EHS The Magazine: Spring 2021

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SPRING 2021

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T H E M A G A Z I N E O F E P I S C O PA L H I G H S C H O O L

BEYOND TEXTBOOKS Why did Dr. Kim Olsen give up university tenure and come to Episcopal? The students.

BREAKING GROUND ON A NEW QUAD WORSHIP BY CANDLELIGHT ALUMNI IN SERVICE TO OTHERS

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SPRING 2021

Despite 12 surgeries on her left leg following the boating accident, Addie ran cross country for three years.

flashbacks stem from the feeling of fear and helplessness and the thought that I might die from blood loss or lose my leg.

My accident happened on a Sunday, following just the first two days of eighth grade. This was a transition period for me. I had shifted from being someone who only cared only about gymnastics to someone who wanted to be with my friends and develop my own identity. Social media was influencing my thoughts about myself, and my family saw that I was growing disconnected from them.

I intentionally do not call my accident bad, because it wasn’t all bad; I choose to view my accident as a blessing because of the lessons I learned. In order to wake up, some of us need a wake-up call, and this was mine.

My whole world was turned upside down in a matter of seconds — not to mention the strain it put on my parents. One of the things that I struggle with most is making sure my dad does not feel guilty for my pain; it is called an accident for a reason.

Parts of being in the hospital were easy. The nurses were so nice, and I felt safe in the hands of the doctors. But I struggled with seeing the small child in the room across from me who, at the age of 2, was dealing with terminal cancer. That is what broke me.

Knowing that even if I lost my leg, I would still live my life more or less to its full extent, and that seemed unfair compared to what other children in the hospital faced.

Witnessing others this way was new for me and unlocked a deeper sense of empathy. I’m not going to bash the person I was before my accident, but you probably would not recognize her compared to the person I have become because of the insight and belief systems I have developed as a result of my trauma.

My perception of the world around me is different now. My senses are heightened, so sometimes it can be difficult to release feelings of stress or anxiety. However, I appreciate the small yet beautiful moments that would go unnoticed before. What happened to me could have been multitudes worse, so I felt lucky to have avoided a serious life-hindering injury.

I was determined to keep a positive attitude throughout the process, and I can say with confidence that I did just that. There were many moments of uncertainty regarding my leg, but I was lucky enough to, with time, make a full recovery. Still, healing is not linear. There are still days when I am constantly afraid something terrible is about to happen, or that my friends cannot calm my anxiety.

At the same time, I would not have decided to come to Episcopal if I had not been in my accident. While recovering from surgeries, I was homeschooled for a year by my mom and did an eighth-grade online program. This made me feel out of control of everything. I could not take a regular shower for about half of the year and couldn’t walk normally for a year. I sat in the hospital bed for about a month trying to imagine what it felt like to walk or to stand up on a surfboard.

I began my ninth-grade year in a wheelchair at a high school of 5,000 students. I was eager to become independent and in control

of my life again, which led me to look at boarding school. I felt like a small fish in a big pond at my local school, and I wanted to get to know my teachers and peers on a more personal level. I also had a new outlook on life and wanted to take advantage of every opportunity that came my way, like Episcopal. So here I am now, four and a half years later. I am still recovering, but I am proud of myself for the way I handled this hardship.

As a sophomore, I asked Rev. Carmody, the EHS head chaplain, if I could give a talk in Chapel. Her reply was, “I would wait, Addie. Your story is not finished yet.” That is one of the truest things anyone has ever said to me. We all have our struggles big or small. They are all equally important to our lives, and the way you face a horrible situation shows more about you than the difficult thing you are experiencing.

So I urge you to not run from the so-called bad things in life but to embrace them with your most true and unique self. One day, when you’re surfing the perfect wave or doing what you love most, you will appreciate it more than you would ever imagine.

Good things are always on the way; you just have to believe they’re coming to you.

“Positivity … got me through the difficult days,” says Addie, here with Lucy Bland ’21 on an Outdoor Leadership trip last year.

I have chosen to not allow my accident to define me as a person, but to rather enjoy life through this new perspective I have been given. I realized that life is precious, but that does not mean you ever have to stop taking risks. I also know that my accident could have been much more extensive if I had been hit anywhere else. As we all know, life is never going to stop presenting its challenges, and everyone deals with their own personal battles. We get to decide how we face those challenges. Positivity, even in the hardest of times, got me through the difficult days, along with faith that things would get better.

Today I get the privilege of walking to class and surfing during the summers. I was even able to run three seasons on the cross country team, something that at one point seemed impossible.

Most important, I have had the incredible privilege of being an Episcopal student these past three years and would not change my experience for the world because it led me here.

Contents ON THE COVER

TEXTBOOKS 18 BEYOND Episcopal faculty share meals with students, raise their families on dorm, and lead Washington excursions. The result: Special relationships and an education without limits.

FEATURES

TOO, SING AMERICA” 26 “I, From Langston Hughes’s poetry to the pandemic’s racial disparities, EHS students explore the Black experience in America.

IN SERVICE TO OTHERS 34 Alumni dedicated to being a force for good talk about what motivates them — and how everyone can make the world a better place.

FIXER UPPER 40 MR. Byron Jones ’14 was on his way to a big-time career in sports

management. When he renovated his childhood home, he discovered a new passion.

PRESS BOX PUNCHLINES 46 When Rob Whittle ’69 took over duties as Hummel Bowl public address announcer, football games turned into a comedy showcase.

FIELD TRIP 48 AIn $1,782 1888, Head of School Launcelot Minor Blackford went to great lengths to show students the home of the first president.

THINGS ARE ALWAYS ON THE WAY” 92 “GOOD In a Chapel talk, Addie McElveen ’21 reflected on an accident that changed her life — and who she is.

DEPARTMENTS

2 FROM THE HEAD OF SCHOOL UP CLOSE 4 EPISCOPAL Breaking ground on the new Health and Wellness Center; Black alumni on MLK’s legacy; a new worship service; and more.

CLASS NOTES 50 After Episcopal: James Blue ’87; Nathan Michel ’93; Ruffin

Mitchener ’11; Brian Mascatello ’12. Plus: Charles Winston ’78 writes to the next generation of EHS students; noteworthy new books; and alumni staff and faculty leaving The Holy Hill

85 IN MEMORIAM

Jumping into Spirit Week (from left): seniors Schuyler Moore, Flora French, Helen Ingle, Jason Gibson, and Noe Boggan.

Head of School: Charley Stillwell Assistant Head for Advancement: Christina Holt Director of Communications: Drew Lindsay Associate Director of Communications: Ann deSaussure Biondi ’08 Class Notes Editor: Elizabeth Henderson ’11 Contributing Editors: Lindsay Bingham Photographers: Lindsay Bingham, Ann deSaussure Biondi ’08, Natalie Davies, Rebecca Drobis, Elizabeth Henderson ’11, Denny Henry, Cory Royster Archivist: Laura Vetter Designer: Linda Loughran

Published by Episcopal High School for alumni, parents, grandparents, and friends of Episcopal High School. ©2021 Episcopal High School Please send address corrections to: Advancement Office Episcopal High School 1200 North Quaker Lane Alexandria, VA 22302 Or by email to webeditor@episcopalhighschool.org

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Episcopal High School does not discriminate in its admissions, or in the administration of its educational policies, admissions policies, scholarship programs, or in access to or treatment in any other School-administered program on the basis of religion, race, color, sex, ancestry, sexual orientation, disability, national origin, or any other protected category in accordance with applicable Federal, State, and local laws.

THE MAGAZINE OF EPISCOPAL HIGH SCHOOL

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From the Head of School The past year has tested both the School and the individual members of the EHS family. Yet there is no doubt that Episcopal and our community will emerge stronger for it. The faculty learned new skills and technologies that will enhance tomorrow’s classrooms. Through our video-conferencing system, we now are connecting students with the best and brightest from all over the world — scholars, artists, Olympic athletes, and professionals in fields from politics and law to science and medicine (page 9). A new nightly worship service was born this year (page 10), along with a renewed sense of the importance of community and how each member of that community must feel known, valued, and supported.

With a record number of applications to the School this year, an incredibly talented and diverse group of incoming students will arrive in the fall.

Episcopal also will emerge stronger because the community has remained focused on the School’s core values and its future. Three years ago, the Board of Trustees approved a strategic plan that set ambitious goals for enhancing the student experience and increasing the School’s impact. That plan bore significant fruit this year, even amid the pandemic. In its first full year, the McCain-Ravenel Center for Intellectual and Moral Courage introduced evening and daylong all-school programming focused on contemporary issues such as the elections, Covid-19, and the social-justice movement.

The new track and field opened this spring, marking the latest advance in our top-flight athletic facilities. And because your generosity eclipsed even our most optimistic

projections, we stand ready to break ground this spring on a new Health and Wellness Center (page 4), a facility that will be double the size of McAllister Health Center and reaffirm our belief that the high expectations and rigor of EHS must be accompanied by a focus on the physical and emotional well-being of each student.

The coming months will see other changes at EHS that will strengthen us further. Plans for the two new dorms envisioned in the 2018 Strategic Plan are moving more quickly than expected, thanks once again to your support. We will use the new spaces not to increase enrollment but to create a more intimate experience in all the dorms where we can bring to life a new residential life curriculum focusing on ethics and healthy relationships.

With a record number of applications to the School this year, an incredibly talented and diverse group of incoming students will arrive in the fall. Next year will also mark the debut of the new daily and weekly schedule, which will integrate Washington-based learning opportunities into the daily curriculum.

The schedule also will afford faculty and students more time together in advisories and one-on-one office hours.

As our cover story (page 18) makes clear, our faculty come to Episcopal to use the 24/7 residential program to build relationships not possible in a day school, relationships that power learning and help students become the best versions of themselves. Such relationships have been a core of Episcopal since its founding, and we are excited that the new schedule will make them an even more powerful part of the student experience.

As we emerge from the pandemic, I hope we will soon be hosting many of you on campus for reunions and other gatherings, and I look forward to seeing you in your hometowns when our regional gatherings resume.

In the meantime, I wish you the best, and hope you and your family are healthy and safe.

Sincerely,

Charles M. Stillwell Head of School

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Episcopal Up Close n STR ATEGIC PL AN UPDATE

New Health and Wellness Center to Open in 2022 The School will break ground this spring on a facility that will double the size of McAllister.

Episcopal will break ground this spring on a new state-of-the-art health and wellness center that will double the size of its current health center and advance its position as a leader among independent schools in the care of students.

The School’s Board of Trustees voted unanimously recently to move forward with the project. Thanks to the overwhelming generosity of Episcopal’s families, alumni, and friends, construction will begin less than three years after the School’s 2018 Strategic Plan made a new health and wellness center a key EHS priority. The new facility is scheduled to open in 2022.

“We are truly inspired by the community’s support of our commitment to doing even more to care for our students,” said Head of School Charley Stillwell following 4

The new Health and Wellness Center will feature comprehensive treatment and clinical work areas.

the Board’s vote. “The new center reaffirms our belief that the high expectations and rigor of our academic program must be accompanied by a focus on the physical and emotional well-being of each student.”

The new center will replace the McAllister Health Center, which was built in 1934 for a significantly smaller all-male student body and served for decades as

an infirmary staffed by a visiting doctor and an on-call nurse. At just over 17,000 square feet, the new facility will feature comprehensive treatment and clinical work areas, classrooms for health and wellness courses, separate waiting areas for sick and well patients, four exam rooms, and dedicated space for the School’s Counseling Center.

The center will be part of a new campus quad that will also feature two new dorms .

Dorm Plan Advances

The new space will house health and wellness services and programming that has grown in scale and sophistication in recent years as the School pioneered wellness initiatives and education about mental health and sleep hygiene, the dangers of illegal substance use and vaping, and more. EHS now has one health professional for every 35 students,

the second-highest ratio among our 40 peer schools.

“The more we teach, model, and prepare students to be healthy and well in their lifestyles and daily living, the more likely they are to succeed in their academics, athletics, relationships, and social-emotional lives,” said Dr. Adrianna Bravo, the School’s medical director.

As the Trustees gave the go-ahead to the new Health and Wellness Center, they also moved closer to approving the two new dormitories called for in the 2018 Strategic Plan. The new dorms are not intended to create space for additional enrollment.

Rather, they will increase the number of faculty living alongside students, lowering the faculty-to-student ratio on all dorms and supporting delivery of a new residential life curriculum that focuses on values, healthy relationships, and ethical leadership.

Several other capital projects that were part of the Strategic Plan have already been completed. Six new faculty homes have helped the School move closer to the plan’s goal of all faculty living on campus.

Also, construction of a new track and field was recently completed, with its official opening planned for this spring.

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EPISCOPAL UP CLOSE

n LEADERSHIP

“A Big Heart and Humble Disposition” Assistant Head of School Doug Dickson departs The Holy Hill.

Doug Dickson arrived on The Holy Hill four short years ago and has made a big impact ever since on students, faculty, staff — and even on two of his former students who became colleagues.

Dickson joined EHS as assistant head for student life in 2017, the same year that much of the senior class arrived. At this year’s faculty vs. seniors kickball game, the cheerleaders asked him to do the ceremonial “first kick.” Says Caroline Bradford ’21: “He recently passed me in the dining hall and instead of rushing to his busy day, he sat down and talked for 45 minutes — just because he wanted to. He’s more than a faculty member; he’s a mentor, a role model, and a friend.”

Such personal connections have been at the center of Dickson’s 40-year career in schools. As a senior administrator, he’s deeply involved in policies and procedures, but colleagues say he always leads with a human touch. “With a big heart and humble disposition, he approaches every matter and relationship with great empathy and care,” says social studies teacher Stefanie Smith, a former student of Dickson’s at St. Paul’s School in New Hampshire.

When Dickson joined EHS in 2017, Episcopal tapped his expertise immediately. He had been involved with revamping 18 dorms at St. Paul’s, experience that proved critical as Episcopal made plans to add two new dorms in the coming years. He also was a leader of the effort to design the new Health and Wellness Center, which will break ground this summer and open in 2022.

In 2018 and 2019, Dickson led a major campus effort involving parents, faculty, Health Center staff, and others to understand and address the epidemic of e-cigarette use, or vaping, among teens.

The result was a new, targeted approach to caring for students struggling with these highly addictive products.

During the pandemic, Dickson’s steady disposition and hard work have helped Episcopal navigate significant unknowns. Since he first realized Covid-19 would upend life on campus, he prioritized student safety and began working immediately with Dr. Adrianna Bravo, the School’s medical director, to establish new guidelines to protect students, faculty, and staff.

English teacher Hugh Koeze, a former student of Dickson’s at St. Paul’s, remembers his calm when a massive flood hit that campus. Dickson, he says, appeared in the dining hall in a brightyellow, full-body rain suit and made a point to brief students on 6

what was happening. “When things go wrong, Doug is there,” Koeze says.

For his part, Dickson says that working with Koeze and Smith has brought him immeasurable joy: “It’s really fun to reunite in a different way and a different lifetime. It’s a cool thing to see some of the people you’ve had some influence on become adults.”

He adds that he hopes he’s had the impact on others that they have had on him. “That’s what I hope my career has been all about — cultivating positive and healthy relationships with students and colleagues alike.”

After the school year, Dickson will move to Austin, Texas, where he will begin consulting work with a national search firm. His wife, Laurie, recently took a role leading a nursing program in Austin.

In early February, The Holy Hill saw its first significant snowfall in two years. Seniors got a special night of sledding on the hills of the Front Drive, there were snowball fights in Hummel Bowl, and everyone got a chance see campus at one of its most beautiful times.

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n ALUMNI GIVING BACK

The Legacy of “I Have a Dream” Black alumni explore the lasting influence of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

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Sundi Lofty ’94

Tamela Blalock ’98

Five Black and African American alumni spanning 20 years of EHS graduates joined the School’s fifth annual MLK Day Symposium in January to lead a discussion with students and other alumni about the legacy and influence of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Jonathan Lee ’01, EHS associate director of admissions, organized the virtual event, which was an outgrowth of #BlackSuccessFromEHS, his social media campaign to highlight and celebrate the work and achievements of Black and African American alumni of Episcopal, including CEOs, doctors, lawyers, politicians, experts, and other leaders in their fields.

Each of the five panelists drew from Dr. King’s historic “I Have a Dream” speech in 1963 at the Lincoln Memorial.

S U N D I L O F T Y ’ 9 4 , a television and film writer, director, and producer, spoke of how she has been inspired by Dr. King’s work “to give voice to the voiceless.”

Lofty talked to students about how Dr. King and other leaders of the Civil Rights movement used media images — beginning with a photo of the murdered Emmett Till and including images of marchers being fire-hosed and beaten in Birmingham, Ala. — to illustrate the ugliness of racism in America and galvanize support.

“People were seeing these images, and they were being affected by these images,” she said. “Martin Luther King and others in the movement were like: ‘Here it is in your face.’ ”

T A M E L A B L A L O C K ’ 9 8 , a top executive with the National Cooperative Business Association CLUSA International, spoke of how the 1963 “I Have a Dream Speech” was part of the March for Jobs and Freedom, during which Dr. King first made economic justice a centerpiece of his work. She discussed the 10 demands of the march, including an end to discrimination in housing and the workplace. Most of those demands remain unmet, Blalock said.

“If all of that had been realized in 1963, we wouldn’t see the big wealth disparity that we have [today].”

M I K E O T O O ’ 1 5 , a second-year student at Rutgers University’s medical school, explained how Dr. King saw racial injustice in healthcare as particularly damaging to people of color. Otoo traced a history of racism in medicine that included the eugenics movement and the mid-20th century Tuskegee syphilis experiments with Black male sharecroppers.

Racial disparities in healthcare today mean many people of color suffer higher rates of disease and lack access to quality treatments, he noted. “It’s been a struggle to achieve Martin Luther King’s dream,” he said. “There’s a long way to go, and a lot of work we need to put in.”

The panelists also talked about their experiences at Episcopal, and how the culture of the School was at times hurtful and could make them feel like outsiders.

M A Y A G L E N N ’ 1 6 , who is working toward a Ph.D. in sociology at the University of Michigan, said she felt the School didn’t recognize or promote Black academic

Mike Otoo ’15

excellence, which led her to work hard toward earning membership in the Cum Laude Society. She gained membership, she said, in part to show that Black students deserved to be honored for such excellence.

Similarly, she wants her Ph.D. work to serve a broader cause, with her research focusing on the advancement of Black women. “On the days when I feel discouraged or just tired, I remember that what I am trying to do isn’t just about me. And that’s what’s motivated me to work smarter and ultimately hit my goals.”

A L I X D E J E A N ’ 0 0 — a veteran strategic communications executive who’s helping lead Noodle Partners, a growing network of online and hybrid programs in higher education — said Episcopal gave him “a platform to grow and learn in a safe space and to try things out.” But he urged students not to stand by when they perceive an injustice, whether on campus or in America. “I refuse to believe that my country won’t lean in to being a more perfect union,” he said. “Episcopal’s not perfect,” he added. “But it can be.”

After the event, Lee said it was an important opportunity for these Black professionals to share stories about “their excellence, success, and existence.” He added: “This group spoke to and on behalf of the next generation of students of color and the community of Episcopal collectively. This conversation was the first of many opportunities to improve upon our joint legacy built on the work and ideologies of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on The Holy Hill.”

Maya Glenn ’16

Barack Obama and Alix DeJean ’00

The World Is Closer Here One advantage of education in a pandemic: Scholars, scientists, artists, and others can connect easily with students virtually. Recent guests and speakers at EHS included: • NASA scientist Dr. Kathleen Boggs, who works on deep-space exploration programs.

• Olympic gold-medal rowers Susan Francia and Kerry Simmonds.

• The Heritage Foundation President Kay James.

• Karla Puno Garcia, a Broadway dancer and performer whose most recent role was in “Hamilton.”

• U.S. Marine Capt. Andrew Hutcheon, founder of Marine Coding.

• Poet Laura Marris, who is working on the first modern translation of “The Plague,” by Camus.

• Julie Anna Potts P’21, president and CEO of the North America Meat Institute.

• Author and graphic novelist Maggie Thrash.

• Lt. Col. David Ratcliffe P’22, U.S. Air Force intelligence officer.

• Jasmine Turner, Emmy Award-winning journalist.

The McCain-Ravenel Center organized several all-school programs, including a Covid-19 panel with Dr. Shelly Gunn, the director of a California lab performing molecular genetic testing; Dr. Kathryn Stephenson, a physician-scientist researching novel biomedical interventions to prevent and treat infectious diseases; and Dr. Ethan Weiss, a cardiologist and researcher who has worked in several hot-spot cities and hospitals.

Guests for the MLK Day Symposium included: Dr. Peniel Joseph, an MLK scholar at the University of Texas; Dr. Loretta Ross of Smith College, who is studying the toxicity of “calling out” and the “cancel culture” in social-justice movements; and a range of faith leaders discussing how Dr. King’s teachings are reflected across different religions.

“The Plague” scholar Laura Marris.

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EPISCOPAL UP CLOSE

n FA I T H

“A Peaceful Night and a Perfect End” A new worship service closes the day with a moment of prayer and reflection.

As the day after the fall election came to a close, students gathered on the Front Circle for a contemplative, candlelit service known as compline. Given the turmoil of 2020, the Rev. Betsy Carmody, head chaplain, and the Rev. Richmond Jones, assistant chaplain, recognized a need to gather and bear witness to its many historic moments. “We wanted to acknowledge that something large was happening. It was about coming together into a space,” said Jones.

That was the first of what soon became a regular new element of spiritual life on campus: a service to reflect on and close each day. Compline, originally founded in the monastic tradition, has been adopted by many Christian denominations and begins with a simple prayer: “The Lord Almighty grant us a peaceful night and a perfect end.”

The service is designed to last only 10 minutes, short enough to be recited entirely from memory. Anywhere from 10 to 20 students have attended the weeknight services, and Jones found that the simplicity and ease of the practice prompted more students to attend the Vestry’s Sunday service. “Compline is a very low-risk service to attend,” he said. “It can wake a longing for more spirituality.”

For Jones, compline is about slowing down and observing one’s surroundings. “We busy ourselves so much with the work that we have, but the cosmos continues to move despite what we do. Placing ourselves within that, for me, is very much an act of humility and acceptance that I find really grounding.”

As for the future, compline will continue as long as students are interested. Because the service doesn’t vary, it is easily led by students, and Carmody and Jones attend as witnesses, not leaders. “If only two students came, it would still be a success,” Jones said.

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EPISCOPAL UP CLOSE

Maroon vs Black

n ATHLETIC S

Hannah Markham ’23.

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Though Washington-area interscholastic athletics leagues canceled play for the fall and winter seasons, EHS teams still met for 10 weeks of training. Their work culminated in a Spirit Week series of intrasquad competitions, with Maroon squaring off against Black across campus and the Cheerleaders stirring up fan support.

During the week, the 73 seniors on these teams were celebrated in online ceremonies and on the fields, courts, and track. We are grateful for their commitment to athletics throughout their time at Episcopal as well as their leadership, particularly during this challenging year.

This group is a remarkable example of resilience for the students who will follow them.

Celebration for senior wrestlers (from left): Assistant coach Michael Spencer, Justin Yi, Brenton Smith, Yoyo Lu (on screen), Clay Sailor, Stefan Olsen, and coach Steve Castle.

Teddy Janedis ’23.

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n ATHLETIC S

Isabella Custard ’23.

Claude Morris ’23, Patrick Carr ’24, and Douglas Su ’24.

Honoring boys’ and girls’ senior squash players.

Will Cronin ’23.

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Nan Holt ’23 (front) and Samantha Funkhouser ’21.

Noe Boggan ’21 (front) and Emily Garrard ’24.

