 31 Fri., Lessons and and Carols Carols Lessons

Thurs., Dec. Dec. 10, 10, 7:30 7:30 p.m. p.m. Thurs., Christmas Festival Festival Christmas

Tues., Dec. Dec. 15, 15, 7:30 7:30 p.m. p.m. Tues.,

2 010

Fifth-Form Parents Weekend Fifth-Form Parents Weekend

Fri., Feb. 12 - Sat. Feb. 13 Fri., Feb. 12 - Sat. Feb. 13 Alumni Hockey Game Alumni Hockey Game

Sat., Feb. 13, 12 p.m. Sat., Feb. 13, 12 p.m. Reunion Weekend Reunion Weekend

Fri., May 14 - Sun., May 16 Fri., May 14 - Sun., May 16

St . G eorg e’s Po lic y o n Non -Dis cri mina tio n St. George’s School admits male and female students of any religion, race, color, sexual orientation, and national or ethnic origin to all the programs and activities generally accorded or made available to students at the school. It does not discriminate on the basis of religion, gender, race, color, sexual orientation, or national or ethnic origin in the administration of its educational policies, scholarship and loan programs, or athletic and other school-administered programs. In addition, the school welcomes visits from disabled applicants.

Prize Day Prize Day

You’re invited: Regional Receptions*

Mon., May 31 Mon., May 31

Fri., Sept. 11, 2009

Founding Friends of the St. George’s Chapel Chapel

New York, N.Y. nd Time and Life Building, 2 floor 2nd floor galleries galleries Hosted by Tad Van Norden Norden ’84 ’ 84

Lecture by Lyn Hovey, Stained-Glass Stained-Glass Artist Artist

Fri., Oct. 30, 3 p.m. p.m.

A special service of Lessons Lessons and and Carols Carols

Fri., Dec. 11, 7 p.m. p.m.

Philadelphia, Pa. Philadelphia Museum of Art, Balcony Café Art Museum, Balcony Café

Thurs., Oct. 15, 2009

Washington, D.C. At the home of Jessica Jessica and and Jeff Jeff Kimbell Kimbell ’89 ’ 89

Weds., Oct. 21, 2009

Fri., Apr. 23

Gladstone, N.J. At the home of Betsy Betsy Michel Michel P’85, P’ 85,’89 ’ 89

For information about the Friends Friends of of the the St. St. George’s George’s Chapel program, contact Bill Douglas Douglas at at Bill_Douglas@stgeorges.edu or 401.842.6730

For info., contact Ann Weston Weston at at Ann_Weston@stgeorges.edu or 401.842.6731

“Just “ Justaanote…”, note…” ,AAmusical musicalrecital recital

Thurs., Feb. 18, 7 p.m. p.m.

St. George’s George’ sDay DayCelebration Celebration

Tues., May 4, 2010

*Dates for receptions in Seoul, Seoul, Korea, Korea, and and other other locations to be determined.

St. George’s Bulletin The Alumni/ae Magazine of St. George’s School Newport, R.I.

Senior Prefect for 2009-10 Stephanie Johnson, escorted by School Prefect Garrett Sider ’10 leads the 2009 graduates to the Front Circle on Prize Day. PHOTO BY K ATHRYN W HITNEY L UCEY

Contents On the cover: A photo montage of Charles K. Williams II ’49 and paintings from his collection. ARTWORK BY R AY WOISHEK ’89

On the back cover: Molly Boyd ’10 and Jake Riiska ’10 visit with South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu in July 2009. PHOTO BY P ETER A NDERSON

ST. GEORGE’S SCHOOL P.O. BOX 1910 NEWPORT, RI 02840-0190 Office of the Bulletin Editor tel: (401) 842-6792 fax: (401) 842-6745 e-mail: suzanne_mcgrady@stgeorges.edu

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This magazine is printed on paper that is certified by SmartWood to meet the Forest Stewardship Council standards. FSC sets high standards that ensure forestry is practiced in an environmentally responsible, socially beneficial, and economically viable way.

From the editor’s desk ........................................................................................................................................2 A dream to succeed BY SUZANNE L. MCGRADY ....................................................................................................3 Art that talks BY SUZANNE L. MCGRADY ..............................................................................................................8 The man from Podunk Road BY JAY DOOLITTLE ’56 ........................................................................................15 Chapel talks: Silver lining BY MEGAN LEONHARD ’09 ......................................................................................................18 The bonds of Boothbay BY ANNA MCCONNELL ’09 ..................................................................................21 Confessions of a nonbeliever BY MAX FOWLER ’09 ................................................................................24 If you decide to let in God BY THE REV. NED MULLIGAN ........................................................................27 Around campus ..................................................................................................................................................29 Development news: Fund-raisers make Annual Fund goal with FITNU challenge ..........................30 Board notes ..........................................................................................................................................................31 Geronimo: The turtle man BY JOHN LEE ..........................................................................................................32 New students 2009-10 ....................................................................................................................................35 Roll over, Aurelius BY HEAD OF SCHOOL ERIC F. PETERSON ................................................................................36 So this guy walks into the chapel and... BY TIMOTHY S TACK P’09 ..............................................................39 Prizes awarded May 25, 2009 ........................................................................................................................42 Global outreach ..................................................................................................................................................44 Instrumental moves BY ALEX MYERS ..................................................................................................................46 Campus happenings ..........................................................................................................................................46 Classrooms ..........................................................................................................................................................52 SG Zone - Athletics ............................................................................................................................................56 Highlights: Student achievements ................................................................................................................60 Next steps: News from the College Counseling office ............................................................................63 Faculty/staff notes ..........................................................................................................................................64 Post hilltop ..........................................................................................................................................................67 Reunion Weekend 2009 ..................................................................................................................................70 Hilltop archives ..................................................................................................................................................72 Class Notes ..........................................................................................................................................................73 The St. George’s Bulletin is published bi-annually. Suzanne McGrady, editor; Dianne Reed, communications associate; Toni Ciany, editorial assistant; and members of the Alumni/ae Office, copy editors.

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St. George’s From the editor’s desk O

K, so the cover’s a little different than our usual fare, but hopefully the profile of Charles K. Williams II ’49 (p. 8) will help you understand why. When news arrived that the Philadelphia Museum of Art would be staging a special exhibition this summer featuring the art collection of our alumnus and trustee, I found the story possibilities intriguing: How exactly does one go about amassing an art collection worthy of a museum exhibit? How does a serious collector make choices among the plethora of art available? I knew I had the chance to visit a world not many of us do—and it was great fun finding the answers to these questions as well as many others. Along the way, however, my story took on new dimensions. I became just as intrigued by Mr. Williams, the man, as I did the art collecting. What a treat it was to spend the day with him in New York. Another profile was just as memorable to write: The story of Vianca Masucci ’09. As you all know, many students reach Prize Day having experienced life from a vastly different perspective than they get on the Connor, 2 1⁄2, and I in Florida in March. Hilltop. “A dream to succeed” (p. 3) is just one of those stories, but a reminder that we can’t underestimate these students’ victories. “The man from Podunk Road” (p. 15) is a reflection by Jay Doolittle ’56 on the life of Bill Schenck, an SG faculty member from 1952-1990, whom many students remember as one of the most engaging, most quirky teachers of their tenure here. Schenck had a way of interacting with students, apparently, that left them with many memories. When he retired, he continued to teach in a continuing education program not far from his home in upstate New York. And, yes, as Mr. Doolittle tells us, it really was called Podunk Road. If you’re a fan of our students’ chapel talks, this

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edition’s won’t disappoint. Though their opinions and candor may surprise you, they reveal so much of themselves in these talks (p. 18), it’s hard not to appreciate their thoughtfulness. The Rev. Ned Mulligan chimes in with his last formal sermon of his first year here at St. George’s (p. 27). “Instrumental Move” is a memoir piece from English teacher Alex Myers, who while a student at Philips Exeter first began living as a man. Born Alice in a small town in Maine, Myers notes in his extraordinary first-person essay (p. 46) that his desire to cross genders began even earlier. We’ve added a new feature to this magazine, called “Hilltop archives,” upon the suggestion of Mr. Tom Stevenson ’55, a great writer and contributor to our magazine (see p. 82 for his outstanding column on some former classmates who worked for the C.I.A). If at this point in late summer you’re tired of mowing your lawn, you’ll appreciate the historic photo, p. 72. And then there’s the biggest financial news story of the decade, and it doesn’t come from MSNBC. In late June, when laughter and cheers erupted from the back of the development office, I knew something really good had happened. The staff—more enthusiastic than ever after their end-of-the-campaign initiative, “Flat is the New Up” —had met their goal. They raised the $2,225,000 they said they would in February 2008— and then some. It was not an easy feat in these challenging economic times, and not every independent school was able to meet its goal, but the fund-raisers here are unstoppable. The final tally on the 2008-09 Annual Fund campaign: $2,233,339.24. Have you hugged your fund-raiser today? We have.

Suzanne McGrady Bulletin Editor

RUBENSTEIN PHOTOGRAPHY PHOTO BY L EN

A dream to succeed As a youngster, Vianca Masucci ’09 didn’t have enough food to eat or a place to call home—but the future sure looks bright BY SUZANNE L. MCGRADY

hen Vianca Masucci ’09 walked up the steps of Old School to receive her diploma on Prize Day, her father, Frederic, admits, “I cried.” A 23-year veteran of the Newark, N.J., Police Department who made a name for himself in the 1980s getting guns and drugs off the street, Masucci isn’t prone to public displays of emotion. Yet the story of

Vianca’s journey from inner-city public school to the Hilltop, like that of many scholarship students, represents a special brand of success.

School didn’t start off so easily for Vianca. Enrolled in the New Jersey public school system for the first time as Masucci sought to adopt her at the age of 7, Vianca

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KATHRYN WHITNEY LUCEY PHOTO BY

struggled—yet hardly from a lack of intelligence or work ethic. Born to a single teenage mother on welfare, Vianca in the early years sometimes didn’t have enough food to eat or a proper home to sleep in. Sometimes, she lived out of a car, her mother navigating the streets of Newark in a red Honda Civic, trying to find a place to park where they wouldn’t be noticed. Frederic, Vianca’s younger brother, whom the family calls “Moochie,” would be nestled beside her. “We were both still little enough to fit in the front seat,” she said. “For the most part [my mother] would try to drive around until we were sleeping. My brother would fall asleep first, always. I could never sleep. He liked to sleep next to my mother and so I would let him.”

Vianca on Prize Day with her father, Frederic Masucci Jr.

Winters were the hardest. The three would drive through the night, neon lights flickering through the windows, and end up somewhere—a McDonald’s parking lot on the Garden State Parkway, perhaps, someplace where no one would notice a family without a home. Sometimes “home” was even worse. When they did have money, Vianca’s mother rented apartments, but the neighbors weren’t always friendly. “People didn’t

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like my mother because she was different,” Vianca says of the flamboyant Puerto Rican beauty Carmencita Gonzalez, whose romance at age 19 with a handsome bad-boy Dominican, Vianca’s birth father, didn’t work out as planned. “They’d turn off the heat and try to get us to move. Really cruel things.” When welfare money started running out at the end of the month, the family wouldn’t have enough proper food for a meal. “There were times when we didn’t have food in the refrigerator for a long time,” Vianca said. “Sometimes we would buy bread, because it was cheap—and eat it with condiments.” When Carmen later met the no-nonsense, successful Italian, Masucci, life got better—but Carmen was stubborn, Vianca says. “She didn’t like to take things from people,” she said. She wouldn’t always accept Masucci’s assistance and would leave home with Vianca and Frederic III, one of two boys the couple had together. Sammy, Vianca’s other brother, is now 12.

It was on the “Day of Silence” at St. George’s in April 2007 when people here who didn’t know Vianca well, and even perhaps some who thought they did, learned some intimate details about her life. “I’m adopted. My mother didn’t have enough money to feed

Vianca was 7 and her mother was in ill health when her teachers at Abington Ave. Elementary School suggested she repeat the first grade. She’d have time to catch up, they said, since she’d arrived so late in the year. Vianca said she used school to escape. “I would just go to school and I would work and then I didn’t have to think about anything else,” she said. By October her mother, just 26, had died. Vianca was 7; Frederic Jr., whom the family calls Moochie, was 5; and Sammy was just eight months old. The story of Carmen’s last visit with her children is a testament to her deep love. Gravely ill in the hospital, she one day checked herself out to go to her sister’s house, where Masucci had dropped off the children. Masucci was seeking full custody at the time, Vianca said, and the children hadn’t seen their mother for some time. By the time Carmen got medical attention again a week later, a lung had collapsed, and she was untreatable. “The doctors told her that if she hadn’t left, she would’ve lived,” Vianca said.

After her mother’s death, Vianca’s sadness somehow continued to fuel her studies. By the end of the year she repeated first grade, Vianca was enrolled in the Gifted and Talented Pro-

THE L ANCE 2009 PHOTO COURTESY OF

me,” she announced from the Madeira Hall stage. She’d been an organizer of the event, which featured students revealing secrets about themselves, both light-hearted and serious, in front of the school community. Vianca says it was an effort to raise awareness that people have secrets that affect their feelings that everyone might not know about, including sexual orientation. Vianca recalls the day as a milestone, not just for herself, but for the school. “I just felt that coming out in any small environment is something that’s hard to do, because everyone talks and everyone is worried about what everyone else is thinking,” she said. Throughout her last two years at SG, Vianca was a vocal leader of the GayStraight Alliance student group. After the event, she says, no one asked about her life or even mentioned her announcement. “Which was good,” she said. “I don’t like the whole sympathy thing. I don’t do well with it.”

gram at Abington. She remembers getting in by being able to correctly spell the word, “chair.”“And she hasn’t missed a beat since,” her father said. She began earning all As. “I had this idea in my mind when I was young that the way I saw the world had to be different than the way everyone else saw the world,” she said. She wanted to know why. “My father told me that I was one of the most obnoxious kids to grow up with because I never stopped asking questions.” In sixth grade a representative from the Wight Foundation, a New Jersey-based organization that provides scholarship grants, gave a presentation about their program to students at Abington. If accepted to the program, students would be required to work extra long hours—through two summers and vacations— but the reward would be assistance in obtaining admission to one of the elite boarding schools in the Northeast. Vianca went through the program and applied to several schools. But on a visit to St. George’s, she said, she just got a feeling. “I thought, ‘This is something I could do for a while,’” she said.

What landed Vianca in the gifted and talented program at Abington—and later on the Head of School’s Commendation list (for receiving no grade lower than an A-) in her freshmen year at St. George’s—was a mixture of a naturally gifted mind, insatiable curiosity, but not much coddling. “I didn’t baby her or her brother. I didn’t feel there was time,” said Masucci, who was working seven days a week patrolling some of the city’s rougher neighbor-

Vianca as a baby, in the arms of her mother, Carmencita Gonzalez.

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A Les

son in

by Via

Subm iss

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nca M a

succi ’0

In the backs forw e I don’t ard, knitte at, d know where lights, we’re I do going , Passiv n’t care. A dem it y is dif andin ficult— g mist ress th at reje cts an xiety.

Charl ie Fle

ming ’09

Some of Vianca’s poetry was published this spring in the school’s literary magazine, The Dragon.

hoods. “Maybe that’s why she’s so rugged.” Vianca’s mother used to teach her multiplication while she gave her a bath. “I was just five or so,” Vianca said, “and she used to drill me on numbers, and make me tell her what time it was.” She also instilled in her a deep sense of family obligation, telling her to always take care of Moochie, a Type A hemophiliac who as a baby was often in the hospital for weeks with internal bleeding after a bump or simple fall. Masucci made sure Vianca worked hard. “He’s definitely made me who I am,” Vianca says of her dad. “I think a lot of my personality comes directly from his.” For the 2008-09 school year, St. George’s awarded nearly $2.7 million in financial aid to 88 students, with grants ranging from $5,000 to $41,000, which covered a full boarding tuition. Vianca was a recipient of the C.V. Starr Scholarship—established in 2004 with a gift from Mr. Edward Matthews, president and director of C.V. Starr & Co. Inc., and his wife, Mrs. Marie Matthews—to assist a deserving St. George’s student. The Matthewses are the parents of Russell Matthews ’87. Mrs. Matthews and Vianca corresponded regularly throughout her

“I’m changing the course of my family. That’s the way that I think about it. I know if I have children, they’ll go to college because I went to college.”

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career here and the two developed a special bond. The Matthewses met Vianca on campus last spring.

The academic road at SG, however, wasn’t always smooth for Vianca. She admits she suffered a bit of a “sophomore slump,” saying distractions from home contributed to her loss of focus on her studies. “My sophomore year was really hard for me because I had come to a point when I realized that my life was drastically different than that of my brothers—and it would be that way for a really long time,” she said. During that year, she said, a student at her brothers’ school was stabbed in the hallway at 10 a.m. “And he was there to witness it,” Vianca said. “And that person was on the floor bleeding for hours before someone came to get them.” One time, Moochie himself “got attacked and he was pretty badly hurt,” Vianca said. “I was very scared for him. Stuff like that I don’t have to deal with here at St. George’s.” Vianca says she lost sight of her goals. “I didn’t want to study for a really long time. I gave up a lot of the things I really liked,” she said. “But slowly I got out of it. It took a lot of support from my teachers.” She also found other students who shared similar experiences, in particular Danielle Pieratos ’07. Pieratos, who grew up on the Bois Forte Indian Reservation in Minnesota, is now at Stanford University. “Dani and I had both come from similar situations,” Vianca said. “We’d both seen a great amount of poverty, lack of education.” Both, she said, were trying “to change the course” of their families. “That’s the way that I think about it,” she added. “I know if I have children, they’ll go to college because I went to college. “Dani and I both felt the stress of that responsibility.” Still, Vianca and Dani both eventually excelled in their studies here. Both were involved in community service. “You do a great deal of your maturing here,” Vianca said. “You find a great part of yourself here. You discover yourself. So a great part of who I am, I found at St. George’s.”

KATHRYN WHITNEY LUCEY PHOTO BY

Science and Latin are some of her favorite subjects, though she’s also a prolific poet. “I just wrote a paper about how I have a religious experience with Latin. I know it sounds really nerdy, but I really do. When you can sit down and just decipher different grammar, translations, it’s such a beautiful thing. I find that with my studies a lot,” she said, “if I like what I’m studying.” Biology was definitely one of those subjects. “Being able to sit down and weave everything together, the cycles of life and all the other human anatomy, it’s just peaceful,” she said. “I think study is a very peaceful thing.” She says she joined the choir in her junior year to “de-stress.”

Vianca will attend Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania this fall. She wants to be a genetic anthropologist and study medical conditions like hemophilia that have impacted her family. “But I don’t want to be some academic stuck in an institution,” she said. “I don’t want that for myself. I want to take everything I’ve learned and use it to help people,” she said.“I think that if you’re in a position

where you can help that you should.” It’s an ethic she learned from her mother and father. “When we did have food, my mother would have people over,” she said. “She always told me, ‘If it’s not your last one, you should share it.’” She calls Masucci “the biggest inspiration” in her life. “He adopted me even though I wasn’t his biological daughter. He was always pushing me, through everything,” she said. “He was always serving up ‘tough love.’ He definitely made me who I am.” It was 12 years ago when Masucci learned he’d gained full custody of Vianca. She wrote about the moment he signed the adoption papers in her admission essay to St. George’s. “Scratch, scratch, scratch,” she began. “The pen moves across the paper—and my life was changed.”

Author’s note: V ia nc a M as uc ci ’09 can be reached at viancjm@gmail.com.

Vianca on Prize Day with her cousin Robert, her father, Frederic Jr., her cousin Victor, her cousin Isabel, her brother Sammy, her aunt Maria, and Grandpa (Frederic Sr.)

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IMAGE COURTESY OF WILL BROWN

Trustee Charles K. Williams II ’49 has amassed a collection of paintings and sculpture worthy of a museum exhibit this summer 8

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that talks

W. CORBETT PHOTO BY J OHN

ART

“If art won’t help people be more interested in seeing what their life is about, why waste the wall space?” —Charles K. Williams II ’49

BY SUZANNE L. MCGRADY

earing people talk about paintings as if they were room decorations gets under Charles K. Williams’ skin. Especially at parties. “Art should have a contemporary conscience,” he says. “You shouldn’t sit around a pool and think, ‘Oh, art is beauty.’ You should think, ‘What impact does art have on my life?’ ” It’s a philosophy that’s been guiding Williams’ art collecting for the last 20 years—with the Philadelphia Museum of Art taking note all along. Now, after consulting with Williams on numerous purchases, Innis Howe Shoemaker, the museum’s Audrey and William H. Helfand senior curator of prints, drawings and photographs, has put together a show of 100 or so of Williams’ works. The exhibition, entitled “Adventures in Modern Art,” began July 12 and runs through Sept. 13, 2009. Williams ’49, holder of the gold medal of the Archaeological Institute of America and an excavator of seven sites around the Mediterranean, began collecting in earnest in the 1980s. At first his eye was

on etchings, but has since concentrated his focus on American paintings. Bold artists like Joseph Stella (1877–1946), Oscar Bluemner (1867–1938), Charles Demuth (1883–1935), and Arthur Dove (1880– 1946) are favorites. Williams likes color, and he seems most at home amid the eccentric, provocative art of the modernists. It’s yet another seemingly incongruous part of Mr. Williams’ personality: a Princeton-trained architect and ancient architecture buff who spends half his year amid the ruins of Ancient Corinth in Greece and the other half in search of edgy Modernist paintings in New York; the dignified aesthete who jokes around with the waiter at lunch; a patrician with a devilish sense of mischief. Williams, who celebrated his 78th birthday the week before we met recently in New York and who joined the St. George’s Board of Trustees in 2000, is as spry as an active 40-year-old. He fondly recalls the art classes he took at St. George’s with Mr. Drury, who taught etching, and English with Mr. Ford and Mr.

PAINTING (OPPOSITE): George Tooker (American, born 1920), Voi ce I, 1963. Egg tempera on gessoed panel, 20 x 18 inches.

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IMAGE BY ANDREA NUÑEZ

Morton Livingston Schamberg, (American, 1881 – 1918), L a nd sc a p e (w i th B r i d ge ) , 1 9 1 4. Oil on canvas, 26 x 32 inches.