Shaan Vyas ’24.

Girls’ basketball huddles before its intrasquad battle.

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n PERFORMING ARTS

The Show Goes On Winter musical cast and crew beat the odds to produce a hit.

The winter musical, “Songs for a New World,” bucked tradi tion in more ways than one. The musical itself, the work of composer Jason Robert Brown, doesn’t follow a linear storyline. Rather it’s an abstract revue with songs bound by a central theme — the moment when characters face a crucial decision that can change their lives.

While Pendelton Hall’s Fox Stage was the home for the February performances, five of the 13 cast members rehearsed and performed virtually. With shortened practice time this winter, the group faced the task of putting together the performance in just six weeks.

Theater Director Mallory Nonnemaker was impressed with her students’ determination and creativity in the face of this unusual season. “I truly saw our students embrace this challenge with confidence,” Nonnemaker says. “There was an overwhelming sense of positivity.”

As with the fall play, elements of the musical were pre-re corded by the virtual student-actors and projected on stage during the live performance. “Our virtual students really adapted with resilience because, although they were asyn chronous, they were able to perform and be an essential part of the company,” Nonnemaker says.

Baker Zhan ’24.

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From left: Annie Caine ’22, Madison Oatley ’22, and Faith Familua ’23.

Stella Ren ’23 and Will Morris ’21.

Chris Kim ’21 and Annie Caine ’22.

Nia Beane ’21.

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BEYOND TEXTBOOKS Episcopal faculty share meals with students, raise their families on dorm, and lead excursions into Washington.

The result: Special relationships and an education without limits.

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Basketball coach Jim Fitzpatrick counseled his players about how to navigate the pandemic’s challenges. “You’ve got to find a way to rise above it and work through it,” he said.

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BEYOND TEXTBOOKS

JIM FITZPATRICK promotes hard work in sports and in life.

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ike other teachers at Episcopal, Jim Fitzpatrick has spent much of his adult life on The Holy Hill. He arrived in 2005, when he was 28 years old, after a standout undergraduate basketball career at Wake Forest and a stint coaching at Division I Elon University. While he admits he had no idea what he was getting into at EHS, he hoped to find a deeper connection with students.

He found that connection as well as a community that he’s come to cherish. He met his wife, Girls’ Athletics Director Jen Seferiadis Fitzpatrick, when she interviewed to join the athletic staff, and together they’re raising four children who seem omnipresent on campus, prompting smiles wherever they go. “The longer you’re here, the more connected you are to this place and these people, and the harder it gets to leave,” he says.

Fitzpatrick started in the Admissions Office, later became boys’ athletics director, and will move back to admissions work next year in addition to helping student-athletes navigate the college recruiting process. His wife, Jen, will step into the new role as athletic director of both boys’ and girls’ sports. From dorm duty to advising to living among students, he aims to connect with students at every possible opportunity. Walking around campus, he reminds himself to “be visible and be positive.”

Fitzpatrick has perhaps the most influence on his basketball players. Entering his 15th year as head of the boys’ program, he is the quintessential coach, relentlessly preaching the benefits of hard work. His Twitter posts highlighting his former players now in college typically conclude with the refrain, “Keep working!”

Fitzpatrick’s team won the state title in 2016, but he tells his teams to find value in the game and the work, regardless of wins or losses. “Whether you win the championship trophy or have a losing season, there has to be success in both,” he says.

The toughest lessons can come from the toughest seasons, he says. The Covid-19 pandemic year, with its canceled interscholastic competition, is no exception. “You have to have resilience,” he says. “You have to be able to face tough situations and moments. And you’ve got to find a way to rise above it and work through it.”

Before dismissing his basketball team following the winter season, Fitzpatrick reflected on the extraordinary year. He reminded them of the power of maintaining a positive attitude as they live through what has been a historic time. “Find the good in it,” he said. “Cherish it. And we’ll have a blast talking about it at your 10-year reunion when I’m still around.”

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KIM OLSEN paves the way for women in science.

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t 30 years old, Dr. Kim Olsen was a tenured professor at Loyola University Maryland, poised to become chair of the chemistry department. Olsen, however, knew the role would leave her less time in the classroom, something that didn’t sit well. She began looking into other options, emailed Episcopal about a job as a chemistry teacher, and quickly received a phone call from a bewildered Jackie Maher, then the assistant head for academics. Maher wanted to know why she would want to leave a tenured position. Olsen’s answer?

The students.

Olsen arrived at Episcopal in 2004, as the Baker Science Center was being planned, and quickly began to inspire students — particularly female students. “I feel very responsible to act as a role model for women in science,” she says. And she’s not alone in her department: Two other female Ph.D.s — Dr. Colleen Krivacek and Dr. Kacey Meaker — teach advanced biology and physics.

Arianna Otoo ’21, a standout science student bound for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, remembers hearing of Olsen for the first time as a ninth grader: “I was awed,” she says. Though interested in STEM, Arianna expected women in the field to be cold and reserved. Olsen, however, “is unapologetically kind, warm, and open,” Arianna says, illustrating the power of being yourself.

Olsen hopes to open all students up to science, especially those who claim they lack an aptitude for the subject. Whether or not they take anything beyond introductory chemistry, she wants to give them tools to move through and understand the world once they graduate. At the end of the year, she hopes to have shown them what it takes to be an informed citizen: “What do they really need to know to be someone who looks at the news and what they’re eating and throwing away and understand how it affects the world around them?”

Olsen keeps in touch with many of her former students and advisees and loves to see them go on to incredible careers, whether in the sciences or not. “Some of my favorite memories were spending afternoons in her classroom preparing for Science Olympiad competitions,” says Bethany Gordon ’12, now a University of Virginia doctoral candidate in civil engineering. “In that space, I learned about how science connects us to the world in countless ways.”

Otoo echoes Gordon: The most important lessons she learned in honors and advanced chemistry with Olsen weren’t always from textbooks or labs: “Being strong means being yourself in spite of adversity, and that science is a place for everyone, regardless of identity or circumstance.”

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BEYOND TEXTBOOKS

NORMAN KIM-SENIOR believes in the power of local community.

L

ast year, before the Covid-19 pandemic, Norman Kim-Senior led his Honors Spanish 3 class on deep excursions into Alexandria and the Washington area. They studied the architecture of homes around Episcopal to consider how people live in different neighborhoods. They met the pastor of a church creating affordable housing. And they explored Chirilagua, a neighborhood that’s home to immigrants from El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Mexico, among other countries.

This year, with Covid-19 limiting off-campus trips, his students studied problems that Covid-19 brought to Alexandria, from the housing crisis to rising unemployment. Kim-Senior encouraged them to envision solutions.

“I want my students to think of themselves as capable of contributing something concrete now,” he says, rather than waiting for college or their careers.

Kim-Senior, who has a background in planning and leading international programs, believes that the grounding of education in one’s local community allows for a much deeper cycle of learning, reflection, and relationship building. International experiences are valuable, but the groups travel as tourists, lingering only briefly. In the Washington area — where nearly one of every four residents was born outside the United States — Episcopal can build connections with Spanish-speaking neighbors that will lead to richer learning. “Instead of waiting for that wonderful trip abroad to Spain or Costa Rica, we have this part of American society that has a significant Spanish-speaking population. As a Spanish teacher, I should be connecting to that community here.”

Kim-Senior aims to illustrate the breadth of the Latino experience in Washington. One planned destination: La Cosecha, a burgeoning high-end Latin American marketplace with merchants selling ethical Guatemalan leather, fine Venezualan chocolates, fresh Salvadoran street food, and more. “I want to layer on experiences,” he says, “because I don’t want them to take ‘Latino’ as synonymous with low income. I hope they see the people we meet as dynamic, sophisticated, complicated people with lives that are similar to our own but different in so many ways. We want to learn about what they are proud of, what they’re celebrating, and what challenges they have.”

Last year, Maya Taybron ’22 took part in several Honors Spanish 3 trips to Chirilagua. At La Feria, a bakery and restaurant owned by a Bolivian woman, patrons at the handful of tabletops were surprised to see the group of teenagers file in, but soon they were helping the students order.

Maya says she might never have discovered Chirilagua on her own. The visits to the neighborhood, she says, offered her a window into new cultures and a better understanding of what it means to be an immigrant.

“These small businesses are making authentic comfort food for people who are miles and miles away from their countries of origin. Good food goes a long way, especially if you’re going through a rough time.”

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MIMI SCHWANDA walks with students in faith.

M

imi Schwanda’s high school years were defined by faith, which led her to start a Christian Fellowship group at Episcopal. “That was just part of my experience as a teenager. That was the time when I started asking questions about my faith, about God. You’re old enough to want to figure things out for yourself and ask some big questions.”

A few years after arriving on The Holy Hill as a math teacher, Schwanda reconnected with her high school Bible study teacher Alison Holby Poole, who was then teaching English at Episcopal. The two started a Christian Fellowship group for girls, with former Head Chaplain Reverend Gideon Pollach leading the boys’ group. Peter Schwanda, Mimi’s husband, eventually took over from Pollach, and the Schwanda apartment officially became home for the group.

Janie Reynolds ’18 walked into her first Christian Fellowship meeting as she was still looking for her place on campus. “I was having a difficult time and hadn’t really found my group yet,” she remembers. She had heard good things about the group and decided to take a chance. According to Reynolds, Schwanda “did such an incredible job balancing the discussions between our school days and what we were worried or excited about,” while always reiterating that “religious life was relevant even when it might not seem like it.”

The approachability and laidback nature of the group immediately put Reynolds at ease: “I never felt quite so at home at EHS than when I was in the Schwandas’ apartment.”

Since the genesis of Christian Fellowship, its major throughline has been acceptance. All are welcome and encouraged to be themselves, no matter their year, their friends, or the strength of their faith. Schwanda hopes that, for the one hour spent together talking about their beliefs, students see her and Peter as fellow Christians rather than their math teacher and her husband. She meets students at their level, reminding them that while she and Peter “have a little bit of wisdom to share because we’re older,” they’re most importantly “Christians in the mix trying to figure out life.”

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BEYOND TEXTBOOKS

HUGH KOEZE helps freshmen settle in — and step out of their comfort zone.

E

very year, English teacher Hugh Koeze (at left in photo) leads a group of ninth graders on a nighttime hike during one of the Outdoor Leadership programs. “Hike” is generous, he jokes — they walk only about a half-mile — but the night always makes it feel more arduous and adventurous. The trail is pitch black, lit only by the narrow beams of their headlamps, and the students walk in silence. Upon reaching the clearing, the group sits quietly, listening to the sounds of the woods and contemplating their place in nature.

After returning to camp, Koeze lights a candle, and they discuss what that moment of reverie in the dark yielded. They open up in ways he didn’t think possible: “It’s so rare for them to be completely out of their normal environment and in this place where they can share and pay attention to their thoughts. It’s just incredible.”

This is how Koeze approaches his teaching. 1 — Nudge students out of their element. 2 — Establish trust. 3 — Listen. For freshmen, he finds that meeting them where they are is often the most effective tactic.

“It’s a fundamental fact of freshman year that anyone can stumble at any point,” he says, regardless of their grade-point average or elementary-school record. Koeze’s job: Help them get back up.

A graduate of St. Paul’s School in New Hampshire, Koeze understands the boarding school experience more than most. He says of the freshman boys on Hummel: “It’s so difficult for them to even understand their feelings, let alone talk about them.” From classroom anxieties to social pressures, they benefit from his shared experiences and his patience as he helps them to work through their problems. One of the younger faculty members on campus, Koeze can easily tap into those old feelings. “I had all the same problems,” he recalls.

Of life on Hummel: “There’s a level of creativity and zaniness that you don’t see anywhere else on campus.” Getting the chance to observe the students (both underclassmen and their upperclassmen prefects and monitors) day in and day out, Koeze has more stories than he could possibly tell of made-up games and unpredictable moments. “You come across nonsense all the time, but it’s really endearing and wonderful,” he laughs. “There is no purer a community than a community of ninth-grade boys.”

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IN HONOR OF

OUR STUDENTS When we asked our community members to join together in support of students on they answered the call with characteristic enthusiasm.

march 1,

1,117

The EHS 24/7 Challenge culminated with donors contributing over that will be invested directly into giving students the best experience possible.

$440,000

As Head of School Charley Stillwell wrote to our students at the culmination of the daylong Challenge:

“ These alumni, parents, and friends of the School believe in your resilience, your determination to overcome all obstacles in your way, and your remarkable support for each other.”

To our donors: Thank you.

You have our utmost gratitude.

Missed the Challenge? There’s still time to give before the fiscal year ends on June 30. Visit EHSRollCall.org to make a contribution online or email us at rollcall@episcopalhighschool.org.

FEATURE

“I Too,

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SING

AMERICA”

During Black History Month, we highlighted teachers across several disciplines helping students explore the Black experience in the United States and abroad, from Langston Hughes’s poetry to the pandemic’s racial disparities.

Episcopal’s course on Harlem Renaissance literature includes explorations of the work and influence of Langston Hughes, a towering figure of the movement. (Source: Library of Congress)

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“I TOO, SING AMERICA”

n C O U R S E : V O I C E S O F T H E H A R L E M R E N A I S S A N C E

THE PRIDE AND INFLUENCE OF BLACK EXPRESSION

E

nglish teacher Louis Smith has been teaching and honing his course on Harlem Renaissance literature since 2016, a growth process that has yielded vital experience he has drawn upon since becoming director of the Office of Community and Equity this year. He strives to present a full picture of the rich history of pivotal cultural movement and the evolution of Black and African American expression.

“The idea of the course is to celebrate, revel in, understand, and steep in this panoply of voices that came out of the movement,” he says.

To contextualize what in the 1920s and 1930s was a revolutionary act of celebrating Black joy, pride, and culture, Smith begins by teaching “Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl,” written by former enslaved woman Harriet Jacobs and published in 1861 by abolitionist and benefactor L. Maria Child.

Smith uses the book, which aimed to spark activism among abolitionists and increase pressure to end slavery, to teach about the shifting voices of Blackness, from enslaved people to ultimate purveyors of culture during the Harlem Renaissance. “Over time, you see Black expression in the United States start changing,” Smith tells his students.

The poetry of Langston Hughes is an anchor for the course, with students studying more than a dozen of his works, including his first published poem, “The Negro Speaks of Rivers,” and his famous depiction of racism in “I, Too.” Smith also introduces his class to Zora Neale Hurston as well as some of the less well-known writers of the time, including Countee Cullen, Alice Dunbar-Nelson, and Angelina Weld Grimké.

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In the Voices of the Harlem Renaissance class, students read works by — and about — the legendary Zora Neale Hurston.

Beyond text analysis, the course also examines the influence of Harlem Renaissance writers on the arts, the Civil Rights movement, and leading public intellectuals such as Henry Louis Gates Jr. Most of the students who sign up for the elective are students of color. “It changes the dynamic of so many conversations about race,” says Smith, as students from all backgrounds grapple with their own identities and step more into themselves. “It’s the highlight of my day,” he concludes.

n C O U R S E : E C O N O M I C S

WHAT “REAL WORLD” DATA TELL US ABOUT RACE

O

n a cold February day, in Townsend Hall’s Sperry Lecture Hall, Mike McGowan showed his macroeconomics class a series of slides, each with a chart or data illustrating an economic indicator — family wealth, unemployment, homeownership — for two countries. The numbers and graphs illustrated a robust, thriving economy in Country A and a much less healthy Country B. McGowan asked his students to guess the two countries represented. Country A was surely the United States, they concluded, while Country B was likely Canada, or maybe China.

None of their answers was right. The figures bundled together as Country A reflected the economic status of white people in the United States. Country B, meanwhile, captured the financial well-being of U.S. Black and African American individuals and families. Several students appeared stunned. “The total unemployment for Black workers is astronomical,” one said.

McGowan has sprinkled such lessons in real-world economics into his classes all year. Prompted by the summer’s racial-justice protests, he has found ways to show how the economy works differently for families across America, and how it doesn’t always benefit people in the same way.

McGowan’s micro- and macroeconomic courses continue as a college-level introduction to the subject and preparation for the AP exam. But this year, his classes have explored economic fundamentals through, among other topics, the deepening racial disparities during the pandemic; pay differences between races and genders; and the preponderance of women and people of color in the service industry. Recently, he’s introduced a unit in which students study Somalia, Botswana, and other developing countries around the globe to see how various economic engines function.

“So much of what we typically do is within the U.S. context,” he says. “One of my big goals is to give them a more global perspective.”

Such new additions to his curriculum stem directly from his reflections on last summer’s protests. Reading economic analysis and listening to podcasts, he found that economists have begun to seriously study gender and race only in the past decade or so. The field itself is hardly diverse; only about 4% of the doctorates awarded in economics go to Black or African American scholars, he discovered.

He chewed over such findings with a former colleague at a London school where he worked previously, and the two of them pledged to try new approaches in their courses. “We decided we had to do something in our classes to respond to the events of the summer,” McGowan says.

Some of his students may not go on to study economics in college, but by broadening his course’s focus, McGowan aims to give them a sense of how the economy can reflect and contribute to society’s injustices. He also hopes that by showing how the study of economics touches on significant issues in society, he can attract more students — and more students of color — who might otherwise see his classes as dry number-crunching. “I hope I can recast the image of economics so that more kids see it as worthwhile and important to how we live,” he says.

This year’s work, he says, is just the beginning. “I feel like I’ve just barely scratched the surface. Let’s see where we are in five years.”

Among the real-world data analyzed in Mike McGowan’s economics classes: the persistent racial disparity in average wealth in the United States. (Source: Urban Institute) EHS

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“I TOO, SING AMERICA”

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n C O U R S E : B I O L O G Y A N D T H E H U M A N P A S T

WHY THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN HUMANS IS ONLY SKIN DEEP

S

everal years ago, history teacher Mike Reynolds and science teacher Ashley Taylor were among faculty exploring interdisciplinary teaching. The two brought together their biology and history classes for a week to explore the science that underlies outward physical differences between humans and how ideas about race were created and evolved in the United States. They later did a presentation together at the School’s annual MLK Day Symposium, which led to their semester-long elective called Biology and the Human Past.

“If you look at genetics, human beings are 99.999% the same,” Reynolds says. “There’s not a lot of scientific difference between human populations.” Yet the color of someone’s skin has been used for hundreds of years to justify slavery, segregation, and other forms of oppression, whether through Spain’s caste system started in the 15th century, slavery and Jim Crow laws in the United States, or apartheid in South Africa. Says Reynolds: “Race is a construct that humans have often used to categorize each other in order to elevate whites and keep people of color subordinated.”

Early in the class, students examine the evidence that skin color is the result of evolution. They learn that the first generations of humans, who lived along the equator,



produced more melanin, the skin’s dark pigment, because it screens the sun’s harmful ultraviolet rays. As humans moved to latitudes with weaker sunlight, their skin grew lighter as it lost melanin to allow the sun’s rays to penetrate and generate needed Vitamin D. (Interestingly, the Inuit have dark skin despite the lack of strong sunlight in Northern Canada and Greenland, where they live; their bodies haven’t had to adjust to a deficiency of Vitamin D, as their diet of fish and marine mammals is rich in the compound.)

During the course, students examine so-called “race science” promoted from the mid-19th century into the 20th century. This included the eugenics movement as well as far-fetched efforts to document physical differences — the size of the brain cavity, for instance — that were said to explain the superiority of whites. “These people were professors at Harvard and some of the most important schools in the country,” Reynolds says. “Mainstream science was basically looking for ways to try to justify these old racial categories that had been around for hundreds of years.”

Amy John-Terry ’21 so enjoyed the course’s interdisciplinary approach that she chose a college for next year where such classes are the norm. “I have always been more of a ‘right brain’ person,” she says. “However, this class showed me that there is no need to differentiate between my analytical and creative side, and I am a more empathetic and stalwart student when I can use both synchronously.”

A key lesson for her: the power of language. “We dove deep into how we must be deliberate in the words we use to describe people to stop perpetuating stereotypes and hate through our speech,” she says.

This painting of Spain’s racially based caste system in the 18th century is part of an EHS class study of how race has been used throughout history to create hierarchies. (Source: Museo Nacional del Virreinato, Tepotzotlán, Mexico)

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“I TOO, SING AMERICA”

n C O U R S E : G E N R E S T U D I E S

CONNECTING ALABAMA TO ANCIENT GREECE

D

uring a unit of her class for sophomores on literary genres, English teacher Millie Smith asks her students to compare the play “Antigone,” by Sophocles, with the novel “Homegoing,” by Yaa Gyasi.

“Antigone,” published around 441 B.C., tells the story of Oedipus’s daughter, who dies fighting for the right to bury her brother, the disgraced Polyneices. “Homegoing,” published in 2016, traces a single family through eight generations, focusing on various individual acts of civil disobedience to fight slavery, much like Antigone’s illegal burial of her brother. Each story explores how characters navigate and battle societal oppression as well as face difficult moments of family life.

Though both texts are centered on generational trauma and feature sisters in leading roles, the authors have little in common. Smith challenges her students to find commonalities between the stories of Sophocles, an ancient Greek, and the Ghana-born, 32-year-old Yaa Gyasi.

Throughout the unit, Millie says the students focus on how “a source of oppression in history isn’t just one moment.” Antigone’s struggles and death are just the latest tragedy in her family’s sorrowful story, while the

main characters in “Homegoing” grapple with 300 years of oppression in their family’s history, beginning with the slave trade.

By creating a throughline from ancient Greece to 18th-century Ghana to modern-day Alabama, the parallel study of these two texts opens students’ eyes and minds to the common humanity we all share, regardless of time or place. Students also discuss the various ways in which societies fall short of ideals that they claim to strive for, leaving the burden of upholding those values (such as democracy, balance, and honor) to individuals.

As “Homegoing” progresses into the modern era and the students can see more of themselves in the characters, “they start to think about how their lives are generationally connected,” Smith says. The class discussion, she adds, focuses on “the way that the present is connected to the past” and how that might show up in their own lives as well, either through their shared traumas or privileges.

Millie Smith’s class studies the parallels between women facing family tragedy and oppression in the ancient Greek classic “Antigone” and Yaa Gyasi’s 2016 debut novel, “Homecoming.”

(Source, Antigone photo: Smithsonian American Art Museum)

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FEATURE

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IN SERVICE TO OTHERS There are no better models for today’s students than our alumni leading lives of service, as they exemplify the values and beliefs behind those words.

We spoke to alumni dedicated to a wide range of causes.

Below you’ll find select passages from their interviews.

Read them in full at episcopalhighschool.org/EHSServes.

BECKY MCDANIEL ’95

School chaplain at St. Catherine’s School in Richmond

F Ministry “is about communities seeking God together within whatever context people find themselves.”

or me, ministry is a service of comfort, healing, and reconciliation. It is about communities seeking God together within whatever context people find themselves, whether in times of joy and celebration or in times of loss and struggle.

As a priest, my role is to accompany the communities I serve through varied life experiences prayerfully, calmly, and lovingly. The role of the priest is to be a non-anxious presence in an ever-changing world.

For most of my life I have felt called to comfort people. My struggles with anxiety as a teenager led me to seek ways to help others who shared those struggles.

I found that contemplative practices, both within and outside of the Church, held great healing power. Before seminary I taught yoga and meditation, worked as a hospice volunteer, and specialized in therapeutic yoga for children with autism and anxiety. It was during this time that I felt God’s call to a ministry of healing and teaching, and because I had taught middle and high school English, school chaplaincy was a natural fit.

In a world that is increasingly becoming more secular and less religious, it is my hope that I will have guided young people into a life of the spirit, in which they find comfort in things unseen and trust that God is with them.

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IN SERVICE TO OTHERS

MATT HURLEY ’08

Retired U.S. Army captain

I

“I quite simply believed that it was my duty … to serve in uniform during a time of war.”

36

chose to serve my country for the same reason that many young men and women seek careers in medicine, law, music, or education: Public service was the family business, and I endeavored to model myself after those who had come before me. I quite simply believed that it was my duty — as an able-bodied, military-aged person graduating from EHS — to serve in uniform during a time of war.

During the town hall meeting at EHS before the 2008 presidential election, I listened intently as Sen. John McCain ’54 proclaimed, “I believe that serving a cause greater than your self-interest is obviously the noblest of all causes, and I think the noblest of all those is military service.” That moment reinforced my decision to embark upon my military career, helped me stay the course during some of the crucibles I endured, and continues to influence my decision-making today.

I have questioned many decisions in my life, but I have neither regretted nor revisited that. I will always cherish the very small role I played in molding a more secure and prosperous America. There are endless ways to serve, and I look forward to identifying new areas in the upcoming chapters of my life. I’ve learned that one need not join the military to become an impactful servant-leader.

I hope to be known as a man who pursued the greatest challenges, put his family first, acted with positive intent, owned his mistakes, cared deeply about people, and gave his very best in service to others.

TONI KAR ASANYI ’00

Communications consultant with the World Bank Group

I

n my mind, being of service means giving more than you receive. It means striving to enrich the lives of those around you. In development finance, we have a very ambitious mandate to channel billions of dollars to empower developing countries and provide them with the expertise needed to realize their goals. However, on a day-to-day basis, I think “being of service” informs how I treat my colleagues, our partners around the world, and our clients.

I’ve always been motivated to help others more than to focus on myself and my own needs. Before working in this industry, I worked in the private sector in Rwanda and the United States. I find myself much more motivated chasing goals beyond my own sales numbers or other performance metrics. Whether I’m talking with entrepreneurs about how we can better support their start-ups or working with diplomats to better prepare for G20 meetings, I wake up every morning excited.

My grandfather was a reverend, and I was involved in the church from an early age. However, it was at Episcopal where I became more actively involved in volunteering opportunities. In my senior year, I joined the Vestry and helped organize efforts to contribute to local soup kitchens and host groups of underprivileged youth on campus. Whether I was already on the path or not, I think Episcopal certainly helped me realize how much I enjoyed helping others.

It’s important to treat everyone you meet with respect, and to try and help others however and whenever you can. One of my favorite quotes is: “People might not remember what you said, but they’ll remember how you made them feel.” I hope that whoever I meet — at church, at work, or at the dentist’s office — walks away with some positive impression of how I made them feel, even if it’s only for a moment.

“Being of service means giving more than you receive. It means striving to enrich the lives of those around you.”

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IN SERVICE TO OTHERS

DR. R AVENEL RICHARDSON ’99

Lecturer at Case Western Reserve University who teaches courses on women’s personal narratives and traumas during wartime and genocide

G “I want to live in a world where every person lives with dignity, respect, and opportunity.”

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rowing up, I watched my parents, grandparents, great grandparents, aunts, and uncles serving their communities in myriad ways, from hands-on work to political representation. My Episcopal faith and the churches I have attended throughout my life have always provided the example of and practical avenues for community service as well.

Being of service means putting others’ needs before my own. I don’t construe that as a sacrifice but rather as a way of being within my family, my city, my country, and the world. I want to live in a world where every person lives with dignity, respect, and opportunity, and my personal and professional service is directed toward that goal.

My main focus over the past two years has been raising national awareness about racial disparities in health care, specifically surrounding mental health and substance-use treatment.

I am an empath, and as someone who remains attuned to the suffering of others, I found myself overwhelmed by the state of the world when I was younger. It wasn’t until I turned that focus outward — getting involved in causes important to me — that I began to feel less overwhelmed and more full of purpose. There is always work to be done, whether it’s on a micro level (like your campus) or a macro one (like your country). And as I have grown older I’ve learned the importance of just digging into something that matters to you. Dig in, and get involved in the ways that you can.

For me, choosing to pursue education was choosing a profession of service. I take educating my students about the Holocaust and current genocides seriously. I teach them how the hateful and xenophobic ideologies that underpin these conflicts are on display in our own country today, and I teach them how to get involved rather than to be overwhelmed.

RODNEY RICE ’79

Founder and chief education officer at ARÊTE Educators

I

don’t consider what I do as “service” in the traditional way of thinking. I look at service as doing what I love to do — teaching and mentoring others and encouraging them to do whatever brings joy and well-being to all people. We all do service when we do what we love and contribute to the world in pure, positive ways.

When I served as the associate rector for outreach and mission at St. James’ Church in Baltimore, I created St. James’ Academy, an afterschool program to support local children whose families were active members of the church, largely as a result of the efforts of one woman fondly known as “Mama Bert.” Our program was staffed by retired teachers, principals, and social workers who worked collaboratively to focus on academic preparation and career development. Not only did we provide clothing, food, and emotional support, but we also provided mentors, academic coaching, and homework assistance for children in this under-resourced community. I will never forget how this program showed me that tapping into others’ interests and skills not only invites more people to commit to a project but also conveys a strong message that everyone has something to give — something that can make a difference to others.

My whole life has been about taking risks to open doors for others. I was one of the first African American students to graduate from EHS. This experience was difficult yet ultimately the beginning of a longstanding relationship with the Episcopal Church. In 2018, I returned to Episcopal and served on the committee that organized the School’s commemoration of 50 years of integration and also created opportunities to discuss the issues facing students of color presently attending Episcopal. I was thrilled to be able to give back to the school in this way.

I have been the first African American priest and teacher in many of the parishes and schools I have served. I had great success in the late ’80s helping the Diocese of Virginia address its history of racism and inequality. Together, with the rector, vestry, and many parishioners, we set up a structure that allowed people to share their opinions but also included them in developing ways that we could all contribute to becoming a more inclusive community. I hope people will think of me as one who brought healing, acceptance, and laughter to others in a way that elicited the best in everyone and every situation.

“We all do service when we do what we love and contribute to the world in pure, positive ways.”

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FEATURE

With little experience in construction, Byron Jones ’14 tackled a major renovation of his childhood home, starting in the kitchen.

40

Byron Jones ’14 was on his way to a big-time career in sports management.

When he renovated his childhood home as a gift for his parents, he discovered a new passion.

“M

om, can I do your kitchen?”

Byron Jones ’14 raised this question to his mother, Hazel Chan, one evening as she was preparing to leave the next morning on a business trip. Byron had just graduated from a master’s program in sports management at Georgetown and, with time on his hands, he had a renovation project in mind. With his uncle, an experienced professional in construction, he had remodeled the family’s basement. Now, he was eyeing a kitchen makeover.

“Can I renovate it?” he persisted.

Byron had returned to his parents and his childhood home a year before, but they were living like the proverbial ships passing in the night. Byron, a graduate assistant with the Georgetown men’s basketball team, frequently jetted off to road games. His mother, meanwhile, worked long days and traveled frequently as a registered nurse for a pharmaceutical company. In this brief moment, busy getting ready for her trip, Hazel said fine. Although her 24-year-old son had little construction experience,

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MR. FIXER UPPER

A standout basketball player at Episcopal, Byron was beginning a career in sports management before he got the construction bug and started his own company.

he had done a solid job transforming their basement into a handsome apartment for himself, and he always finished what he started. Plus, Hazel had some money saved, so why not?

Hazel left for her trip at 5 o’clock the next morning, and when she returned home late that night, she gaped at what she saw. Outside her red-brick Colonial were stacked the remains of her cabinets. Inside, her kitchen was gone.

“There were big question marks when we came in and saw the kitchen demolished,” remembers Byron’s dad, Ron, a semi-retired IT consultant. “We were wondering, ‘Where do we go from here? Are we at the right house?’”

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“ There were big question marks when we came in and saw the kitchen demolished.”

“Byron,” Hazel howled, “we talked about this yesterday.

I said ‘yes’ yesterday. I had no idea you were serious.”

Byron is always serious. He is also jovial and fun-loving, but when it comes to achieving what he sets out to do, he is focused and fast. He completed his two-year graduate program, for instance, in just 12 months while also working as a graduate assistant for the basketball team.

“My whole life up until that point had been about sports,” says Byron, who played basketball at Episcopal and explored sports medicine as an undergrad at the University of Maryland, where he majored in kinesiology.

When he graduated from Georgetown, he never intended to change course. “I think that I could have gone right into a job,” Byron says, “whether it was in sports, basketball … I had a great opportunity with the Redskins.”

There was just one thing he needed to do first.

that business became too all-consuming for a mother of two young children, she went back to school to get her nursing degree; she was then in her 50s. And when an injury slowed her down as a nurse, she matched her nursing salary selling books on Amazon.

“I relate to and love her hustle,” says Byron. “She’s always grinding.”

Until recently, the Jones home reflected Hazel’s grind and her eclecticism. She was a busy working mom most of her kids’ lives, and her home was a repository for all the treasures she had not yet sold. “She looked at all the stuff and saw dollar signs,” Byron says. “She developed an attachment to it.” Freeing her from that attachment, Byron felt, would be a gift worthy of the parents who had given him so much.

Byron says, “I had an opportunity to change my parents’ lives.”

When Byron started graduate school, he had only the most basic carpentry and plumbing skills. But he enlisted the help of his uncle in tricking out his parents’ basement so that he could live there and avoid Georgetown’s sky-high rents.

Byron’s uncle had decades of commercial and residential construction experience, specializing in framing, electrical work, and everything in between. “I had so many questions,” Byron says. “I wanted to learn everything. My homework went from, ‘Make sure this place is clean when I get back so I can get right to work,’ to ‘Finish hanging the drywall.’” He picked up every new skill quickly and easily.

“I always tell him, ‘Your ability to do so much is very dangerous.’” Hazel says. “It is wonderful and powerful and dangerous. Very few people become very successful being a Jack-of-all-trades.”

Hazel herself is an I-can-do-anything superwoman entrepreneur. She and Ron built a multimillion-dollar software and database company from the ground up. She also scoured flea markets and trade shows for things to sell at the discount and thrift store she opened and owned. When

“Every day was a new surprise,” Hazel says.

After recovering from the initial shock of seeing her kitchen disappear, Hazel watched in awe as Byron’s renovation project grew. What was once a kitchen makeover soon extended to the dining room, living room, office, and bathroom. No corner of the main floor went untouched.

In the living room, floor-to-ceiling built-in shelves with soft undermount lighting display the family’s most precious memorabilia. In the dining room, white wainscoting and crown molding dress up the stately navy blue walls.

But the kitchen outshines all of this. Awash in bright light and gleaming stainless steel, it looks Food Networkready, with slick white marble countertops, a touch-activated faucet, and an oversized industrial gas range built into the kitchen island. Pinpricked pendant lights over the bar cast stars in all directions, and Alexa illuminates them on command.

“I just stood here,” Hazel says in a video about the renovation produced by Madison Hughes ’15, “for almost an hour just crying and just excited.”

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MR. FIXER UPPER

“I had an opportunity to change my parents’ lives,” Byron says of the renovation.

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When the pandemic hit, the beautifully renovated home became the family’s world.

That was January 2020. Within a few weeks, when the pandemic locked down much of the planet, the home Byron had beautifully renovated would become his family’s world.

“Thank God that renovation was finished,” Byron says.

“The space is so much more comfortable.”

Spending more time at home with his family gave Byron a chance to slow down for perhaps the first time in his life, with profound results. Byron now is pursuing a career in construction and real estate. He has become a licensed home-improvement contractor and started his own business, Nuwave Construction. He’s already done work for more than 50 clients. In addition to residential renovations, he is doing commercial build-outs, and he recently secured his first government contract.

“If you had asked me a few years ago,” he says, “I would have said, ‘No chance.’ Sports was my life. I was going to work my way up.”

Today, Byron is more focused on a word that he learned to revere at Episcopal: balance. Balance is about stasis and movement — finding the still point in the center of the tension pulling us in all directions. He wants to help others create spaces where they can feel centered, and, at least for now, he wants to create a life for himself that is more balanced than that of a sports executive, with time for friends and family.

“I believe he will always maintain that balance,” Hazel says. “He has a personality, I think, that makes him put people first.”

The family’s new living room features floor-toceiling built-in shelves with soft undermount lighting to display family memorabilia.

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FEATURE

PRESS BOX PUNCHLINES How an alumnus took over duties as Hummel Bowl public address announcer and turned football games into a comedy showcase.

BY ROB W H I T T L E ’ 69 P’ 97 ’ 99

T

his story will be about sports. No, it won’t resemble the work of sportswriting greats like Tom Boswell, Michael Wilbon, or Tony Kornheiser. Well, maybe it will remind you a little of the wiseguy Kornheiser..

Did you ever have the opportunity to wake up in the morning and be able to do something so different from your everyday life that you say to yourself, “I can’t believe I’m actually doing this!”? Such was the case with me for a few football seasons starting in 2006 when I became the “mouth of the Maroon.” The Episcopal High School football team had never had a public-address announcer until my predecessor, who called only a few games. A hidebound, traditional program, the team was all old-school, all the time. I visited him in the booth one game and thought to myself, “Hey, I could do this.” So, at the start of the next season, I did.

I decided at the outset that I would try to bring some color to the job. I added music, beginning each game with

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the theme from Monday Night Football, and playing some rock ’n’ roll at halftime. What got me in hot water, though, were mostly extemporaneous proclamations. I called them “head-snappers,” as in when I made a comment, the coach’s head would snap around to glare at me. This, alas, became a theme throughout my P.A. career at EHS. Every game announcer needs a spotter, someone with the binocs who tells you who made the tackle and how many yards were gained. For this vital job, I tapped Page Smith ’69, one of my oldest friends. Bad choice. The uber-laconic Page is the last person you’d want in the position of urgently transferring information. After many a play, I was left hanging without being able to announce the specifics. After almost every game, I would bark, “Page, you’re fired,” which he would answer with a sly smile.

I set the tone during our first game, against Bishop Ireton. The September weather was hot and humid and the players were dropping with leg cramps like flies. At the end

Rob Whittle ’69 handled duties as public address announcer for four years beginning in 2006.

of the half, I announced, “The first half has been brought to you by Gatorade and Alexandria Hospital’s emergency room.” A head-snapper if there ever was one.

One of the most fun themes I had was using players’ names to make little statements. For example, when defensive back Johnny Bond ’12 made a play, I would invariably bark in my best Sean Connery imitation, “Tackle by Bond. Johnny Bond.” Then there was Buck Armstrong ’12, whose name sounded like a cowboy’s. “Catch made by Buck Armstrong out of Austin, Texas!”

Being the P.A. guy was a bully pulpit. I’d spot old friends in the crowd and say random things about them: “Episcopal High School would like to extend a special welcome to the Ravenels, former Parents of the Year.” Or “Episcopal High School welcomes Sweet Swingin’ Charlie McLendon.”

Charlie was anything but a sweet swinger of the golf club.

I just thought it was a cool nickname.

My biggest head-snapper was in a game against Collegiate, which featured Russell Wilson, future NFL superstar. EHS receiver Danny Coale ’07, who himself went

on to the NFL, was having a big day. After his sixth catch for a long touchdown, I yelled, “Put that boy on restriction.

He’s smokin’!”

That one precipitated an emergency meeting with the coach later that week. A Collegiate mom who was a friend didn’t speak to me for years, smarting from the loss and what she thought was my grandstanding. We can now laugh about it. Sort of.

To this day, people think I got fired. Not so. I decided to retire when the coach moved on to another job so as not to be a distraction to the incoming regime. It had nothing to do with hitting the wrong button on my iPhone in an attempt to play the National Anthem and instead playing “Hurts So Good” by John Mellencamp.

Rob Whittle is CEO of Williams Whittle Advertising and the author of two historical novels, “Pointer’s War” and “Pointer and the Russian.” This article previously appeared in the Alexandria Times.

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FROM THE ARCHIVES

A $1,782 FIELD TRIP In 1888, Principal Launcelot Minor Blackford went to great lengths to show students the home of the first president.

A

ny given year, Episcopal students make roughly 100 trips throughout the Washington, D.C., area to museums and historical sites as well as to meet with scholars, experts, and professionals in politics, business, government, and nonprofit work. Such learning ventures have a long history at the School, dating back at least to all-day expeditions led by Launcelot Minor Blackford during his tenure as principal from 1870 to 1913.

In 1885, Blackford put together a School excursion to Mount Vernon, the historic home of George and Martha Washington. He left a rather dour summary of the trip in his diary — “A wearisome day …

Extravagance” — but three years later, on June 5, 1888, he was preparing for another trek to the Founding Father’s estate. This journey didn’t promise to be any easier; the group of 61 would leave shortly before 10 a.m. and return around 6:15 p.m. Transporting everyone the roughly 10 miles south — a 25-minute car ride today — would require one omnibus, five hacks, three “daytons” (likely horse-drawn buggies or carriages), and two buggies, at a cost of approximately $1,782 in today’s dollars.

Still, Blackford must have deemed a visit to the home of the first president worth the enormous effort.

Interest in Mount Vernon in the late 1880s may have

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been stimulated by centennials of key moments in George Washington’s life, such as his unanimous election to serve as the first president of the United States in 1789. By this time, Mount Vernon held a long tradition of welcoming visitors; in 1794, Washington wrote, “I have no objection to any sober or orderly person’s gratifying their curiosity in viewing the buildings, Gardens, &ca. about Mount Vernon.”

Blackford did not offer details in his diary of what he and his charges saw in 1888. But Mount Vernon records include the observations from another visitor to the estate about that time, and she wrote of hearing “stories and traditions of Washington not seen in the histories.” Among the highlights for her: Washington’s correspondence with his wife, his officers, and others; the general’s collection of swords as well as his instruments as surveyor; and Washington’s tomb.

“As I took a parting view of the Potomac,” she wrote, “stretching away to the south and the east, the long reach of the Maryland shore, and at the dignified old mansion, that was certainly a fitting place for the home of such a man.”

Blackford’s diary entry after this trip seemed to suggest the experience was far better than the earlier “wearisome” outing. “The day was very successful. …

The boys behaved unexceptionably and were happy.”

EHS students on the go, circa 1900.

The Mount Vernon visitors register from June 5, 1888, including names of the guests from Episcopal.

(Courtesy Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association)

Mount Vernon, circa 1890. (Courtesy Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association)

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Class Notes

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Harvey Lindsay (H) 757-423-1877 (O) 757-640-8202 harveylindsay@harveylindsay.com

Harvey L. Lindsay Jr. writes, “I’m doing fair these days. My eyesight is failing due to macular degeneration, but I’m hanging in there.

Other than that, I just have the normal aches and pains a 91-year-old should expect. As I mentioned earlier, I lost my wife a couple years ago, and I still find it hard to make it without her. Frances held everything together and did such a good job taking care of me.

My daughters have stepped in and are doing a great job keeping up with me. I love them beyond measure and don’t know what I’d do without them. I give them a hard time, but they don’t let that keep them from making sure I have everything I need.

“I still try to come in to the office a few times a week, but it is getting more and more difficult. I plan on continuing to be as active as I can in the company, but it is apparent that my son, son-in-laws, and grandsons are making sure things are running smoothly. I take great comfort in knowing that the company will continue to thrive under their leadership.

I am so fortunate to have such a wonderful family.”

A. Hugo Blankingship Jr. says all is well with him. He had knee-replacement surgery that went very well. He is staying close to home because of the virus. He writes, “During this downtime I am doing some writing and enjoying my grandchildren, all grown. We live close to Washington and follow the news with sadness. Sally and I went back to Cuba about 10 years ago and found little change in many areas except for widespread hunger.”

George C. Francisco III writes, “Made it to 91!”

’48

Hugh Richardson 3750 Peachtree Road, NE, #581 Atlanta, GA 30319 (H) 678-686-4581

As rats, we had to memorize football cheers, one of which phonetically started like this: “Hike-a, Hike-a Virgini-ah, Episcopal High School, Rah, Rah, Rah.” News from campus: Some 300 students were back on campus in mid-January for second semester, 50

There are several ways to submit Class Notes: 1. Submit news online through the alumni portal at www.episcopalhighschool.org; 1 2. Contact your Class Correspondent by phone, mail, or email; or 2 3. W rite your news in the space provided on the Roll Call reply card and mail it with 3 your annual gift.

with another 40 or so expected by the end of March. Buffet meals are served in the main dining room and Flippin Field House, and athletics teams are out practicing every day.

There should be a sign in front of the 1200 North Quaker Lane gate saying “Heroes Live and Work Here.”

When we were on the Hallowed Hill, Big Man on Campus meant mostly sports stars, team captains, and senior monitors. Norris Broyles was the best long snapper in football and a senior monitor. See the photo of Norris and his wife, Shirley, in their new elite senior living quarters, Atlanta’s Peachtree Hills Place.

Bob Richardson (no relation, regrettably) was a Busy Man on Campus. The New Rochelle, N.Y., native was an early riser and opened Egypt in the basement of Stewart Gym for his first cigarette of the day. There he separated his stack of Washington Post newspapers that he delivered to subscribers.

They could read sports editor Shirley Povich’s “This Morning” column in Miss Coates’s dining room during breakfast if the paper was folded in quarterly sections.

Episcopal had no public information officer then, and Bob would send EHS news to the dailies. He was the Phil Rizzuto (New York Yankees shortstop) for Coach Bill Ravenel’s varsity baseballers. Bob was no grind but always made the High List and easily was admitted to Yale with Dave Worthy, Holl Wilmer, Austin Sayre, Harlan Stone, Jim Small, and Lockwood Rianhard — a group that was the largest number admitted to an Ivy League school from our class. To get into one of these schools, you had to take College Board exams, which were the downfall for some of us. Bob breezed through Yale and became a top official with Allied Chemical. He married Luella Crocker, also a New Rochelle resident. They became parents of son Lee Richardson, age 68, who lives in New York state; daughter Linda Salatino, 67, a resident of Philadelphia; and son Jim Richardson, 64, who’s in Detroit. Bob’s health

Norris Broyles ’48 and his wife, Shirley, at their new home in Atlanta’s Peachtree Hills Place.

is reasonably good, and he lives in his Somers, N.Y., home, doing some reading and gardening. Luella has died, but Bob has a 2-yearold great-granddaughter, Willa Law, and a great-grandchild due in March 2021.

In our time, Mondays were often spent in Washington seeing a movie at the Loews Capitol Theater, regardless of what was showing. What counted was the stage show, when the big bands of Stan Kenton, Claude Thornhill, and Les Brown were featured along with vocalists June Christy, Fran Warren, and Doris Day.

’49 ’50

Herbert Donovan (H) 303-645-6561 hdonovan152@gmail.com

Class Correspondents Needed

If you would like to share an update or volunteer to be the class correspondent,

SUBMIT YOUR CLASS NOTES ONLINE! Just go to the homepage and click on “Alumni” and then “Submit A Class Note.” For help with passwords or login, please contact the Advancement Office.

John Walker ’79, Julie Walker, Strib Walker, Mary Louise Burress, John Burress ’54, Ina Dixon ’06, Ed Walker ’85, Finn Walker ’21, and Jackson Walker in Roanoke, Va.

’52

Harte Crow (H) 603-643-5007 hcahcrow@gmail.com

Frank Conner writes, “Mimi and I are being very careful to not get Covid-19. We are scheduled to get our first vaccine shot at Charlotte Motor Speedway tomorrow and go back on Feb. 12 for the second. Hopefully after that, this will implode. Other than the Covid scare, we are OK.” Tise Eyler writes, “We sold our Jekyll Island, Ga., home after 37 years and moved to Peachtree City, Ga. No more hurricanes or tornadoes!”