Hoyt, but Williams isn’t a man of the past. You get the feeling he wouldn’t be completely averse to dropping in to see a punk rock band at Irving Plaza, or teaming up on a good practical joke. To him, art, too, is edgy, alive, of-the-moment. “I feel painting is not a window to the world outside but rather a dialogue with the specific painter whose work you at that specific moment are looking at,” he wrote in a letter prior to our meeting. He guesses that’s the reason he has only one 19thcentury painting on his walls and why the paintings he now has hanging are “so varied in spirit.” Williams is rough on the 19th century. “You can throw up and that’s it, that’s the 19th century,” he says, then quickly puts his disgust into perspective. “The 19th century, however, is intriguing,” he adds. “You know when you like something and you don’t think you should, you can get very rabidly hateful about it. So when you look at some art that is terribly realistic and pretty … you like it, but you know it may be what some people call ‘schmaltz.’ Art should be cutting edge, so schmaltz is out.” The Modernist paintings in his Rittenhouse Square apartment, he says, “speak” to him. One of his favorite paintings is a Hugh Henry Breckenridge (1870-1937) called “Abstraction with Bouquet,” c. 1930. Before it was taken down last

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spring for the Philly exhibition, it hung over his mantelpiece. The other star spot, over his couch, was reserved for “Palm Tree and Bird,” c. 1927-28 by Stella. Indeed, anything that passes muster with Williams has pretty much got to twist his gut—and meet his standards. It’s a tendency he makes no apologies for. When he examines the art burgeoning from the walls of his home, he says, “I feel very judgmental.” To those works of art that he tires of, he says, “I feel as though I’m saying, ‘You better shape up and get better aesthetic in your face—or you’re out of here.’” In fact, Williams talks about the dozens of paintings and sculptures in his Philadelphia apartment as if they were his roommates. A collection that’s constantly in flux, some paintings stay for the long haul; others are in and out like transients. And oh, he knows when he’s ready to evict. “I start getting dissatisfied,” he says. “I will say, ‘You know, you’re not fitting in with what I have on the wall.’ And then I’ll put it in the hallway, or I’ll put it someplace a little farther down, and then finally, it just has to go.” Now it’s as if “Plowing,” a colored crayon over charcoal drawing c. 1936, by Grant Wood, left dirty dishes in the sink one too many times.

Williams says education is key to the collecting. He never stops trying to learn more about the period he’s collecting and the artists, but more importantly, he says, he keeps trying to get better at recognizing greatness. “You have to keep working. If you don’t keep your aesthetic growing, you’ll be just satisfied with what’s on the wall. You have to educate yourself constantly.” He also has some strict rules he adheres to in order to keep his collection in check. “I have a rule that I only allow 80 paintings on the wall,” he says. When Williams finds a piece of art he wants to buy, it sets a whole series of questions in motion. He has to decide whether he’s going to sell something he already has, donate it, put it up for auction or give it back to the gallery that oversees the estate of the artist. “But once I decide that I’m going to get rid of it, I will get rid of it somehow, because something else is better. What I’m getting has to be better—for what I’m deciding to get rid of is no longer of interest to me.” But while collecting art for him is driven by very personal desires and instincts, Williams doesn’t make his buying decisions alone. He says he knew right away he needed experts to help him. “We’re a team,” he says of Shoemaker and others at the museum who counsel him on the conservation, preservation and overall worthiness of the pieces he covets. He says he also depended on Jonathan Greenberg, now at Sotheby’s in New York, for helping him “cut [his] eyeteeth” when he was at the bottom of the learning curve. “It is so good to have backup,” he says. “If I’m going to buy paintings, I want to make sure I buy paintings that are worth displaying, and they’re the ones who can tell me if there is something hiding out there that is better.” He calls his collecting “sport” because sometimes it is about winning. He got a definite thrill, he says, when he got word from the museum that one of his bronze sculptures, a piece called “Wounded Stag” by Elie Nadelman (1882-1946), was originally a wedding

present to the artist’s daughter—and was therefore worth more to collectors because of the special attention the artist paid to the patina. And when he passed over a William Zorach painting in an auction once because it was damaged and it went for a much higher price than he expected, he says he called a gallery owner to get his opinion why. When the gallery owner said it was because the painting was so rare the damage didn’t matter, Williams says he reacted with a pang of competitive disappointment. “It’s not, ‘Oh, I’m too old to play football, so I’ll collect art,’ but it’s that same sort of game,” he says. “It’s making sure you get that ball through the line.”

George C. Ault, (American, 1891 – 1948), Tr e e S t u m p, 1934. Oil on canvas, 28 x 20 inches. IMAGE BY ANDREA NUÑEZ

Joseph Stella (1877-1946) An ge l f i sh, 1937 Oil on canvas laid down on board 161/2 x 23 inches

You learn a lot about how Charles K. Williams II feels about art just by walking down Fifth Avenue in New York with him. “For instance, if I were going to paint this,” he says looking up at the glistening towers that line the street, “I’d examine what’s really going on. I’d see it—and then I’d do something with it, make it what it is to me right now. Is it more about noise, light, movement or some such dynamic?” On this warm June afternoon in New York,

IMAGE COURTESY OF MARTHA PARRISH & JAMES REINISH, INC.

After the show in Philly, “The Grant Wood is definitely going to be banished,” he says. “That’s definitely GOING.”

Charles Demuth (American, 1883-1935), Tu b e r o s e s , 1922. Graphite and watercolor on paper, sheet: 13 x 101/2 inches

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IMAGE BY ANDREA NUÑEZ

Emil Nolde (German, 1867-1956), Re d P o p p i e s (Roter Mohn), c. 1920. Watercolor on Japanese tissue, 131/2 x 187/8 inches.

Williams is in the city to visit a few galleries and take in the Francis Bacon exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. He takes the train in from Philly—oftentimes once a week when he’s in the States—and makes his base at the University Club on 54th Street and Fifth Avenue. Meeting him in the regal lobby of the club, where porters are at your service right as you walk in the door, you’d expect Williams to be all business and reserve. But there’s a playfulness about him and an offbeat humor that’s striking—and like his artwork, captivating. He teases the bellhop about whether his briefcase will be there when he gets back. You get the feeling he looks at each part of the day as an opportunity for fun. Collecting art makes his life better. He heads into the DC Moore Gallery at 724 Fifth Ave. with a sense of excitement. He takes in the exhibit called “Trees” in the gallery and then is invited behind the counter to a private back room. If your last purchase of “art” was from allposters.com, the back “showing” room at DC Moore has the rarefied air of the Louvre. Gallery assistants travel light-footed in and out with coveted selections from the gallery’s collection. The favored works get a special display spot on the carpeted stage in the corner. The light is just right. Today Williams has his eye on a few works by the Texas artist David Bates, a series of paintings done in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

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He calls one of a flooded street, called “Industrial Canal Breach, 2007” “gutsy,” admitting he’ll consider buying it later this year. Another one, of a fire scene in the Garden District, he says, “is a little decorative.” It’s clear that one likely won’t make the cut. Leave it to Williams to notice that the view out the showroom’s windows also is interesting. It’s an above-street-level look at one of the Trump Towers, with terraced gardens on one corner. The trees look pitiable up there amidst all the steel and glass, but it’s a true city moment. “You’re lucky to have that,” he tells the gallery director.

When Williams’ private collection went on exhibit July 12 at the art museum, he wasn’t there to attend the opening. “They’re mine. I’ve lived with them,” he said of the paintings, sculptures, watercolors and drawings. “It’ll be more interesting for me to see how other people react to it.” The other reason he wasn’t there is that he had work to do in Athens. Currently he’s at work on the final draft of an archeological manuscript on the results of excavation he did for 10 years in the neighborhood of the theater in Ancient Corinth. The manuscript examines the rise and fall of the neighborhood from 44 B.C. to ca. A.D. 500. This summer he’s on a fact-check-

ing mission, making sure all his numerical references to the collection of artifacts are correct. Indeed, Williams travels between two places— archeology and art, literally and figuratively. He’s in Athens in summer and winter, Philadelphia in spring and fall. When he comes home in September, he’ll attend a gala event at the museum on Sept. 10. A St. George’s reception there is planned to celebrate the collection on Friday, Sept. 11. When his art comes home, he won’t put the paintings back where they were before. While “some people fill their walls and then just quit,” Williams says he keeps his art in motion. About every three months, he rearranges his entire collection, methodically taking down each painting and putting it in a different place on the walls of his apartment. He says he never enlists the aid of anyone else, or a professional. “I’d be embarrassed to move it after someone helped me hang it,” he says, admitting he takes his time and doesn’t always get it the way he wants the first time. “I hang things every which way,” he says, “either with something that gives a history or with something that I think gives a comparative study in aesthetics, or as a grouping to show similar artists.” When he first started his collection, Williams thought he had to have a representative sample of art, of what the first half of the 20th century meant to the rest of the century. “But if you do that, you need a museum,” he says. He also has the feeling that his collection is a kind of community service—that he was collecting so that when people came into his apartment, he could show them things that were interesting and that would “help them with their aesthetics, but I don’t want to be too abrupt about how I do it.” His first step forward, he says, was settling in on the fact that it was his own collection, and he could do what he wanted, no matter how it played to the outside world. “When people come in and are upset with your art, tough on them. I have decided now that I frankly don’t give a damn. I’m going to do it my own way.” It’s taken Williams a long time to realize that. “Actually, it’s taken me until this show,” he says. Some visitors have recoiled at the sight of the

Nadelman stag sculpture. The 21-inch deer, his head thrown back with mouth agape, an arrow embedded in his side, has forced some to recoil, notably Williams’ sister, Joan Rhame GP ’10, to whom he’s very close. Williams is sensitive to her animal rights activism and turns the sculpture so the arrow faces the back, but he won’t otherwise make concessions. “The trouble is if you don’t show a stag being shot with an arrow, people are not going to realize that you shouldn’t hunt with bow and arrows. You have to have the bad contrasting the good, otherwise the art is not going to have any effect.” Williams has been honing his philosophies over the last decades. Raised in a half-Quaker family, Williams’ spirituality now tends more toward transcendental. The grandson and namesake of the owner of a pigment and dry fuller company that had its main plant in Easton, Pa., Williams is a generous philanthropist who believes, “You should make life on Earth better before you leave it, so that if you are returned, you’ll find that there will then be more to enjoy.” Both he and his sister do a certain amount of charity. “Mine is to raise the cultural level of the world,” he said. “Hers is the position of women, street people

George C. Ault (American, 1891-1948), L o ft B u i ld i ng s , N o . 1 , 1922. Oil on canvas, 20 x 14 inches. IMAGE COURTESY OF WILL BROWN

David Bates, (American, born 1952) I n du s t r i a l C a na l Br e a ch, 2007 Oil on canvas

Joseph Stella, (American, born Italy, 1877 – 1946) P a lm Tre e a n d Bi r d, 1927-28 Oil on canvas, 54 x 40 1/4 inches.

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If you go ... ADVENTURES IN MODERN ART The collection of Charles K. Williams II ’49

Through Sunday, Sept. 13 Approximately 100 paintings, sculptures, watercolors and drawings from the early 20th century.

Philadelphia Museum of Art Dorrance Special Exhibition Galleries, first floor

IMAGE COURTESY OF WILL BROWN

2600 Benjamin Franklin Pkwy Philadelphia, PA 19130 phone: (215) 763-8100 Museum hours: Tuesday through Sunday: 10 a.m.–5 p.m., Friday: 10 a.m.– 8:45 p.m. For more information, visit www.philamuseum.org

Charles Sheeler, (American, 1883-1965), N e i g h b o r s, 1951. Oil on canvas, 18 x 15 inches.

and children with mental or medical problems. It just depends upon what your take is on what ‘better’ is.” Williams has donated to a number of capital projects at St. George’s, most recently the planned renovation of the library. He’s the major contributor to the $7.5 million project. He’s also the 1999 recipient of SG’s highest alumni/ae honor, the Diman Award. In fact, educational institutions, such as the Fitch Laboratory of the British School at Athens, the American Academy in Rome, and various excavations around the Mediterranean basin, but especially the University of Pennsylvania and the Penn Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, have been the recipients of his generosity. You never get the feeling that Williams is content to rest on the accomplishments of his past. For Williams, even in collecting art the chase is sometimes more fun than the catch. He doesn’t do much impulse buying, “but I do some,” he admits. The last such purchase was a painting called “Angelfish” by Joseph Stella. When I went into the gallery, it was in the director’s office rather than in the gallery. And I said, “Oh, I have to have that.” In fact, when Williams walked into Menconi & Schoelkopf Fine Art in New York that day in May, Susan Menconi, a partner at the art gallery says, “He

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could not take his eyes off the wall. We had other things to show him, but it didn’t matter. He basically said, ‘Wrap it up,’ metaphorically.” Menconi said when the gallery secured the contract to sell the piece, they knew they had a potential buyer in Williams. “Angelfish” was the third Stella he’s purchased from the East 69th St. gallery, and it had arrived at the gallery by a rather circuitous route. A woman named Mary Jane had the painting in her trailer home. It had belonged to her great-granduncle who managed a hotel on the West Side of New York. There was a room that had a skylight, and so he let Thomas Benton use it as his studio and other artists from the Student League. The painting, she figured, was either a gift for using the room or a purchase from the artist himself. Mary Jane brought the painting to the June 7, 2008, taping of PBS’ “The Antiques Roadshow” in Palm Springs, Calif. The professional appraiser valued the painting at $250,000. The episode originally aired Jan. 19, 2009, and is on the PBS web site. Williams hadn’t seen it when he walked into the gallery. When they knew he would be arriving that day, “Let’s just say we hung it where we knew he could see it,” Menconi said. “It was a little calculated.” Menconi counts Williams among her favorite clients. “He likes the offbeat,” she said. “He has a very definite eye, but he’s not always totally predictable. “Really he just loves his pictures and his sculptures. You don’t feel there’s any other motive: He just loves them.”

When the exhibit is over at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Williams says he’ll “start out again.” “What I want to do is find out who are the people I really want, the people who are gutsy.” Artists like Marcel Duchamp, who once drew a moustache on a postcard of the “Mona Lisa.” “[That’s] what art is all about,” Williams says. “Art is not something that you should look at once and say, ‘That’s the standard.’ It changes as people do.”

GILBERT Y. TAVERNER ARCHIVES PHOTO COURTESY OF THE

The man from Podunk Road

LEE CENTER

NEW YORK CIT Y

Reflections on the life of Bill Schenck, SG Faculty 1952-1990 BY JAY DOOLITTLE ’56

ill Schenck understood right from the get-go that some journeys mattered and some didn’t. On May 5, 1941, as he was finishing up his senior year at Rome Free Academy, the cover of Life magazine carried an image of Harvard, which Bill would have appreciated. And in September, as he was arriving in Cambridge to begin his freshman year, the magazine carried a photo of Ted Williams with a bat resting on his shoulder. The hoopla over the last player to hit .400 meant absolutely nothing to Bill. During his four years at Harvard, Bill lived within a stone’s throw of Fenway Park, and it was a journey he

never had any inclination to make. As recorded in the 1941 Rome Free Academy yearbook, Bill served as president of the National Honor Society, editor-in-chief of the Press Club, vice president of the Roman Forum, and member of the National Forensic League. Next to his senior photo, he is characterized as “the walking encyclopedia of the senior class, the heartthrob of all women, and the pal of all pals.” And in the Class Prophesy, he is touted as “the mellow-voiced orator who would become a professor of law at Harvard and grow a goatee, no less.” So much for prophesy! At heart, Bill was in many ways a wanderer who traveled during vacations to Europe, to the Middle East and the Far East, to Africa and South America and fre-

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PHOTO COURTESY OF

THE L ANCE 1966

quently to Greece. It is remarkable how often he went forth from the Hilltop into the larger life of the world. But no less remarkable are some of the shorter trips he took: the ride from his family home on Podunk Road in Lee Center, N.Y., to Rome Free Academy, the trip from Rome Free Academy to Harvard and later to Columbia and Oxford where he completed his graduate work, and especially the adventure we shared together one afternoon in 1953 when I was hoofing it back to school from a town permission with a friend. Bill stopped along Memorial Boulevard to give us a lift, and it didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that Bill’s many talents did not include driving a motor vehicle and that my life was probably about to end. Miraculously, we did not even put a dent in the main school gate, and by the time Bill pulled into the front circle, I had concluded that my mother actually did know something about the dangers of hitchhiking. In the years that followed, Bill made countless trips into Newport and back, and every one of his sorties was an adventure. His various Fords left a lot of paint samples and not a few scars on the trees and telephone poles that line Purgatory Road. Bill was my history teacher, my colleague, my mentor, my friend. Along with George Wheeler, who was the director of admission when I applied to St. George’s, he probably had something to do with my being admitted to the school. I was only one of the many risks Bill took along his way. During the spring of our senior year at St. George’s, my roommate and I took to raising a pet fox in one of our closets. It was a closely guarded secret until the night Rommel decided to help himself to a chunk of our dorm master’s leg. We might well have been ex pelled, had not Bill interceded on our behalf, and on Rommel’s. I was only one of the many students he would help to stay the course at St. George’s. Over the course of his 37 years on the Hilltop, Bill managed to wear just about every conceivable St. George’s hat, and he hung them all on the same peg in the same apartment in Old School. Bill’s furnishings were spartan, and on the coffee table in front of his sofa there were always piles of history books, magazines, and the New York Times. Surely, he had other housing options, but Bill always liked it right where he was,

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right in the middle of things, and right across the hall from what was, until the Hamblets arrived, the Headmaster’s apartment. He also liked the fact that the stairs creaked, as there was no way to get up or down, or in or out, of Old School without his knowing it. Bill served as assistant headmaster, acting headmaster, college advisor, assistant director of admission, head of the History Department, director of studies, and director of the summer school. He sat through countless faculty meetings, and served on countless committees. He was the champion of institutional change, and it is more than likely that had he not had his oar in our water, the dragons might have held off even longer on admitting students of color, girls, and international students, on increasing the budget for financial aid, on participating in the Advanced Placement programs, on developing interdisciplinary and team-taught offerings like American Studies, on offering a wider range of elective courses, and on creating a more flexible daily schedule. Given that he was involved in just about every aspect of school life, it is entirely possible that Bill may even have had a hand in selecting the Saturday night movies we watched in the 1950s in the study hall, movies like “My Six Convicts,” “It Came from Outer Space,” “Whistle Stop at Eaton Falls” and “Joe Learns a Thing or Two.” Clearly, Bill needed to learn a thing or two about Hollywood productions. On the other hand, even a cursory study of the school catalogue would reveal that under his leadership, it was always the history department that came up with the most substantive changes and the widest array of new courses. Bill was certainly no movie buff, but his wheels were ever turning when it came to curricular offerings. First and finally, Bill was a teacher, a master teacher. As his students, we spent an awful lot of class time daydreaming about vacation and the chance to hang out under the clock at the Biltmore Hotel. However, many of us remember Bill’s map tests better than any dates we managed to arrange, and while we can no longer put a face or a name on any of those girls, we can still put a finger on Smolensk and Borodino. Bill wanted us to know that the world extended beyond the Hilltop and even beyond the clock in the Biltmore, and because Smolensk and Borodino mattered to him, they came to matter to us. Although there were probably days when he couldn’t wait for a class to end, not one of

BOB INGERSOLL ’56

zone defense. Bill was a loyal fan of the school teams, but it was the players that interested him and not the games. After retiring from St. George’s, Bill moved back to his home on Podunk Road and set about demonstrating anew that indeed there is life beyond the Hilltop. He lived only a short drive from the prime trout waters of the West Canada Creek and from some very fine grouse and woodcock hunting, but he never carried a fly rod or a shotgun into the field. Nor did he ever make his way down to nearby Donovan Stadium to watch a twinight double-header between the Utica Blue Sox and the Watertown Indians. Always a teacher, he served as a founding member of the Mohawk Valley Institute for Learning in Retirement, chaired the institute’s curriculum committee and for some 10 years taught a wide range of extremely popular courses ranging from Alexander the Great, to George Washington, to Thomas Jefferson, to Abraham Lincoln, to the Roosevelts, and Afghanistan. Although Bill was running on empty when it came to movies or cars or popular music or sports or games or hunting and fishing, his gift lay in being able to persuade us to take an interest in what he did know, in the lessons of history, in civilizations and cultures other than our own, in current events, and of course in the platform of the Democratic party. During my senior year at Williams, Bill came to take me out to dinner and suggested that I consider teaching as a career. I took his advice. Years later, in Paris, where June and I were enjoying a leave of absence from the school, Bill came again to take us out to dinner. It was a long dinner and a very long tab. Bill had a knack for keeping tabs on former students, graduates and colleagues, and the dragons he treated to good fare, good advice and good conversation are legion. We are all grateful for Bill’s good company. It mattered!

PHOTO COURTESY OF

us could have guessed it. On the other hand, throughout the single season he served as middler football coach, there were definitely days when he couldn’t wait for practice to end, and every one of his players knew it. In the 1950s, there were no round tables in the St. George’s schoolhouse. Students were arranged in two or three rows facing the teacher and the chalkboard, a setup suggesting that any available knowledge would be passed down from the oracle in charge. This arrangement was never Bill’s vision of teaching or learning. Versed as he was in Greek culture and in Socratic dialogue, his special talent lay in raising questions for us to chew on, in eliciting responses, in leading us to discuss or to defend a point of view. Bill did his class preparations and he demanded that we do ours. On some days, what he led us to discover was that we were, as he put it, “newts,” laggards who ought to be considering more seriously what would become of us if we didn’t shape up. It is no accident that so many students make reference to Bill in the Lance. He was omnipresent, and in the classroom, in his office, at meals and in his apartment, he was an expert at mischievous dialogue. Tirelessly, he sought to persuade generations of dragons never to vote Republican. The doors to his office and to his apartment were always open, and whenever we went to visit him, he would immediately set aside whatever he’d been doing in order to give us his ear. He welcomed our interruptions. Sometimes, he chewed us out. Mostly though, we just chewed the fat with Bill. He was our listening post. He had his ear to the student ground and also served as the sounding board for countless colleagues and trustees. In a school where athletics has always played such an important role, Bill knew less about sports than anyone I’ve ever met. It comes as no surprise that there is no mention of his having ever played for the Black Knights at Rome Free Academy. Indeed, I doubt that he ever played a sport, and I don’t think he ever played any games either—not even canasta. And yet, how many blustery afternoons he spent standing in his gray overcoat on the sidelines of a middler soccer field or at the rink or in the gym, watching something which, other than the score, he couldn’t possibly have understood! Bill was an expert on blitzkriegs and sieges, bombing raids over Dresden and maneuvers at Midway, but he didn’t have a clue what a press was, or a power play, or a

Jay Do o lit tle ’56 was a member of the St. George’s faculty from 1962-2006, during the bulk of which he served as director of admission and financial aid. He lives in Montana and can be reached at Jay_Doolittle@stgeorges.edu.

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Different Takes H A P E L

A L K S

PHOTO COURTESY OF

MEGAN LEONHARD ’09

Silver lining In the worst of times, laughter—and triumph BY MEGAN LEONHARD ’09 Following is a chapel talk delivered on April 14, 2009.