John Woodfin Burress III ’54 talks with grandson John Woodfin Burress Walker ’21 about the beauty of the Roanoke Valley.

please contact Elizabeth Henderson ’11 at eah@episcopalhighschool.org or 703-933-4125.

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Dick Rutledge (H) 914-937-5765 dickrutledge@earthlink.net Lee Marston (H) 410-647-7493

Bill Calvert reports, “I stay busy with Zoom meetings and participating in our church’s virtual choir.”

’53

Ed Mullins (H) 803-782-3027 ewmullinsjr@gmail.com

Jonathan Bryan reports, “Judy and I are really glad to be in the Goodwin House, a fine continuing care retirement community.

It’s like living in a well-run village, with so many new friends, good conversations. Sorry to have family contacts reduced to Zoom, but actually that means we get more ‘face-to-face’ (of a sort) than before. As I reflect on my 86 years, I increasingly appreciate The High School that we knew. Truly formative in ways we couldn’t know at the time.”

Drummond Ayres reports, “After decades of living on and off the road for the New York Times, wife Clare and I embrace the quiet and warm friendliness of Accomac, Va. ... but enough of this Covid-19! We haven’t set foot in NYC for going on eight months now, and who knows what we’ll find when we finally do (and open the door to a tiny one-bed condo

we’ve kept up there.) Meanwhile, we’re getting our Covid-19 shots, wearing our masks, and living the six-feet-away life. Stay safe. Very best to you and yours. Go High School” Sam Holt reports that all is well with him and wonders if it really is 67 years since we were coming back for our last winter on The Holy Hill (or “Hilly Hole,” as Speed Hill called it).

Ed Mullins reports that he is enjoying retirement and especially doing things for and with his four granddaughters. His old firm, Nelson Mullins Riley Scarborough, now has over 800 lawyers; he was the fifth lawyer when he joined the firm in 1959. He sees a lot of Nelson Weston ’54 and occasionally Austin Moore, who lives outside Columbia, S.C., at Lake Murray.

Greig Cummings writes, “I am proud to have two of my grandchildren, Will ’16 and Ellie ’19, graduate from EHS. To witness Ellie receive her diploma gave me a great sense of pride and appreciation. EHS, you have taught us well.”

’54

Charlie Covell (H) 352-336-0127 (O) 352-273-2023 covell@louisville.edu

Charlie has not been able to ask for news this time because of a communication issue but wishes his classmates good health and happiness this year

’55

Sandy Wise (H) 614-766-1511 (O) 614-447-0281 hawppmd@gmail.com

Malcolm Matheson writes, “My first great-grandchild, a girl named Marigold, was born April 1, 2020, and a second ‘great’ is due in December 2020!”

’56

Fielder Israel (H) 540-504-7862 fielder.israel@gmail.com

Nelson Durden tells me that he has two EHS granddaughters, Jane Randolph Durden ’20 and Suzanne Page Durden ’22. Nelson also tells me that he and his wife, Mary, enjoy their retirement community, which keeps them safe and healthy though locked down for 14 months.

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CL ASS NOTES

In a second phone conversation, Bing Sherrill told me he is still keeping busy overseeing several real estate properties. He and his family continue to be well. Living in Buffalo, N.Y., he was excited about the NFL Buffalo Bills.

Fielder Israel, your class correspondent, writes that last month he successfully passed his one-year examination (praise God) following the transplant of his aortic valve (TAVR procedure)!

I look forward to seeing you all when we can be together. Lord, keep us all safe and healthy going forward.

Blessings, Fielder Israel

’57

Louie Gump (W) 423-282-3933 lhg703@yahoo.com

Henry Blake writes, “My primary physician suggested that I go to my place in Montana in August to avoid the pandemic in Louisiana due to Mardi Gras attendees spreading it all over. I got a mild case of the virus just before Thanksgiving, but I got over it quickly and am enjoying the mountains, snow, valley, etc., here. My children and grandchildren visit, which is great. My youngest granddaughter is in nursing school at the University of Michigan, and my second-oldest grandson is training as a Navy fighter pilot. As he says, on his way to be an astronaut.”

Robbie Harrison writes, “I have been waiting out the Covid-19 issue in the S.C. low country with my cows, hiking a bit in the N.C. mountains during the summer and early fall of 2020, and then heading back to Savannah and low country in November. As reported a couple of years ago, I got remarried to a great gal from Highlands, N.C., and Coral Gables, Fla. How she puts up with me is a miracle: Our political beliefs are diametrically opposed, but we manage and so far, so good. I see Pearce Connerat, Jack Jones ’54, and Nelson Weston ’54 on occasion. They all seem well.”

Dillon Wooten writes, “I am still working, business good; play golf Wednesday and Saturday, weather permitting. Four grandboys all doing well, one at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and two entering college next year. My wife and I have not traveled due to Covid-19 but do enjoy brief visits to Morehead City, N.C. Watch UNC basketball on TV since not allowed to go in person.”

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Floyd Lankford writes, “Don’t know what y’all are doing with Covid-19, but I find walking a half-mile to a mile most days fun, rewarding, and a real boon to sleeping at night. Never have been a ‘cocktail man.’ Not old enough — have not been able to pass the ‘visibly old enough’ test. To all — a healthy and pleasant 2021!”

’58

Surry Roberts surryroberts@adventure777.com (H) 919-828-2245

Tommy Boyd and Judy relay that 2020 became a virtual experience, including civic meetings, church, Osher Lifelong Learning Institute, and even family gatherings for Easter, July 4th, Thanksgiving, and Christmas.

With two weeks on a gallon of gas, they go to the fitness center, grocery store, and a night or two out for dinner. They even pass Ricky Pietsch and Landon Hilliard. Virtual University of Virginia football and basketball remain tops! They send their love to family and friends and await travel!

Rick Pietsch and his wife, Dee, headed down to Naples, Fla., to celebrate the coronavirus, where there was true difficulty getting the Moderna shots. On Rick’s first attempt, there were 64,000 callers in the first hour, but persistence paid off with success. He wrote that he was troubled that others deserved the shots before him but figured that a celebratory cocktail would soothe his concern. Oops, cocktail time!

Richard Somerville relates that he “lectured on meteorology and oceanography” on the Crystal cruise ship Serenity floating down the Mekong River through Cambodia and Vietnam just before Covid-19 struck. Two further trips were cancelled. His first lecture trip was on the Crystal Serenity from Australia to South Africa and Polynesia, and this remains a special treat. Richard was one of the last day students at EHS. He and his wife, Sylvia, who is from the Netherlands and whom he met at New York University grad school in 1964 (meteorology/oceanography), migrated to the University of California, San Diego in 1979. Now they split time between their homes in Southern California and the South of France.

They really do miss their ocean cruises!

Moncure Crowder and wife Sandy remain in good health and active. Much to his chagrin, the 2020 Peachtree Road Race on July 4 was cancelled, and he missed his

41st year in that event. After five years of diligence, Moncure led the effort placing the First Presbyterian Church of Atlanta (founded in 1848) on the National Register of Historic Places. The very fine Gothic Revival architecture and Tiffany stained-glass windows are superb. His great-grandson, Copeland Baxter of Charlotte is also left-handed, surely a sign of superior intelligence.

Rob deGavre writes, “My memories of EHS often return. Some of these suffused with the school’s music. My favorite hymn has always been ‘On Our Way Rejoicing,’ its inspiring words reverberating with our booming voices as we sung it before each school break. Many decades ago, the beautiful hymn was excised from the Episcopal Hymnal, and I am left to wonder what modern sensibilities this song injured. Another song — I well remember its words — was “Gaudeamus Igitur,” sung in Latin at each graduation.

When our local classical music station plays Brahms’s ‘Academic Festival Overture,’ I always await the triumphant finale to sing along with the Latin words of ‘Gaudeamus.’

It had its origins around 1300 as a student drinking song celebrating life and recognizing mortality.

Harry Benham spent three months in Vero Beach, Fla., in 2020. He was pleased to see that Bruce Rinehart ’56 spends time in that area and accepts the challenge to read once again “Surry of Eagles Nest” (my namesake) in the future.

Bill Moffett enjoys three-mile walks and kayaking in the summer on Delaware Bay. Vietnam still has a hold on him. He is writing his recollections of his time near Dalat in II Corps from 1967-69. He still wears his “Yard” bracelet (see photograph) given to him by local Vietnamese. Bill, who has had multiple photographs accepted in local art shows, is still improving his technique with cameras.

Bill also passes along the sad news that Charlie Hooff passed on Feb. 2. In recent years, I really enjoyed 30-minute talks with Charlie twice a year; he was a truly accomplished and diversified personality. (See In Memoriam, page 89.)

Sandy Sierck relates with enthusiasm that two of his grandchildren are truly accomplished musicians, principal honors in their respective disciplines, including one who is principal cello in the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra. Sandy and his wife have traveled extensively in Europe and the United States,

SUBMIT YOUR CLASS NOTES ONLINE! Just go to the homepage and click on “Alumni” and then “Submit A Class Note.” For help with passwords or login, please contact the Advancement Office.

supporting them from their earliest years.

One of his grandchildren majored in history, most pleasing to Sandy. He remains active, to say the least!

Hayne Hipp died Aug. 27, 2020, and will be remembered tremendously by those in the Class of 1958 who attended the gathering at Pawleys Island, S.C., in January 2016, which he and Anna Kate hosted. It was a delightful experience in keeping with their high standards. His accomplishments are legend, and the Liberty Fellowships stand very tall. I need not add further.

’59

Page Dame wpdame3@gmail.com (H) 941-706-3474

Life continues to be just as crazy as it was last fall. We cannot visit places much beyond our radius of comfort, cannot really travel, and try to look debonair in our masks (I have an EHS one — very stylish). I know we are all tracking for the vaccine. Jeb Eddy and Rick Merrill have been successful, on opposite coasts, while here in Florida the process is very slow. Beverly and I are on the approved list and have been told to stand by for notice of our appointment date, but so far, no luck.

Charlie Hooff ’58 succumbed to Covid-19 on February 1 and is the first person I know personally that has fallen victim to this horrible virus. (See In Memoriam, page 89.) He and I entered EHS together in the fall of 1954 and remained good friends through the years.

We had a great, long telephone conversation not long before he was struck down.

Sandy Hale writes that life on the Monterey Peninsula in California is most agreeable, and he is building expanded wine storage using Lincoln Logs. Now, that is creativity. I am not ashamed to say that a lot of the wine we drink comes out of a box. Lo, how far some of us have fallen.

Howard Holden, from Staunton, Va., told me something I did not know — that he is a serious collector of Lionel model trains and has received notice for this in national publications. I am glad to say that he, too, has received the vaccine.

After retiring at age 52, Jack Cann applied and was accepted to the war studies doctoral program at King’s College in London for his proposal to recreate the missing history of Portugal’s use of military power to preserve its African empire. He had flown

in and out of Portugal during his long career as a naval aviator and was interested in what happened to its overseas colonies when the Portuguese departed and they were, in effect, turned loose. His work resulted in his receiving a knighthood from the government of Portugal, and he is enjoying life in Charlottesville. He is also among a growing number of our classmates who have received the vaccine.

Bill Flippin, ever the star athlete, reports that his serious attention to golf was rewarded with a hole-in-one last year. Can anyone else out there make the same claim? I refrained from asking him if there were witnesses.

Fred Dashiell has written as follows from Los Angeles: “What comes to mind these days is mostly a sense of gratitude. As I experienced my first Covid vaccination last week, I stood in line for a few minutes, arrived at the table, received the jab, then sat quietly while I observed others being serviced. This reminded me of the communion we witnessed every Sunday as students. Just being quiet for those 15 minutes was an opportunity to acknowledge how fortunate I am, and to respect the people who help keep me going.

“I have had my share of repairs to various body parts, but right now I am active and healthy, and can move around freely. In L.A. the weather permits me to get outdoor exercise almost every day. I either ride my bike for 10-15 miles or paddle my outrigger canoe for one or two hours at Marina del Rey. This is Covid-safe. Still practicing to develop sufficient competence to go in the open ocean.

Some days it’s a vigorous four-mile walk, sometimes with Paula and our 2-year-old grandson or in Joshua Tree with our 4-yearold grandson.

“I write mathematics daily. Occasionally something gets published. I have weekly webinars with colleagues in various universities. Covid has popularized Zoom meetings, which brings us together with people all over the world, whom we would not have seen pre-Covid. Fortunately, I don’t have to teach classes like many of them do. Education at all levels is suffering.”

I cannot imagine “writing mathematics daily.” It was the reason it took me five years to graduate, and I still do not understand plane geometry. Pat Callaway flunked me twice, and I dedicated the 1959 Whispers to him when I was the editor.

Sandy Hutchison has chimed in from his exotic location in Colombia and Charley Matheson from his life as an architect of distinction and country squire in Markham, Va., near Middleburg. Charley passed along the news about Charlie Hooff, for which I am grateful. Johnny B. Thompson continues in Baltimore and is doing good work as director of the Seamen’s Church Institute.

Hugh Trout wrote a wonderful account of his long career in medicine and as an acclaimed surgeon. He was a star.

Beverly and I are still leading a quiet life in Sarasota, Fla., thankful for the climate and being situated in a beautiful community, on a small lake, about five or six miles inland from the Gulf of Mexico. She is out and about more than I am and has become very involved in volunteer work with the Selby Botanical Gardens. I am happy to report that my COPD (reason for relocating here in the first place) has become so much better down here and I have not used an inhaler in over two years. At the moment, we are in the throes of moving next door (literally), as our offer to buy the condo in which we are still living blew up and we walked away from what turned out to be a shady deal. Live and learn. Alas.

’60

Bill Drennen (H) 304-876-1236 (C) 304-283-5011 wmdrennen1@me.com

’61

Elliott Randolph (H) 410-377-6912 Elliott.randolph@comcast.net Lanier Woodrum (H) 540-774-2798 Lbwoodrum@cox.net

’62

Al Berkeley (H) 410-243-7859 alfredberkeley@gmail.com

Wick Stuart writes, “Rose and I live on Lake Murray outside Columbia, S.C. After four years with the South Carolina attorney general’s office and 38 years in private practice, I now enjoy working as advice counsel for the South Carolina Department of Labor, Licensing, and Regulation and like having my nights and weekends back. Daughter Lollie EHS

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Becton, her husband Lou, and four grandkids (James, University of South CarolinaAiken; Sullins, Auburn University; Bennett, Aquinas High School; Marion, EDS) are in Augusta, Ga. Daughter Sarah Carney and her husband, Bruce, live in downtown Richmond with granddaughter Katie in graduate school at the University of Pittsburgh.

I carve decorative decoys (folk art) in my spare time.”

Frank Martin writes, “I miss being with friends, but overall I feel almost guilty about how well my wife and I have fared during the pandemic. I’m playing golf four times a week. Retired, I miss no income; in fact, my portfolio of stocks and bonds has performed more than satisfactorily.

I keep my hand in the development business, in which I was engaged for 40 years, by working a few hours a week as a commercial real estate broker. I love a K-12 charter school that I helped found 20 years ago, and I participate regularly in Zoom meetings with students and with the board. In sum, life is good!”

Randy Williams writes, “I am fine wintering in Philadelphia. What we look forward to is summering on Martha’s Vineyard — approaching 45 years now. Professor Deeble had a place there, though we never did cross paths. If any alumni from the Classes 196162 also are on the island, I would enjoy making contact. I know most from EHS opt for southern destinations.”

Rob Wright noticed my new address and nailed his analysis: “Al, I assume your new address is the ‘retirement’ home. Did they give you a free walker?” I have indeed moved to a retirement community and am glad to be there. Still active in various businesses in which I invested years ago. Got interested in problems of sterilization of drug-resistant pathogens while on the Johns Hopkins board and have been helping a private company called Noxilizer to bring nitrogen dioxide as a sterilant to market. We can replace ethylene oxide, which causes cancer. Having fun with this. Just went on the Maryland Public Television Foundation board and am learning a lot from that. What a privilege to be alive amid all the scientific breakthroughs. The Covid-19 vaccinations really drive the power of science home. Muriel and I have had our first (Pfizer) shot. Glad to get it.”

One of my real joys is keeping up with George Morison. We had a socially distanced 54

outdoor lunch a couple of months ago at his home, “Stoke,” in Northern Virginia. George is president of Patient First, a chain of more than 75 ambulatory care centers. I heard that Patient First had seen more than 2.5 million patients in 2020 before our lunch in November.

Van McNair writes, “Okay, so I’m supposed to figure out how to write something meaningful about my recent adventures when all I’ve done is spend the past 12 months isolated in our condo. So, what was 2020 like for me and Gretchen? The first notable event was when the NCAA canceled the basketball season and March Madness and I realized, Uh oh, this virus thing is getting serious. Then our wine cruise down the Rhône river in France to celebrate our 50th wedding anniversary was canceled 10 days before we were set to leave.

“That sort of set the tone for the next 12 months, and it was pretty much downhill from there. Every time I thought things couldn’t get any worse, our politicians and a depressing number of fellow Americans would prove me wrong. I swear, a wormhole has opened up somewhere and dumped a whole different breed of humanity in our midst. If these last few months have taught us anything, it’s that stupidity travels faster than any virus on the planet! The highlight of the year was when I was able to score a 12-pack of toilet paper (one ply) in May, which was immediately confiscated by my daughter Gray McNair King ’96 for her family. Seems the boys use half a roll per bathroom visit.

“I was able to preserve my sanity (mostly) by escaping, whenever possible, to our small farm in Southern Maryland, where I always have numerous projects, mostly involving working with chainsaws and other loud, smoke-belching, masculine equipment.

Without that I would have probably jumped off the balcony of our condo, and I’m pretty sure Gretchen would have helped me over the railing.

“Luckily, our health remains good, the effects of advancing years notwithstanding.

I fondly remember a time when I could get out of bed without sound effects. Keeping in shape and the weight off has been a real challenge with the building’s gym closed and my regular indoor tennis games canceled.

That, coupled with the tendency to eat and drink more out of sheer boredom, makes staying fit a lost cause. I have a difficult time

working up any enthusiasm or motivation to exercise, preferring to sit around watching TV and working crossword puzzles. Sometimes it takes me all day to get nothing done.

“Gretchen and I got our first virus shot a few days ago and are both optimistic that this may portend the beginning of the end. If not, I probably will go off the balcony. Until that time, I hope everyone stays well and safe.”

Neil McBride kindly acknowledged my request for contributions by sending a check!

I’ll pry more out of him next time!

Jim Bruton writes, “Two years ago, I moved to a military retirement community in a quiet part of Washington, D.C., next to Rock Creek Park. Residents are retired military officers and spouses. My move proved especially advantageous after the pandemic hit. Our leadership responded quickly to the crisis and established guidelines. If we residents follow the rules, then we have a strong probability of making it to another birthday.

“In a separate matter, I volunteered to participate in a two-year Operation Warp Speed program at Walter Reed to test the efficacy of the Oxford-AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine. I received my two vaccinations, and I go back to Walter Reed for periodic testing. I’ve lost some friends and colleagues to Covid-19, and I want to contribute what little I can to development of an effective antidote.”

Best to all!

’63

Class Correspondents Needed

If you would like to share an update or volunteer to be the class correspondent, please contact Elizabeth Henderson ’11 at eah@episcopalhighschool.org or 703-933-4125.

Kent Higgins writes, “Much like everyone else, life for me and Gail has slowed down as the novel coronavirus continues largely unabated. I have done little priest work — no one around here is actually having inperson gatherings — but I serve on the diocesan Commission on Racism and Diversity, and we do have work to do. I have been very interested in the School’s efforts with respect to acknowledging the past in a constructive and honest way. It’s a challenge, but we must do the hard work or continue to pay the price as a society.”

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Tom Pope ’64 with granddaughter Pope Cooper in Maine.

’64

Alex Jones (H) 617-497-2387 (O) 617-469-2582 alexsjones2@gmail.com

As I write this in early February, the pandemic has had us in its grip for nearly a year and, though an end is in sight, who really knows when? One thing is certain: Cabin fever is rampant in the Class of ’64, if my spot check is any judge. I posed a question to a halfdozen of our classmates asking them what they wanted to do when they could once again do what they wanted. I told them a trip to Italy was first on my list.

The first to respond was John Keith: “You have given me the perfect way to extend the procrastination that has dominated my morning! I am desperately looking forward to getting out of the house before bad health sets in and while I can still find my way around an airport!

“I am hoping that I have one more fly-fishing trip to New Zealand in me — Iceland is also on the list. For the time being, however, I guess I will have to settle for my once weekly life-threatening trip to the grocery store.”

David Dougherty wrote, “Just yesterday we cancelled our annual spring training baseball junket — typically about 8-10 exhibition games in two weeks, along with visits to friends like Ginny and Bobby May — and are deeply depressed. We have hardly been out of the house since we returned from Florida last spring.

“When we do sally forth, we will go first to Costco, then to the College Ale House for an artery-clogging cheeseburger and an ice-cold Fat Tire. I occasionally sit bolt upright in bed dreaming of them.

“Next we’ll visit our grandchildren in Durham, N.C., who by now may be driving, dating, shaving, voting, and registering for the draft since we saw them last. Finally, we will travel to the south coast of Ireland, where in recent years we’ve spent summers. You are welcome to visit us as you return from Italy.

Bring cases of Montalcino.”

Crow, of course, had deep thoughts. “We had taken a villa on the Amalfi Coast last June — needless to say we didn’t even get as far as Daytona. We want very much to travel back to our favorite country, Ireland, but right now they don’t want us. And we hope to combine it with a trip to our favorite city, London, but right now they don’t want us either. So we have been visiting our favorite place in the mountains, Asheville. But frankly, some of those natives up there are hard to understand.

Are they speaking English?”

Jim Lewis is heading to the West — or anywhere. “Yesterday, we on-the-spot accepted an invitation to visit Betsy’s cousin and wife at their home in Santa Fe, N.M., in late July, not knowing whether we can travel by then. But we would likely have accepted an invitation to Bayonne, N.J.; we are that eager/desperate to travel again.

“We cancelled a September ’20 backroads hike on the Portuguese Camino de Santiago,

rescheduled for June ’21, and have now cancelled again. So we are very anxious to travel again before my knees and back give out.”

Tom Pope is similarly itchy. “We’ve pretty much got ‘cabin fever,’ but the pandemic is worse here (Newberry, S.C.) than it’s been since the inception. We did travel to Maine for a few days in August with daughter Jane Pope Cooper ’96 and her EHS classmate Laura Morton Michau ’96 and her hubby and kids. Went to Southwest Harbor.

Otherwise, zilch, except for a time or two to Sullivan’s Island.

“I was hoping to go back to Myanmar to teach this year again. We went in August 2019 to Mandalay University Law School and loved it. But the military coup (which had just happened) has made that doubtful. Oh well ...”

But Poo and Tigger Alexander have been truly burning it up. “My current and longterm travel plans are going to Newberry, S.C., this coming Friday to visit the Popes. The occasion is to celebrate — by drinking all of Tom’s hootch, beer, and wine. All four of us are getting our first Covid-19 vaccinations in Greenwood, S.C. “My next big outing is going to church on Sunday, where we have ‘stay in your car services.’ And my last travel plan involves watching the John Deere repairman haul my zero-turn lawn mower to the shop for service.

You cannot beat so much travel excitement stuffed into a week’s time. Over and out.”

And in response to that came this from Crow to Tigger: “It’s good to know that you are still living an exciting life.” (They were roommates at EHS.) To which Tigger responded: “Crow, my man! You are da man, my old roomie. Sex, drugs and rock ’n’ roll, Tigs.”

That’s us alright. The rocking and rolling septuagenarian Class of ’64! If you want to share your plans for when Covid lifts, please feel free to email me and I’ll pass them along.

Remember, time’s a’wastin’. Stay safe.

—Alex Jones

’65

Jim Sullivan (H) 615-292-3536 (O) 615-327-5759 jsullivan@mmc.edu Richard Lee (H) 401-423-2706 dlee60@verizon.net

This is the second “Covid Edition” of our class notes. The response has been ... well, EHS

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somnambulant. That said, it is hoped all are maintaining ecstatically high T-cell counts. As we go to deadline, the vaccination process is inching forward in fits and starts. Perhaps, by fall this wet blanket may have dried out a bit — that folks can, once again, expand their scope of activities. And such, in turn, will prove a shot-in-the-arm for this column.

John “Hunter” Robinson did beat the pandemic pall with a long-planned trip to Vietnam in February, his second in the past couple of years. John notes, “I traveled with four other vets — two U.S. helicopter pilots, a Vietnamese helicopter pilot, and a Vietnamese infantry officer. In Saigon, we met two Vietnamese airborne infantry vets, and the seven of us rented a van with a driver and drove around for three weeks. We visited some battle sites that were significant to each of us: Dak To hill fights, FSB Charlie, Hai Van Pass, and others. I was able to visit the site where one of our helicopters was shot down in November 1972 and meet the people who live there now.” And he wryly observes how much it has changed since his tour 48 years ago.

The balance of the response devolved into chatter about Jamie Totten’s heffalump sighting and John Glenn’s chronic inability to receive a Nobel Prize ... for anything. David Eggleston and Humphrey Tyler served as Greek Chorus. Now what, oh what, is a class notes editor supposed to do with such confections?! Could we all have become iterations of Statler and Waldorf, the two old hecklers on “The Muppet Show”?

It’s gotta be the Covid. We’ll do better next time.

’66

Phil Terrie (H) 607-319-4271 pterrie@bgsu.edu

Oddly, many of us are talking about vaccinations and isolation. Wonder why!

Randy Wyckoff reports an addition to his family, “a Corona-corgi for Christmas.”

Sam Dawson writes, “Bonnie and I are doing well, but the holidays were a bit quiet.

Thank goodness for Zoom! Camp Alleghany had no campers this past summer because of the Covid restrictions. However, we were able to hold three weeks of Family Retreats, which did fairly well with the restrictions we applied. Alleghany plans to open this summer 56

for campers, with some restrictions that my daughter, Elizabeth, is currently working on.”

Charlie Holt “continues to teach remotely at the University of Virginia, with students making team presentations via Zoom and participating in web-based simulated markets.

Extra time (lots) is devoted to cooking, gardening, and exercise focused on the Navy Seal basic fitness test competitive standards. New/ old activities include fly-fishing and outdoor water aerobics in a heated pool with a mask (only guy in the class).”

From Jack Sibley: “I retired on Dec. 31, 2020. My eighth grandchild was born yesterday, January 31, 2021. The boy’s father is Jack Sibley ’03. I have no plans going forward yet except to take a long walk in Spain whenever I am allowed to go there.”

Bill Harryman writes, “We have been very busy divesting our holdings of rental properties. Although the housing market has been strong all over Florida, we did not do as well as I had hoped. We did not lose money, and there was a huge negative cash flow that we were glad to eliminate. I have tested negative for the coronavirus. Generally I have not had the stamina or endurance I want, due to other medical problems. Luckily, the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville is just a few hours away from me.

“Our kids are all over the lower 48: My eldest and his wife are in Indianapolis, the second, a daughter, lives in Fayetteville, N.C., and our youngest and his family live in Seattle.

I wish everyone well. Stay safe and healthy.”

Henry Smythe reports, “I am retired and spending ever more time at the country place I own with my brothers. Our grandson, Buist, has turned 2 and is delighting his grandparents on the two days a week we get him. His sister is due in July. Last year was a bust in terms of fun: cancelled three fly-fishing trips, cancelled 50th wedding anniversary party, and so forth. Two rescheduled fishing trips for 2021 are booked. Susu and I get our second Covid shots tomorrow, Feb. 2. In early Covid times, Susu and I had a zoom call with Elizabeth and John Howard, who reported in well. He followed up by sending me a picture of him holding an impossibly large trout he caught somewhere near Charlottesville.”

From Merrick Thomas: “Two years into retirement I have forgotten all the medicine I ever knew, but I have learned to finish drywall. A whole new Zen. It turns out I am a pretty good plumber and electrician. I work

Hunter Robinson ’65 with fellow vets in Vietnam.

a bunch cheaper than the professionals, and the inspectors do not have a problem with my work. Unfortunately, Covid has knocked my practice of helping our children finish their new homes into right field. I can now answer the question ‘Have you gotten your shots?’ in the affirmative. That is about the only advantage of being in an at-risk group.”

Blair Buck: “We are still waiting to get a shot but have managed to stay healthy for the past 12 months. Daughter Meredith Gal gave birth to her second child in early December: Ophelia (Poppy). We are looking forward to traveling again once the pandemic is behind us.”

Juno Brantley writes, “Still in Rocky Mount, N.C. Physician. Married to Margy for 28 years. So far healthy and happy. Still work four days a week. Margy is in favor of this arrangement. What woman would want half the income and twice the husband? Son Ben is in MBA school at North Carolina State.

Sports highlight was winning the father/son free-throw contest at Kiawah Island.”

From Billy Peelle: “My life in semi-captivity is entering the 11th month. I never imagined living in a virtual world. My employer has thoughtfully outfitted my ‘WFH’ office with all the computer power I need, with multiple screens and a fancy copier/scanner/ printer, but sitting alone does not generate an office culture of collaboration. I continue to be severely challenged with computer programs for filing documents, much less finding the documents that someone else has filed. I call my assistant frequently. I’m scheduled for vaccination shot No. 2 in a week but do not anticipate any changes in our lifestyle of isolation and will continue to be socially separated from all our friends.

“What’s missing is the usual daily dialogue and conversations with colleagues, the business of being busy going to work, doing errands, going somewhere other than back home. I’ve read that solitary confinement, much less our own rules during the Covid-19

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virus, has definite effects on our cognition, our sense of time, and our abilities to be dealing with ourselves. A good friend who is the director of an art gallery in New York City told me that when she returned to work in November she realized she has lost her skills talking with clients. I read, and I have a yoga teacher on Zoom once a week and other exercises for sanity. I’m going to retire at the end of the year, and my wife tells me I’m in transition already.”

Jenks Hobson reports, “I live only 50 miles from the Beltway, yet I live in a county without a single traffic light. We cannot see a single other house from where we live! All that and being retired make social distancing and self-protection fairly easy. I have enjoyed finally getting mostly unpacked from my retirement move over five years ago. I even developed a cupla new recipes for my side of the cooking chores. All the while we watch nature, from deer and bear to squirrels and skunks, but especially the birds, including five varieties of woodpeckers recently.”

Tom Dashiell sends news: “Greetings from the Bay Area. The pandemic has challenged all of us, to varying degrees. I just heard from John Hooff ’67 about his cousin Charlie Hooff’s recent passing from Covid.

(See In Memoriam, page 89.) Charlie, who was in the Class of 1958, was a singular great guy, a close friend of my family who sat with my elderly and disabled mom and got her to sign papers to sell our family home about 20 years ago. His passing hits hard, on top of John Skinner ’67, who passed from Covid19 earlier in 2020.

“I’m in good health, but my life as a single man living by myself has changed significantly. No more bars, restaurants, live music, sports events, travel, dating, hot tubs, etc. Life is pretty boring in terms of entertainment and seeing friends and connecting socially. The good news: My only child, daughter Lily, lives nearby and just had a baby boy, James Dashiell Solo. I now have three grandchildren: Jenny, age 8; Grayson, age 3; and now baby James. They are part of my bubble, and I see them almost daily. I’m still playing golf and tennis, enjoying both in spite of a significantly rising golf handicap (from 8 to 19) and a major decrease in my tennis level (from 5.0 to 3.5). I find the social aspects at least as important as the physical. I’m a huge Golden State Warriors fan and hope to renew season tickets when Klay Thompson returns next

Noteworthy New Books recently published his second book, “Delos: The White Tree,” available on Amazon. In Miller’s words, the book is a “fantasy based in reality” and geared toward young adults. His protagonists, twins Cynthia and Kayden, attend Vanguard High, an Alexandria boarding school based loosely on The Holy Hill, and the book follows their adventures into the world of magic. Miller prefers to base his stories in concrete settings that his readers will recognize — despite the fantastical elements. “This world is one doorway away from what we know,” he says. “When you feel like you’re there with them, I feel like I’ve done my job.” Miller is at work on the second installment of the Delos series.

BLAKE MILLER ’95

is out with his second picture book as an author-illustrator — “All the Fish in the World,” a delightful tour of the exotic shapes, sizes, and colors of the more than 33,000 species of fish that swim in our oceans, lakes, rivers, and streams. Leading this adventure are Trout and Mudskipper, who are awed by a variety that includes a fish that is “longer than a school bus” (the whale shark) and one “that grows only as long as the word ‘fish’ on this page” (the stout flouter). This is a follow-up to Opie’s “All the Birds in the World,” which Publishers Weekly praised for its “fantastical compilations of birds common and rare.”

DAVID OPIE ’86

T Y SEIDULE,

son of longtime EHS faculty member Jim Seidule, has written “Robert E. Lee and Me,” which blends historical research and autobiography to document his break with a lifetime fealty to the idea that the Confederate general was a gallant and principled hero. Seidule, a retired U.S. Army brigadier general and emeritus professor of history at West Point, revered Lee as a boy and into adulthood, in part because Lost Cause culture flourished in his surroundings — in Alexandria, on the Episcopal grounds where he spent time as a child, as an undergraduate at Washington and Lee University, and then at West Point. His research, however, found that worship of the Confederacy can’t be separated from slavery’s violence and the years of lynching, terror, and subjugation that followed the Civil War for Black Americans.

D R . W I L L I A M T H O M A S ’ 8 2 , a historian at the University of Nebraska, has published a widely acclaimed American Revolution-to-Civil War history of legal efforts by enslaved families to win their freedom. Thomas focuses “A Question of Freedom” on Washington, D.C., and Maryland and writes deeply personal portraits of generations of families who took to the courts to battle — and sometimes beat — landholders and officials committed to their enslavement.

Thousands of such lawsuits were filed, becoming what Thomas calls “a public counterpart of the Underground Railroad.” The Washington Post called his book “gripping” and says it puts to rest the lie of the 1857 Dred Scott Supreme Court decision’s argument that the Constitution did not grant citizenship or legal protections to Black individuals, whether free or enslaved.

EHS

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year. Steph Curry is still a freak of nature, in my humble opinion.

“I’ve been lucky to have work that I really enjoy. I am building out a single-family, senior (age 55+) subdivision in Jackson, Calif., on 150 lots that we bought during the 2008 crash. The work is rewarding in many ways, not the least being satisfaction in building homes and creating an active lifestyle for seniors.

“For a few days in January, there was a rumor going around that John Spears had succumbed to the coronavirus. He reports that he ‘is retired, alive, and well and living beside the ocean in Emerald Isle, North Carolina’ and ‘is delighted that the report of his demise was only a rumor.’ What a long, strange year it’s been. Hope you all are well and happy.”

And I hope the same!

’67

Charles Coppage (H) 252-473-3893 (O) 252-480-2568 charles@nccoppagelaw.com

’68

Walker Moore (H) 864-543-1514 (O) 864-941-0666 moorew327@aol.com

’69

Kinloch Nelson (H) 585-385-3103 (O) 585-264-0848 kinloch@rochester.rr.com Marty Martin (C) 919-272-2106 marty_martin@martinlegalhelp.com

Several Class of ’69 classmates provided their winter update. Hopefully, this report finds our other classmates happy, healthy, and preparing their Class Notes for the fall edition.

Allen Lee reports that he and Regina will have been married for 50 years this May. Regina came to EHS prom in ’69 with Allen!

“She almost has me trained!” Allen retired after a successful 42-year career with Siemens.

Rob Whittle, if he followed through with his plans at the time of this Class Note request, will have spent the month of February and part of March on Anna Maria Island in Florida. Rob continues to write his column “Poor Robert’s Ruminations” in the 58

Regina and Allen Lee ’69 have been married for 50 years!

Patt Naul ’69 on the golf course in Hawaii.

Alexandria Times newspaper. He is patiently waiting for his nomination for a Pulitzer Prize.

No news yet on the movie rights for his two books or when a sequel may be forthcoming.

Sheer rumor and rank speculation have Bill Lewis and Tim Haley in the running with George Clooney for the lead role.

Glen Stancik writes, “Now that I’m pushing 70, I’ve decided to semi-retire. I started teaching continuing education for the N.C. Licensing Board for General Contractors and have authored a couple courses for the state. I have three design/build projects that I hope to finish by this summer and then limit my efforts to teaching and design only, since I find that my patience in dealing with clients has diminished in my dotage. I have always wanted a place in the mountains, so we purchased a lot near Asheville, N.C., to build a house. Unfortunately, my wife, Valerie, wasn’t keen on building, so now we have a lot for sale. (If momma ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy.) I’ve always disliked condominiums, country clubs, and gated communities, so, of course, we purchased a condominium in a gated country club community near Burnsville, N.C., and surprisingly I really like it. Never say ‘never’! We split our time between Charlotte and the mountains and since the bathrooms are in different locations, I have the constant challenge of remembering where I am and finding the bathroom in the middle of the night. Hopefully that will help me keep dementia at bay. If not, I guess I’ll have to take up crossword puzzles. Looking

forward to seeing everyone again in 2024, God willing.”

Patt Naul and I enjoyed a lengthy phone call, our first in more than 50 years, as best either of us could recall. Stories of his life on the Hill were quite interesting, but best left to him to tell. Patt emailed a link that shows surfing conditions on his island in Hawaii.

After looking at the height and speed of the waves, I have decided that surfing is best left to Patt and Verne Morland. Morland reports there isn’t nearly as much “surf ’s up” in Ohio, though some does occur on the river.

Patt checked in with the following medical update (gory surgical photo deleted), his lament on surfing, and other tall tales from his Hawaiian paradise: “Little news other than medical. Got an arterial scrap at Christmas, yet another skin cancer removal, and yesterday a cataract procedure on my left eye to go with the one I had in my right eye 18 months ago.

Through it all I’ve managed to continue to be active on the golf course, though my time in the big blue has been seriously curtailed.

Hopefully I’ll be able to spend some time in the water in the near future should nothing else crop up. Of course, these excuses have served me well as this winter is of a historical nature in terms of massive surf on the north shore of all the Hawaiian Islands! It’s near terrifying just to watch it from the safety of the beach ... or better yet on YouTube!

“I’ve no travel plans until I receive my allotment of vaccines, and God only knows when my turn will be. Given the stumblin’

SUBMIT YOUR CLASS NOTES ONLINE! Just go to the homepage and click on “Alumni” and then “Submit A Class Note.” For help with passwords or login, please contact the Advancement Office.

bumblin’ nature of the local government, my best guess is late spring. Hope this small transmission will help secure Kinloch’s and your jobs as class reporters, though it might also hasten your termination as well! Aloha.”

Having retired from the practice of law, John Zapf enjoys a quiet life savoring his cigars, drink of choice, and his German shepherds. “I wish I had some news to report, but life has been quiet but enjoyable since I retired two years ago. We spent the last two days digging out from under two feet of eastern Pennsylvania snow, but we’re now finally able to see our cars and get to the mailbox. I’ve enjoyed keeping in touch with you, Kinloch, Cell Bergland, Patt Naul, John Genet, TLad Webb, and Bill Lane. Gail and I (and our German Shepherds, Zoe and Dory) send best wishes to our classmates. We very much enjoyed our 50th Reunion and will see you in 2024!”

Sharon and Marty Martin and Sheila and Verne Morland recently enjoyed Kinloch Nelson’s Zoom guitar benefit concert for his local coffee shop. If we can’t travel, Zoom allows us to share these moments no matter where we are located. Following his wedding with Sharon, Marty is now seeking help to move his library and other household items accumulated after living 38 years in his house.

Potential candidates will be drawn from a list of classmates who don’t submit class notes and photos upon request later this year.

’70

Jim Newman (H) 253-677-4697 Newman_jim@comcast.net

Unfortunately, we received some sad news this fall. Dave Clarke’s wife Sidney passed away after a long illness. Our sympathy and prayers go out to you, Dave.

David Luther reports, “This year has been a bust for most of the plans that we had made. Becky and I did get to spend a week at Massanutten Resort near Harrisonburg, Va., with all of our children this summer, which was a lot of fun. We hiked, fished, and visited a number of wineries over the week. The proximity to Shenandoah National Park is a good draw. Fortunately for me, my main sports are tennis and fishing, neither of which has been overly impacted by Covid-19. As I am in the natural health business (the Natural Health Solutions Center in Bristol, Tenn.), this has been an interesting time working with

clients to optimize their immune systems.

Fortunately, there are some great nature-based options that have been very successful. If any of our classmates have any questions regarding this or any other health-related matter, I would be happy to share with them what we know and provide relevant research, if that would be helpful.

“Regarding our children, our son, Brendan ’10, is in Richmond working as an environmental engineer, and our daughters, Erin ’14 and Sarah ’14, are in D.C. working as a Spanish teacher and a communications coordinator, respectively. ” David, if it is any consolation, I had three trips cancelled last year!

Jenner Wood reports that he became a grandfather of a new baby boy. The other grandfather is Howell Morrison ’72. The families decided to name him Howell Morrison Wood. Jenner reports that he is their fifth grandson. Hope to see you in November, Jenner!

Rob Barnett writes, “Trigg Brown, Alec Kempe ’71, and I are traveling to Playa Blanca, Yucatan, for fishing and R&R in January.”

EHS has graduated two generations of Stewarts, including our classmate Craig Stewart. News from the younger generation: Ansley Stewart Condon ’07 delivered her second child, a healthy son, Cooper, in September. She and her family live in Minneapolis, where she is a sales manager with SAP. Lee Stewart ’13 recently joined VistaPrint in Boston as an operations associate in human relations. Her friend and classmate Eric McDonald ’13 visited her and Cricket and Craig in Charleston in January. Eric recently moved to Raleigh for a job as an account executive with Red-on-line.

’71 ’72

Geoff Snodgrass (H) 504-895-4200 geoff@snodgrassplc.com

Beau Wilson (C) 828-390-9802 beauatciti@aol.com

Fred Lupton has retired from his dermatology practice in Greensboro, N.C. Fred is married to Barbara, and they have two daughters, Sarah and Laura. They have survived Covid-19, so far! Since retiring, they

have enjoyed traveling. Fred has found the Blue Ridge Parkway, the Appalachian Trail, and motorcycle adventures to be excellent ways to “social distance”!

Joe Mason has retired from his psychiatric practice in Charlottesville. Joe is married to Nancy, and they have a daughter locally and another in Los Angeles with a 4-year-old grandson. Joe hopes to take a trip out west, post-vaccine, and looks forward to getting back to biking, hiking, and motorcycling.

Jim Burke continues to live in Burlingame, Calif., and is starting his 45th year in the financial services industry in San Francisco. Jim has been married to Sheila for 39 years, and they now have four grandchildren between SF and London. Jim is spending more time this year messing around with old cars and playing bridge online. He also spent family time at Lake Tahoe while awaiting his Covid vaccine.

Bill Swinford received his Covid vaccine in his left arm in January. We all wish that his injection should have been in his normally loquacious tongue!

Nick Browse, and his wife, Caryl, have retired to Still River, Mass. After EHS, Nick graduated from Lehigh University with a degree in electrical engineering and operated his own audiovisual firm for more than 30 years in the design of AV systems, with particular experience in academic and conferencing applications. Nick provided services relating to needs identification, technical systems design, the design of supporting infrastructure, and installation oversight. His work is found in classrooms, boardrooms, video-conference rooms, digital signage systems, and medical simulation centers in market segments that include higher education, corporations, and healthcare.

Louis Prichard, known to his classmates as “Panda,” continues as president and CEO of Kentucky Bank, a publicly traded bank (KTYB) in Paris, Ky. Louis has continued to elevate the bank, founded in 1851, with the highest ethical standards, which he learned from The High School.

Fritz Shantz has retired to Latham, N.Y., following a very successful litigation career with major insurance companies such as Selective Insurance, the Hanover Insurance, and CNA. After EHS, Fritz earned his A.B. in English literature at Brown University and his J.D. at Syracuse University.

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Sam Wood, our “relentless ’72 prosecutor from Wilson, N.C.,” continues his litigation practice with Neuberger, Quinn, Gielen, Rubin & Gibber, P.A. in Baltimore, Md. Sam never faced an adversary, including his wife, Nicole, whom he could not overwhelm with his witticisms!

Aaron Efird and his wife, Len, have retired to Georgetown, S.C., after serving as president of his family’s company, Polkton Manufacturing, for over 25 years. “Efs” always enjoyed blue marlin fishing!

I ran into Howell Morrison on a Charleston street corner in December. We had rented a VRBO during the Christmas holidays.

Howell turned us onto a great Low Country restaurant named Bowen’s Fish Camp on the Folly Beach Road. “You’ve gotta’ go!” he said!

In January, Howell reported another grandson, Howell Morrison Wood, son of Emily Morrison and Jenner Wood IV ’06, who is the son of Jenner Wood III ’70. The dedication and the loyalty of the Morrison and the Wood families continues to The High School!

And look who descended from the chimney in Atlanta on Christmas Day but “Chinny Vince Dobbs”! Very few know that Vince is an indefatigable volunteer for the homeless in Atlanta on behalf of the First Presbyterian Church. Vince surveys the bridge underpasses, identifies these men, and enrolls them in public housing, Social Security, food stamps, Obamacare, etc. Vince, a retired Navy airman, has the skills and the passion to make difference in the lives of the homeless.

Heath Alexander and his wife, Lisa, celebrated 40 years of marriage in February with a special Facebook tribute by Lisa. Every anniversary is celebrated in Lake Tahoe.

I tracked down Jimmy Ross via his close friends at Charlotte Country Day, Heath Alexander and Pinkney Herbert. Jimmy and Heath were at the University of North Carolina together and were in each other’s weddings. After EHS, “JR” graduated from UNC with a degree in architecture and has been a registered architect in 11 states and with the U.S. Green Building Council. Jimmy’s philosophy is espoused as this: “Yes, we can do it! ‘No’ is not in my vocabulary!”

I also tracked down Alf Badgett, and his wife, Denise, who both graduated from North Carolina State University with a bachelor’s and master’s degree in civil engineering. Alf 60

Howell Morrison Wood was born Jan. 27, 2021, and named after his maternal grandfather, Howell Morrison ’72.

Aaron Efird ’72 landing a marlin.

Bill Swinford ’72 getting his Covid-19 vaccine.

Lisa and Heath Alexander ’72 skiing in Lake Tahoe.

is a senior intelligent transportation systems engineer with Atkins, a member of SNCLavalin Group. By my reckonings, Alf keeps our road infrastructure operating!

I also tracked down Roy Randall via LinkedIn. After EHS, Roy graduated from Denison University with a degree in philosophy. Today, Roy is a network technician at RMS Computer Corp. in Los Angeles. Roy has more than 20 years of experience with

Vince “Santa Claus” Dobbs ’72.

Microsoft servers and 10-plus years of experience with Cisco internet products. Roy is a Microsoft-certified systems engineer and a Cisco-certified network professional. Roy, you are a long way from “Egypt”!