A Megan’s mom, Kelle, and her brothers, Mark and Andrew, greet Megan after Prize Day services in May.

few weeks ago I started writing this chapel talk. Ironically, last week Dr. Wein posed a question to the audience and to himself. Why are we here? His answer was, “I guess I’m just lucky.” But, I don’t think I’m here because of luck, I think I’m here for a reason. There’s no moral to my story, no deep hidden meaning, and no big metaphors. Instead I want to encourage you to be willing to accept and deal with change. Obstacles will always present themselves in what seem like the worst of times and getting through these difficult times with a positive attitude defines the best of our character. Helen Keller once wrote, “Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only

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through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired, and success achieved.” Much of the character I have developed and lessons I have learned have largely come from dealing with the hardships that have confronted me. Now, let’s back up to 2004 where my story starts, in seventh grade. My choice to come to boarding school was largely influenced by my older brother, Andrew’s, decision to go to St. Paul’s in New Hampshire. He left for school during my seventh-grade year. At the time I was very unaware of what boarding school was all about, but I knew from that moment on, this might be a path that I would one day follow. In my previous K-8 school, a large percentage of the graduating eighthgrade class continued on to boarding school. As eighth grade began to roll around, the lists of schools I would

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apply to slowly started to take form. I visited 11 schools and applied to nine. There were a few I liked more than the others, but St. Paul’s ranked very high on my list because Andrew went there. I couldn’t help but think how cool it would be to go to school with my older brother. Going to the same school as Andrew began to dominate my thoughts, and if accepted I would be thrilled to go to St. Paul’s. Just weeks before my secondary school letters came in the mail, we found out that Andrew was being “DC’d”—a term that had no meaning to me or my family. Andrew and five of his peers had been accused of harassing another student by writing on the desk during Driver’s Ed. The whole thing seemed overblown and we assumed Andrew would apologize and he and the others boys would sand the desks until what they had written disappeared. That night I went out to a friend’s house and returned home to see my mom leaving to make the five-hour drive to St. Paul’s. The DC was more serious than any of us expected. The next day, my mom came home with Andrew sitting in the passenger seat and our Suburban filled to the top and packed full of his belongings from his dorm room. Andrew had been suspended from St. Paul’s for a year and a half. None of it made sense to me or to anyone for that matter. I don’t ever remember my family being so upset and having one single event take such a toll on us. Once Andrew had been home for several weeks, I knew that for me being at home would be the hardest thing. I immediately had to rethink my school options, dismissing the idea of attending St. Paul’s altogether. After a long month of revisits, I decided that from the remaining schools on my list, St. George’s was the best fit for me and, lo and behold, six months later I unpacked my bags into my small Twenty House room. To this day, I can’t help but think of how this unfortunate series of events led me to St. George’s. Not only have I never lost to a St. Paul’s sports team, but I can’t imagine having spent my four years at high school anywhere else. I’m a strong believer that many events happen for a reason, even though we may not know it at the time. There is always good that comes from every situation, even if it’s not evident at that moment. The immediate weeks after Andrew’s suspension were a few of the hardest weeks my family has ever been through. Andrew

rarely left his room, family dinners weren’t the same and Andrew was devastated to have been forced to leave a place where he wanted and chosen to be. After time, things slowly but surely started to piece themselves back together. Andrew began at Summit High School and had a few of his best years there. By his senior year he was vice president of his class and a member of the varsity soccer and lacrosse teams and he was accepted early decision to Dartmouth. From this trial of hardship, Andrew had turned this series of events into a real success. His, or more or less my parents’, decision not to return to St. Paul’s proved to be the best decision in the end and a real character-building experience for him. Once Andrew adapted to his new situation living at home, and having made a comfortable environment for himself, he was back to being himself. We are often faced with challenging situations that can forever change our lives and help us define our character and who we are. It is in our best interest to adapt to change with an open mind knowing that with time, things will work themselves out. These ideas of change coincide with my next story. One night in the beginning of this past November, I was on duty in Auch. As a prefect in Auch, you are responsible for “manning” the common room for study hall and checking people in at 10 p.m. Typically when I am on duty, I stay in the common room and rarely leave between check-ins. However, on this night in November I ran up to my room around 11:15 p.m. to check that my roommate Leslie hadn’t gotten too lonely without me there all night. Before running back to do the 11:30 p.m. check in, I heard my phone beep. I had about 10 missed calls; missed calls from Home, Home, Home, Andrew, Mom, Home, Dad, Home, Mom, Andrew. With my heart racing, I immediately phoned home. I came to find that it was one of those phone calls we all dread, one of those phone calls that you hesitate to answer. I went to my missed calls and quickly dialed the last number to have called me. Heavily breathing, I waited and waited as the phone rang only to hear my mom explain that she had been diagnosed with Stage 2 breast cancer. It’s the kind of phone call you imagine receiving in nightmares. The worst part about it was that as she explained everything to me, it seemed like she was comforting me on

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the phone, whereas when I look back on it now, it should have been the other way around. The following days seemed to drag on forever, because it was all I thought about. My eyes constantly felt swollen and periodically throughout the day I would take freezer pops from my freezer and place them over my eyes. I was distracted at school and called home twice a day just to check in. I was dying to get home for Thanksgiving to be with my mom while she had surgery. Unfortunately, during the surgery, the doctor had found out that a small part of the cancer had spread from her breast to the lymph nodes under her arm. The spreading of the cancer meant that she would have to undergo 20 weeks of chemotherapy treatment instead of just a few months of radiation. She is currently on week 14 and hanging in there. It’s hard not to be down when you have something like this hovering over you, but we all find our ways to cope with these difficult situations. At home, we try to make light of the situation. Over Spring Break both of my brothers came home with shaven heads for lacrosse. My mom jokes that my dad and I are the only ones left in the family with a trace of hair on our heads (but she adds that my dad won’t be a part of this group much longer). My mom goes for chemotherapy treatments every Friday. Every treatment takes quite a toll on her body, making her pretty sick and feeling lousy for a few days. Since my brothers and I are all away at school and my dad is often busy with work, my grandmother flies up from Florida every week to take care of her. My grandmother is actually quite cute about the whole thing. She’s all about breast cancer awareness these days, especially after my mom’s diagnosis and after her younger sister was diagnosed with the cancer only a few years ago. She ordered my mom all of these wigs and hats in addition to the one she wears on a daily basis. The hairpieces and wigs that my grandmother got are very creative. In addition to the regular wig she ordered, my grandmother ordered an assortment of hairpieces for every occasion. My favorite is the one that you wear to the gym. It’s a sweatband that goes around your hair line with this crazy curly red hair on top and attachable Velcro bangs. [Excuse me for a second] Now let me ask you one thing: What would you think if the lady next to you on the treadmill had

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hair like this? I mean, come on. Who would ever wear this?! It looks like a hairstyle that someone attending a Richard Simmons ’80s workout class would wear. Sometimes I even parade around my parents’ room, dressing up in funny outfits and pinning my hair up and wearing one of my mom’s wigs. Now I’m sure at this point some of you are appalled and probably thinking about how awful it is that I jokingly try on my mom’s wigs. But in all honesty, you have to laugh about it and make light of the situation because it helps you and those around you get through it. It’s so easy to let one thing really bring you down, especially when you’re in an environment like St. George’s, where stress surrounds us at all times. I think it’s essential to keep a larger view on what’s important in life. We all struggle at times, but like Alfred’s question in “Batman”—“Why do we fall, sir?”—we might find wisdom in his answer: “So that we might learn to pick ourselves up.” My advice to you is this: the next time you go through something that you think will just be the end of you, know that it may just be a character-building experience. We never intend for bad things to happen and often we think that these things will never happen to us. But bad things do happen to everyone and sometimes for no apparent reason. Personally I like the way Mr. Haskell views it all when he tells our calculus class, “The sun will still rise tomorrow regardless of what happens today.” (Although he might just have been comforting me after I nearly failed the midterm—still not quite sure.) But as for me, the trials of suffering have strengthened my soul, defined what’s important and helped me to know happiness. To me, I find happiness in smaller things that I use to take for granted. For example, I now try to call home as often as I can, even if it’s only to remind my parents of how much I love them. And I encourage you to do the same. I know that most of us just returned from break and were most likely with our loved ones, but if you haven’t done it in a while, make sure you do call home and tell whomever answers the phone that you love them. It’s weird, but these days I find so much happiness in just that. Me ga n Le o nha rd ’09 of Summit, N.J., is heading to Trinity College in Hartford, Conn., this fall. She can be reached at megan.leonhard@trincoll.edu.

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ANNA MCCONNELL ’09

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The bonds of Boothbay A boarding student gains a new appreciation for her Maine home BY ANNA MCCONNELL ’09 Following is a chapel talk delivered on May 19, 2009.

had never minded the smell of bait. Although entirely persistent at first, the smell tends to grow on you. In fact, I had never much minded working on the boat at all. I loved the reassuringly distinct smell of the ocean, the morning calm, the days when the sun would beat down on my back. I was my father’s most faithful stern man. Although my brother was often there too, he was far too superior to make the bait bags. He was a real lobsterman then with nearly as many traps as my father. No, I was always standing in the back, with one task, one goal, and that was to keep making bait bags. There were many different kinds of fish, you see, so that every day was certainly not the same. We would use pogies and herring,

and on the most special occasions, redfish. It became systematic; I could grab six or seven at a time, stuff them in the mesh, and normally I would throw one more in to top it off, to make sure the grub was extra appealing to our crustacean friends. As the day went on, the bait would begin to disappear, and my back would begin to hurt, until finally the tray was empty. It was the summer after the fifth grade and I had finally received my official lobster license. I was a simple 10-year-old girl, a girl who had saved up all of her money her whole life—all $600 that I had was in my savings account. At that point I had decided with conviction that I wanted to be a lobsterwoman, and that I was going to take my $600 and buy 10 new traps. I wanted to start on my own. I wanted to be a real fisherman. And so I bought what to me were the 10 most beautiful traps in the world: They were yellow with

Anna makes a bait bag on her father’s fishing boat.

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dark heads, three-brickers, and my buoy was yellow with a purple strip on a pink spindle—as if I needed to pronounce my girliness any more. To me, those traps represented my future and although I suppose I knew that at some point I would leave Maine, I could not picture a life better than one working on the boat. You see, I am from Boothbay, a small town that many of you might know as a booming summer vacation spot, a cute, bright little place with ice cream and lobster rolls, schooners and tall ships. I hate to say, however, that in the middle of the winter, Boothbay resembles what most of you might consider the middle of nowhere. It is undeniably true that my life does follow many of the stereotypes people assume when they think of Maine. My father is a lobsterman with a wooden boat that he fixed up with his own two hands and named after my mother, Karen Sue. I live in a small wooden house that my father also built, a house that is a fundamental part of who I am, a house whose walls seem to know me better than I know myself, walls that have witnessed me in my most intimate and vulnerable moments. And yes, perhaps the most maintained stereotype is that of the people in my life—the lobstermen at the docks, the neighbors down the road, the people that I did not know to call townies and hicks until I left. I am not, however, your typical Mainer. My father was born in Long Beach, Calif., and came to Maine in 1978 on a journey for clean air and a new beginning. Consequently, he is the only non-native lobsterman in town. My mother was the daughter of a colonel in the Army and after moving her entire life, landed in Maine during her first marriage. I am a product of liberal ideology, a daughter of hippies who were not constrained by conformity but who had seen and understood the world and who consciously decided to live a more simple way of life. In our modest home I was given the love that every child needs to feel boundless, to feel like you can be anything, become anything. And yet despite the unique circumstances of my life in Maine, I was subject to the sense of isolation that, as it does in many places, permeates our small town. I did not have the opportunity of a strong education and I was rejected socially because of my academic eager-

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ness. In addition, I was unable to pursue my newfound passion for sailing, a desire that had developed out of my enthusiasm for the ocean. While Maine, lobstering, and my family had given me my roots, I was acutely aware of needing something different for myself. I did not know that boarding school existed until I spent one afternoon on my school computer and Googled “private schools.” The schools were beautiful, inexplicably mysterious to me, but I had never known anyone who had gone to boarding school, I did not know that any of that was real. And I did not tell my parents about my secret fantasies of leaving Boothbay until I had decided that I would apply to one school. They knew that my acceptance was possible, but had little hope that I would receive a full scholarship, and were certain that we could not afford any part of tuition. Yet somehow with the ignorance of desire and curiosity I shrugged off their statements, sent in the application, and told my family I was only applying out of interest and was fully aware that I would not go. Despite my outward indifference, I was simply unwilling to give up on what had, for me, become a dream. With the strength of hope I consciously gave myself to the vulnerability of disappointment. Unfortunately, my parents were right; I was accepted without any financial aid at all. A month had already come and gone when I received a phone call. My mother told me that I had been reconsidered and offered a full scholarship to attend St. George’s School. I found out later that because of one donor’s benevolence and graciousness in giving to the scholarship fund, I had the opportunity to attend St. George’s. The chance for a better education required me to leave my home and my family, but no second thought ever passed through my mind. Somehow, I knew that I was ready. It was quite a transition, I must say, my first day as a “third former” in Twenty House. I hardly knew what to expect and I understand now that I simply and completely lost myself. It was as if from the instant I walked on this campus, I thought I was better than anything I had ever been before, as if from that moment on I was better than everyone back in Maine. It did not make sense; I was not a different person. But to me, in my young 14-year-old mind, I had overcome

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all of my setbacks and I was here, in this perfect and wealthy place with seemingly perfect and wealthy people. Here I could pretend that my family was not lower middle class; I could pretend that I owned fancy clothes and preppy polos. I could pretend that I was one of these beautiful people, that I was not a hick like everyone else back home. I cannot deny that I am ashamed to stand up here and say this. I am ashamed that I ever thought, for one second, that I was better than my family because I was here, because I had left them for something I thought was better. It is funny how in retrospect things can have such clarity. I believe now that I needed to lose myself in order to appreciate and understand where I came from. Perhaps I needed to come to St. George’s, to leave home, in order to see that the other side wasn’t so great, that I couldn’t pretend to be something I was not. From afar, I had the vision to see the beauty in my family, in my parents’ love and devotion to me. From a distance I was able to comprehend the beauty in the simple life, the honor in having a decent job and working to feed your family, the dignity that my father carries as a lobsterman. I do not know how all of this happens. I am not a Christian. I do not believe in the Christian God, but perhaps I do believe in some natural order, some reason things work out as they are supposed to. I think perhaps I am lucky. I am lucky because I am here, because I was able to come to this place and meet you all. I am lucky because for some unexplainable reason I was chosen to attend this school and receive an education that has empowered me with the knowledge and the understanding to appreciate my life and to comprehend the strength of my roots. I am grateful for this education, for my teachers and my classmates who forced me to think beyond what I had ever thought before. I am grateful because now I am able to return home knowing that with this experience my influence can reach beyond the appreciation of my family. When I bought those 10 traps I thought that at last my life had begun. I felt boundless, limitless. I felt an independence and determination so strong that I had no doubt of future success. And I suppose that there are

many times in life when we question whether it is really the beginning. But when is that exactly? When do we say that we are starting our lives? When do we begin to feel that we know ourselves well enough to fully value who we have become? We are all here now, nearing the end of this long haul, and yet we stand again at the face of something new. I have told you the story of how I arrived at St. George’s, and I am sure that all of you have your own unique histories, your own personal motivations that made you follow the path you did and that brought you to this point in time. It is undeniable that the decision to come to boarding school has inherently shaped our lives and our understanding of ourselves. But I want to pose to you at this moment one question: When will our potential ever be greater than it is now? Do not forget who you are, what you have learned, who you have become. Although life is dynamic and we are forever evolving, we must take our roots, our education, all of the possibility that resides within us right now and leave this place prepared to become involved in our world and to make this world better because we have been given the power to do so. We cannot lose sight of what we have come to understand about ourselves; our confidence, our eagerness and our knowledge are invaluable. We, as graduates of St. George’s School, can appreciate where we have come from, this experience we have gone through, and move on with a profound sense of duty to give back to the world those opportunities that we have been given.

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An na Mc Co nne ll ’09, of Boothbay, Maine, is heading to Stanford University in Palo Alto, Calif. this fall. She can be reached at almcconn@stanford.edu.

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Confessions of a nonbeliever A graduating senior professes his atheism BY MAX FOWLER ’09 Following is a chapel talk delivered on April 28, 2009.

Max Fowler ’09 gives his chapel talk on atheism.

o be honest, I wasn’t sure I wanted to give this talk. My topic is important to me, but I’m not sure how it will be received. I just hope that you all will consider what I have to say, and hopefully learn something from it. What I’m going to talk about today is faith. Faith means a lot of different things to a lot of different people, but faith is an extremely important aspect of our modern day culture. For some people

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their faith defines them, and for others it is a less important aspect of what makes up their character. It is expected, however, that everyone believes something, and while it is a highly personal choice what to believe, it is believed that understanding other people’s faiths helps us to understand them better. Our country has only known Christian presidents, predominantly Protestant, and while we do have freedom of religion, this and other evidence indicates that not all faiths are looked upon equally by the majority. A study was done to find which social groups were least likely to be elected for president: 5

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percent would not vote for a woman, 8 percent would not vote for a Jew, 8 percent would not vote for a Black, 21 percent would not vote for a homosexual, and 51 percent would not vote for an atheist—a person without faith. (Gallup Poll 1999, Dawkins) Ninety percent of Americans consider themselves religious (Gallup, 2007), and while that number is probably slightly lower here, as it generally is in academia, atheists are a tiny minority (less than 3 percent, Gallup, June 23, 2006), a minority hardly even noticed, and certainly not protected. There is a large group of Americans who truly believe that atheists are wicked, that there can be no morality without God, and that those without faith are a primary source of evil in this world. Of atheists, the bible says, “They are corrupt, they do abominable deeds, there is none who does good.” (Psalm 14:1) In fact there are probably some people in this audience who share a similar belief, or at least would think less of someone knowing they had no faith. That is why it is not easy for me to say in front of all of you, that I am an atheist. It really feels like a confession: I do not believe in any type of God, nor in any higher power controlling or influencing our universe. Faith is a belief that is not based on proof, and I hold no such belief. I believe in the rational—in evidence, and in my personal opinion there is not sufficient evidence to warrant belief in anything other than the mathematical and physical laws that explain the behavior of our universe. My mother is Jewish, and my father is Protestant, and while neither is particularly religious, it was on my own that I found my faith, or rather lack thereof. As a child I went to church on Sundays, and celebrated all the major holidays of both Judaism and Christianity with my family, as I still do. And there was a time when I believed in God, in an old man in the sky with a long gray beard, but then I also believed in Santa, and perhaps the Easter bunny. When I truly lost my faith was in the fourth grade. I still distinctly remember a conversation with my father inspired by our study of world religions at school, when I asked him which religion was right. I said to him, there are so many religions, and they’re all different, so how does someone choose which one to believe? He told me that it was

my choice what to believe, but that some people called themselves agnostic, which meant they believed they didn’t have enough information to know what to believe. From that day forward, and even today, when asked what I believe, I have generally replied that I am agnostic—without knowledge, or yet to be decided. However, I am lying. I only say this, because agnosticism is somewhat more mainstream, undecided is a happy middle ground which isn’t too controversial, and is less likely to offend or turn someone away from me unnecessarily. It was in 10th grade that my religious views were fully formed, the year in which I read a book that changed my life, and I found the knowledge I needed to leave my agnosticism behind me. It was then that I read “The God Delusion” by Richard Dawkins. A good part of this book is devoted to rationally disproving the existence of God, which I found compelling and would recommend to any atheist or agnostic because it is extremely interesting, however I would not recommend this to anyone religious—I have no desire to eliminate or lessen others’ faith—and even if a religious person did read this book it would probably have no impact on them, for the funny thing about faith is, it needs no explanation. However, much of the rest of the book was focused on the social implications of being an atheist, and this is what more profoundly influenced me. It made me realize that I was only an agnostic in that I thought there was a remote possibility in some type of higher power, and I certainly didn’t believe in the validity of any particular religion. But I also believe there’s a remote possibility my life is a dream and I don’t exist. So just as I would tell you I am alive and the world is real, I am an atheist, I do not believe in God, and to say I am agnostic is a misrepresentation of my true beliefs. The book also discusses the moral implications of being an atheist, and despite the view of a majority of Americans that atheists are necessarily immoral, Dawkins argues that morality is in fact entirely separate from religion and is perfectly possible without faith. I believe in happiness, that life is good, and should be honored and protected. I believe in kindness, in goodness, and in helping others achieve their own happiness. I live by an ethical code completely

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independent of religion, I just believe that I should be moral not because I will be punished with eternal damnation if I am not, but out of a respect for the beauty and potential of the human condition, and life in general, the potential we have to have a great and meaningful existence even without God. And it is for this reason that I respect all religions very much, for I believe we for the most part share a common end. I believe in most of the Ten Commandments (the business with the killing, the stealing, the lying, and the honoring your parents all sounds good to me); I just don’t believe in those three about God. But what I’m saying is, for the most part, that the moral ideas expounded by religion are in line with those of my own moral compass, a compass not guided by faith. Some of you may feel it is ironic, or even hypocritical of me, to stand here before you on this pulpit, in this chapel dedicated to the Lord, our savior Jesus Christ, and tell you why I don’t believe in him. But I do not feel this way. Even though I choose not to believe, I think that for many people faith is very positive, and as a community the traditions and ceremony surrounding this chapel and our Episcopalian orientation are very constructive, and bring us together. I wouldn’t want to change the faith of anyone in this chapel, especially if your faith is leading you to live a happier, more meaningful and more moral existence. Yet while I believe for many individuals religion is a positive force in their lives, I do not think any religion as a whole is perfect. I am extremely against fundamentalism, and in fact I think fundamentalist religion is one of the primary sources of evil in our world right now, far more so than the atheists, who are on average a rather peaceful and educated bunch. Terrorism in the name of Islam is a primary example, but there are fundamentalist members of every religion who are just as guilty. The one thing I ask of everyone is that they respect the right of others to believe what they want to believe, including believing nothing at all. I never want someone to try to convert me. The idea of imposing one’s beliefs on someone else really upsets me. I am open to learning about other people’s beliefs in an attempt to try to connect with them, but there is a fine line between

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advocating your own beliefs and putting down the beliefs of others. Above all I ask that you all, those who know me well or barely at all, don’t think differently of me now. The final point that I took away from Dawkins’ book was to be proud of my atheism, to fight back against our oppression—for that really is what it is. Yet for four years I told only my closest friends this fact about me, because I believed that if I told people I was an atheist, some people would hate me, just for that small little tidbit of everything that makes up my character—an aspect of me that I certainly don’t believe to be one of my most important. Yet here I am, announcing to all of you my faithlessness in this chapel, sanctuary of faith, defending my beliefs and imploring all of you not to judge others based on their faith, whether Christian, Jewish, Buddhist or Humanist. I felt it was my obligation to do this before I graduate, because I think the current state of things is not OK. I should not have felt it necessary to keep my atheism secret for my SG career. It really seems absurd, but unfortunately our modern social climate is just not empathetic or forgiving towards atheists. I also hope this talk will give strength and encouragement to other atheists and agnostics here today, because I know I am not the only one. I hope we can all find a way to be proud of our faith or faithlessness, and let our beliefs have a positive and meaningful influence on our lives while still respecting the beliefs of others, without judging them for an entirely personal choice or pressuring them into seeing things our way. And sure, if any humanists, agnostics, atheists, deists, rationalists, secularists or open-minded people simply interested in hearing another perspective would like to sit down and discuss their beliefs with me and what it means to live a meaningful and purposed life without God, I’d be happy to. Let us go forth into the world in the name of goodness and kindness and forgiveness, our common goals, and peacefully coexist. Thanks to everyone for your time. Max Fowler ’09 of Newport, R.I., will attend Brown University this fall. He can be reached at Max_Fowler@Brown.edu.

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PHOTO BY

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If you decide to let in God Reflections on a year presiding over the St. Georgeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Chapel BY THE REV. NED MULLIGAN Following is a sermon delivered on May 26, the final chapel service of the 2008-09 school year.

decided that I would talk to you this morning about some of the issues and principles I have talked to you about during the year. I want to leave you with a general understanding of what I have tried to do from the pulpit. I hope that you might think about some of these issues over the summer because they all have to do with your choice of who to be as young women and men. When I first met with the entire school to introduce myself last fall and to talk about my philosophy about chapel, I urged you to spend your time in chapel, which is substantial over the entire year, attempting to find a meaningful way to connect with some aspect of the service. I suggested that there are many ways to use the time productively regardless of your individual faith. The potential connection points are almost limitless and range from actually engaging in worship and connecting with God, to supporting your friends participating in the service, to simply immersing yourself in the beauty of this building. I know that many of you have tried to do just that and I would urge you to find additional points of connection when you return next fall.

One of the primary purposes of worshipping as a community is just that: loving and supporting each other simply because we are members of this community. I also urged anyone with questions about anything we do in chapel to come see me and to have an open conversation about any questions you may have. I will continue to be available to all of you to discuss any issue. The topics that I have offered you during the year for your thoughtful engagement ranged broadly. I have talked to you about whether there is a God in the first place and the process of choosing to believe or not to believe. I have urged you to open your hearts to the possibility that there really is a God who actually loves each one of us as individuals, flaws and all. I presented the question whether God changes and evolves over time, or whether we change and whether we gain a more accurate understanding of God through the maturation of our individual faith resulting from thoughtful engagement, discussion, prayer, and worship. I talked to you about prayer and the strength of prayer based in faith in the context of my experience as chaplain at the Hartford Hospital and the total recovery of a patient everyone believed should be allowed to die, except for his mother. Was this a miracle? Was it simply a

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coincidence? Was it a product of the power of faith and prayer? No matter what your response might have been to the preceding questions, there is no easy answer. I did a sermon on your favorite lyrics and I sang a stanza of Janis Joplin’s “Mercedes Benz” song to you. I also sang a stanza from a Rolling Stones song to your parents on Parents’ Weekend. Music appeals to the human spirit and perhaps music offers us a glimpse of our deepest selves and the presence of God in those most personal places. Music is a connection point with God in this place. We all wore hats one day. Did the hats indicate who we really are? Do we hide our true selves behind labels and appearances without revealing more? Do we respond to each other by making judgments on the basis of those labels and appearances or should we actively seek to know more about each other, particularly living in a close community like St. George’s? I preached early in the year about Paul Jones who lost his position as bishop of Utah during the First World War because he was a pacifist. He is an example of a man with strength of conviction and moral courage exercised at great personal peril and with substantial negative personal consequences. The irony in a priest being fired because he was a pacifist requires no explanation. I preached about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. as another example of someone who became a national hero because of the exercise of moral courage including his willingness to die for his beliefs. I have urged us all to try to take small steps in becoming morally courageous including telling the truth, being honest, acting with humility and compassion and simply doing what you believe to be the good and decent thing to do regardless of the risks or possible consequences for doing so. Attempting to live humbly and courageously will build personal moral character and ultimately change the world, which in many respects, seems to regularly replace moral character with the insatiable desire to accumulate money and power at the expense of others. I have also talked to you about gifts. We are all given certain gifts as children of God. Your time at St. George’s is an opportunity to discover and cultivate your gifts, not only for your own benefit, but also ultimately for the benefit of others. Use your gifts openly and constructively.

S T. G E O R G E ’ S 2 0 0 9 S U M M E R B U L L E T I N

I would urge you in quiet personal moments during your summer vacation to think about what you might do to improve not only your life, but to improve the lives of others. What could you do in your life that you have been reluctant to do because doing so requires the exercise of moral courage? What are the things in your life that get in the way of exploring the possibility of a personal relationship with the God? What are the risks to you personally if you choose to experiment with a relationship with God? I would suggest to you that there simply are no risks in the exploration. Read about, examine, and discuss issues pertaining to God so that you can make an unbiased and informed decision about an issue that may be the most important issue you ever address. Find time this summer to give back to your families who have sacrificed to send you here and who continue to provide you with opportunities that most people simply do not have. Find some time to give something back to your communities through volunteer work and giving your time and talent to those who truly need you. There are limitless opportunities for you to contribute and to give back. All you have to do is to make yourself available. And while you are engaged in giving back, look for the inherent goodness in those you serve. Grow and learn and mature because of the relationships you establish based upon your common humanity. See if you can experience God in your relationships. God will show up when you least expect it in acts of love, selflessness, humility, courage and compassion. Listen and look for God’s presence in your lives and God will be there if you decide to let God in. I wish you all success in your exams, and a restful, safe, and productive summer. I pray that you might choose to act in ways that demonstrate gratitude for what you have been given and an appreciation for who God is or may become in your life. Amen. The Rev. Ned Mulligan joined the St. George’s community in the fall of 2008 as school chaplain and head of the Theology and Religious Studies Department. He can be reached at Ned_Mulligan@stgeorges.edu.

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Around Campus S

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A painting in the chapel once thought to be the work of the Italian Baroque master Caravaggio has been restored by conservators at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., and re-hung on the northwest wall of the chapel. Unfortunately the painting, “The Supper at Emmaus,” loaned to the school in 1925 by Mr. Louis B. McCagg P’22, has been deemed a copy, likely done by a student, and not a highly valuable work of art.

estoration has stabilized the painting, which apparently was once cut up into pieces and then reassembled, causing one appraiser to remark, “No one in the conservation department has ever seen anything quite like it. Several of the areas were cut into odd parallelograms and then put back together, jigsaw puzzle-style. Other parts look as though the canvas was cut into long strips and pieced together again.” The condition would also lower the appraisal, advised Sandra Tropper, accredited senior appraiser with Artemis Inc. in Bethesda, Md. “The work itself is clearly a copy of Caravaggio’s. While the composition is the same and the figures resemble the original, there are several areas of the painting that are weak, including Christ’s arm that is bent in front of his body, the still life in the foreground of the image, and the contrasts of light and dark, although that may be the result of ‘inpainting’ done in a previous repair. The subtlety of shadow and the reflections of the light source on the figures have been lost in this ‘translation’ of the work.” The real “Supper at Emmaus,” executed in 1601, was copied several times by Caravaggio himself. Originally painted for the Roman nobleman Ciriaco Mattei, and later purchased by Cardinal Scipione Borghese, it is now in the National Gallery in London.

Anonymous Artist 18th-19th century Copy of S u p p e r a t E m m a u s by Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio Oil on Re-lined canvas approximately 55 x 77 inches Loaned to the school by Louis B. McCagg P’22, 1925

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Development news Challenge catapults Annual Fund

“ F L AT

IS THE

BY C. JOSEPH GOULD

t the April 24 meeting of the trustees’ finance committee, I reported that the Annual Fund was lagging well behind the pace of recent years in both dollars and donors. Our hope, I said, was that the fund-raising pundits were right and that we’d see a surge of support in the waning two months of the campaign. Indeed those pundits were suggesting that constituents were taking a “wait and see” approach with the economy and were just deferring their giving until the last possible moment. Fortunately, my colleagues and I in the development office were starting to doubt the expert thinking and in the week following that finance committee meeting the “Flat is the New Up!” Challenge was conceived. At the time, we needed to raise

NEW UP!” more than $500,000 to reach our budgeted goal of $2,225,000—a goal established in February 2008. Our plan then was to find challengers willing to commit $250,000 so we could offer a one-to-one match to our entire constituency. Maximize the match and the job is done! Simple? May 14: Challenge fund of $250,000 completed with commitments from 25 donors. May 18: “Flat is the New Up!” Challenge launched with the first electronic announcement to the entire constituency. May 18 to June 24: 651 gifts received, maximizing the $250,000 Challenge! Mean gift: $100; 371 gifts of $100 or less; eleven gifts of $5,000 or more; two gifts of $10,000 or more. June 30: Close of the fiscal year. Annual Fund total: $2,233,339.24! Is “Flat is the New Up!?” Our $2,233,339

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total was only 1.4 percent less than our record-setting 2007-08 Annual Fund year of $2,265,546. Our 2,052 donor total was “Up” 0.004 percent (nine donors) from 2007-08. “Flat” indeed! But the enthusiasm generated was a “new up!” It was reflected in the faculty and staff: 93 percent of the teachers and administrators gave. It was reflected in the entire constituency: 40 percent of the total gifts for the year came after the launching of the Challenge. And it was reflected in our excitement as a development staff. Notwithstanding its importance to the very being of the school, annual fund raising is rarely news—except when “Flat is the New Up!” Jo e Gould is the assistant head of school for external affairs. He can be reached at joe_gould@stgeorges.edu.

Board notes N

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F R O M

T H E

O A R D

BOARD WELCOMES NEW MEMBERS; TWO TRUSTEES DEPART The Board of Trustees voted this spring to Christine Elia ’92, appoint three new members—C Jonathan T. Isham, Jr. ’78 and Richard A. Wayner ’85. Christine Elia is an Internet executive who started Closet Couture, an online social network for the fashion-minded. The business was launched in September 2008 and named one of the 50 best start-ups of the year from around the world by TechCrunch, the leading publication of record in Silicon Valley. At St. George’s, Chris served on the SG Annual Giving Committee from 2006 to 2008 and served on her class’s 15th reunion committee. She and her husband Eric Simon live in Santa Monica, Calif. Jon Isham is an economics professor at Middlebury College, writer and environmentalist. He coauthored “Ignition: What you can do to Fight Global Warming and Spark a Movement,” published in July 2007 by Island Press. Isham is a national organizer of Focus the Nation, a national educational initiative of faculty, staff, students and community members at more than 1,000 colleges, universities, and high schools in the United States committed to engaging in a nationwide, interdisciplinary discussion about global warming solutions. He is also an adviser to 1Sky, former Vice President Al Gore’s Climate Project, and the new Presidential Climate Action Project. At St. George’s, Isham was the Burnett Lecture speaker in 2005, and in March 2006 he participated in the Strategic Planning Workshop. He is the son of Jonathan T. Isham ’46, who was an SG trustee from 1967 to 1980. Jon and his wife Tracy live in Middlebury, Vt., with their two daughters. Richard Wayner is a partner at The Keffi Group, a private investment firm focused on fundamental, research-driven value investing, and chairman at

O F

R U S T E E S

Alliance TRACE Media. In 2003, Richard and Claude Grunitzky formed The TRUE Agency, which became one of the fastest growing minority-owned agencies in the USA. In 2007, Wayner was a National Finalist for the Ernst & Young “Entrepreneur of the Year” Award. He has completed two fiction novels, both unpublished. Wayner and his wife, Ayanna, have a daughter Arielle and make their home in New York. In addition to welcoming the new members, the board thanked Ralph Ea ds III P’07, ’08, ’10 and Roger Smith ’55 for all their efforts as they completed their terms on the board this spring.

CHRISTINE E. ELIA ’92

DE R AMEL TO HEAD ANNUAL FUND Laura de Ramel ’90 has now officially taken over duties as SG’s 2009-10 Annual Fund chair. After several months of understudy with last year’s chair, Bob Ceres ’55, de Ramel is now flying solo as organizer of the school’s core fundraising vehicle. “I feel privileged just to be considered for the task,” de Ramel said. “It’s an interesting time to be taking on the challenge, to say the least, but that should make it more rewarding, hopefully.” Assistant Head of School for External Affairs Joe Gould told de Ramel earlier this year: “It will be a challenging period but together I know we can be successful.” Gould cited a number of alums who may be enthusiastic supporters—and motivators for de Ramel, including Ceres, Roger Smith ’55, Tom Bullitt ’73, Bill Dean ’73 and Board Chair Skip Branin ’65, who all recently held the post themselves. “I have big shoes to fill,” de Ramel said, “but with the help of the amazing development staff and other leaders on campus and the board, I hope not to disappoint.”

JONATHAN T. ISHAM, JR. ’78

RICHARD A. WAYNER ’85

LAURA S. DE RAMEL ’90

S T. G E O R G E ’ S 2 0 0 9 S U M M E R B U L L E T I N

PHOTO BY

TIM FRIEND

Geronimo

The turtle man A former summer student on Geronimo fondly recalls his time with Steve Connett BY JOHN LEE

L Steve Connett aboard Geronimo in July 2000. (inset) Steve and John on their recent trip to the Bahamas.

ast year, I got a call from Steve Connett asking if I wanted to give him a hand tagging turtles in the northern Bahamas. It was early November and I was working the deck on a trawler, catching flatfish off New England. I told Steve I needed a few days to think about it. Three 16-hour days later, with winter coming on strong, the Bahamas started to sound pretty good. I called Steve back. “Excellent,” he said. “We’ll make the run from Spanish Wells to Grand Bahama. Then we’ll turtle out of the skiff. I’ll drive. You’ll be jumping them.” The last time I’d tagged turtles with Steve was in Bermuda in the early 1990s. We’d tagged maybe 30

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green turtles up to 100 pounds. Steve’s tagged more than 1,200 turtles and 12,000 sharks for scientific study. He works mostly with the Bahamas National Trust and the Archie Carr Center for Sea Turtle Research at the University of Florida. For more than 30 years, from Great Inagua to Grand Bahama and Nova Scotia to New England, Steve ran the sail-training vessel, Geronimo, a 54-foot yawl built in 1964 for St. George’s School in Newport, Rhode Island. The boat carried eight students. The first mate, Babbie, was Steve’s wife. We learned how to sail by hand without mechanical aids. We also learned how to record and send weather conditions twice a day over the single sideband radio, learned how to plot a position on the chart

PHOTO COURTESY OF J OHN L EE

with a pencil and dividers, and how to stand a watch. He taught us about blue shark migration and growth rates of green turtles and how to tag them for scientific research. He taught “The Sun Also Rises” and “Othello,” though I’d wager most students who shipped out on Geronimo don’t remember much about the murder of Desdemona. What we remembered was the 400-pound mako or 800-pound tiger at the rail, its tail banging the hull, its teeth gripped tight around the wire, with Steve’s voice, anything but quiet: “Let’s get a tag in that thing. We got a length yet? A sex? Come on, let’s go. Quit messing around.” Besides being captain and mate, Steve and Babbie were guidance counselors, dorm parents, field medics, and adolescent therapists. Steve often handled the latter simply: “Hey buddy. Your turn to steer.” On Christmas Day 1997, Babbie passed away. A small service was held for her in a turtle creek on Conception Island. They spread Babbie’s ashes into the water, then released a hawksbill turtle and watched it swim through the ashes. Steve ran Geronimo alone until 2001. Then he swallowed the anchor … came ashore. Some years went by, enough years for Steve to realize that a boat would be a good thing for a retired man. He found a 38-foot working lobsterboat, Foxy Lady, in Nova Scotia, bought it cheap and converted it into a Bahamian cruiser. Now Steve’s come full-circle. He’s back on the water nearly year-round, back to teaching kids, back to tagging turtles. The Foxy Lady is based out of Spanish Wells, Northern Eleuthera, where Steve and his girlfriend, Barbara Crouchley, spend much of their time. I joined the boat in Spanish Wells and we made the long run up the Northwest Channel, steaming at eight knots through the night and into the next day. We held hour-and-a-half wheel watches, jotting logbook entries—RPMs, position, course, how the 19-foot skiff rode 50 feet astern on two heavy lines. Nineteen hours later, a cold front came on. The northerly pinned us to the dock at Old Bahama Bay Marina, our base camp, on and off for days. Steve used the downtime to visit local schools. He talked about the importance of marine regulations, conservation and the impacts of poaching.

“Many of the kids—because their dads do it— think it’s fine to keep undersized conch. I tell them it isn’t.” Steve teaches them to see conch, reefs, groupers and sea turtles collectively as vital components of the Bahamian ecosystem. Save one species, save them all. The north side of Grand Bahama is all mangroves and flats. The flats stretch for miles across Little Bahama Bank. While the wind blew, Steve lined up some local fishermen—among them bonefish guide Jim Foley, a conch diver named “Magic,” and the Bahamian National Trust’s Prescott Gay—to help guide us through the tangle. “These guys do this all day, looking for bonefish and conch. They know things we don’t, and they’ve got eyes. Man, can some of these guys spot! They also know about turtles,” Steve added, laughing. “Most of them grew up eating them.” When the wind allowed, we went turtling. Most of our effort centered on remote (as in “off the charts”) Man O’ War Bush, a place of eagle rays, nurse sharks and turtles, mostly greens. Spotting conditions were tough. The wind had churned the water, making it hard to pick out the subtle differences between turtle and bottom. When a turtle was spotted, the chase would begin, the skiff trailing the animal at speed, spotter in the bow hanging on, pointing. To jump a turtle from a moving boat in two feet of water with the possibility of landing on a stingray proved not to be my strong suit. I missed plenty. Magic’s warning that one of these turtles could “take your hand off ” didn’t help my cause. When I missed, Steve had advice: “Lee, you can’t dive in behind them. You have to jump on top of them—the little buggers will out-swim you every time.” An adult green can tip the scales at over 400 pounds. We were dealing with

S T. G E O R G E ’ S 2 0 0 9 S U M M E R B U L L E T I N

Geronimo

Geronimo summer crew, l-r: Sabra Wilson ’10, Haley Congdon ’11, Sophie Flynn ’11, Julia Carrellas ’11, Rosie Putnam ’11, Molly Richards ’11, Heydi Malave ’11.

babies and adolescents, little pie-plates that scooted like frisbees. Man O’ War Bush now has six tagged green turtles in it, all small, immature ones under 30 pounds. In the Bahamas, most of the green turtles haven’t yet reproduced. They’ll spend up to 20 years feeding and growing in the Bahamas before returning to natal beaches in places like Costa Rica and the Yucatan Peninsula. After that, they head into the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico. Our best day of turtling happened in Eleuthera. We had some help in the form of another jumper. Alex Friedman had flown in from Martha’s Vineyard where he sometimes teaches middle school, sometimes catches giant tuna. Alex and I were students on Geronimo together in 1989. It had been 20 years since the three of us had stood on deck together. Not much has changed. Steve’s still older than we are, and to him, we’re still boys. Granted, boys pushing 40. “There’s one—starboard bow!” Alex screamed. “Keep your eyes on that turtle, Friedman,” said Steve. I whispered things to Alex about rays and sea urchins, trying to throw off his balance. But when the timing was right and the turtle was tiring, Alex would

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launch out, no mask, no fins, no wet suit, and come swimming back to the skiff with a turtle. Getting a big turtle to settle down so that we could put a tag through its flipper takes time. One 80-pound Hawksbill took three of us to subdue. We worked a whole tide, not really talking except for commands of direction: “Over there! Cutting across the bow, Steve. Ten o’clock.” And our favorite: “He’s gone under the boat, captain.” The banter hadn’t changed at all from years ago, when the three of us chummed for sharks on Geronimo south of Nantucket. “Friedman? Lee? You guys got that fish tagged yet?” One day we’d hand-lined and tagged 400 blue sharks. I remember the burn in my hands and how it hurt to make a fist. And here, among mangroves and on a creek, it was basically the same thing–working hard, tagging things with flippers and fins. We were beat from a day of chasing turtles around Corrie Sound. Just three guys doing something that keeps them young–not that any of us would say anything that nostalgic out loud. John Lee was a student aboard Geronimo for a summer program in 1989. Reprinted with permission from Southern Boating magazine.