Thanks, “Preacher” Wilson

SUBMIT YOUR CLASS NOTES ONLINE! Just go to the homepage and click on “Alumni” and then “Submit A Class Note.” For help with passwords or login, please contact the Advancement Office.

The Class of ’76 met for a Zoom reunion in February. Pictured are Boota deButts, Georg Schaefer, Larry VanMeter, Clarence Gaines, Ab Boxley, Tench Coxe, Mike Berry, Edward Morrison, Alex Liu, Bill Mitchener, Jack Carter, Jim Brown, Robert Cunningham, Rick Lane, and Rob Pierce.

’73

Class Correspondents Needed

’74

Class Correspondents Needed

’75

Class Correspondents Needed

If you would like to share an update or volunteer to be the class correspondent, please contact Elizabeth Henderson ’11 at eah@episcopalhighschool.org or 703-933-4125.

If you would like to share an update or volunteer to be the class correspondent, please contact Elizabeth Henderson ’11 at eah@episcopalhighschool.org or 703-933-4125.

If you would like to share an update or volunteer to be the class correspondent, please contact Elizabeth Henderson ’11 at eah@episcopalhighschool.org or 703-933-4125.

’76

Boota deButts (H) 703-998-1487 (O) 703-933-4092 whd@episcopalhighschool.org

Greetings, fellow members of the Legendary Class of 1976. I hope this finds you all safe and healthy. We had a very successful Zoom Get Together, which provided me lots of material for our class notes. To try to add a little order to the Zoom conversation, each classmate was asked to give a quick update in four areas.

Where are you living?

What are you currently doing workwise?

What is your family situation?

What are you doing differently because of Covid?

I unfortunately made a grave mistake by starting with his Justiceship, the honorable Larry Vanmeter. Ten minutes later he was still discussing the intricacies of Kentucky’s constitution. However, the big takeaway was the picture of his beautiful granddaughter Lucy. What a sweetie pie! She lives in Savannah, Ga., which, luckily for Larry, is right in between Lexington, Ky., and Sarasota, Fla. ... sort of.

It was great to see Mike Berry. It has been a while for many of us. He and his wife, Marilyn, have been married for 33 years and have four daughters, one granddaughter, and two on the way. Life in Fort Worth, Texas, continues to treat him well. If your area in real estate development is industrial warehouses for e-commerce logistics, then you have been busy and Mike has been busy.

Jack Carter was finally able to join us once he figured out his camera was covered by electrician’s tape. He and his wife, Page, have been married for 35 years, and their two children are in New York City and Boston.

Jack and Page reside in the countryside of the Shenandoah Valley in the metropolis of Millwood, Va. The one downside of Covid for him is that he and Page have become foodies and he has put on a bunch of weight, which is hard to imagine.

Rick Lane is still in San Antonio and has a full head of hair; it just happens to be all white. The downside is that he is frequently mistaken as the father of his friends who are his age! Gotta love that. He continues to do missionary work in Latin America.

Georg Schaefer gets the “it’s the middle of the night” award. He has officially retired from BMW and has spent his free time working with his wife, Vera, at a local food bank.

He says their offer for classmates to come visit is still there once the Covid travel restrictions are lifted.

Alex Liu is Alex Liu. Las Vegas is his legal residence, but his three adult children live in the San Diego area. He spends a lot of his time in Montreal when not travelling the world for AT Kearny, where he is the managing partner. If you haven’t seen him lately, and actually no one has, he claims to now be 6’2” tall and freakishly athletic. One too many rugby matches for him, I’m afraid.

It was great to see Clarence Gaines on the call. Like several others, he is retired. His last gig was with the Knicks, but he seems to be keeping himself busy. Like for many of us, Covid has had its impact on Clarence and his family. Adult children return home for a while longer, while college age children’s lives are disrupted, especially if you are an athlete.

Tench Coxe has recently retired and relocated to Austin, Texas, just in time for the winter storm and disaster that hit there. He says boiling water got old really quick. He and his wife, Simone, bought a horse property and plan on enjoying the good life there.

They have three children — Tench, Zeke, and Isabel.

Ab Boxley showed up on the Zoom wearing his Episcopal issue and looking fit! He has five kids ages from 32 to 15, the last one being the only girl, Sally who is 6’2” (Alex Liu’s height!) and plays volleyball. Ab is still working full time for the firm that bought his family business. He has a plane and sounds like he flies it around himself for business.

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Letter to the Next Generation B Y C HAR L ES W I NS T ON ’ 78

Class correspondent Jim Clardy ’78 asked his classmates for advice they would give their 15-year-old selves on their first day on the Hill. Charles Winston ’78 responded with a letter he had written to the son of a family friend upon his acceptance and enrollment at EHS in 2016, a boy who, like Charles, loved sports.

Says Jim: “I found this touching and poignant; not just great advice for your first day at boarding school but a journey down memory lane with wisdom and insights as valid today as they were during the Ford Administration.” Here’s an edited version of Charles’s letter: Congratulations on Episcopal. It is a great school and will put you on a path to success in your life. You have been given a very precious gift, and I know that you will do your best to get the most out of this opportunity. I graduated from EHS in 1978; I had a great experience, but there are many things that I would change if I had the opportunity. I hope that something I say will help you make the most of your time.

S C H O O L W I L L B E L O N E L Y I N T H E B E G I N N I N G . You will be on your own. You will not be coming home for dinner after football practice. You will miss your family — it is a fact. I can still remember how homesick I was in the beginning, but the good news is that it gets easier every week as you make new friends and take on the challenges of the classroom and the athletic field. In my day, we had to use a pay phone hanging on a wall in the dorm. Calls home were very few and far between.

You will have many more options than I did to stay connected, but on the days that you are missing home, just remember that you are there to become an independent young man.

M A K E L O T S O F N E W F R I E N D S . They will be your family for the next four years, and you will grow to know them very well since you will be living with them 24/7. Find good friends who are positive and share your values — those who want to succeed in every aspect of school life. They will support you and help you reach your goals. Don’t hang out with negative, mean, or anti-social kids. There will be plenty of them, just like there are in life. Negative people will bring you down and make living away from home even harder. There are too many good people to hang out with, so don’t waste your time on bad influences.

M A K E C O N N E C T I O N S W I T H Y O U R T E A C H E R S . EHS has a lot of dedicated people working to help you become successful. You may not believe it while you are a student, but that it is true. Don’t be the quiet kid in the back of the class, which was me. Sit in the front, ask questions, and seek faculty members 62

out for tutorial. There is nothing the teachers want more than to help a student who cares about learning.

C O M P E T E A C A D E M I C A L L Y ! I know you are a competitive person, but don’t save that competitiveness solely for the athletic field. At EHS I always saw myself as an athlete first and was OK with just getting by in the classroom. It wasn’t until later in life that I figured out I was no dummy and if I had applied myself, I could have achieved so much more in the classroom. Set your academic goals high.

T A K E A D V A N T A G E O F T H E A T H L E T I C P R O G R A M . I know this goes without saying, but compete on the athletic fields.

Always play three sports. There is nothing worse than having nothing to do after school. I know you play football, basketball, and lacrosse — don’t stop. If one sport does not work out, find another sport. I joined the wrestling team my junior year after being cut from the basketball team and earned a letter. My senior year I went back out for basketball, made the varsity, and lettered. I was lucky enough to earn four different varsity letters while at EHS. It is something I am very proud of. I had friends who took seasons off and now regret not playing sports while they had the chance. Don’t stop playing.

S T A Y A W A Y F R O M D R U G S A N D A L C O H O L . High school is not the place or the time to start experimenting. If you do, you will get kicked out, and that will be a terrible waste of a precious gift that you have been given to attend EHS. Have the strength of character to say “no.”

T A K E A D V A N T A G E O F W A S H I N G T O N , D . C . I will never forget moving on to Hummel dorm my first year and seeing the Washington Monument from my room. You will get many extracurricular opportunities while at Episcopal — concerts, theater, professional sports, museums, monuments, and many more. Take advantage of all of it. Go to as many things as you can.

B E A L E A D E R . Leadership is what you do first. You are a big guy, so people will naturally look up to you. Work hard and be a positive person. It will take you far, and our world needs better leaders. You will get many chances to lead, so step up and take the chance. The best definition I have ever heard about leadership is: “The great leader is the person who can get people to go where he wants them to go, because they want to go there.”

E N J O Y T H E R I D E . Make it fun. Show up every day and be prepared to work. Success is fun and makes you feel good.

More important, success leads to more success. So set your goals high while you take this journey. Compete, engage, and connect.

I know that you are going to do great things these next four years. The Winston family is rooting for you and your success.

Know that we are always here to help if you need it. Good luck, and have a great experience at EHS.

SUBMIT YOUR CLASS NOTES ONLINE! Just go to the homepage and click on “Alumni” and then “Submit A Class Note.” For help with passwords or login, please contact the Advancement Office.

Speaking of flying their own planes, Billy Mitchener made a successful appearance this time. He was Zooming in from Vail bragging about the number of vertical feet he had skied that day and unsure if he was ever going to leave. It sounds like his real estate development business continues to thrive. If I recall, I think all three of his kids are in California.

Edward Morrison is still in Charleston and has five children, the youngest a sophomore in high school. He swims each morning with a masters swim group and recently started a new surgery company. In this order, he says everything is good: his wife, his new dog, and his children!

Rob Pierce and his wife have been married and in Atlanta for 35 years. He continues to run his large IT consulting firm and, rather than travel around the country, he is managing things from his 10x10-foot work area.

The IT business has come around and he says the last few months have been the busiest he has seen in 20 years. He tried to impress us all with his econ major knowledge and that the Roaring ’20s are just around the corner!

It sounds like retirement and Amelia Island are just around the corner.

Jim Brown is still living in the other Lexington, that would be Virginia. His real estate business is booming. He spends a lot of his time on his farm raising organic beef and has come to the conclusion that he likes cattle more than people. He and his wife have been married for 40 years. Covid has afforded him time to write music, play his guitar, and take photos.

For some reason, Robert Cunningham got the award for the classmate that has changed the least. Everything seemed to be fine until he showed us his large bald spot on the back of his head! Robert is splitting his time between his home in White Oak and Orange, Va. where he is assisting in prison reform work for a nearby institution as one of Virginia’s commonwealth attorneys.

Well, that is all the news for now. Many of our classmates who we had hoped to see at the last Zoom get-together were not able to make it. It would be great to see you all at the next one. In the meantime, be safe and take care, and we will all see each other in person sometime in the future. Stay in touch!

’77

Class Correspondents Needed

If you would like to share an update or volunteer to be the class correspondent, please contact Elizabeth Henderson ’11 at eah@episcopalhighschool.org or 703-933-4125.

’78

Jim Clardy (H) 704-332-4195 (O) 704-339-2015 jim.clardy@wellsfargo.com

See “Letter to the Next Generation,” opposite.

’79 ’80

Bill Hughes (H) 203-861-1641 William.hughes@pb.com

Staige Hoffman (H) 813-597-5059 staigehoffman1@aol.com

Hello to all. I trust and hope that all is well and safe with you and family members during these challenging times.

Some recent notes to share: Greg Green spent February in Puerto Rico for spring break. He worked his North Carolina real estate deals while there. Greg’s email is GregG@vrobx.com. Look him up on Facebook, as he has quite a lot of activity, etc.

Harry Warner and his wife, Claiborne, were recently nearby in the Sarasota, Fla., area of Longboat Key for an annual visit.

He reached out to me and Lucas Fleming for dinner plans. We all met for dinner to catch up and visit. (Harry and Claiborne of Richmond; Lucas and Tara of St. Petersburg, along with daughter Avary; Staige and Tricia of Tampa). Harry is principal at Warner & Associates Consulting. Claiborne is CEO of Virginia Home for Boys & Girls.

Recently, Tricia and I met Jack Sayler ’79 and Linda for lunch in Tampa. Jack and Linda had been in Boca Grande, and we met on their way back to Savannah, Ga. Jack, Linda and I were students at Auburn together … a few years ago.

Jeff Flynn writes, “Not much to report.

Working virtually during Covid has gotten old at this point. One day simply bleeds into the next. Only bright spot is that business has actually been very good thus far, but I expect

there to be a lagging effect in 2021, which is generally true in the commercial real estate world relative to other economic indicators.

That said, it’s hard to generalize, as certain aspects of the commercial world are bustling.

Fingers crossed and working hard. Bought a house on Cape Cod (Becca’s family place in Falmouth, Mass.) and currently renovating.

Hope to spend a fair amount of time there and MVY this summer/fall.”

Again, I hope all is well. Please keep in touch.

Thank you, Staige Davis Hoffman, Sr.

’81

Seward Totty (H) 859-268-8673 (O) 859-514-6434 seward.totty@gmail.com

John Trask writes, “Isabelle ’11 is working happily in Denver, Peter is in Beaufort, S.C., working, and Josephine ’20 is a freshman at Texas Christian.”

Allan Goldsmith owns a UPS Store in Fort Benning, Ga., and loves serving our soldiers. He became a grandfather on Jan. 17, 2021 to baby Isa Lassiter and is residing in Columbus, Ga.

’82

Arthur Smith (H) 205-802-7180 wilchester@msn.com

Hello, Class of ’82, and hope this finds everyone healthy, safe, and sane. What a long strange year we have experienced!

I am sorry our duck hunt was canceled this year, but we will reorganize for MLK weekend in 2022. Stay tuned.

Nothing to report from Birmingham other than I am thankful for the hope of the vaccine and, like everyone, a return to normal, whatever shape that takes.

Notes from hither and yon: I’ve always been impressed at our reunions how well we have aged, present company excluded. Obviously we have an active group. There is not a better example of that than Elis Olsson, and I now know why, or at least partially. Elis reports that he has been hiking with his family during these past several months. See the photo of Elis with his daughters, Lanier ’11 and Maja ’14, on top of Spy Rock on a chilly January day in Nelson County, Va. I can hear the Olsson yodels all the way in B’ham.

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Macon Baird reports, “Our oldest daughter, Hannah, finishes nursing school at the University of North Carolina this May! She’ll soon be off daddy’s payroll! Looking forward to warmer weather so Greg Peete ’83, Mark Slack, Latane Campbell ’81, and I can play golf! It’ll soon be a quarter of a century with my beautiful bride, Katherine!”

Congratulations, Katherine and Macon!

James Ragsdale reports that he ran into Will Stubbs ’81 and Jürgen Taylor ’81 at the funeral service for Garth Dunklin ’81 (See In Memoriam, page 90). Apparently Garth had put up a courageous fight with cancer over the past two years.

Lee Ainslie informs that his oldest son, Ford ’14, just moved to L.A. (L.A. as in Los Angeles, not Lower Alabama), where one of his housemates is Quinn ’15, the oldest son of Garth Ainslie ’84.

Todd Gray has had an interesting year being in the restaurant business during a pandemic and in Washington, D.C., during a words-cannot-describe-it environment.

Todd reports, “Being a block in front of the White House has made things even more interesting with Black Lives Matter protests, Trump rallies, and your general insurgent-style protesting that goes on regularly in our neighborhood.

“Harrison is 21 and a junior at West Virginia University in Morgantown. Beautiful country out there and a great place for a city kid to be. Ellen and I found a little spot in Lewes, Del., a few years back and are enjoying spending time in “lower, slower Delaware,” as the locals call it. We acquired a small restaurant about a strong three-wood from the beach. It will be called Federal Fritter and is located on Rehoboth Avenue in Rehoboth Beach. So if you all can’t come see us at Equinox, make your way out the coast for some R&R and tasty snacks by the beach.

Best to all of you boys and your families.”

Thanks, Todd, and best of luck with everything that is on your plate (sorry).

Mr. Savannah Georgia, Mills Fleming, reports that his “son Alexander, a recent MSME graduate of Georgia Tech, began working for Deloitte in January and is in the government and public sector division.”

Mills said that he had been in consideration to fill one of the vacant positions in Georgia’s Supreme Court.

It is great staying in touch with everyone; please keep it up. Thanks for everyone’s 64

Elis Olsson ’82 with daughters Lanier ’11 and Maja ’14 on top of Spy Rock in Nelson County, Va.

contributions! Give me a call if your travels bring you to Birmingham. – Arthur Smith

’83 ’84 ’85

Frank Vasquez (C) 804-873-2212 frank@copyfaxva.com

Sam Froelich (H) 336-288-5711 froelich@me.com

Thorne Gregory (H) 203-655-7139 (O) 212-500-3049 thornegregoryjr@me.com

Rod McGee had a quiet year, other than an eye-opening weekend visit to Florida last fall with Tony Bueschen, Tom Roback ’86, and Rob Jones ’86. Rod looks forward to the resumption of USTA tennis league and parental visits to the Hill, where Hugh ’22 sits in the front row of Rick Stubbs’s calculus class.

Tony Bueschen sent his daughter and youngest child to Athens to attend the University of Georgia with her brother. Tony is home alone and plans to move to Nashville in July and semi-retire.

Phil Conner returned from Abu Dhabi, where the winters are 70 degrees, a few years ago and now lives not so far away in Connecticut, where the kids think ice is for skating and not sweet tea. Phil is head of real estate strategy at Barings.

Bo Weatherly still has it all figured out but can’t trim a hedge like Martha Stewart and will never run the four corners quite like Phil Ford.

Lathan Allen’s twin daughters, Carson ’20 and Katherine ’20, are recent EHS graduates.

James Ragsdale ’82 with Jürgen Taylor ’81 and Will Stubbs ’81.

’86

Art Taylor (C) 703-774-5079 art@arttaylorwriter.com

I’m writing this issue’s Class Notes on the last day in January while watching the snow fall on Fairfax, Va. — the first significant snow we’ve seen in quite a while.

When I wrote the Fall 2020 Class Notes, I mentioned that my wife would be going back into the office in January, and my son was scheduled to head back into in-person classes at his elementary school. But since that last update, my wife’s work has extended work-from-home plans through summer, and Fairfax County Public Schools are now promising third graders will head back into the building on March 16 — my birthday, coincidentally, and almost exactly a year since Virginia’s governor issued the first stayat-home orders.

We’ll wait to see what actually happens, but in the meantime, we’re grateful to be doing well, and I’ve enjoyed hearing from others in our class, who seem to be holding up OK, too.

And I was thrilled with the one bit of news that came my way, too! David Opie has already been profiled in these pages with his debut picture book, All the Birds in the World, which ended up earning accolades from many directions: starred reviews from Publishers Weekly, School Library Journal, Kirkus, and Booklist, and a year-end shoutout from Kirkus as one of the “Best Books of 2020.” But that success has led to even more good news: “I wasn’t planning on the book being the start of a series,” Dave explains, “but the publisher asked me for a follow-up, and, well, I am pleased to announce that “All the Fish in the World” just headed off to the printers. It will come out later this year. I am

SUBMIT YOUR CLASS NOTES ONLINE! Just go to the homepage and click on “Alumni” and then “Submit A Class Note.” For help with passwords or login, please contact the Advancement Office.

currently working on the third installment of the series, so stay tuned.” Dave shared the cover of the new book; see page 57.

Also on the writing front, my wife, Tara Laskowski, and I are continuing to push ahead. Each of us won awards last fall for our work: Tara’s novel “One Night Gone” won the Anthony Award and the Macavity Award for Best First Novel in addition to being a finalist in the fiction category for the Library of Virginia Literary Awards. My story “Better Days,” from Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, won the Macavity Award for Best Short Story. Tara’s working on her next novel, and I’ve been tinkering with a few short stories — including one forthcoming in an anthology inspired by the music of the Allman Brothers.

Stay tuned! And do reach out with your own news. Hoping for better days ahead for us all.

’87 ’88

After Episcopal

James Blue ’87 Takes the Helm of Smithsonian Channel

David Haddock (C) 301-575-6750 davidhaddock@yahoo.com

Ned Durden neddurden@gmail.com

Fellow ’88ers, I hope that all is well with you and your families. We had our second Class of ’88 Zoom call late last year, and it proved to be another great occasion to see some familiar faces and catch up with old friends.

Here’s my attempt to recap what transpired, along with some news from some others to whom I have spoken recently. As always, sorry for anything that I might have missed.

Chris Wright dialed into our call from his house on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. Last time we spoke, Chris was at his other home in Hagerstown, Md. Long way of saying: If you are ever in eastern or western Maryland, give Cree Wright a call. He’d love to see you.

It was also great to hear from Holt Moore, who was on the call. Holt is the city attorney for Lumberton, N.C. We were all disappointed to learn from Holt that a Lumbee Indian casino is not in the offing anytime soon, but Holt did say he’d love to see anyone next time you’re in the greater Fayetteville/ Lumberton metroplex.

Thad Wilson joined us from the Holy City of Charleston. Thad is happily married and living in a cool house with his wife,

Emmy Award-winning journalist and television executive James Blue ’87 has been named head of the Smithsonian Channel and will direct an expansion and diversification of its content.

Smithsonian Channel, which is part of the MTV Entertainment Group, has a mission to draw on the Smithsonian’s vast resources to engage, inspire, and educate.

“Smithsonian is a world-class brand rich with treasures from our shared American experience,” said Chris McCarthy, head of the group, in a statement from the company.

“James is an exceptionally talented executive and incredible storyteller who will bring those iconic treasures and experiences to life across all of our platforms.”

Blue, who also will serve as a senior vice president of MTV Entertainment, will oversee all factual unscripted projects for the MTV Entertainment brands, which include MTV, Comedy Central, Paramount Network, Smithsonian Channel, Pop TV, CMT, VH1, TV Land, and Logo.

“MTV Entertainment has an extraordinarily talented team, and I am thrilled to be joining them,” said Blue in the statement. “I look forward to leveraging my expertise and experience to help shape and implement MTV Entertainment’s strategic vision for Smithsonian and other news, factual and non-fiction content across, and even beyond, the Group’s platforms.”

Blue comes to Smithsonian Channel from PBS NewsHour, where he managed specials on the show, helped lead production of the daily broadcast, and handled special reporting initiatives such as Searching for Justice, Race Matters, and Chasing the Dream.

In a journalism career that dates to his 1991 graduation from Princeton, Blue has earned eight national Emmy Awards, two Columbia-DuPont Awards, and two George Foster Peabody Awards. He has worked for NBC News and Discovery Channel, among other outlets, and spent 12 years as an executive producer of “Nightline” at ABC News.

EHS

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From Stewart Gym Rocker to Classical Composer The versatile Nathan Michel ’93 writes indie-pop hits as well as Beethoven-inspired scores for TV ads.

B Y E LIZABET H H ENDERSO N ’ 11

During his freshman year at Episcopal, Nathan Michel ’93 and friends Brooks DuBose ’94, Marshall Foster ’93, and Rob Lesman ’94 started a rock band that performed for other students in the old Stewart Gymnasium.

From then on, Michel knew that his future was in music. Rock would be part of that future, and his first major recording would earn raves from Rolling Stone magazine.

But he could have never predicted that he would become best known as a classically trained composer and would one day write the score for a Super Bowl ad. Or that he would combine a Beethoven sonata with a famous rapper’s ode to Kobe Bryant for an acclaimed advertisement honoring the basketball legend.

It all started simply enough. After majoring in music at Bowdoin College, Michel traveled to Amsterdam, where he studied under Louis Andriessen, a renowned Dutch composer and pianist. Michel went on to earn a master’s degree in music from Yale University and a Ph.D. in composition from Princeton University.

In 2004, Michel moved to New York City with his wife, Amber Papini, whom he had met while they were both at Yale. He began writing music for television commercials, and after a few years in the city, the two teamed up with bassist Brian Betancourt to form the indie pop band Hospitality. The band’s first major release earned raves from critics, including Rolling Stone magazine, which called it “aggressively adorable” with melodies “stickier than hot tar.” Time magazine in 2019 declared Hospitality’s song “I Miss Your Bones” one of the 10 best of the decade.