School Year 2009-10 CL

ASSES

START

S E P T. 14

AND

WE’LL

WELCOME

THESE

NEW

STUDENTS

Casey DeLuca

Alexander Hope

Fa i r f i e l d , C T

Bedford, NY

Barrington Hills, IL

James Allan

Nico DeLuca-Verley

Jonathan Januszewski

N e w Yo r k , N Y

Por tsmouth, RI

Greenwich, CT

Ryan Andrade

Sophia DenUyl

Carine Kanimba

Newpor t, RI

Little Compton, RI

Kraainem, Belgium

Hayden Arnot

Kelly Duggan

David Kehoe

Stowe, VT

Austin, TX

Wa ke f i e l d , R I

Alexandra Ballato

Peter Durudogan

Sean Killeavy

We s t H a m p t o n B e a c h , N Y

Middletown, RI

Bristol, RI

Samantha Bauer

Miriam Elhajli

Michael Kim

Cambridge, MA

Concord, MA

Honoria Berman

David Elron

Rowon Kim

Andrew Moreau

Daniel Scheerer

P h i l a d e l p h i a , PA

C h a r l o t t e s v i l l e , VA

We s t N e w t o n , M A

Wa c c a b u c , N Y

D u x b u r y, M A

Katherine Bienkowski

Chloe Evans

Soojin Kim

McKenzie Nagle

Elizabeth Scholle

Lexington, MA

Newton, MA

Seoul, Korea

W h i t e H a l l , VA

Chestnut Hill, MA

Andrew Boyd

Rahil Fazelbhoy

Peter Kohler

Tao Ouyang

Jae Young Shin

Madison, CT

Mumbai, India

Winnetka, IL

Shenzhen, China

G a i n e s v i l l e , VA

Wyatt Bramhall

William Fleming

Edith Kremer

Chanjoon Park

Raleigh Silvia

Concord, MA

D u x b u r y, M A

Cambridge, MA

Sungnam, Korea

Little Compton, RI

Colby Burdick

Marianne Foss-Skiftesvik

Efstathios Kyriakides

Yonghan Park

John Snow

Yo r k t o w n H e i g h t s , N Y

We s t p o r t , C T

Por tsmouth, RI

Seoul, Korea

W i n c h e s t e r, M A

Terrence Burns

Bethany Fowler

Anh La

Harrison Parker

Somer Stapleton

Por tsmouth, RI

Newpor t, RI

Hanoi, Vietnam

Cambridge, MA

Atlanta, GA

Brooke Burrowes

Sebastian Frugone

Nicholas Larson

Daniel Perry

Caroline Thompson

Kingston, Jamaica

N e w Yo r k , N Y

Bristol, RI

K e l l e r, T X

Wa s h i n g t o n , D C

Josephine Cannell

Alison Ghriskey

William Leatherman

Nicholas Pezza

Whitney Thomson

Mattapoisett, MA

Mt. Kisco, NY

Boston, MA

Greenville, RI

Prides Crossing, MA

Elizabeth Carey

Polina Godz

Stephanie Lee

John Phillips

Daniel Tobin

Winnetka, IL

K h a r k i v, U k r a i n e

Jamaica Plain, MA

Sparta, NJ

H a n o v e r, M A

Anna Carr

Ellen Granoff

Erin Leist

Kyle Powers

Sienna Turecamo

East Greenwich, RI

Bristol, RI

Southborough, MA

W y c ko f f , N J

M i d d l e b u r g , VA

Claire Chalifour

William Greer

Shannon Leonard

Saskia Pownall-Gray

Theodore Voulgaris

Kingston, Jamaica

New Canaan, CT

East Greenwich, RI

We s t o n , C T

New Canaan, CT

Frances Champion

Joseph Grimeh

Charles Macaulay

Matias Pribor

Han Xu

We s t H a r t f o r d , C T

Bedford, NY

Carbondale, CO

Madison, NJ

John Coaty

Kathleen Hamrick

Jackson McBride

Oona Pritchard

Hangzhou, Zhejiang Provin, China

Newpor t, RI

Princeton, NJ

S u r r e y, E n g l a n d

Middletown, RI

Richard Conlogue

John Harris

Hannah McCormack

Attasind Pulsirivong

Santa Ana, CA

Nor th Hampton, NH

Newton, MA

B a n g ko k , T h a i l a n d

Nicole Young

Carolyn Conway

Elizabeth Haskell

Michael McGinnis

Callie Reis

Newpor t, RI

L o c u s t Va l l e y, N Y

Middletown, RI

Jamestown, RI

Olivia Zurawin

Eliza Cover

Tyshon Henderson

Allison McLane

Elizabeth Reynolds

Mount Kisco, NY

Dedham, MA

Newark, NJ

South Hamilton, MA

Los Angeles, C A

Victoria Cunningham

Javier Hill

Alana McMahon

Vivianne Reynoso

Wa ke f i e l d , R I

Chicago, IL

Por tsmouth, RI

Alameda, CA

Rebecca Cutler

Michael Hoffman

Lisbeily Mena

Theresa Salud

D u x b u r y, M A

Concord, MA

We s t N e w Yo r k , N J

Morganville, NJ

James D’Amario

Jessica Hom

Carter Millane

Dominique Samuel

We l l e s l e y, M A

Holmdel, NJ

Madison, CT

O k l a h o m a C i t y, O K

PHOTO BY

DIANNE REED

Andreas Adam

Henry Young High Point, NC

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Prize Day R A D U A T I O N

2 0 0 9

PHOTO BY

KATHRYN WHITNEY LUCEY

Roll over, Aurelius BY ERIC F. PETERSON Following is the Prize Day address delivered on Monday, May 25, 2009.

n behalf of the entire St. George’s community, it is my great pleasure to welcome you to our Prize Day ceremonies. For more than 100 years, the school has gathered here each spring to say farewell to its graduates and to honor their contributions to the life of the school. Today we will honor the Class of 2009, and we are joined by their schoolmates, the faculty, staff, members of the board of trustees, alumni/ae, friends and of course, the graduates’ families, who have come from across the nation and around the world to help celebrate this occasion. We bid you all a very warm welcome. I would also like to take a moment to acknowledge and recognize the hard work of the many members of the school community who have made this day possible. In addition to the efforts of my assistant, Donna Woishek, the grounds, maintenance, housekeeping staffs have the campus looking beautiful, the food service staff has been providing delicious meals, and countless other employees have

S T. G E O R G E ’ S 2 0 0 9 S U M M E R B U L L E T I N

been working for weeks to prepare for this day. It is a gigantic and seemingly endless task, and though for the most part their labors are unseen, their contributions to this event and to the life of the school are invaluable. Please join me in recognizing their efforts. Finally, I wish to remind us that in addition to being Prize Day today is also Memorial Day. I ask that we pause for a moment of silence and prayer for all those, including 52 graduates of St. George’s, who have given their lives in the service and defense of our nation. … Thank you. Now, on to the formal business of the day. To the members of the Class of 2009, we offer our heartfelt congratulations. You are without question an exceptionally close class, full of personality, interesting characters, and overflowing with joy and energy. You are scholars, artists, athletes and activists. You have studied, competed, and served the school and the community with great zeal and great success. Over the course of this year as the Sixth Form you have led by example, even in some complicated and difficult circumstances. You should be very proud. We will miss you all next year, but we know that you will enrich your new collegiate communities with the same energy and character you’ve shown in your time at St. George’s. In the

meantime however, we have you as our own for a few minutes more. As I stand here this morning, I confess that I am humbled by the words of the various speakers who have addressed your class over the course of the last week. From Mr. Weston’s erudite and considered message about David Foster Wallace and choosing how to think, to Izzy’s heartfelt remarks in chapel last night on the nature of family at St. George’s, to Mr. Stack’s thoughts this morning on pursuing your dreams, I am afraid that all of the good talks have already been given. Nevertheless, as we gather this morning at the borders of land and sea, youth and adulthood, your past and our future, I hope you will indulge me one last chance to offer you some perspective. My remarks today are influenced by one of my favorite books, one that I keep on my desk here at school. Despite my interest in literature, the book is not a work of fiction. Entitled “The Emperor’s Handbook,” it is a modern translation of the writings of the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius. More commonly called “The Meditations,” the book describes Aurelius’ thoughts and reflections on life and the world around him. For those who do not recall exactly who Aurelius was, he was the last of the so-called “five good emperors” of Rome, ruling as emperor for almost 20 years before his death in the year 180 A.D. If you are more familiar with modern movies than ancient Rome, you might recall Aurelius as the aged and ailing emperor who dies early on in the movie “Gladiator.” In any case, by nearly every account, Aurelius was a remarkable ruler. Despite unlimited access to the riches and temptations of imperial Rome at the height of its power, Aurelius lived a balanced and measured life, choosing to avoid the excesses and debauchery of the emperors who followed him. In this, Aurelius is commonly considered to be the ultimate historical example of Plato’s ideal of the philosopher-king: honest, thoughtful and principled. But Aurelius was not a philosopher, at least not in the way we use the term today. He was a king, a soldier and a man of action far more than he was a solitary thinker or a scholar. As a result, “The Meditations” is not a philosophical treatise. Indeed, it is not clear that his reflections were ever meant for public viewing, much less for publication. Rather, “The Meditations” is a collection of thoughts, reminders, and advice that Aurelius was writing to himself. David and Scot Hicks, the translators of the version I like, suggest that the true purpose of the writings was to remind Aurelius of his own guiding principles and to hold himself accountable

to them. For example, you can hear the reminder to himself in one of my favorite lines, one that I have shared with the school prefects each year I have been here. Aurelius writes: “It is the fate of kings to do men good and be hated for it.” At another point in the book he reminds himself: “Modest in victory, graceful in defeat.” With these sorts of observations, Aurelius’ words echo across the canyon of time. At the same time, so much has changed in the world, that there are, naturally, certain omissions or gaps in coverage in his world view. So, while I consider myself in no way fit to be compared to Aurelius, I thought it might be entertaining to offer your class a somewhat updated version of “The Meditations.” Like Aurelius’, my list comes in the form of a series of short observations. So with all due humility I offer you the following thoughts and reflections: Be very skeptical of lists of advice. Courage does not generally come easily; it often requires either great duress or a conscious choice to do the right thing, not the easy thing. No matter how many times you’ve been “friended” on Facebook, your true friends are living, breathing humans. Your class knows this better than most, as you are distinguished by your connection to and dependence on each other. Hold onto those friends; you will each need one another someday. Take chances. But make them good ones. Risk is part of life, so embrace it and use it to your advantage. Make your living at something you love to do. Do not waste your life’s energy hating your job. Peterson’s Third Law of Social Dynamics: Nothing good ever happens between 2 a.m. and 5 a.m. Unless you are up late working or studying, if the clock reads 3:10, or 4:17, or something like that, go home. Immediately. The Internet is forever, no matter what they tell you. Consider carefully everything you post there. Take every chance to laugh with your friends, and at yourself. Laughter is a universal truth. No one has ever reached the age of 80 and wished they’d gotten more tattoos. When you find love, or it finds you, protect and defend it like the rare treasure it is. E-mail is a lousy way to communicate important or sensitive information, and the worst possible medium for expressing anger or disappointment. Angry e-mails tend to generate nothing more than escalating anger all around. Try a face-to-face conversation instead.

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Produce some piece of art— visual, musical, anything. Just give voice to your powers of creativity. When you choose to misbehave (and you will), do it wisely. When things go wrong (and they will), take responsibility for the outcome. No one wants to hear “It’s not fair,” “But it was my first time” or “That’s not mine, I’m just holding it for a friend…” Your parents love you, they will help and advise you, but do not let them solve your problems for you. Do it yourself, develop self-confidence, and become a grown-up. From time to time, do something that frightens you. No matter who you are or where you were born, you are entitled to exactly nothing. Work hard, and earn your own rewards. Your mother was right. Get off the couch. Go outside and play. Say please and thank-you. A lot. To everyone. Devote some of your time and energy to something larger than your own needs. Be very wary of easy answers and blowhard pundits and preachers. The world is not simple, and neither are the answers to our problems. Facebook, Twitter, blogs, and the like are of extremely limited utility. Be careful not to let your online world supplant the real one. If you have to choose, pick the carbonbased life forms over the silicon ones. Chase your dreams, have a plan, and be prepared to adapt it. Nothing ever goes according to the plan. Visit and learn about as many other nations as you can. It’s a big world, with lots of different lives, and the more you’ve experienced this, the happier you will be. Plant a garden, and consider the miracle of each seed. Remember that everything we eat comes from the work of farmers somewhere. Do not listen to your critics, the cynics, and the experts who tell you something cannot be done. Remember Mark Twain’s remark: “It’s a shame that all the people who really know how to run the world are too busy cutting hair and driving taxis …” Alternatively, consider another Twain quote: “Be good and you will be lonesome.” At least once in your life, own a dog and come to understand the unconditional love of a pet.

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Spend some time out in the natural world. It will remind you of your true place as one small part of Creation. Read more. No one has ever reached mid-life or later and thought, “If only I had watched more television.” Take your work and your relationships seriously, but not yourself. Self-deprecating humor is always welcome. Be kind. Be kind. Be kind. Always. If you do not already know how, learn to sail a boat. Read poetry, and write some of your own, even if you’re the only one who will ever read it. Be generous. Nobody loves a miser. Not even the miser. Cultivate and enlarge your spirit in worship or service to others. Go to as many live concerts and sporting events as you can. There is nothing like being part of an energized crowd. Get to know your own parents and grandparents as people, not simply as figures. The stories of their lives are the story of your life, whether you realize it or not. No matter what you may have heard, no Zebra has ever really beaten a Dragon … Life is absurd. Life is unfair, and sometimes life is cruel. All of this is true, but life is also immeasurably beautiful. Try not to lose sight of its magic. As we part ways today, may the beauty of this place continue to be reflected in the beauty of your lives. You may not realize it, but there are times when it hurts to look at you, so filled with bright promise are you all. We speak in the school prayer of our desire to send you forth from this school “well-equipped for the battle of life.” It’s a metaphor that Aurelius would have understood well, and it’s a goal that is no less true today than it was in the year 180. In your time here with us, brief as it has been, we have given you all we can. It is our fondest hope that the lessons of these years, and the examples of the lives that have surrounded you will guide and sustain you for the rest of your days. We have given you a great deal of knowledge and a bit of experience. It is now up to each of you to distill from these raw materials the wisdom you will need in the years to come. So, Class of 2009, we wish you good luck, fair winds, and Godspeed. May the Lord watch over, protect, and bless you in the years ahead. May you recall fondly your days at St. George’s, and may you remember always that we are proud to count you as our own. Eric F. Peterson is the 11th head of school of St. George’s. He can be reached at Eric_Peterson@stgeorges.edu.

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So this guy walks into the chapel and … Comedian Stack P’09 warms up the crowd on Prize Day BY TIMOTHY STACK P’09 Following is the Prize Day address delivered on May 25. Hi everybody! Congratulations to all the seniors. Congratulations, congratulations, congratulations! But an even bigger congratulations to all the parents, huh?! Izzy was talking last night about the St. George’s family and so many of us drop our kids off here to be raised by another family: the St. George’s of Newport. And many of us come from many miles away. The Stacks, we’re from California. The Kinneys are from Seattle. All the kids from Korea, which somebody said was even farther. Anyway, time flies. It was a little under four years ago when a future captain of the SG football team called me on

his first night and said, “Dad I don’t think I’m gonna, gonna make it here!” (fakes crying) I said, “Doyle, calm down, give it a day. Let’s see what happens. The next day arrives … We never heard from him again! I have a question for the parents: Did your kids call you? Ever? They did ... good, good. This is what our experience was: We’d call and it would go like this, “Oh, hi Dad.” “Doyle, are you OK?” “Yeah Dad. What’s up? Yah, I’m kind of busy, what’s going on?” “Oh, are you studying?” And then I’d hear, “Ha ha! My dad wants to know if we’re studying!” And then 16 guys are all laughing! Oh boy. Now you’re off to college. Congratulations. These schools today are so hard to get into. I did not start off at the college I graduated from. I started off at a big

Timothy Stack P’09 wasn’t afraid to insert a few jokes into his Prize Day address.

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school in Connecticut called the University of the Mohegan Sun. It’s a university and an Indian casino. Double major in theater and pai gow poker. No seriously. I was lucky enough to go to Boston College. But these schools are not the same schools your parents went to. I took Doyle up to Boston College for a look-see and I kept looking for the guys that I knew when I was there. Like the big, 6-foot-4 redhead named Fitzy. He was always drunk by 9:30 in the morning. That guy doesn’t exist today. He does not exist—and he was my mentor. Fitzy is the guy that took me down to the liquor store and said, “You don’t have to buy Budweiser. For a third of the price and twice the hangover, there’s Tuborg. You people from New England remember Tuborg. Anyway, seriously, when Eric asked me to make this speech, three thoughts crossed my mind: No. 1. Why would Eric Peterson ask me? No. 2. What can I talk about? And No 3: Will my children really laugh out loud at me in this outfit? (laughter) I think we know the answer to that one. I did want to ... just give me one second … I always wanted to yell this in this chapel, “And the winner is Dumbledore!” (laughter). So the first question: Why would Eric Peterson ask me? We have famous authors in the room, we have doctors, we have lawyers, we have people who through their volunteer work are literally changing the world. I write and perform comedy for a living—a little risqué at that. So, why would Eric ask me? I think the obvious answer is … Eric Peterson is insane! He smart, he’s a lawyer, looks fantastic. Could have played Don Draper on “Mad Men.” But, he’s a little crazy. Anyway, I promised him I wouldn’t do any risqué or questionable material. So here it goes … A minister, a rabbi and a priest walk into a bar... No. I’m not going to do any jokes. But I do have one question for Ned. Why is the minister never the punch line? We Catholics and Jews, we’re always getting into trouble, but just before the punch line, the minister says “I have to go now.” Actually, the reason Eric asked me to speak is because I am a true oxymoron. I am someone who has had a 30-year career in Hollywood. And it is a very difficult, a very rewarding, but very different path in life. One of the things I

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know you got out of St. George’s as seniors now is that you did things here that you may never have done had you stayed at home. There are so many paths here at St. George’s and I know that you all took a walk on so many of those paths. So keep doing that. Thank you. Good night, Newport. No, I’m just joking. You’re not getting rid of me that quickly. Anyway, I was your age when I started choosing my path. We had an older woman who lived with us. My grandmother had some medical issues, my mother had a caretaker and this woman Katherine sort of became our surrogate grandmother. In my senior year in high school I used to stay in to “Katherine sit.” My friends would be saying “Tim, come on man, we got tickets for Deep Purple, let’s go.” “No I have to stay in and watch Katherine.” Except I had another agenda. You see, in 1978 the lineup on CBS was this: at 8:00 “All in the Family,” 8:30 “Mary Tyler Moore,” 9:00 “Mash,” 9:30 “Bob Newhart” and at 10, “The Carol Burnett Show”—the greatest lineup of television in the history of television. Absolutely. And I used to stay in because I wanted to watch all this television. It was during one of those viewings that I sort of found my dream and that was, “I want to have a TV show.” I didn’t tell anybody. People would’ve said, “You’re crazy, you’re nuts, you’re out of your mind. You know what the odds are. You can’t do that. The message today for you folks is if you have a dream, no matter how crazy it is, go for it. Don’t even think about it; go for it. I am a big believer in dreams. I believe in daydreams. I spent 98 percent of my education daydreaming. (laughter) If I were in school today they couldn’t make enough Adderall for me. You could come to my room at St. George’s and you’d have Adderall on tap right there. Get yourself a big mug of Adderall. I think nightmares are good because at the end of the nightmare you wake up and you realize, “I got through it. It’s a new day and I can start again.” Those nightmares prepare you for all the setbacks you’ll get when you are going after those dreams. But mostly, I like the dreams that you want to do something: I want to open a grocery store. I want to run a marathon. I want to break a record for dreaming. In my case, I wanted to have a TV show. So, with all that in mind, I give you “Tim Stack’s Five Easy Steps to Capturing your Dreams.” This beautiful pamphlet. Now, normally I sell this pamphlet for 35 cents, but today,

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because we are family, you get a copy—an autographed copy—for 40 cents. I know what you are thinking. Don’t worry. My wife, Jano, has plenty of change. Anyway, No. 1: Try anything. If you are going to set out for your dream, try anything. What’s the worse thing (this is the biggest lesson in life), what’s the worse thing anybody can say? “No.” OK, let me tell you how I got started. After I got out of college, I was sitting in my apartment in New York trying to get on television. I came up with an idea for a TV show based on a play I had done in college. So I put together a treatment, and I sent it out to all these producers, I don’t know what I am doing, just trying anything. I had one slight connection with a guy I had gone to high school with. His father was friends with Grant Tinker, who at the time was Mary Tyler Moore’s husband and running MTM, a huge deal in television. And within three weeks I got a call from a guy named Bruce Paltrow, who was Gwyneth Paltrow’s father, and he said, “Grant Tinker wants you to read for a TV series.” “What? Ya, great.” So I go up and I read for him and he said, “You are pretty good, Tim. You should move to L.A. “Uh, I just got an apartment. I am tending bar.” And he said, “Well, your choice.” A week later Grant Tinker called, and then a week later,

I was in Los Angeles and that’s what got me started trying anything. And I promise whatever you try, if you put out positive efforts, it may not be exactly what you want that comes back, but I promise you that positive things will come back if you try anything. No. 2. Get along with people. OK. Get along with people. My biggest mistake in my career was in 1986 when I was working at the Groundlings Theater, a big comedy theater in Los Angeles, where I met my lovely wife, Jano, of 22 years this weekend, thank you. And, it was in the alley behind the Groundlings that we first found our children. (Laughter). Sorry kids, we thought we’d use today to tell you. No, but in 1986 the only thing that was working on “Saturday Night Live,” a dream job, was my friend, John Lovitz. He got Lorne Michaels to come to the Groundlings Theater to come see me. Lorne Michaels was a big deal at Saturday Night Live. Lorne Michaels flies out, and I have an incredible night. He said to me, “You’re on the show in September, but why don’t you come back for three weeks and learn how the show works and that way you’ll be really ready to go for September.” So, I come back and I write a sketch and one of the writers tells me, “Yeah, that’s pretty funny, but you should take out that joke.” And I’m thinking after what Continued on page 43

Doyle Stack ’09 receives his diploma from his father, Timothy Stack, television actor, writer and producer.