In 2014, Michel moved with his family — he and Amber now have two children — back to his hometown of Charleston, S.C., where he teaches at the College of Charleston while still writing music for commercials and film. Michel’s music has been featured in many well-known commercials, including last year’s “Sisters” Nike ad highlighting the careers of Venus and Serena Williams and Bud Light’s famous “Bud Knight” campaign, which premiered during the 2018 Super Bowl. “That was pretty exciting,” Michel says. “Getting a Super Bowl ad is sort of the Super Bowl of advertising.”

Most recently, Michel wrote the music for a Nike ad in August — a tribute to the late Kobe Bryant that featured a spoken-word piece by rapper Kendrick Lamar. Writing music for commercials and films, Michel says he enjoys playing with the interaction between the music and the visuals. The ad had a fast-paced edit, with Lamar rapping over it, Michel says. “But the ad agency wanted a take on Beethoven’s ‘Moonlight Sonata,’ which is slow. So that was an interesting example of playing against the video edit.”

“Not all ads are as cool as that one,” he adds, “but I do get to work on some pretty interesting stuff!”

66

Heather, who is an architect, and their kids.

Thad reported that he had caught up with Chris Avery the night before as Chris was getting some R&R with his family on the Isle of Palms. Thad said that Chris was doing well and that his platinum hair color suits him well. Chris’s daughter Meg ’24 is a freshman at EHS now.

Speaking of classmates with kids on the Hill, Jon Beane’s twins, Jonathan ’24 and Anani ’24, are also freshmen at EHS. Jon was on the call and gave us a great update on his first few months on the job at the NFL. Beane, not surprisingly, has big plans, and we look forward to learning of his accomplishments at his new post.

Last, but not least, Jonathan Falls and Chris Wine were with us. Falls is married and working in real estate in Northern Virginia.

Wine joined us from his Covid retreat in Lake Tahoe, where he is weathering the pandemic with the family. Falls and Wine closed down the call as they tag-teamed on a funny recounting of a sailing spring break in the Caribbean that Riley Deeble chaperoned.

Douglas Owens figured prominently in their story, and while Douglas was not on the call, I’ve had the pleasure of speaking with him recently. Douglas lives in the heart of horse country in Lexington, Ky., where he owns and runs ... a cattle farm. He is married and has two sons who attend or attended ...

Woodberry. Not to worry though, Douglas still loves The High School and assures me that he will always bleed maroon.

That’s all for now. Stay safe, and let’s get together soon. Until next time, shoot me an email or give me a call if you’d like to catch up or want to pass on some news to the class.

’89

Croom Lawrence (C) 540-878-6754 croomlawrence@gmail.com

Alec Bounds writes, “Congratulations to Bill Wiley on his election to the Virginia House of Delegates.”

’90

Class Correspondents Needed

If you would like to share an update or volunteer to be the class correspondent, please contact Elizabeth Henderson ’11 at eah@episcopalhighschool.org or 703-933-4125.

SUBMIT YOUR CLASS NOTES ONLINE! Just go to the homepage and click on “Alumni” and then “Submit A Class Note.” For help with passwords or login, please contact the Advancement Office.

’91

Will Coxe (C) 864-313-9803 williecoxe@gmail.com

Cal Evans ’93 with new baby Anne Ralston sporting her Nikes.

Sam Drennen writes, “I have been living in Athens, Ga., since 2004, and am the COO for First American Bank & Trust, which has been serving the community for over 95 years. The bank is fortunate to have as its president and CEO another EHS alumnus in Rhodes McLanahan ’89, who is providing the Athens community with tremendous leadership during these challenging times. I also have to give a shout out to one of my oldest friends, Johnathan Hackman, whom I was able to meet up with on a family trip to Northern California last summer. It had been about 15 years since we were together and having our families around us was pretty neat.

“My wife, Susanna, 10-year-old twins James and Emma, and I live in an old (1870s) farmhouse that is located in the middle of the town of Watkinsville, just outside of Athens.

We have been busy during the pandemic fixing up the house and attempting to return the grounds and gardens to their former glory, when the town doctor had lived here for the better part of the last century. Dr. Ward was an esteemed photographer and had apparently cultivated the most amazing flower and productive gardens around — as well as a pair of acclaimed peacocks, which we have not chosen to replace as of yet.

“The twins ask about my High School experiences when copies of EHS Magazine arrive, and it seems, well, a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away.”

Greetings to the Class of 1991, Jimmy Smith writes, “Hey, I am sorry I missed the Zoom call a few months ago.

Things are well in Savannah. I still have my general contracting company, and we do a lot of commercial work in the historic district of Savannah. My wife, Heather, and I recently moved to give our two daughters, Annaleigh and Sydney, and two poodles, Rita and Curtis, more room to live. In 2021 I plan on doing some fly-fishing in Oregon on the Deschutes River in April, and in August I’m flying to the Yukon to hunt Dall sheep with my bow.

Outside of work and raising kids, I try to find time off the grid and outside of cell service to hunt and fish. Life is good!”

Alex Lesman writes, “My family has stayed healthy, and we’re handling mostly remote school mostly pretty well. I’m working at the Legal Aid Society of New York on jail and prison practices and conditions, as well as a police brutality case against the city.

I sometimes see photographer/soccer dad Will Mebane and writer/soccer dad Monte Burke ’90 around the beautiful borough of Brooklyn.”

’92

Fred Alexander (C) 704-641-4858 fcaiii@yahoo.com

Hello Class of 1992, I hope everyone is healthy and well. In news that is worth reporting, Cal Evans had a baby girl, Anne Ralston Evans. She was born at high noon on Sept. 11, 2020. You can look for her on the 4x100 relay team at EHS starting in 2035.

Speaking of old classmates (and while he didn’t finish with us, he was one of us for a bit), I caught up with Dean Hess. He is married to Jen and is working for Nike in the Portland, Ore., area. He has a 3-year-old son, Alexander, and a 12-year-old daughter, Isabel, who keep him busy. At Nike he works to funnel illicit cash to the top basketball recruits at Duke.

Due to Covid-19, western North Carolina’s greatest thespian, Jim Sibley, has been on hiatus from his acting career but looks forward to getting back at it in August.

Finally, as I’m optimistic about things returning to some form of normal by the fall.

For those interested in attending the 30th Game since we last were students, please reach out at fcaiii@yahoo.com, and I will work to organize a gathering.

Please use the above email to reach out with and let me know how you are doing.

I’d love to hear from you. Best — Fred Alexander

’93

Walker Lamond (c) 202-302-8514 walkerlamond@mac.com

Lee Vaughn’s son Clyde led his basketball team in scoring this season and hit the game-winning buzzer beater in his last game before the fam jetted off to Vail for some powder.

Jon Ylvisaker relocated to California with his family in pursuit of bigger surf and perhaps an AARP modeling contract.

Luke David finally moved back to the Commonwealth after too many years in Maryland, just in time for his son Evan ’24 to start his freshman year at EHS. He tells me he was pumped to see so many familiar names on the list of alumni kids currently at the school — Dixon, Hooff, Stallings, Wood, and others.

Luke recently organized a couple of fun Zoom calls with a handful of our classmates, including Craig Dixon, Ruth Yutiamaco Baxter, Lee Vaughn, Griff Gideon, Liz Jacobs Tuff, Sibby Banks Schlaudecker, Ham Morrison, and Flynn Jarrett as well as some very special surprise guests. Aladdin Freeman ’94 jumped on to tell us about being a star sports producer for ESPN; Mark Gowin reported that he is coaching high school football again in Florida; Rob Seals joined from California, where he runs a successful songwriting school; and Frazer Hubbard Zoomed in from his corner of the galaxy to assure us that he is very close to finishing his novel. We had a lot of laughs swapping stories about our time at EHS, and I really hope we can do it in person soon.

Don Pocock is still happily living in Winston-Salem, N.C., with his wife and three kids ages 11, 10, and 3. He tells me that his daughter has joined her school’s cross-country team, and it has been a lot of fun sharing his love of running with her. Don was named one of the “Best Lawyers in America for EHS

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Construction Law” and expanded his practice to cover both North Carolina and Virginia.

Gary Graham reports that life is good in Summerfield, N.C., where his 8-year-old son Sully is taking after his father stalking critters in the woods, fishing, and defending his 2nd Amendment rights. He’s the spitting image of Gary but thankfully has his mother’s brains. Gary and Garland’s Red Dog Animal Rescue Farm just bought a 26-acre facility in Summerfield where they’re housing and rehabbing “everything from horses, goats, sheep, cats, dogs, and a partridge in a pear tree!” They’ve placed more than 3,500 animals in happy homes over the last 12 years. Please check out www.reddogfarm.com if you’re looking to adopt a dog, cat, pig, or llama.

Also for me, I was recently in Charleston, where I enjoyed some oysters and margaritas with Ham Morrison and had the pleasure of catching up with Courtney Gunter Rowson ’95, who runs a very successful creative design agency. I also keep in touch with my best buddy Stephen Bierman ’92, who is living the expat life in Montenegro, writing, sailing the Adriatic, and raising his two boys. It’s a quiet life and the perfect getaway if you ever find yourself running from the Russian mob.

Looking out the window at our first big snowfall of the year, I’m reminded that 30 years ago today we were likely assembling for one of those epic schoolwide snowball fights, with Victor Maddux directing flanking maneuvers, 2nd Dal manning the slingshot, and Flynn taking on all comers in straight-up ice-gladiator wrestling matches.

Our Episcopal teachers prided themselves on being “in loco parentis,” but sometimes those days were just plain loco.

’94 ’95

Emily Fletcher Breinig (c) 480-330-8017 fletchee@hotmail.com

Class Correspondents Needed

If you would like to share an update or volunteer to be the class correspondent, please contact Elizabeth Henderson ’11 at eah@episcopalhighschool.org or 703-933-4125.

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’96

Temple Forsyth Basham (C) 804-332-1517 templefbasham@gmail.com

In an effort to get some good updates from classmates I don’t often hear from, I enlisted the illustrious Juliana Bush to help gather some intel. Juliana is working at EHS in the Advancement Office and moving the school forward at a speedy pace, no doubt. Thank you, Juliana! Here is what she kindly passed along: Harrison Smith and his wife, Becky, remain in Alexandria, not far away from the EHS campus. They are juggling virtual learning, working from home, and the associated challenges/fun with their three small children, Abigail, age 9; Mary, 7; and Quint, 3; they also have a junior at Virginia Commonwealth University. Harrison will reach his 20-year anniversary working for the federal government later this summer (and is feeling rather old as a result), and Becky works with Excella, a technology firm that supports government and private clients.

Wicken Hardin Rocchini writes, “Our family moved to Atlanta with my husband, Mike, and our two girls, Sandifer (8) and Reese (6), a little over two years ago. I especially love the Atlanta climate compared to the 17 years of Chicago winters I endured!

We are all doing well and I am working on an as-needed basis as an outpatient physical therapist. Quarantine and Covid has brought many challenges with homeschooling and such but also opportunities to catch up on Zoom calls like I did with Whitney Phillips Schwartz and Glynne Bassi Barber in the spring. I often think of my Episcopal days and have enjoyed recently seeing kids dressed in Episcopal gear in Atlanta. I look forward to being back at The High School sooner rather than later.

From Helen Van Clief Heard: “I am continuing to enjoy living in Austin, Texas, where I have been since 2002. My husband, Chase, and I both attended grad school at UT and started a business here called Howler Brothers, an outdoor lifestyle clothing company. We are so excited to be in our 10th year with the business, and when we aren’t busy with that endeavor, we are hanging with our kids Ginny (12) and Charlie (10) and enjoying all the outdoor fun and live music fun Austin has to offer. Hope everyone is doing well!”

From John Seale: “My wife and I have been living in Alexandria for the past five

years, which has been great. In early 2018, I left my job working as a senior staffer for U.S. Congressman Steve Scalise and am now a lobbyist at the American Chemistry Council. We represent chemical manufacturers throughout the United States. In November 2018, we welcomed our daughter, Vivien, to this world and have spent the last two years trying to keep up. 2020 Covid quarantine meant that I was working from home for most of the year (like everyone). If there is any silver lining, it’s that I’ve been at home for some great toddler milestones. I’m really looking forward to catching up and seeing other ’96ers in the fall.”

Carrie Conley writes, “I went to Boston College for undergrad and studied human development. Went to Columbia University for a master’s of social work. Moved back to the D.C. area and worked in psychiatric hospitals for children. Very rewarding experience. Now I am a psychotherapist in private practice. I enjoy working with people for self-improvement. I now work and live in Virginia. Still working during Covid, which is a blessing. My family still lives in Maryland, and it is nice to be able to see them often.”

I was successful in procuring some news from fellow ’96ers, starting with Jane Pope Cooper. Jane writes, “We had an awesome time with Court and Laura Morton Michau in Maine last summer. Our kiddos got along famously. Old boy Tom Pope ’64 was there, too, for the lobster, hikes, and swimmingfilled extravaganza.” See photo on page 57.

We are renovating my parent’s beach house to be our home. It’s a doozy of a project, with historic guidelines, but I hope we will be able to host an EHS ’96 gathering there reminiscent of the summer we girls all piled in for a reunion. This time we hope to have chairs instead of Crazy Creeks for people to sit on the porch.

I saw Ham Morrison ’93 and John Hooff ’95 at Baba’s on Cannon, and we caught up as well. It’s always nice to see friendly EHS faces ... even if masked.

Sarah Akridge Knutson updated me on her family’s new addition — finally a girl — in the form of a black lab named Maddie.

Bodie, age 4, hates her. In other news, Brian will coach lacrosse for the TC Williams Titans this spring. I don’t know about you, but I’m looking very forward to calling him”Coach” relentlessly.

SUBMIT YOUR CLASS NOTES ONLINE! Just go to the homepage and click on “Alumni” and then “Submit A Class Note.” For help with passwords or login, please contact the Advancement Office.

’99

Becky Kellam Everhart ’99 and Judellia Cole ’99 at Becky’s 40th birthday party in Virginia Beach.

Devon O’Donnell ’99 and husband Garner McClayton.

Becky Kellam Everhart

(c) 917-628-5945 beckykellam@gmail.com Devon O’Donnell married Garner McClayton on June 20, 2020 in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. She reports that it was “certainly a wild time to plan a wedding...but we decided to go for it and we were able to have a little celebration (socially distanced, of course).

I doubt I’ll ever forget being a quarantine bride!”

Lindsey Whittle Comstock and Prather Smith Claghorn got together in Charlottesville this November. Beautiful photo, ladies!!

Malsert Chapman Liebler, husband Brian, and big sister Damienne welcomed baby Léonie in June, a happy occasion in an otherwise chaotic 2020! “And a very Happy Birthday to all the classmates who turned/will turn 40 this year.”

’00

Schuyler Williams (c) 703-304-9243 schuyler13@gmail.com Maisie Cunningham Short (c) 310-498-5241 maisieshort12@gmail.com

Lindsey Whittle Comstock ’99 and Prather Smith Claghorn ’99 got together in Charlottesville.

I recently texted with Ashby Brunson Mims ’94, who returned to Hilton Head with her family in June. Her husband, John, and three children — John Henry (13), Roland (11) and Meriweather (6) — are happy to be near friends, family, and sunshine after braving the winters in Chicago for the past four years.

That’s a wrap! I hope everyone is safe, happy, and sane after a hell of a year. Here’s to regaining normalcy and precious time spent with special friends and family members. I count you all in that category.

Léonie, daughter of Brian and Malsert Chapman Liebler ’99.

’97 ’98

Bill Allen (C) 919-673-2269 williamwallen@gmail.com

Katherine Moncure Stuart (H) 540-672-4258 katstu@gmail.com Andrew Nielson (c) 706-254-2277 anielson@servicesource.com

Members of the Class of 2000 got together for a holiday Zoom in December organized

by Hattie Gruber and Schuyler Williams.

Will Blocker’s holiday sweater was legendary, and PX Head came in hot late in the call. Elizabeth Horsey was able to snag a group picture and a merry virtual time was had by all.

I’m coming up on one year of working from home and, besides being stir crazy, I am happy to report everyone in the Short family is healthy and well in Los Angeles. We are expecting our second child in June. We decided to get a puppy out of sheer boredom, and his relationship with our 2.5-year-old son Emmett is complicated.

Schuyler has been living in Charlottesville for the last year, which has been a nice haven during Covid times. She was able to see Will Nisbet ’01 and Will McGettigan ’02 in Middleburg towards the end of the summer, and Will and his wife, Eloise, joined her for a weekend getaway down in the Outer Banks.

Schuyler and Carlie Hooff Casella had a nice social-distanced lunch back in Alexandria while her daughter Alice ran around in the EHS

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Alumni Graduate From the Holy Hill (Again) Four devoted faculty members say goodbye to The High School.

has dedicated 15 years to serving The High School. From basketball and cross country coach to Hummel dorm head and associate director of admissions, Lee has been a friend and mentor to students and fellow faculty alike. As he prepares to move to Seattle with his wife Lauren and two children, Grayson and Vivian, we celebrate the indelible mark he has left on The Holy Hill.

Lee began coaching cross country and basketball part time in 2006. “Coach Lee was always actively involved in enhancing the experience at EHS,” says Tier Gibbons ’11, former member of the varsity boys’ basketball team. “He is a great example of how the faculty at EHS go above and beyond for the students.”

In 2017, Lee accepted an offer to work full time in admissions, where he channeled his love for Episcopal and his desire to make the School a stronger, more inclusive community. He also has served as a ninth grade boys’ advisor and faculty advisor to the Black Student Alliance.

In the past year, Lee became a founding member of Episcopal’s Black Alumni Network and launched the successful #BlackSuccessFromEHS campaign on Instagram, highlighting nearly 40 Black and African American graduates of the School who have become CEOs, doctors, entrepreneurs, scholars, teachers, and more. He’s now working to encourage other schools to build similar efforts to celebrate the success of their alumni of color.

Lee’s inclusive nature and cheerful spirit are evident in everything he does. “Mr. Lee is so community-based. He has so many great relationships with students and is really a great mentor and a friend,” says Minta Brice ’21. “He isn’t a teacher; I’ve never had him as a coach before, but he still knows me and always asks me about what’s going on in my life.”

JON ATHAN LEE ’01

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F R A N C E S D E S A U S S U R E M U R R A Y ’ 0 6 returned to Episcopal in the fall of 2015 to cover three colleagues on maternity leave, quickly establishing that there was little she couldn’t do. After six years as a math teacher, Academic Support Center learning specialist, dean, basketball coach, advisor, and more, she will depart The Holy Hill this summer shortly after giving birth to her second daughter. She and her husband, Billy, and their two girls are bound for her hometown of Charleston, S.C. As a student, Murray was one of the first female head monitors in Episcopal’s history as well as a varsity basketball standout for four years, cheerleader, and member of the Honor Committee. Stacie Galiger, Murray’s former teacher and now her colleague in the math department, writes, “It is a rare and special situation to get to work with a former student like Frances.

Although much has changed since 2006, her steadfast commitment and unflappable leadership has been the one constant.”

Murray’s calm manner combined with her quiet leadership served her well during her past three years as the ninth-grade dean and dorm head on Anderson — particularly throughout the Covid-19 pandemic. As Galiger points out, “Perhaps most telling of her attitude and work ethic is the fact that she remained unfazed by running a dorm, in a pandemic, while pregnant.”

Murray’s sister, Ann deSaussure Biondi ’08, joined her as a staff member on campus for the 2020-21 school year. They hadn’t lived in the same town since Murray graduated from EHS in 2006, when Biondi was a sophomore. “I got to see Frances through her colleagues’ eyes,” Biondi says of their bonus year together on campus as adults. “I thought I was biased as a proud sister, but it turns out everyone on campus has benefitted from being around her, too.”

SUBMIT YOUR CLASS NOTES ONLINE! Just go to the homepage and click on “Alumni” and then “Submit A Class Note.” For help with passwords or login, please contact the Advancement Office.

EMILY URQUHAR T ’08,

joined Episcopal’s advancement office in 2015 as a parent programs officer. In her position, she hosted regional events, traveled to meet parents, and planned Family Weekend — valuable experience she would carry through her time at EHS. In 2018, she became interim assistant dean of students, working with the Washington Program and the Deans Office. In 2019, she moved into the director of activities role and made it her mission to maximize student exposure to the Alexandria and Washington, D.C., area in ways they couldn’t on their own. She was committed to discovering the coolest new exhibits in D.C., shuttling students to and from Old Town Alexandria, and even arranging day trips to New York City to take in two Broadway shows in 12 hours.

Social studies teacher Caroline English says Urquhart has the “rare combination of being able to think creatively but execute efficiently, whether it was Family Weekend, Finals, or routine Friday nights.”

No matter what came across her desk, Urquhart brought the same fun and sense of humor that she did as a student. When the Covid-19 pandemic upended her job description, she instantly shifted her mind-set to continue cultivating a sense of community within our new health and safety guidelines. Her favorite pandemic memory: putting together a haunted trail in Laird Acres. “It was one of those moments where I knew students needed a win,” Urquhart says. “We decided, ‘Okay, we’ve got this,’ and got to work.”

English also speaks of Urquhart’s constant generosity with her time and devotion to the School: “She was always the first to volunteer for needs outside her job title, proving that she values community through and through.”

While a student at Episcopal, C O N N O R G A L L E G O S ’ 1 1 was a senior monitor, member of the Honor Committee, and four-year varsity lacrosse letter winner. His cheerful and supportive personality is remembered by his teachers, classmates, and younger students. After Episcopal, Gallegos attended the Hotchkiss School for a post-graduate year and went on to graduate from Georgetown University, where he played lacrosse.

In the spring of 2016, Gallegos returned to The Holy Hill as a lacrosse coach, working closely with his former coach and mentor Scott Conklin to train the new generation of EHS boys’ lacrosse players. After three seasons as assistant coach, Gallegos accepted the full-time position of data coordinator in the EHS admissions office, again working with Conklin.

Gallegos brought to the team an enthusiasm for introducing prospective students to the School and the infectious positivity that he was known for during his time as a student.

Conklin says, “Connor’s positive and can-do attitude is so inspiring, and he was always welcoming and warm to our prospective families.”

In the spring of 2020, as administrative roles changed with the School’s move to distance learning, Gallegos stepped into the interim role of assistant dean of students. In this position, he formed many lasting relationships with students, and he often can be seen running to the dorms to wake up students who are late for class.

Gallegos is moving to Philadelphia with his fiancée Kristen Bandos. His friendly spirit will be missed by all on campus, especially those students who will have to purchase an alarm clock in order to wake up on time for class.

EHS

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yard and her newest addition to the family, Clarke, snoozed in her arms.

Katie Elmore Thomson writes that in the middle of the pandemic, she was sworn into the Florida State Bar. After 10 years as a stay-at-home mom, Katie returned to work as an associate attorney with Kubicki Draper, P.A., in Fort Myers/Naples, Fla. Juggling a new career and virtual school for her three kids has been an adventure, and she is very much looking forward to the day when Covid-19 is behind us.

Boredom seems to be a consistent theme among our class. Lauren Kemp Bonapfel writes that they are keeping a very low profile in Atlanta but that she also managed to change jobs virtually and has joined the legal team at UPS. She is navigating getting to know her new colleagues virtually and I can relate, having started a new job in May. You never quite know if your Zoom jokes land.

Vince Van Dillen was our third careerchanger, having accepted a new position as the assistant manager at Domino’s in Annapolis. He is working on getting back into squash and polishing up his resume and as always, sends positive energy and wellwishes to our class.