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The Prizes 2 0 0 9

PRIZES AWA RD E D M AY 25 , 20 09

L OGAN P RIZE

B INNEY P RIZE — For the highest

R IVES F RENCH P RIZE :

FOR

E NGLISH :

M ax H e n r y F ow l e r

D ARTMOUTH C OLLEGE H ISTORY P RIZE : Tria Mi ch el le Smo the r s

S a r a h J os e p h i n e H a r r i s o n

L i n d s ay T h o r p B e c k S a m u el J o n e s T i l d en V

D RURY P RIZE — For excellence in art:

E VANS S PANISH P RIZE :

K at he rine Lo ui se Wo e ste meyer

M ax i n e A l e x an d r a M u s t e r

H OWE P RIZE — For excellence in graphic arts:

T HE K ING M EDAL — For excellence in

scholarship in the Sixth Form:

M c C r e a I n g a l l s D av i s on

R AY WOISHEK ’89

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Latin:

V i an ca J u l i e t t a M as u c ci

Phil Royer ’09

C HINESE P RIZE — Awarded to the student who has demonstrated consistently high performance in the study of Mandarin Chinese and shown a genuine interest in the Chinese language and culture while at St. George’s: Ph i l i p J a m e s R oy e r (The next four prizes in athletics are awarded by vote of the coaches)

C AMER A P RIZE : Ya eh Lyne Ch un g

E DGAR P RIZE

M ATHEMATICS :

H a Eu n C h u n g

M ARY E USTIS Z ANE C UP — Awarded to

T HE C L ASS OF 1978 M USIC P RIZE — Awarded to a student who through personal efforts has inspired the musical life of the school:

T HE R AMSING P RIZE — For excellence

a girl of the Sixth Form whose steady devotion to the high ideals of good sportsmanship has been an inspiration to her fellow students:

in marine and environmental biology:

M a d e l i n e P a t r i c i a C a r r e l l as

M a t t h e w A l e x a n d e r G ay d a r

H a lsey Wo o dw or th La n do n

T HE S T . G EORGE ’ S I NSTRUMENTAL M USIC P RIZE — Awarded to a student whose

D EAN S CHOL ARSHIP — In memory of

T HAYER C UP — Awarded to a boy of the Sixth talents, dedication and leadership have contributed the most to the instrumental program of the school:

N i c h o l as S a n f or d K i e r s t e d

C HOIR P RIZE : M a r g a r e t A l a i n a H aw k i n s J us t in C h r is t ia n H o f f m a nn S a m u e l J o n e s Ti l d e n V

W OOD D R AMATICS P RIZE — For the student whose abilities and efforts have contributed most to the theater at St. George’s: S o p h i a N i c ol e N o e l K at he rine An n P r yo r

T HE R EAR A DMIR AL J OHN R EMEY W ADLEIGH M EMORIAL P RIZE — Awarded to a student whose enthusiasm for and interest in history and marine studies is worthy of special recognition:

Le igh Fra nc e s Arc he r

Charles Maitland Dean, Senior Prefect 1968, killed in Laos in 1974. Given by his family and friends, and awarded for the sixth-form year to a boy or a girl who has demonstrated a concern for the community, the ability to lead, and a sense of civic responsibility:

K i n y et t e H e n d er s o n

Form whose steady devotion to the high ideals of good sportsmanship has been an inspiration to his fellow students:

Ph i l i p J a m e s R oy e r

L OUISE E LLIOT C UP — Awarded to a Sixth Form girl for excellence in athletics and for promoting the spirit of hard, clean play: M e g an Ka t h l e e n L e o n h a r d

C ONGRESSMAN P ATRICK J. K ENNEDY A WARD — To a member of the Sixth Form who has demonstrated commitment to community service:

H a n n a h N o e l l e M c Qu i l ki n

G EORGE D. D ONNELLY A THLETIC A WARD — Awarded to a girl(s) and boy(s) who, in the opinion of the Head of School and the Athletic Directors, possess a passion for athletics and who demonstrate the dedication and the sportsmanship to succeed in a variety of athletic endeavors:

G a l i m a h D o u g b a B ay s a h C h r i s t op h e r G e r a r d M cC or m ac k L e s l i e L e M oi n e M u z z y

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S AMUEL P OWEL C UP — Awarded to a Sixth Form boy for excellence in athletics and for promoting the spirit of hard, clean play:

D r e w J am e s M i l l e r

C ENTENNIAL P RIZE

— Inaugurated during the school’s centennial year. Awarded to a boy(s) and girl(s) of the graduating class who have demonstrated extraordinary and inspirational efforts on behalf of the school community:

L ei g h F r a n c es A r c h e r A n n a L ou i s e M c C o n n e l l S am u e l J o n e s T i l d e n V

PHOTO BY

R AY WOISHEK ’89

Continued from page 41

Jenny Chung ’09

H EADMASTER ’ S A WARD — To the Senior Prefect for his or her faithful devotion to the many duties of the past year. Given in memory of Henry W. Mitchell, Class of 1933:

I s ab e l Ha r r i e t E v a n s (The next prizes are awarded by vote of the faculty)

A LLEN P RIZE — To a member of the Fourth Form who during the year has maintained a high standard in all departments of the life of the school: S o p h i e C ar o l F l y n n

H ARVARD AND R ADCLIFFE C LUBS OF R HODE I SL AND P RIZE — For the student of the Fifth Form whom the Head of School and the faculty deem most worthy in scholarship, effort and character:

H e n d r i k Ke a t i n g K i t s v a n H e y n i n g e n

T HE J EFFERYS P RIZE — Given in memory of Cham Jefferys to the Sixth Former who in the opinion of the faculty has done the most to enhance the moral and intellectual climate of the school: S a r a h J o s e p h i n e H a r r i s on

P HELPS M ONTGOMERY F RISSELL P RIZE — Awarded to the member of the Sixth Form who, in the opinion of the faculty, has made the best use of his or her talents:

M a x i n e A l ex a n d r a M u s t er G a l i m ah D ou g b a B ay s a h

S T . G EORGE ’ S M EDAL — Awarded to the member of the Sixth Form who through effort, character, athletics and scholarship during the year has best caught and expressed the ideals and spirit of St. George’s: An na Ma tr o ne Ma c k

Lorne was saying last night … I am really cool, I don’t need to take out that joke. That joke’s funny; I am the man. The joke stayed in. Cut to September. My friend Phil Hartman’s on the show and calls me. “Phil, what’s going on? Are they going to take me? Are they going to take me?” He said, “You know, Tim, apparently you didn’t cut some joke when what’s-his-name told you to.” One joke cost me a dream job. But the point is ... at that point it was more important for me to get along than it was for me to be right. So No. 2: Get along with people. No. 3: This is really, really important. Stay in touch with people. OK? Just stay in touch. You have e-mail now and Facebook and, what’s that thing? Tweeter? Twitter? What is it? Whatever it is, stay in touch with people. OK. Send thank-you notes. Let people know what you are doing. Ask how other people are doing. I can’t tell you how many jobs I have gotten in Hollywood because I stayed in touch with people. No. 4: Don’t give up. You have to stay focused. So many of you stayed focused on your schoolwork right up until the very end. Some of you decided to throttle it back in the last semester. Excuse me, I have to cough, “Doyle!” (laughter) Uh, I have another cough coming on. “Pat Guerriero!” Anyway, through all of that, certainly I hung in there. I once lost a comedy show because my teeth were too big. Since when aren’t big teeth funny? You tell me. Anyway in 1986 I got a writing job on a show called “On Our Own,” which this family convinced ABC was going to make them the next Jacksons—except ABC never bothered to listen to them sing. They were horrible. But on that show, for one thing, I met Greg Garcia whom I have been working with for the last four years on “My Name is Earl” because I stayed in touch with him. Also during that show, two friends of mine came to me, whom

I stayed in touch with, came to me with an idea for a show, a spoof of daytime talk shows called, “Night Stand with Dick Dietrick.” And while we are doing that show on our own, we are trying to sell “Night Stand with Dick Dietrick.” We go to 20, 30 different places. Finally, we meet this guy Larry Little. He had just opened. He didn’t even have furniture in his office, we were literally pitching the show standing up. But, within a month we wrote this pilot, we shot the pilot, and I am at the convention in Las Vegas and he comes up to me and said, “Well, congratulations, Tim, you did it, you got your own TV show. You’re on the air.” It had been 15 years, but I did it. And I promise you, if you do all those four things: try anything, get along, stay in touch and don’t give up—I promise you, great things, whatever they are, will happen for you. And finally, here is my last one: Help others! At some point you are going to reach a goal in your life and you are going to be able to help others. Do it. Pick up the phone, call somebody for someone else, get a kid a job, come back to St. George’s, wherever you go to college. Share your knowledge with younger people to help them get their dream and I promise you it will continue your dream. So tomorrow morning, tonight actually, I go back to L.A., and tomorrow morning at 6 a.m., the alarm clock goes off and I begin my dream again, all over again. Tomorrow—at noon, when you wake up—you begin yours. So anyways, thank you, Newport. Good night, and I love you. Ti mo thy St a ck is a TV actor and screenwriter whose most recent job was writing for and acting on “My Name is Earl.” Among many other guest-starring roles in popular sitcoms over the years, he played Dwayne on an episode of “Seinfeld” called “The Glasses,” (Season 5, Episode 3), which first aired in 1993. He can be reached at deetown@earthlink.net.

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Global outreach M E M B E R S

G E T

W O R L D

V I E W

PETER ANDERSON

O M M U N I T Y

Administrative Technology Coordinator E d Mc Gin nis was the latest faculty member from St. George’s to take part in the teacher exchange with the Chinese International School in Hong Kong. McGinnis arrived in Hong Kong (right) on March 8 and took part in a variety of activities at the school, including observing classes and assembly, attending faculty meetings and teaching classes. McGinnis was also able to take in a few student music performances, join the Hiking Club on a trip to the New Territories, and visit the Sheung Wan Heritage Trail on a history class trip. His de facto host for the trip was CIS Chinese teacher Craig Boyce, who visited St. George’s last October. Even the journey to and from the day school, McGinnis said, was a unique experience. “Each morning I lined up in an extremely orderly fashion to ride the 49M up the hill to CIS. It took about 25 minutes. The bus then stopped at another depot—so no matter how inattentive I was or how bad my Chinese, it was very difficult to mess up this commute.”

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He came back from the trip with a unique perspective on international education. “The visit was very beneficial,” he said, “and I was able to see how a different system, that of an international day school, approaches the same issues that we deal with day in and day out.”

ED MCGINNIS

Network Manager Ed Morin spent two weeks in Korea in March as part of the faculty/staff exchange program with the Taejon Christian International School. Asked about some of the highlights of his trip, Morin cites a community service trip he and a group of TCIS teachers and students took to Boracay, Phillipines, where they met native children at a feeding center, and helped construct a four-story building that will become a church and community center.

Molly Boyd ’10 and Jake Riiska ’10 visited South Africa this summer as part of a new student exchange with two Capetown schools—the all-boys Bishops school and the all-girls St. Cyprian’s. The two attended classes in tradition uniform, visited dramatic parts of the countryside and historic sites, and even got to meet with Archbishop Desmond Tutu, thanks to the Rt. Rev. Dr. Hays Rockwell, our trustee and former bishop of Missouri. In the 1970s, Rockwell was the rector of St. James Church in Manhattan and befriended Tutu on his many early visits to the United States.

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Tony Jaccaci, Tim Kim, Anthony Perry, Margaret Hawkins, Kajsa MashawSmith, Anna Mack, Jenny Chung, a tour guide, Tria Smothers and Merilyn Wilber in Panama. In March, students in the Global Studies Seminar class—seniors Jenny Chung, Margaret Hawkins, Tim Kim, Anna Mack, Kajsa Mashaw-Smith and Tria Smothers—traveled to Panama with Director of Global Studies Tony Jaccaci and Spanish teachers Merilyn Wilber and Anthony Perry. The group spent 11 days in the developing nation conducting interviews on various research topics, including “The Sovereignty in the Great Canal,” “The Benefits of Non-Formal Education in Rural Communities of Developing Countries,” “NGOs and the State: Sustainable Harvest International in San Pedro, Panama,” “Chinese Populations Across the Globe and in Panama: Migration, Labor and Social Networks,” and Migrants’ Search for Capital: Panama and Central America.”

The group also got a first-hand look at sustainable agriculture efforts with a five-day stint with Sustainable Harvest International. Students and teachers stayed with host families in San Pedro Village in Coclé Province and learned about the organization’s efforts working with local families to convert deforested land areas “to sustainable uses through reforestation, sustainable agriculture and agro-forestry practices.” The class then went on to visit a number of important sites linked to their research projects, including Miraflores Locks on the Panama Canal, the National Archaeology Museum, the Panama Viejo ruins, Barro Colorado Island, and the Ciudad del Saber. The trip ended with an afternoon tour of the Casco Viejo (the Old City) and a treat of French-style ice cream.

SUMMER READ WILL PROMPT DISCUSSION OF E AST ERN AND WE ST ERN CULTURES Many community members are reading “Confucius Lives Next Door” by T.R. Reid this summer in preparation for a series of discussions about Eastern and Western cultures—and what they teach us about morality and ethics. A nonfiction book, “Confucius Lives Next Door” tells the story of Reid, a Washington Post foreign correspondent, who lived for five years in Tokyo with his wife and children. A July 11, 1999, New York Times review called the book “a sympathetic Baedeker to the Japanese way of life,” saying it was “written with grace, knowledge and humor,” and that “his explanations

of modern Japan and its Confucian background are accurate and useful.” For students entering the fifth and sixth forms, the book is a required summer read. Third and fourth formers will be required to read a chapter from the book and are strongly encouraged to read the book in its entirety. To continue discussion of the topic, an all-school lecture by author Cathy Bao Bean (http://www.cathybaobean.com/) is scheduled for the first week of school in September. The all-school lecture also will focus on what it is like to live a life influenced by both Western and Confucian culture. Bean, an immigrant from China who married an American painter, published her own book on the topic, “The Chopsticks-Fork Principle: A Memoir and Manual.”

Cathy Bao Bean, author of “The Chopsticks-Fork Principle: A Memoir and Manual,” will be the featured speaker at an opening of school talk on Western and Eastern cultures.

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Campus happenings

Instrumental move

A transgender teacher recalls those early days of yearning to be male

BY ALEX MYERS

English teacher Alex Myers, born Alice Myers, talks to guests at the GLBT conference in March.

At the first rehearsal of the Oxford Hills Junior High School band, there were 36 flute players. I was one of them. Flute was, for whatever reason, the instrument of choice among the girls in this corner of western Maine. Perhaps they flocked to it because its high pitched trillings seemed more feminine than the blattings of a trombone, or because the embouchure left their lips kissably pursed, rather than the squinched, rabbit-like mouth of a clarinet player. Or the size—the flute is more accessory than instrument and, much to the dismay of our conductor, the portly Mr. Spath, the girls of the flute section could easily place their instruments on their laps, leaving both hands free to apply makeup, brush hair, or fix skirts. I had not wanted to play the flute. I was, at the time, a resolutely butch 12-year-old with short, dark

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hair about to crinkle and curl with the onslaught of puberty. In my small Maine town, I was somewhat anomalous for a number of reasons; mine was the only Jewish family in the town, which was difference enough to render all my family members odd. On top of that I was smart and bookish, a tendency that landed me with the nerds in school. To cap it all off was my undeniably masculine demeanor—despite being fully female, my friends were almost exclusively boys; I preferred flannel shirts and jeans to skirts and blouses (though my mother had not given up trying to get me in a dress for special occasions); and my musical tastes tended towards Elvis and k.d. lang, not the New Kids on the Block. Older women were always trying to kick me out of the ladies’ room, and the question most kids asked when they met me was, “Are you a boy or a girl?” My reply was always succinct, firm, and only slightly sarcastic: “I’m a tomboy.”

G AY, L ESBIAN , B ISEXUAL , Emphasis on that second syllable. Said resolutely, it could leave my questioner with a veneer of doubt about my identity, and I liked that. Clearly, I would never have chosen such a girly instrument as the flute. But my mother was a firm believer in the importance of music; my older brother was ensconced three rows back in the band, seated in the trumpet section, where he and Billy Morton squirted the butts of the clarinetists (also an instrument played exclusively by girls, though less attractive ones than the flute players) with valve oil. My mom had started her campaign to get me to play a musical instrument years ago. It happened to coincide with a visit from my crazy aunt, who was headed out of the country, leaving her guitar in our possession. Cheapness and convenience won out over my mother’s disinclination to encourage me to be at all like her nutty sister, and guitar became my instrument. I took lessons and practiced and loved the guitar, despite my hands being much too small to adequately make the chords (I would often sneak my thumb from behind the neck to cover a string when my teacher wasn’t looking), but one day my mother packaged up the guitar and mailed it off, saying her sister wanted it back. I suspect this was a cover story; the truth was that I had recently discovered my true talent as an Elvis impersonator, and I think that it was too much for my poor mother to witness: her only daughter with painted sideburns on her face, hips swinging behind the guitar and singing “You Ain’t Nothin’ But a Hounddog” in a gravelly nearbaritone. Sending the guitar away must have seemed like a way she could prevent any more gender confusion on my part—a definite action in the face of her considerable and increasingly consistent dismay. So it was to be a new musical instrument for me, and my mom, gamely trying to cheer me up from the loss of my guitar,

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offered to let me make the selection. Bagpipes were my first choice. Rolling her eyes and swearing off of future democratic endeavors, my mother called the local music school—sadly, they had no bagpipe teachers (I’m not sure she didn’t pay them to say this). My next choice was piccolo; I think I had in mind the drum and fife of the Revolutionary War, which is what we were studying in fifth grade at the time. Seizing her opportunity, my mother signed me up for flute lessons, assuring me that it was the first step toward learning the piccolo. Grudgingly, I attended my weekly lessons, where my teacher had a high-pitched laugh and was most interested in confiding in me what she regarded as the most important trade-secret: which brands of lip gloss wouldn’t smear onto the mouthpiece. I had no interest. It was some small consolation that at my fifthgrade recital, I played “Love Me Tender,” alternately playing a verse on the flute and then singing a verse with my best Elvis voice. My mother wouldn’t let me paint on any sideburns for the performance, and the audience wasn’t sure whether to laugh or clap, which could well be a metaphor for most of my childhood. And now, two years of playing had brought me to this: the last row of the overpopulated flute section of my junior high school band. What Mr. Spath thought as he looked out over the sea of flutes in front of him, I do not know. He was a round man, and the exertion of conducting left him flushed and sweating within the first few measures of a piece—the front row of the band was a dangerous place to sit for this reason—and he was additionally cursed by his first name, Blaise. As my friend Rocky had pointed out over lunch one day, if it had been Blaze, it would be the perfect soapopera name for some chiseled hunk. But replace that bold z with a susurrant s and all the glamour went out. You were left with the

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cheerful, rotund, perspiring, and hopelessly fey Mr. Spath. That first rehearsal, with fully three rows of girls clasping their silver flutes, heads leaned close together, whispering, Mr. Spath must have known that he was desperately outnumbered. Gazing out across the expanse of woodwinds, did he select those whom he thought would not protest? (In addition to being butch, I was a goody-two-shoes, inclined to obey.) Did he, with insight and compassion, perceive that I was not meant for the flute section? (I was, after all, the only one not fixing my bangs at the moment.) I may never know, but at that second he delivered me from the feminine ranks of the woodwinds—with a gesture of his fingers and a brief set of instructions, six of us flute players were told to pack up our flutes and go to the instrument closet. I’ve come to regard this moment as prophetic, indicative of my ultimate deliverance and transference from the ranks of femininity entirely. At that second, as I pulled the pieces of my flute apart and placed them in their tiny case, I felt the fluttering of a possibility. Anything that Mr. Spath might want of me—even the triangle; even having to sit next to Dan, the acne-laden player of the bassoon, an instrument that sounded like a sick goose, made you red-faced with exertion, and couldn’t even be heard over the rest of the band— would be better than the flute section. The honks, squeaks, and shrills from the outside indicated that the remainder of the band was warming up. The six of us stood amidst the racks of the store-room a little glumly, not talking. Now that I think of it, Mr. Spath had really selected the social rejects, myself included. Was he, still smarting from his own childhood, which must have been miserable (c’mon…Blaise!), trying to save us from the hair-sprayed social tyranny of the flute section? Mr. Spath entered the closet, took our flutes, carefully

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Campus happenings stacking the cases like so much cordwood, and walked us to the back rack. The cases here were larger, rectangular but slightly bulbous; I could only guess what they held. Gone were the days of the insubstantial wisp of an instrument. These cases meant business. The three smallest girls were given trombones—Mr. Spath took one out of its case and showed them how to put it together, then sent them back to join the band. I didn’t know any of these three well; skinny girls with lank hair and shabby jean skirts, they seemed to be what we called “hot lunch” kids. The trombones sealed their fates as unpopular—what girls could possibly look good honking away on one of those?— resignedly, they lugged their heavy burdens back to the crowded band room. The scenario was repeated with the next two girls, who were each given a euphonium, which left just me and Mr. Spath in the depths of the instrument store room. Pushing aside the other cases, Mr. Spath stretched to the far reaches of the rack, then tugged mightily on an elephantine case. The sweat beaded on his brow. With an ominous scraping, the case fully emerged. Grimacing with the effort and exertion, Mr. Spath wiped his brow and patted the case. “Every band needs one!” he said cheerfully. One what? Sweaty conductor? Wildly butch flute player? With a smile, trying perhaps to allay the doubt that must have been easily readable on my face, Mr. Spath declared, “Look, just do your best today, and we’ll start lessons tomorrow.” He turned to rejoin the band, whose blatting and squeaking had long ago given way to screams and thuds, indicating that the obligation of warming up had yielded to the adolescent urge of boys to harass girls; it sounded like the brass section had attacked the flutes and the clarinets. (In the scheme of the band, only the saxophone and percussion sections were mixed gender and therefore on the sidelines of any conflict.)

Left alone in the closet, I undid the latches on the case. Within, nestled in blue faux velvet, was a silver tuba and the singularly most unhygienic mouthpiece I had ever seen. I hoisted the tuba from its case and, sitting right there on the closet floor, unflinchingly belted out my first note. I was in love. At the end of the first rehearsal, wherein I mostly discovered how to empty the spit from the tubes and occasionally gave

The tuba changed everything. From front-row seats in the woodwind section, where utter girliness was expected, I had been shunted to the margins ...

forth a tremendous, flatulence-esque tone, which Mr. Spath either ignored or couldn’t hear over the equally dubious efforts of the rest of the band, I put my tuba back in the case and headed home. Why did I love it? Was it being alone and unique—the only tuba in the band—after belonging to a veritable army of conformist flute players? Was it the size and the bass tone, together with their connotations of masculinity, that intrigued me? Or was it the thought of the look of horror on my mother’s face that would greet me when I came home toting this tremendous instrument and a failsafe excuse: Mr. Spath said I had to quit flute!

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As if sensing the reception it would get at home, my tuba case got stuck in the bus door as I tried to disembark. Sandy, the bus driver, had to let other kids out the rear emergency exit so that she and I could push the case from the inside while the others pulled from the outside. Finally disgorged from the bus, I dragged the case up to my front steps, where my mother’s reaction was as excellent as I had expected. I had hardly crammed the case through the door when she was on the phone with Mr. Spath, protesting his decision. The call was short, and I kept the tuba, though I doubt her acceptance had anything to do with my glee or Mr. Spath’s persuasiveness; in the face of my brother’s and my own teen years, my mother had decided she needed to marshal her strength and choose her battles carefully. Playing tuba was better in her eyes than no music at all, or perhaps she had just grown sick of hearing “Love Me Tender” on the flute. Once inside the house, with the exorcism of the hated flute complete, it is almost as if I could see my future unfurling before me. The tuba changed everything. From front-row seats in the woodwind section where utter girliness was expected, I had been shunted to the margins, the last row of the band, the outer fringes of the ensemble, where no one was watching, and certainly where there were no expectations of prissiness. That day I took a step out of my life as a girl and into my life as a boy. As I sat on the couch and fumbled through a scale for my mother, who did her best to feign admiration, (just as she would do her best to accept my announcement of being transgender five years in the future) I knew that if I could ditch the flute, I could probably do anything. Ale x Myer s is an English teacher at St. George’s and organized the first-ever Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Conference at SG in March 2009. He can be reached at Alex_Myers@stgeorges.edu

GUES T SPEAKERS VISIT SG

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Former Philip Morris scientist warns students about tobacco Says execs hid data for years

r. Victor DeNoble delivered an all-school talk in Madeira Hall April 29, 2009, recounting his days as a scientist for the Philip Morris Tobacco Co. in the 1980s—and the secret research he carried out in a locked lab to analyze nicotine’s affect on the human brain. DeNoble says he was hired by the Richmond, Va.based company to find a substance to replace the nicotine in cigarettes that wouldn’t have the same adverse affect on the heart, but he soon found himself consumed with his studies on rats about the affects of the toxin on the brain. He is one of a few so-called “whistleblowers” who came forward during a Congressional investigation in the mid-1990s about whether or not the U.S. Food and Drug administration should be allowed to classify

nicotine as a drug, and therefore regulate the manufacture and sale of tobacco products. DeNoble gives more than 600 talks per year to students, most in middle school, urging them to stay away from tobacco products, and all addictive drugs. “There are no safe addictive drugs,” he told SG students. “They all have side effects.” After displaying a few props, including the frozen brain of a research monkey and that of a man who died of lung cancer, he went on: “I like to think of drugs as a city, and every drug as a building. One is 125 stories, another is 155. Every building is over 120 stories high—and you have to jump off of one of them.” Mr. DeNoble’s talk was made possible by a grant from the Middletown Substance Abuse Task Force.

Former tobacco scientist Victor DeNoble shows students a rat’s brain from his experiments on the effects of nicotine.

St. George’s students hear from best-selling author, critic of Islam

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Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a former Dutch parliamentarian whose views on the Muslim faith have prompted death threats, spoke to the St. George’s School community on April 16, 2009. Surrounded by bodyguards, Hirsi Ali, entered Madeira Hall for the afternoon talk, in which she outlined her life experiences as a young Somali girl repressed by her religious roots, and her escape from the bonds of an arranged marriage. Ali, who has lived in exile since 2006, now resides in Washington, D.C., where she continues to speak out about religious extremism and vows to improve the lot of Muslim women. Her provocative memoir, “Infidel,” rose to No. 7 on the New York Times bestseller list in 2007. Ali has been living with strict security since she came under fire for her religious views following the Nov. 2, 2004 murder by a Muslim extremist of filmmaker Theo van Gogh, with whom she collaborated on the anti-Islam film, “Submission.”

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Campus happenings ALUMNI/AE OF COLOR CONFERENCE Author Lorene Cary will be the keynote speaker for the 2009 Alumni/ae of Color Conference to be held on campus Oct. 9 and 10. Ms. Cary will reflect on her book “Black Ice,” a memoir of her years first as a black female student, and then teacher, at St. Paul’s School. “Black Ice” was chosen as a Notable Book for 1992 by the American Library Association. Stanford University English Prof. Arnold Rampersad has dubbed it “...probably the most beautifully written and moving African-American autobiographical narrative since Maya Angelou’s celebrated ‘I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings.’” For more information on the conference, please contact Director of Diversity Kim Bullock at Alums_Of_Color@stgeorges.edu.

“Speak Up Against Bias and Bigotry” was the theme of a series of workshops attended by members of the fourth form this past spring. The workshops, organized by Director of Diversity K im Bullo ck, taught students about how to help stop discrimination by calling attention to prejudice and stereotyping. One workshop focused primarily on how to respond to everyday bias and bigotry, primarily verbal. “We used role play… and ended the session with each student signing a pledge to “Speak Up Against Bias And Bigotry,” Bullock said. Students kept the pledges and were asked to post them in an area where they felt they had some control and influence, such as a dorm room. St. George’s fourth annual Clambake Institute was held on campus from Sunday, July 19, through Wednesday, July 22. The conference, organized by Director of College Counseling Burke Ro gers and

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his staff, brought together independent school college counselors as well as admission representatives from colleges and universities to talk about current issues in the field. Clambake honorees this year were Bill Hartog of Washington & Lee University in Virginia and Spike Gummere of Lake Forest College in Illinois. King Hall hosted Chef Santos Nieves, executive chef of Salve Regina University in Newport, on Tuesday, April 28, for a special sustainable/organic dinner. Associate Director of Dining Services Steve Moye r organized the visit. Chef Nieves prepared organic salad of Organic heirloom tomatoes with fresh local mozzarella on a bed of locally grown mesculin greens drizzled with aged balsamic vinegar and extra virgin olive oil, topped with farm-raised cage free Italian marinated grilled chicken and garnished with fried basil and local sliced French baguette. Nieves, who was born and raised in Puerto Rico, has worked for 18 years in the Northeast restaurant industry, including the Back Bay Restaurant Group, Johnson & Wales University, Clements Market and East Side Catering. He counts meeting the Dalai Lama during his visit to Salve Regina in November 2005 as one of his favorite experiences.

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D.J. Wilson ’12 performs in the Spring Music Guild in the chapel.

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Artwork by Nate Pearson ’09 was on display at the Senior Art Show in the Hunter Gallery in May.

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NATE PEARSON ’09

It’s rehearsal time for the SG Orchestra, conducted by math and music teacher Jinny Chang.

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Seniors Piers Kermode, Phil Royer and Scott Chanelli work on a project in Ms. Lothrop’s AP English class.

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Bridget Members of Holly Williams’ DNA Science class—B Killeavy ’09, Carl Nightingale ’10 (right in photo at left), Leslie Muzzy ’09, Katherine Shek ’10, Clay Davis ’09 (left in photo) and Eric Jernigan ’10—visited Genzyme Corp. and Harvard University’s FAS Center for Systems Biology, both in Cambridge, Mass., on April 7. The group got tours of both facilities and learned more about the work that goes on inside the biotech company and a research facility. “At Genzyme, we got to look at the cutting-edge, real world importance of DNA,” Jernigan said. “Usually we only talk about it and go to the websites, which gets pretty old after a while. It’s like we are usually just looking out of the window, but never going outside to see what it’s like.” At Harvard, the group learned more about micro arrays and lab equipment from Claire Reardon, the Bauer Center’s lab manager. Afterwards, Williams asked students to evaluate the experience. “This trip gave us the opportunity to learn from the professionals in the field about just how DNA was being incorporated into modern science,” Nightingale said. “The trip took everything we have learned so far and made it seem more real and important.”

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Fifth-form students from Mr. Wang's Chinese class: Laney Yang, Christy Lee, Mary Behan, Tony Kim, Hayden Fownes, Nont Jiarathanakul, and senior prefect-elect Stephanie Johnson. For a special project the group created two Chinese-language newspapers during the year.

Students and faculty participate in a panel discussion in Mr. Leslie’s Environmental Science class. In the front row: Seniors Nick Baker, Christina Haack, Catherine Esposito, Peter Lawson-Johnston, Teddy Collins and Halsey Landon. Back row: Charlie Fleming ’09 and Findlay Bowditch ’10. On the teacher panel: Steve Leslie and (not shown) Devon Ducharme and captain of Geronimo Mike Dawson.

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Polly Murray ’10, Lydia Willie ’09, Annetta O'Leru ’12 and Tria Smothers ’09 work on a global warming campaign.

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Ms. McGrady’s journalism class got the chance to meet with CBS News correspondent Anthony Mason ’74 this spring. Pictured are: Alex Layton, Carmen Boscia, Maddie Carrellas, Christina Haack, Annie Warren, Mason, Hannah McQuilkin, Charlie Fleming and Nick Biedron.

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Mr. Haskell’s geometry class hard at work.

Third formers Katie Desrosiers and Grace Alzaibak build birdhouses for Holly Williams’ biology class.

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“St. George’s is an athlete’s heaven,” writes sports reporter Mike Szostak in the May 2, 2009, edition of the Providence Journal. “Any small college would be proud to boast of Crocker and Elliott Fields for football, lacrosse and baseball; the Hersey all-weather outdoor track; acres of fields for junior varsity and thirds (freshman) teams; eight outdoor tennis courts; the twin sheets of the Cabot-Harman Ice Center; the Dorrance Field House with its four tennis and three basketball courts and a two-lane, nine-lap-to-the-mile track; the Hoopes Squash Center with eight international courts; the eight-lane Hoyt Swimming Pool, and the van Beuren Gymnasium with its hardwood basketball court.” Aw, shucks. Well, we knew that. What’s even better is that Szostak is equally adulatory about our strong and dedicated players in his article, which takes a literary snapshot of the school on one fine spring Game Day Wednesday. Rhode Islanders Ma ddi e Ca rre ll as ’09, P hi l Roye r ’09, An na Ma ck ’09 and Ga li mah Bays ah ’09 are quoted in the piece. Check out the whole article, “Athletics is a way of life at St. George’s,” on the “Athletics” page (under “School Life”) of our web site at www.stgeorges.edu.

Photos, clockwise from top left: The 2008-09 swim team; girls varsity softball first baseman Hannah Coffin ’10 and pitcher Leslie Muzzy ’09; and track team member Diatre Padilla ’09.

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The varsity girls swim team, led by coach To m E va ns, boasted their best-ever season with a New England Small School Championship at Hotchkiss School on the weekend of March 6-7. Among the outstanding performers this winter were senior cap-

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tains A nna Sc hro e de r, who won the Coaches’ Cup, and K a ra Mer ing ol o, who was part of two schoolrecord relays). E rin H e ndr ix ’12 set three school records at the New Englands, and her twin sister Lo ga n H en dri x ’12, Ju lia Oa k ’10 and An na -Spe nc er E ri ckso n ’12 contributed to the school-record relays. Ra c he l Sun g ’12, Le slie Mu zzy ’09, Eve lyn Ma ld a na do ’11, and He le n We sto n ’12 all contributed strong performances. Hi lla r y Wei n ’11 was voted captain-elect. The boys’ varsity swimmers fared nearly as well at New Englands, finishing 2nd in the N.E. Small School Championships, led by senior captains Te ddy Co ll in s and Dr ew M ill er. Also performing at a high level for the boys’ were P at ric k M c Ginn is ’11 (captain-elect ), P at ric k H o lo we sko ’11 (captain-elect), A mes H e nr y ’11, Ma tt Gayd a r ’09, T imo n Wa tk in s ’11 and Aa ro n B row n ‘10. Combined, the boys and the girls teams finished the regular season undefeated—17-0. C o u r t n ey Jo ne s ’10 became somewhat of a web video star after videographer Frieda Squires from the Providence Journal came to campus to shoot

some footage for the newspaper’s web site in February. Jones talks about her love for the game and gives a few lessons on the game while she practices against a friend of Coach Pe te r And er so n’s in the Hoopes Squash Center. Look for the video http://www.projo.com/video/ allstate-index.html?nvid=335038. P hil Royer ’09 received all-scholastic honors from the Boston Globe for his spring season-track accomplishments. Royer, who heads to Dartmouth College this fall also was named an Athlete of the Week by the Newport Daily News for the week of May 18, 2009. Among his many accomplishments at SG, Royer broke the New England Division III track meet record in the 3000-meter set by fellow Dragon and SG Sports Hall of Famer Jerry Pullins ’93 back in 1992. He came in second in the 3,000 with a time of 9:06:05 at the Bishop Hendricken Invitational on Sat., May 30. The SG varsity sailing team traveled to St. Petersburg, Fla., May 9-10 to compete for the Mallory Trophy, the National Fleet racing championships—and amid tough competition, finished No. 7. “In an event that is typically dominated by the west coast and southern schools who specialize in this event, the team sailed an extremely strong regatta,” reported Athletic Director John Mackay. SG was the top New England team in the event. Sailing were: E liz a R ic ha r t z ’09, Jo hn ny Norf le e t ’09, Ale x Whip ple ’11, Eva n R ea d ’12 and Wi ll O sle r ’10.

Photo, top left: Varsity tennis player Kajsa MashawSmith ’09. Photo, top right: Varsity baseball first baseman Doyle Stack ’09.

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Drew Miller ’09 (center) takes the stage after receiving a “Golden Dozen” award from the R.I. Chapter of the National Football Foundation. At right is chairman of the organization Emo DiNitto, a former high school athletic director and football coach at Veterans Memorial High School in Warwick, R.I., and SG Athletic Director John Mackay (left).

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R AY WOISHEK ’89

SG coaches: Wendy Drysdale, Lucy Hamilton, Matt Rymzo, Julie Butler, John Mackay, Joe Elias, Tim Richards and Ed McGinnis

Dr e w M i l l e r ’09 was honored Monday, May 4, at a black-tie banquet for the Rhode Island Chapter of the National Football Foundation and the Hall of Fame after being selected as one of Rhode Island’s “Golden Dozen.” Selected from a list of 29 nominees, Miller was SG’s first-ever recipient of this award, given to a notable scholar/athlete, and the first private school player to be so honored. In addition, Miller took home the top prize—the $2,000 Chet Pono Scholarship Award (selected by a group of admissions officers from Brown and URI). Miller heads to Middlebury College this fall.

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The University of Pennsylvania women’s lacrosse team scored with five seconds remaining in overtime to defeat the Duke Blue Devils, 10-9, and advance to the NCAA final four for the third consecutive year— and the team got 15 minutes of solid play at the end of the game from L i l y P o s n e r ’07. “Lily was pleased to be a part of the experience,” reports her mom, Barbara Millen. The Quakers lost a double-overtime heartbreaker to Northwestern in the NCAA semifinal game Friday, May 22, at Towson, Md., but came out No. 2 in polling at the end of the season. A group of faculty members who coach athletic teams—Athletic Director J o h n M a c k a y (football), Assistant Head of School for Student Life T i m R i c h a r d s (squash), math teacher Ju l i e B u t l e r (basketball), Spanish teacher L u c y H a m i l t o n (lacrosse), math teacher J o e E l i a s (hockey), Administrative Technology Coordinator E d M c G i n n i s (baseball), English teacher M a t t R ym z o (tennis) and Web Manager R a y Wo i s h e k (soccer/hockey)—attended a conference at Belmont Hill School on April 9 called, “Building and Sustaining Athletic Excellence.” The session, organized by the Association of Independent Schools in New England, focused on such topics as what makes a great coach/administrator, how can coaches be supported to do their job well and what is your school’s philosophy about the role of sports? Other sessions addressed such subjects as the physical and emotional development of teenage athletes, the differences between coaching boys and girls, and managing parents who have complaints about their child’s playing time or unrealistic expectations about their child’s ability. Featured speakers were Dr. Richard Ginsburg, clinical psychologist in the Massachusetts General Hospital’s Department of Psychiatry and a consultant for Harvard men’s lacrosse team, and Jennifer Fulcher, a former Middlebury College women’s basketball coach who is now a teacher/administrator/coach at Williston-Northampton School.

SPRING ATHLETES MAKE THEIR MARK 2009 ST. G EORGE ’S SPRING ATHLETIC AWA RDS BASEBALL

GIRLS TENNIS

Twitchell Baseball Cup (M.V.P.) ............................................Drew Miller Reynolds Baseball Cup ..........................................................Doyle Stack R.B.I. Cup..........................................................................Patrick Guerriero All-ISL, honorable mention ......................................................Ben Lewis

Tennis M.V.P. ......................................................................Courtney Jones Tennis Coach’s Cup ................................................Kajsa Mashaw-Smith Tennis M.I.P.......................................................................Victoria Leonard All-ISL, first team ................................................................Leiter Colburn Pro Jo All-State ..................................................................Courtney Jones

BOYS LACROSSE Alessi Lacrosse Bowl (M.V.P.) ............................Peter Lawson-Johnston Herter (Coaches’) Cup ........................................................Teddy Collins Hollins-Sheehan Lacrosse Cup (M.I.P.)..................................Cam Howe All-ISL, first team ................................................Peter Lawson-Johnston All-ISL, honorable mention................................................Scott Chanelli

GIRLS LACROSSE Lacrosse M.V.P. ................................................................Megan Leonhard Lacrosse Coaches’ Cup..................................................Maddie Carrellas Lacrosse M.I.P. ..........................................................Lindsay MacNaught US Lacrosse, All-American............................................Maddie Carrellas All-ISL, first team ........................Megan Leonhard, Maddie Carrellas, Sydney Mas All-ISL, honorable mention ..................................................Leigh Archer Pro Jo All-State ..............................................................Megan Leonhard NEPSWLA All-Star ..................................Megan Leonhard, Sydney Mas NLE selection............................................................................Sydney Mas US Lacrosse, Academic All-Americans......................Maddie Carrellas, Anna Mack, Leigh Archer, Lauren O’Halloran

SAILING Wood Sailing Bowl (M.V.P.) ......................................................Alex Cook Leslie Sailing Bowl (Best Crew) ..................................Anna McConnell Coaches’ Cup ..................................................................Andrew Meleney Sailing M.I.P...........................................................................Pearson Potts Providence Journal All-State ....................................................Alex Cook

SOFTBALL

BOYS TRACK Holmes Track Trophy (M.V.P.) ..................................................Phil Royer Coaches’ Cup ........................................................................Diatre Padilla Track M.I.P. ..............................................................................Garrett Sider All-ISL, first team ..............................................Phil Royer, Garrett Sider ISL MVP (Boston Globe All-Scholastic) ..................................Phil Royer Pro Jo All-State............................................................................Phil Royer All-New England ........................................................................Phil Royer All-County ....................................................................................Phil Royer

GIRLS TRACK Hubert C. Hersey Track Award (M.V.P.) ................................D.J. Wilson Track Coaches’ Cup ................................................................Hillary Wein Track M.I.P. ........................................................................Oxy Nagornuka 2009 Newport County Champions ........................St. George’s School All-ISL, honorable mention............................Jenny Chung, D.J. Wilson All-County ................................D.J. Wilson, Jenny Chung, Hillary Wein Manager of the Year ............................................................Tria Smothers

LETTER AWARDS 9-Letter Awards ......................................Patrick Guerriero, Max Fowler, Bridget Killeavy, Drew Miller, Chris McCormack 10-Letter Awards ..................................Leigh Archer, Galimah Baysah, Teddy Collins, Scott Chanelli 11-Letter Awards..........................Maddie Carrellas, Thomas Growney, Megan Leonhard, Phil Royer 12-Letter Awards ......................................Carmen Boscia, Leslie Muzzy

Softball M.V.P. ........................................................................Leslie Muzzy Softball Coaches’ Cup ....................................................Bridget Killeavy Softball M.I.P.......................................................................Hannah Coffin All-ISL, first team ....................................Leslie Muzzy, Bridget Killeavy All-ISL, honorable mention ..................Hannah Coffin, Jesse Pacheco Pro Jo All-State ......................................................................Leslie Muzzy

BOYS TENNIS York Tennis Bowl (M.V.P.) ............................................Chris McCormack Tennis Coach’s Cup ..................................................................Emil Henry Tennis M.I.P. ............................................................................Moritz Petre All-ISL, honorable mention..........................................Chris McCormack PHOTO BY L EN

RUBENSTEIN PHOTOGRAPHY

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Only seniors with the most outstanding grades for the sixth-form year graduate “with high distinction” on Prize Day—and just four made the cut this year. They were: Clay Davis, Max Fowler, Sarah Harrison and So Yoon Jun. Students with at least a B+ average and a rigorous course load with no grade below a B- are awarded their diploma “with distinction.” This year, they were: Leigh Archer, Ethan Ayers, Lindsay Beck, Madeline Carrellas, Ha Eun Chung, McCrea Davison, Annie Ireland, Nam Hee Kim, Megan Leonhard, Anna Mack, Vianca Masucci, Callian McBreen, Anna McConnell, Christopher McCormack, Hannah McQuilkin, Maxine Muster, Sophia Noel, Jelani Odlum-Lansiquot, Paula Pimentel, Katherine Pr yor, Philip Royer, Tria Smothers, Payton Somers, Annie Warren, Katherine Woestemeyer and Si Min Yun. So Yoon Jun ’09 of Seoul, Korea, is the recipient of a four-year Weissman scholarship at Babson College in Massachusetts. The scholarship, the newest and most prestigious at the school, is “designed to bring together the world’s top business students and to provide them

Chris McCormack ’09 spent 10 days in Rwanda last March, where he met several locals as he visited schools (above) and health care facilities. McCormack’s godfather is Dr. Paul Farmer, who heads up a Partners in Health initiative in the country to help stop the spread of infectious diseases.

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with the resources they need to make their wildest educational and personal dreams a reality.” Awarded to just four students each year, the scholarship is worth $170,000, plus access to additional funds “to support [the students’] unique educational goals.” Scoring 99 out of 100, third formers Alana McCarthy, Emily Derecktor and Emma Garfi fieeld all came in first place in Rhode Island following National Spanish Exam competition this spring. Overall, 10 St. George’s students earned gold medals in recognition of their excellent performance on the 2009 National Spanish Examinations, 26 students earned silver and 23 earned bronze medals. “Attaining a medal for any student on the National Spanish Examinations is very prestigious,” said Kevin Cessna-Buscemi, National Director of the Exams, “because the exams are the largest of their kind in the United States with well over 115,000 students participating in 2009.” The exams are administered each year in grades 6 through 12, and are sponsored by the American Association of Teachers of Spanish and Portuguese. Other gold medal winners from SG were: Me ga n E ve re tt ’12, Al ej an dra P ai ndi ris ’12, Ge or ge M en co f f ’11, Jo e Ma c k ’12, Si mon Ha rd t ’11, Ca rol in e Mi lle r ’11, and Gra c e O we ns-Sti ve ly ’10.

On May 16, more than 65 local children took part in the first-ever PMC Kids Ride in Rhode Island, organized by our own Chad Larcom ’11 of Middletown (above). The Kids Ride is an offshoot of the larger Pan-

Massachusetts Challenge, a yearly event in which adults ride up to 192 miles to raise money for Boston’s DanaFarber Cancer Institute and the Jimmy Fund. The kids event took place at Second Beach and received rave reviews from participants, most of whom were under 12. There were three routes for the riders, all of which began and ended at the beach. The longest was 5.98 miles, and riders could complete the loop three times for about an 18-mile ride. Larcom also arranged services from volunteers and local businesses, which provided T-shirts, stretching lessons, and refreshments. Chad’s mom Liz was diagnosed with nonHodgkins lymphoma in 1998, and his father, Chuck, has been taking part in the big PMC for 11 years. The PMC has become an annual celebration for the family,” Mr. Larcom, who has six children in all, told the Newport Daily News. “And Chad decided to take it a step further.” Oksana Nagornuka ’10, Sarah Harrison ’09 and Sophie Layton ’12 were the recipients of the highest honor awarded—summa cum laude distinction—for their performance on the National Latin Exam. During the second week in March, more than 137,000 students took the National Latin Exam in their own schools, and it was administered in 17 colleges and 12 elementary schools. Hannah McQuilkin organized a soup kitchen March 4 at the First Presbyterian Church in Newport. A group of students helped set up, serve meals to those who attend the soup kitchen, and cleaned up afterwards. “It was a great opportunity to reach out to those in need in the Newport Community,” said McQuilkin. Sixteen St. George’s students were among the more than 500 independent school attendees to take part in the 16th Annual High School Students of Color Conference at Thayer Academy April 18 and 19. Trisha-Joy Jackson, Heydi Malave, Galimah Baysah, Anaise Kanimba, Valdair Lopes, Martin Ejiaku, Jaleel Wheeler, Aaron Brown, Jonathan Maio, Arena Manning, Joy Bullock, Kinyette Henderson, Diatre Padilla, D.J.

Mr. Leslie’s science students worked on a project this spring to grow vegetable plants from organic seeds. Charlie Fleming ’09 and George Williams ’09 helped man the tables when the plants became available for sale to community members in May. Wilson, Annetta O’Leru and Olivia Hoeft participated in a number of workshops and activities, designed to “raise self-awareness, build community, provide support and cultivate leadership among students.” The conference is organized by the National Association for Independent Schools. Faculty members Kevin Held and Anthony Perry, along with Director of Diversity Kim Bullock served as chaperones. The conference keynote speaker was SuChin Pak, a correspondent for MTV News who has co-hosted MTV’s pre-Grammy show and has covered the MTV Video Music Awards, MTV Movie Awards and the

Jim Thompson ’84, P’13 (center) presents a check to 2008-09 School Prefect S.J. Tilden (left) and Head of School Eric Peterson (right) for $1,825—$912.50 from the sixth formers and $912.50 from the 25th reunion class (1984), matching the seniors’ gift. Emphasizing the importance of giving back to the school, Thompson told students and community members in Assembly that all SG students benefit from the generosity of their predecessors, and that his class was proud to continue the tradition. The money raised by the Class of 2009, with 93 percent participation in the campaign, was used toward the purchase and installation of a solar panel for the school’s electric-powered catering van.

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Sundance Film Festival. On Sunday afternoon Kabir Sen, a professional hip hop artist and a music teacher from Boston, performed.

Right: Piers Kermode ’09, S.J. Tilden ’09 and science teacher Devon Ducharme take part in the “Bike-a-thon for Sustainability.”

Hendrik Kits van Heyningen ’10, Editor-inChief of the Red & White for the 2008-09 school year, will retain that role for the 2009-10 school year. In addition to Kits van Heyningen, Scott Yang ’11, Sam Livingston ’10 and Esme Yozell ’10 will return to the Editorial Board next year. Yang will continue as Layout Editor and Livingston will take on Managing Editor duties after serving as news editor for the last two years. Yozell will move from her position as Sports Editor to serve as co-editor of the Arts & Lifestyle section. Four new members were appointed to the Editorial Board: Sophie Flynn has been appointed News Editor after contributing a number of outstanding articles as a staff writer. Jack McCabe ’11 will assume the role of Sports Editor after serving as a staff writer for several editions. Staff writer Jack Bartholet ’12 has been appointed editorial page editor after joining the editorial team this spring, his freshman year. Laney Yang ’10 will assume the role of co-editor of the Arts & Lifestyle section. Kathleen FitzGerald ’10 will become Photography Editor. Based on their exceptional contributions to the paper in the past, Lela Wulsin ’10, Jonathan Maio ’11, Rosie Putnam ’11 and Katie McCormack ’11 have all been appointed senior writers. Sa die Mc Quilkin ’12 (above) created the winning design for a mosaic installed in the Hamblet Campus Center this spring. The mosaic was pro-

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duced by the 2008-09 Western Civilization class after the group studied Roman mosaics last fall. The goal was to design and create their own—but with a special SG twist. The Dragon, the school’s literary magazine, is produced once a year and distributed to students in the spring. This year Anna Mack ’09, winner of the St. George’s Medal, served as editor-in-chief. The Editor-in-Chief of the Dragon this year will be Mar y Behan ’10. Art Editors will be Lela Wulsin ’10, Taylor McElhinny ’10, Jesse Pacheco ’10 and Kat Fitzgerald ’10; Literary Editors are Henry Peterson ’10, Julia Eads ’10, Sharnell Robinson ’11, and Caroline Alexander ’12.

Dozens of students and faculty members took part in a “Bike-a-thon for Sustainability” on April 28, organized by the Sustainability Club and in particular Julia Oak ’10. The event, meant to increase awareness about global warming and to raise school spirit through the club system, asked volunteers to pedal for 15-minute intervals on a stationary bicycle and to create “clean” energy. Advertising for the event read: “Global warming is one of the most dire environmental issues that we face now. Automobiles are one of the main sources of carbon dioxide, one of the of greenhouse gases that leads to global warming. We can reduce the emission of CO2 by driving less and using more public transportation or walking or cycling if possible.”

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And they’re off...

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Here’s where our graduates are heading:

Anna Mack received this year’s St. George’s Medal. Anna will attend Middlebury College in the fall.

Babson College (2) Bard College Boston College (3) Brown University Bucknell University Carnegie Mellon University College of Charleston (4) College of the Holy Cross Colorado College (5) Columbia University Concordia University - Canada Cornell University Dartmouth College Duke University (3) Emory University George Washington University (4) Georgetown University (2) Gettysburg College (2) Glasgow School of Art - Scotland Hamilton College Harvard University Haverford College (3) Hobart & William Smith Colleges Johns Hopkins University Lewis & Clark College Middlebury College (2) New York University Occidental College Pitzer College

Princeton University Providence College Rice University Rollins College (2) Sacred Heart University Sewanee: The University of the South Skidmore College Southern Methodist University St. Lawrence University (2) Stanford University (2) Swarthmore College Syracuse University Trinity College (3) Tufts University (2) University College Maastricht - Netherlands University of Chicago University of Colorado at Boulder (2) University of Denver (2) University of Edinburgh (2) - Scotland University of New Hampshire University of Puget Sound University of Richmond University of Southern California University of Vermont (2) University of Virginia Wake Forest University Washington College Washington University in St. Louis Wesleyan University (2)

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BY MAFALDA NULA Editor’s Note: St. George’s sabbatical program provides full-time faculty members the opportunity for professional growth and personal renewal. While the particular goals of one’s sabbatical proposal need not be narrowly defined, the expectation is that a portion of one’s sabbatical be spent away from campus, and that one uses the time to broaden and deepen his/her educational and intellectual interests.

Mafalda visits Casa Calvo and Monte de Gozo.

Last summer, I was granted a semester sabbatical. It was very exciting, and the possibilities endless. I would have six months to do whatever I wanted to do. That was very easy. I would write the great Argentine novel, or maybe a short story, using magical realism. But then I realized that I could never compete with great authors like Bórges or Cortázar. Then what? I know, I should write a children´s book. After all, I have four grandchildren. Another possibility was to do something that I had always wanted to do. Ever since my students from Level 5 started reading “La dama del alba,” the play by Alejandro Casona, I wanted to be a pilgrim and walk “El Camino de Santiago.” In the play, the main character is

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a “peregrina” (pilgrim) who walks along the Camino and visits a small town in the northern part of Spain. Undoubtedly this was the opportunity of a lifetime for me to become a “peregrina.” When I revealed this idea to my husband he asked if the Camino was a street with stores to shop for women’s clothing and accessories. I guess I owe this to my love of shopping. I explained that it was an ancient pilgrimage route that stretches about 500 miles through the scenic countryside and small towns of northern Spain, starting in St. Jean Pied de Port and ending in Santiago de Compostela. For more than 1,000 years pilgrims have been walking along the Camino. It is said that those who make the pilgrimage on the Camino will be allowed to enter the Kingdom of Heaven sooner. I then began planning my itinerary along the Camino de Santiago, and talked my husband into accompanying me. Although we did not complete the entire 500 miles, we did walk 75 miles, the minimum required to receive a “compostela” and be formally declared “peregrinos.” We started in the village of Sarria, walking eight hours daily for four days, sharing

PHOTOS COURTESY OF

A neverending journey

MAFALDA NULA

Faculty/Staff Notes

KATHRYN WHITNEY LUCEY

Ma f al da Nula, who came to St. George’s in 1984, is the head of the Spanish Department. She can be reached at Mafalda_Nula@stgeorges.edu.

PHOTO BY

solitary trails with livestock and fellow pilgrims, through the breathtaking countryside and rural villages. We stayed in “casas de turismo rural” where we experienced mountain fresh air and fresh food, including homegrown vegetables, homemade pastries like tarta de Santiago (almond-flavored coffee cake), local game, and pulpo (octopus), a regional delicacy. The Camino means different things to each pilgrim. Some folks walk for religious reasons, others for the cultural experience. One pilgrim explained: “El Camino de Santiago, like life itself, is a wonderful and life-changing experience. It does not have an ending, because when you arrive, you realize that you have to continue walking, towards Santiago, towards others, towards yourself, towards God. And this ‘camino’ will only end when the life that we enjoy each day ends.” I agree. In addition to the Camino, during my sabbatical I traveled on 26 flights to 12 cities in five countries on three continents. A few of the other highlights worth mentioning include the rainforest and monkeys of Costa Rica; a tango show in Buenos Aires; time with my mother in Mendoza, Argentina; bidding farewell to my friend, Conchita Kreisler (former head of the Spanish Department who passed away on Sept. 29, 2008 , in Madrid; visiting the Cicero family in Palermo and Rome; the Vatican and mass with The Pope; New Year’s Eve fireworks viewed from our balcony in Miami; and the arrival of two new grandchildren. My sabbatical was a remarkable journey, back to the future of sorts, connecting with old friends, making new friends, getting reacquainted with my roots, and new beginnings. I must admit that all the traveling has left me a little confused about my identity (mother, grandmother, daughter, wife, friend, teacher, student), my roots, and my “home” (Newport, Mendoza, or Miami?). This time away from school has given me the opportunity to reflect, to wander, ponder the possibilities, count my blessings, experience the inexorable passing of time, the challenges, contemplate my calling, the why and how come, and why I am here now telling you about my experiences. How about the children’s book? Oh yes, I will write it during my next sabbatical.

Williams to head Science Depar tment Holly Williams, a biology teacher at St. George’s since 1991, has been appointed head of the Science Department. A dedicated teacher, coach and advisor, Williams will take over the role held for the last few years by Steve Leslie, who leaves this August with his wife, Betsy, for a sabbatical year in Montana. Williams takes over the department at a critical point in its history: Architects are now in the final phases of drafting plans for a new LEED-certified facility to replace the aging Dupont Science Center.

A my Do rri en Tra is ci has been hired to teach Spanish. Amy has both her bachelor’s degree in international studies and master’s degree in Spanish from Middlebury College. She has taught upper level Spanish at the Wardlaw-Hartridge School in New Jersey and has worked as a program director for Harvard University, placing students in study programs abroad. She and her husband will be moving to Rhode Island from Buenos Aires, Argentina. H e at h Ca pe llo will serve as the sabbatical replacement for Steve Leslie in the Science Department. In the spring, Heath was finishing his Ph.D. in aquatic ecology at the University of Mississippi. He holds a bachelor’s degree in marine biology with a minor in chemistry from Roger Williams University. Capello spent two years teaching science at the Christchurch School in Virginia before pursuing his doctoral studies.

Amy Dorrien Traisci

Heath Capello

M at t D’An no lfo will serve in the newly created role of Admission Fellow in the Admission Office. He is a graduate of Avon Old Farms School and Central Connecticut State. D’Annolfo will be living in Sixth Form House, coaching two sports and working as an affiliate in a dorm. Educational Consultant To m Calla han has been hired to fill the newly created role of Director of Teaching and Learning for the Merck-Horton Center for Teaching and Learning. Callahan, an educational psychologist, has been consulting the school for years, administering testing to students with learning differences. “Those of you who know him, I’m sure have found him to be very bright and talented, but also very understanding of our faculty and our curriculum,” Head of School Eric Peterson noted in a faculty meeting in June.

Matthew D’Annolfo

Tom Callahan

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Faculty/Staff Notes Veteran faculty couple heads west

PHOTOS COURTESY OF THE L ESLIES

They’ve traded in their Toyota Prius for a fourwheel drive SUV, packed their cross-country skis and purchased snowshoes. Good thing. The Leslies—Steve, head of the St. George’s Science Department since 1972, and his wife, Betsy, associate director of admission since 1985—may have more of a challenge getting home this year. The two are heading to Emigrant, Mont., for a year-long sabbatical—and they’re moving into an 1880’s one-room schoolhouse about six miles down a gravel road, about 20 miles north of the northwest corner of Yellowstone National Park. The Leslies, who’ve been fixtures on the Hilltop for decades, have earned some time away, Head of School Eric Peterson acknowledged last spring. “With more than 70 years of combined service to the school, I can’t imagine two people who have earned more fully a sabbatical year,” he told faculty members at their final meeting of the year in June. While on sabbatical the Leslies plan to continue their study of wolves, an interest that began some time ago after a visit to St. George’s by Rene Askins, who founded the Wolf Fund in 1986 for the purpose of reintroducing wolves into Yellowstone. The two were scheduled to head west in the middle of August and at presstime were considering “ranch-sit-

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ting” for the Doolittles—former director of Admission Jay Doolittle ’56 and his wife, June—by tending to their “two horses, one pack mule, several sheep, three lambs, 20-something chickens, and three pugs” for about two weeks. At the same time the Doolittles were scheduled to travel east to visit family and make their annual fishing trip to Canada. In September, the Leslies will head to the schoolhouse to resume their study of the wolves, which formally began about three years ago at the Yellowstone Institute with wolf biologists, learning about the efforts, the success, the populations and the effects on the park ecosystem, and also observing the wolves in the wild. The Leslies were back in Montana for a week last summer to watch the same pack of wolves. During the sabbatical, Steve said, “We’ll extend our observations of the wolves through the calendar year. We will also study the ecological impacts of the return of an apex predator after 80 years of absence.” The federal government has just removed “endangered species” consideration for the wolf population in Montana, and so there may be a first hunting season for wolf outside the park where the Leslies will be living, according to Steve. The schoolhouse where the two will stay is on a sheep ranch that has seen fairly severe degradation of their flock by wolves from out of the park. “So we won’t be starry-eyed idealists,” Steve said. “We’ll be immersed in the real-world impact of wolf populations both in and outside of the park.” Leslie added that he and Betsy are looking forward to the challenges of “remote living in a mountain valley, having winter access to Yellowstone National Park, studying policy and biology of the reintroduced wolves, and volunteering in conservation and education. “We also hope to catch Jay Doolittle reading from his work on Author Night at the Pine Creek Café, and hearing Andrew Doolittle ’88 sing and play guitar at the same venue!”

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Em ily Bee son ’05 will travel to Mexico, Guatemala, the Dominican Republic, Peru, Paraguay, Tanzania, and India this year after receiving one of just 40 travel grants awarded by the Thomas J. Watson Foundation. Each year the foundation awards fellowship recipients—all college seniors—$28,000 “to test Emily Beeson ’05 their aspirations and abilities and develop a more informed sense of international concern” in the year following their graduation. Beeson, who graduated from the University of the South in Sewanee, Tenn., in May, will be learning about how Mennonites have attempted to preserve their culture. She has titled her project, “The Mennonite Experience with Cultural Identity and Adaptation Abroad.” “I plan to explore the issues of cultural identity and adaptation within Mennonite communities that have emigrated outside North America,” Beeson writes in her project description. “Many Mennonites have sold their land and used the profit to emigrate to less developed countries. Nonetheless, in an attempt to escape the threat to their identity posed by developments in North American J u l i e ( B o we n ) L u e t k e m e y e r culture, they must respond to Ph il lip s ’98 is known for her the challenge of preserving roles on “Boston Legal” and that identity in the face of “Ed,” and has also appeared many new challenges—linon “Weeds” and “Lost.” She gave birth to twin boys John guistic, cultural, and agriculand Gus in May. tural—in an unfamiliar environment.”

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Cleveland Johnson, director of the Watson Fellowship Program and a former Watson Fellow, says the program looks for people “likely to lead or innovate in the future and give them extraordinary independence to pursue their interests outside of traditional academic structures.” One hundred seventy-seven finalists competed on the national level in 2009, after their institutions nominated them in the autumn. Beeson came highly recommended, according to Stephen Miller, associate professor in the Music Department and Sewanee’s liaison to the Watson Foundation. “As the granddaughter of Mennonites, Emily has an opportunity to explore her heritage in a way that few of us ever can; it’s sure to have a profound impact on the rest of her life.” Tony Booth ’53, who leads caravan tours throughout the United States for the RV company Winnebago, was the subject of a profile in the Brown University alumni magazine this spring. The article, titled “On the Road Again” by Lawrence Goodman, can be found online at http://www.brownalumnimagazine.com/content/ view/2210/40/. “If you fly from place to place you’re going to see the things you want to see,” Booth told Goodman, “but for me, getting there is half the fun. There’s so much to see along the way.” Stephen Connett Jr. ’86 and his love for classic cars—and penchant for driving them—were the subject of a Providence Journal feature story. “Driving a classic car is part of the fun” by Peter C.T. Elsworth was published in the paper’s automotive section on May 2, 2009. Connett, whose collection includes a ’63 Mercury, a ’55 Oldsmobile Super 88 convertible, a ’65 Mustang and a ’64 Mercedes Benz 220S, told the paper “I was always into cars and still have too many.” But that doesn’t mean he doesn’t take time to get them out on the road. He says his beige rose metallic 1963 Mercury Monterey sedan, which he bought in 1993 in San Diego when he was working on the tender fleet for America3,

Selena Elmer ’08

wrote to the alumni/ae office from an Internet café in Arusha, Tanzania, this summer to update us on her activities since completing Selena Elmer ’08 her first year as a Morehead-Cain Scholar at the University of South Carolina. She is working in a sustainable agriculture program with Global Service Corps, teaching “biointensive agriculture methods meant to help farmers increase yield and move away from the use of toxic

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Tif fany Baker ’87 is getting rave reviews for her first novel, “The Little Giant of Aberdeen County,” published earlier this year by Grand Central Publishing. The book tells the story of Truly Plaice, who is born huge and who grows to 400 pounds. The Washington Post called the book “a gothic tale of murder, revenge and redemption.” In his review, Ron Charles, also a senior editor of Book World, says that “How this elephantine woman triumphed over the town’s most powerful man is the secret that ‘The Little Giant of Aberdeen County’ reveals, one surprising chapter at a time.” He gives credit to Baker for spinning an “alluring plot.” “She tells this emotional story in a lush voice that’s spiked with just a taste of self-pity. She has a good sense of the dark comedy of melodrama, too.”

CHRIS TOLAN ’07

the yacht that won the America’s Cup that year, was a real workhorse. “I drove it every day for seven years, put 40,000 miles on it,” he told Elsworth. “It was a daily driver.” In addition to running Naiad Inflatables of Newport, which is licensed by Naiad of New Zealand to produce rigid hull inflatable boats, Connett is also part owner of Park Place Holdings, a storage facility in Portsmouth, R.I. for high-end cars.

Ch ris Tol a n ’07 takes in the view after completing a hike up a mountain in Patagonia, where he traveled during a study abroad program in Buenos Aires, Argentina. He spent time away from Pepperdine University in Machu Picchu, Peru, and Ushuaia, Patagonia, and various places in Chile and Uruguay. “I lived with a host family that is amazing. My Spanish is way better!” he reports to his class correspondent.

and expensive fertilizers and pesticides.” “I will soon be embarking on a four-week-long camping expedition to rural areas, where in addition to teaching about BIA, we will be administering chicken vaccinations for Newcastle Disease, which is responsible for the death of over 70 percent of Tanzanian chickens yearly and is a huge strain on resources for the local people,” she wrote. Charles L. Burckmyer ’95 and Scott Noll, cofounders of Knob Hill Partners in Boston, were part of a Feb. 11, 2009, New York Times story on businesses that are thriving in a bad economy. The two founded the firm last summer “and persuaded a dozen investors to provide them with a total of $500,000 in operating capital to look for promising businesses whose owners were interested in selling. They are searching especially for companies with strong growth potential and price tags of $10 million to $30 million in energy efficiency, specialty software or information technology.” Once they locate a company, they said, “their investors are prepared to contribute the funds for them to acquire it and manage it.”

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Volunteers honored with Dean Award

Former trustee David Evans accepts his award from Bill Dean ’73.

Mic hae l Case K issel ’67; former trustees David Eva ns; Susie H unte r P’99, ’02; and Bi ll Brigg s ’59 were this year’s recipients of the Howard B. Dean Service Award, which recognizes members of the SG community whose service to the school has been exceptional. Bill Dean ’73 helped Head of School Eric Peterson present the awards, named in memory of his late father, on May 16 in Madeira Hall. David Evans, now a senior admissions officer at Harvard University, was the first African American to assume the role of trustee at SG. An article about him published in a 2005 edition of Harvard’s student newspaper, the Crimson, called “From Sharecroppers’ Son To College’s Gatekeeper,” claims that during his tenure, the black population at Harvard multiplied 15 times. It can be found on the web at http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=509161. Hunter, a former trustee who served on several committees, has been a generous benefactor and a valued advisor to the school. Kissel died of brain cancer just weeks before the ceremony. His sister-in-law, Sandra Thornton Whitehouse ’77, P’12, accepted his award on his behalf. He and his wife, Elena Thornton Kissel ’77, have been dedicated fund-raisers and supporters of the school for years. And Briggs, former director of development, has been an enthusiastic advocate for St. George’s and served as social chair for his class for its 50th reunion in May.

Susie Hunter P’99, ’02

Sandra Thornton Whitehouse ’77, P’12 accepts the Dean Award for Michael Case Kissel ’67 (on the screen) 70

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Bill Briggs ’59

Balloch is recipient of 2009 Diman Award The Diman Award is presented annually during Reunion Weekend to an alumna or alumnus whose personal accomplishments or public service contributions are greatly valued by St. George’s School. This year the award was presented to How a rd R . B a llo c h ’69, former Canadian ambassador to China and an expert on Pacific Rim nations and a consultant in Asian financial affairs. Balloch is now the president and founding partner of The Balloch Group, an independent advisory and merchant banking firm that serves domestic and international clients in China. Established in 2001, the firm was ranked one of the top five largest mergers and acquisitions and private placement advisors by China Venture in 2007. Mr. Balloch lives in Beijing with his wife, Liani, and they have four children. The family spends time in the summer back in the United States, in Jamestown, R.I. To read the full text of Balloch’s address to the community, visit the login page of www.stgeorges.edu.

ST. GEORGE’S TODAY

PHOTOS BY

R AY WOISHEK ’89

M ADEIR A H ALL M AY 16, 2009

Head of School Eric Peterson presents the Diman Award to Howard Balloch ’69 in May.

Reunion 2010 Reunion Weekend Weekend 2010 is May May 14-16 14-16 is

Tim Kim ’09 and Anna Mack ’09

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Hilltop archives R

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In 1905, the St. Georgeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s grounds crew cut the lawn with a manual reel mower. Rest was part of the drill, as is evident from this archival photo. At bottom right, the slim shade of a young tree lining the Main Drive provided welcome relief from the sun.

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