Yoon Lee is an emergency room physician in Wonju, South Korea, and shared a picture of him in his PPE. Our sincere gratitude to Yoon, Carlie, Franz and other members of the Class of 2000 in the medical community fighting on the front lines of Covid. You are heroes.

Zsolt Parkyani writes that his big news is no news. He is still enjoying Munich, the snow, and can’t wait until the lockdowns are lifted so they can explore the Alps this spring.

’01

Beezie McLaughlin Sayers (C) 713-560-6210 beezie.sayers@gmail.com

Dave Clarke writes, “My wife and I welcomed our first child, Frances Byrd Clarke, on Dec. 9. Her godfather, Spencer Hopkins, has graciously offered to pay for four years at The High School! Thanks, Spence!”

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Tess and Ollie (age 5), the twins of Ravenel Richardson ’99.

Emergency room physician Yoon Lee ’00 in his personal protective equipment.

The Class of 2000 met for a Zoom reunion in December.

’02

Andrew Farrar (C) 919-616-6636 asfarrar@gmail.com Artie Armstrong (C) 805-341-5233 artiearmstrong@yahoo.com

Artie Armstrong and his fiance, Mona, are expecting a child in early February, Arthur Luke Armstrong. In the meantime he continues to teach first grade via distance learning in sunny Palm Desert, Calif.

Anne Gilbert Chase continues to live in Bozeman, Mont., with her husband, Jason, and cat, Nili. She was not able to travel for

climbing this year due to Covid, but as a result she spent many days working as a registered nurse in the intensive care unit taking care of Covid patients. Staying healthy and local was the ticket for 2020.

Ryan Larson still lives in Hilton Head, S.C., with his wife, Jill, 2-year-old daughter Piper, and their two dogs. They are expecting their second daughter at the end of January and just recently bought a new place on the south end of Hilton Head. Ryan continues to work in marketing for a restaurant group on the island but also runs boat charters in his spare time. He met up with Alex Hume and got the opportunity to meet his newest

SUBMIT YOUR CLASS NOTES ONLINE! Just go to the homepage and click on “Alumni” and then “Submit A Class Note.” For help with passwords or login, please contact the Advancement Office.

Francis Byrd Clarke, daughter of Dave Clarke ’01.

Tilden Hume, child of Alex Hume ’02, and Piper Larson, child of Ryan Larson ’02, on Hilton Head Island.

Frank Lane (5), Warner (3), and Dorothy (9 months), children of Amelie Hereford Fredland ’02.

Sam Symonds ’02 with wife Mary and son Mac.

Noah (4), Emma (5), and Phoenix (2), children of Minna Ahn Folkman ’02.

addition, Tilden, recently as well. Ryan says that if any of y’all plan a visit to Hilton Head, be sure to look him up!

Sam Symonds writes, “I’ve been living in the South Bay of Los Angeles for the last 2.5 years doing supply chain, logistics, and distribution management for a few start-ups.

I met Mary McCain Saunders in Brooklyn, N.Y., where we both were living before, and we headed out to L.A. so she could launch her own start-up, For Days. It’s a zero-waste clothing brand modeled on the circular

economy. We were married in September 2019 at my family place in the Adirondacks and just this December we welcomed our newest addition, McCain Sullivan Symonds.

We call him Mac. We also got a puppy earlier in the pandemic, a Rhodesian Ridgeback named Remy (who is an awesome handful), and we are lucky Mary’s family is all down this way in Thousand Oaks, so we have a good bubble. My sister Courtenay, who still lives in Brooklyn, had a daughter one day before we had Mac, so we are also thankful

for Mac’s cousin Alice, with whom he can share this Covid baby journey. I speak regularly with Ted Maffit ’00 about Houston, EHS, and adulting, and am always grateful for his thoughts and friendship.”

Suzanne Pinckney Pflaum and husband Jake welcomed their first child, Yvonne Rose on July 29, 2020, in Portland, Ore. Like others, she is eager to travel and for Yvonne to get to finally meet her family on the East Coast and beyond. For now they are savoring the intimate family time of the pandemic and a mild Pacific Northwest winter.

Lauren Vance and husband Sam Stockstill bought a house in Lexington, Va., in March and got married in June in a small, family ceremony. They look forward to hopefully celebrating with more friends and family in the future but were grateful for all of the support they received throughout the year.

Lauren is currently working as career advisor at Washington & Lee University and helping out with the women’s lacrosse team as a volunteer coach. They hope 2021 will allow everyone to travel more and welcome any visitors to Lexington!

Amelie Hereford Fredland and husband Jonathan welcomed their daughter, Dorothy, in May 2020. Big brothers Frank Lane (5) and Warner (3) are thrilled! Still living in Houston, Amelie continues doing real estate and loves every minute of being at home with her little ones. Wishing peace and health to everyone in 2021!

Minna Ahn Folkman and her husband, Nathan, welcomed their son Phoenix Kim Folkman on Nov. 17, 2018. Phoenix is already 2 years old and has been busy keeping up with big sister Emma (5) and brother Noah (4). During the pandemic they’ve been blessed to spend lots of quality time with each other in their new home in San Francisco, although they really missed their annual trip to Korea last summer!

Berend van Roijen and his wife, Melanie, escaped the turmoil of D.C. and are thankful to be living just south of Charlottesville with their two dogs. Berend is working remotely as a director of investment research for Goldman Sachs, and Melanie is the head of People Rewards & Analytics and a senior HR business partner for CFA Institute. They both work way too much, miss traveling, and welcome the opportunity to catch up with old friends if anyone is passing through the Cville area.

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’03

Alden Koste Corrigan (C) 443-783-4659 alden.k.corrigan@gmail.com

I hope everyone is doing well. Please feel free to send any updates my way throughout the year. It is wonderful to hear how our classmates are doing!

Congratulations to John Oelschlager and his family, who welcomed a baby boy, Jack, on Aug. 19, 2020. Big sister Anna is doing a great job helping out!

’04

Class Correspondents Needed

If you would like to share an update or volunteer to be the class correspondent, please contact Elizabeth Henderson ’11 at eah@episcopalhighschool.org or 703-933-4125.

Maizie Clarke writes, “I got married this July in my parents’ backyard; EHS Head Chaplain Betsy Carmody married us. My friends Peggy Albertson Campbell, Clarissa Chenoweth-Shook, and Calvert Coley Lange gifted me my bouquet! Since it was a Covid wedding, I wanted to give them a shout-out!”

Lauren Vance ’02 married Sam Stockstill in June.

Yvonne Rose, daughter of Suzanne Pinckney Pflaum ’02.

John Oelschlager ’03 and his son, Jack, sport their Episcopal gear.

Riddick Ellis Beebe, child of Callie and Riddick Beebe ’04, was born on Feb. 5, 2020 in Atlanta.

’05

Ellie Frazier (C) 540-256-7215 kefrazier8@gmail.com

Liza Morten Gioia and her husband, Chris, welcomed Lydia Katherine Gioia on Dec. 14, 2020. Liza writes, “Her middle name, Katherine, is inspired by my EHS roommate Kate Hollo Kegan, who is creative, resilient, funny, and kind — all qualities I hope Lydia will possess!”

Phil Hudgens writes, “Robert ‘Hank’ Haines Hudgens was born on Dec. 26, 2020!

He surprised us at 33 weeks and weighed only 4 lbs., 5 oz. at birth, but both he and my wife, Laura, are doing well. Also proud to announce that Tabb Wyllie is the godfather!”

Hillary Harper Molitor and her husband, Chris, welcomed their third daughter, Charlotte Rose Molitor, on Nov. 24, 2020.

Big sisters Molly and Madeline are loving the addition to the girl gang!

Robbie Varipapa will finish his fellowship in pulmonology and critical care this year and will stay at Georgetown next year. He and his wife, Lindsey, just bought a house 74

David Clarke ’70, Richard Kincheloe, the Rev. Betsy Carmody, Maizie Clarke Kincheloe ’04, Caldwell Clarke ’97, and Dave Clarke ’01 at Maizie and Richard’s wedding.

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Hillary Harper Molitor ’05 with daughters Charlotte Rose, Molly, and Madeline.

City a couple days after he was born in a rush to get out of the city as things with Covid worsened. Since then we’ve been living in Richmond and have just made the decision to stay permanently. We’re loving being back in Virginia, closer to family and friends. Libby is loving being a big sister. We have enjoyed seeing Walker Francis and Dan Gottwald on a few occasions in Richmond and have also spent a lot of time with Alston Armfield Daigh ’05 and her family, who have also been living here since the start of Covid. We had a Covid-safe visit this past October with some University of Virginia friends including Holly Casey Bent and Carrie Coker Kuykendall and their families and Preston Kelly Fogartie will be visiting next weekend!”

Caitlin Dirkes Simmonds welcomed baby boy Emerson Wade Simmonds on Jan. 29. He is an absolute peanut, and knowing his parents, he is destined to be an extremely likeable person.

I hope everyone is taking care of themselves.

’07

Katharine Farrar (c) 540-460-2974 katharine.farrar@gmail.com

Lydia Katherine Gioia, daughter of Chris and Liza Morten Gioia ’05, was born on Dec. 14, 2020.

Sal Virginia Osborne, daughter of Scout Douglas Osborne ’06 and granddaughter of EHS arts teacher David Douglas.

in Alexandria and are expecting a baby boy this spring!

around. I am very happy for them, but come on, Franny. I will really miss having you at EHS with me!

Scout Douglas Osborne welcomed her second daughter, Sal Virginia Osborne, on Dec. 2, 2020. See beautiful photo!

Clay Schutte reports, “I got a new job working for Lowe’s, starting February 20. I live with my girlfriend of 1.5 yrs in Winchester, Va. I moved back to the Shenandoah Valley after spending eight years in Richmond, which was a good decision for me personally and for my family. Moreover, I am into high-powered model rockets these days, which is quite fun. Also, since you asked about hairstyles: I haven’t cut my hair since April 2018, so my new hairstyle is dreadlocks. ... interestingly, they are still relatively short. ” Elizabeth Harrison Carrington writes, “This may be old news, but John and I welcomed our second child, John “Jack” Alford Carrington Jr., last March. We left New York

’06

Molly Wheaton (H) 504-288-1990 mewheaton@gmail.com Margaret von Werssowetz Waters (C) 843-607-5788 margaretvonw@gmail.com

From Margaret: Hope you are all well! As you know, we in the Advancement Office at EHS are sorting through your suggestions for our 15th Reunion. Based on the great ideas out there, we will have no problem pulling together a fun event!

Frances deSaussure Murray is sadly leaving our ranks at EHS; the siren call of Charleston is just too strong. She and Billy bought a house down there and will move after this school year ends. They are expecting baby girl No. 2 in April, so big moves all

Greetings from Raleigh, N.C.! Yep ... you read that right, I now call Raleigh home. After eight years living in Washington, D.C., and being incredibly lucky to spend my last four working at EHS, I left my official post on The Holy Hill in June and now work for Marsh & McLennan Agency as a private client account manager in personal lines insurance. Trust me, the decision to leave wasn’t easy. We’re all living in a constant state of change right now and while that can be scary, it can also be exciting ... just depends on how you look at it. I see my decision, while being tough, as a positive and exciting change. It has presented me with new challenges, given me new perspectives, and granted me new opportunities.

My hope for everyone is that throughout the hard decisions you will find yourself having to make, you are able to uncover the positives.

Life is definitely a lot more enjoyable that way.

OH ... and one more thing — I got a dog!

Meet my English bulldog/beagle mix, Mabel Rose Farrar.

Many other members of ’07 have experienced big life changes recently as well.

Lindsey Dorman Johnson gave birth to a beautiful baby girl, Marion Miller Johnson, EHS

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on March 6, 2020, and soon after, in July, she and her family moved back to her homestead of Atlanta. Baby No. 2 will be joining the clan in the spring of 2021. Hooray! The HQ of her ever-popular company, Weezie Towels, is also in Atlanta. With its continuous success and growth comes many new job opportunities — if you are in the Atlanta area and interested, check out the Weezie LinkedIn page!

In May, after nine years in Washington, D.C., Kelsey Montz Duffey moved to Dallas and soon after getting settled in, she and husband Jon welcomed their adorable son, Louis Robert Duffey, to the world on May 21, 2020.

Those of you with little ladies — watch out, because he is already quite the charmer!

Clark Barber added “buying another house” to his resume this summer when he signed on the dotted line for a beach house purchase in Seabrook Island, S.C. Dare I say Shep Rose ’97 and the other guys on Bravo’s “Southern Charm” have some competition brewing when it comes to being the most popular bachelor around town?!

Sebastian Sabella is off the market, ladies.

Sebastian proposed to his longtime girlfriend, Remie, in June, and they will be tying the knot in Key West, Fla., this April. As of this winter, they became residents of Jupiter, Fla., thanks to new roles in their professional lives.

Cooper Whiting Condon was born on Sept. 3, 2020 to Ansley Stewart Condon!

Riley, Ansley’s first-born daughter, was pretty adamant that she HAD to have a sister, but based on the photos and videos that Ansley has shared, the little chunk-hunk Cooper very quickly won his sister over. With cheeks like his, how could you not give in!?

Alexandra French is getting hitched! She said “yes” to Michael Wholey on Sept. 18, 2020, in New York City, where they spent their time quarantining. Alexandra writes, “It’s been a lot of fun, and we can’t wait to celebrate with family and friends in the hopefully near future!”

Drew McGowan popped the question in October to Lindley Maloy, and she said “yes”!

That’s one smart lady. I only hope she has some durable dancing shoes to keep up with boogie shoes Drew.

Sallie Madden Calder tied the knot in Charlottesville this past October with many EpiscoPALS by her side and in attendance. Sally Channell, Anna Belk Elliott, Katharine Farrar, Alexandra French, Claire Schmidt Virga, and Clark Barber all 76

Cooper Whiting Condon, son of Nick and Ansley Stewart Condon ’07.

Drew McGowan ’07 and fiancée Lindley Maloy.

John Alan Williams III, son of Julie Zambie Williams ’07 and her husband, Alan.

Katharine Farrar ’07 and Mabel, a beabull.

participated in the ceremony, while Griffin Johnson, Jeb Leva, Teddy Peterson, and Jane Arnold Wylie held down the fort in the congregation. But wait, there’s more!

Sallie also moved from Philadelphia down to Charlotte in February with husband Stewart and dog-daughter Gertie. She looks forward to getting to see the many EHS folks in the Charlotte area!

Anderson Hackey Brown moved, too, in November! Okay ... it might have been just down the street from the house she and husband Campbell had in Raleigh, but it’s still a huge undertaking and an exciting change.

The two have a 2-year-old daughter, Becca, and are awaiting the arrival of their second child, another girl! Baby No. 2 will make the

Browns a family of six (can’t ignore the two pups). The more the merrier, and we can’t wait to meet her!

Nov. 28, 2020, was a big day for Danny Coale. Danny and his wife, Natalie, became parents of three! That’s right ... three! Connor Kinsman Coale didn’t make his debut quite in time for a Thanksgiving feast this year, but there is no doubt that he made the hearts of his family full of love and happiness!

Griffin Johnson and his wife, Annie, packed up their things and moved from Washington, D.C., down to Annie’s hometown of Richmond in January 2021.

Other road warriors among us ... Jeb Leva and his wife Lauren! They moved from Washington, D.C., to Chapel Hill, also in

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Lindsey Dorman Johnson ’07 with husband Stephens and daughter Miller.

Louis Robert Duffey, son of Jon and Kelsey Montz Duffey ’07.

Margaret “Meg” Stone Oswald, daughter of Katie Grover Oswald ’07 and her husband, Wilson.

Sallie Madden Calder ’07 and husband Stewart Calder.

January 2021, and while they haven’t yet made a decision about which wonderful city they will decide to settle in for good, it is nice to know the EHS population in N.C. continues to grow!

Julie Zambie Williams and her husband, Alan, welcomed son John Alan Williams III on Jan. 6, 2021 in Monroe, La. John Alan came a little early but the world sure is lucky that he did! That little bayou baby boy is a perfect bundle of joy.

Margaret “Meg” Stone Oswald, born on Jan. 21, 2021, makes daughter No. 2 for Katie Grover Oswald and husband Wilson.

Meg joins the family as little sister to Julie, and she could not be any cuter. The Oswalds live in Atlanta and might I add that their

family is just as sweet as those Georgia peaches.

Taylor Robison got married in May 2019, and the happy couple is living in Charlotte.

He works in software sales for ServiceTitan and recently adopted a puppy from EHS roommate and classmate Fritz Reuter.

’08

Lucy Glaize Frey (C) 540-327-2267 lglaize@gmail.com

Greetings! Some of us just received our fall EHS magazine, and it’s already time for more notes. At first when I reached out to my classmates, I had just two responses (thank you, JB Reefer & Tucker Clarkson). After little

last-minute encouragement, or “pestering,” in the words of Whit Slagsvol, I managed to gather some excellent updates.

JB Reefer is an engineering manager at Capsule in New York City. He lives on the Upper East Side. Reefer adds that he misses EHS! Only two more years until we all get to celebrate on The Holy Hill together at our 15-year reunion, Reefer!

If you’re looking for some artisan, organic chocolate, Steven Lambeth has you covered.

Steven started a small-batch, organic chocolate business seven years ago and is starting to scale up. He recently completed a Kickstarter and met his fundraising goal in just three days.

He plans to build out a new commercial kitchen. Look up Family and Future chocolate to learn more. What’s more to celebrate is that Steven got engaged last September!

Congrats, Steven!

At first, Whit Slagsvol simply reported, “Same as always. Lawyering and what not.”

He soon followed up with more, exciting detail. He says we may be “shocked to learn” he is still in Charleston. I sense some sarcasm all the way from Michigan. Whit acknowledged that Clay Dunnan Maxwell is in Charleston, as well. Whit is still a lawyer, which he states “reflects poorly on such an esteemed profession,” followed by a quote from Henry VII, part 2, act IV, scene 2. Whit will soon celebrate four years of Slagsvol Law Firm. He continues to pursue various endeavors. The latest one is an apparel brand, Block + Ink (blockandink.com), making and selling block print shirts from India. He encourages everyone to check it out and assures us he will figure out female measurements later.

Now onto what Whit describes as the fun stuff. He bought his first house in December and is dating an “absolute angel.” (I’m finding it difficult not to quote Whit’s enthusiastic report.) His girlfriend, Hailey, who is a nurse with the Medical University of South Carolina pediatric cardiovascular intensive care unit, is in school full time for her master’s and doctorate. Wow! Whit and Hailey met at a wedding in July and ended up dancing.

Once again, in Whit’s words, “I never should have gone and showed off like that ... signing out until Lucy pesters us again.”

Speaking of the “pestering,” Richard Firth wrote saying I have the hardest job extracting people’s stories. It’s not too bad, though! Richard reports he is still madly in love with his wonderful wife, Caroline. He EHS

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occupies his day finding the balance between being a fun dog dad while raising a well-adjusted dog. Richard, Caroline, and Winnie the dog live in Dallas.

Spencer McKenna and Holly moved from Boston to Charlotte this winter. What perfect timing to get to enjoy the warmer winter in Charlotte. Spencer and Holly just brought home a new puppy, Sydney!

On Dec. 30, Lindsey Fay and James Battle met up at Keystone Resort in Colorado to hit the slopes and wave goodbye to 2020.

What a wonderful way to welcome 2021!

Scott Caslow got married in November 2020. Congrats, Scott!

Nikki Poppiti visited Trina Brady Hooker in Fort Worth, Texas, last October.

Trina happily reports she is in good health and will be one-year cancer free in March 2021.

Trina and her husband, Cahill, are expecting their second child this summer.

Alex Hess shares that he doesn’t have too much to report. He is wrapping up his MBA at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y., and is excited to return to New York City this summer.

Tucker Clarkson and his wife, Rebecca, welcomed, according to Tucker, future EHS head cheerleader Russell Tucker Clarkson in December 2020. Russell is happy, healthy, hungry, and already looking forward to beating Woodberry in the late 2030s. Tucker also started single-handedly building a shed in their backyard not long before they welcomed Russell into the family. Understandably, progress on the shed has halted. Tucker and family are looking forward to seeing everyone again in a post-pandemic world. Zoom is not his favorite way to keep in touch with Dylan Harry.

And last, but certainly not least, Amanda Weisiger Cornelson and Shaw Cornelson ’04 have a baby boy on the way!

I’m looking forward to a handful of sweet baby photos in the next magazine!

Sebastian Sabella ’07 and fiancée Remie.

Lindsey Fay ’08 and James Battle ’08 at Keystone Resort in Colorado.

Richard Firth’s ’08 dog Winnie.

Richard Firth ’08 and wife Caroline.

Russell Tucker Clarkson, son of Tucker Clarkson ’08 and wife Rebecca.

Steven Lambeth ’08 with his fiancée.

’09

Haley Morgan Tenney 09hmorga@gmail.com Jeila Martin Kershaw jeilamartin@gmail.com

Quick turnaround here from the last edition of Class Notes, but we still have a few additions to report despite the rollercoaster that has been January 2021! We (JMK and Haley) are pretty much the same 78

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— another year older yet somehow not wiser?!

Please help.

Charlie Haley reports that he’s hitting the five-year mark living in San Francisco and working at Tesla, where he leads the product finance team. He’s been doing a lot of skiing this season to get outdoors/stay sane, and a fair amount of nomadic traveling (Palm Springs, Arizona, Hawaii) with the WFH flexibility. Take us with ya next time, ok?! We like Hawaii, too!

Chip Harvey bought a house in Charlotte and got a new job as a benefits consultant at Arthur J. Gallagher. He’s a homeowner and gainfully employed?! We love to see it.

Ed Pritchard concluded a three-year stint at Marine Forces Special Operations Command and returned to the D.C. area this past summer. He is currently serving in the office of Senator Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee as her defense fellow. In this capacity, he augments her national security team as an advisor on defense, veteran affairs, foreign relations, and intelligence policy. He is concurrently earning his master’s in public policy from George Mason University, with an emphasis in national security as part of the Marine Corps Congressional Fellowship Program.

Catherine Harrison Culp coming through with a name change alert! Going

by Catherine Harrison Culp now ... “As you know, I got married to Robert Culp in October 2020 at home in Prince George, Va. We had a very small, family-only ceremony (19 guests in total!) — our original plans were downsized because of Covid-19 but it turned out to be an incredibly special occasion, even though we both missed having our friends there with us, including would-be bridesmaids Bess Trotter DuBose, Bridgette Ewing, and my cousin Maria Reuge Kelly ’04. My sister Elizabeth Harrison Carrington ’06 was the maid of honor, and my brother Fielding Harrison ’11 was a reader. Robert and I have been working remotely since last March so have had the flexibility to spend lots of time with family on the East Coast in Richmond and Charlotte before we move out to Los Angeles this spring. I was lucky enough to connect with Bridgette and Patrick Mealy (and their significant others) in Linville, N.C., in the fall, and I also met up with Ginna Oates Allen in Charlotte before Christmas!”

Best wishes to the happy couple!

After Episcopal

Home-Buying Made Simple, Inc. Ruffin Mitchener ’11 launches a start-up to help those navigating their first real-estate purchase.

BY EL I ZAB ET H H EN D ER SO N ’ 11

What is equity? How do mortgages work? Who is FICO, and why should I care?

If you are between the ages of 21 and 38 and these are questions you can’t answer, you are not alone! Though research by the National Association of Realtors notes that Millennials were the largest home-buying age group in 2019 – they made up 37 percent of home buyers — just 17 percent of Americans know the minimum down payment to purchase a home.

What’s more, only 19 percent of renters feel confident about the mortgage process.

That’s where Ruffin Mitchener ’11 is stepping in to help. With her new blog and home-buying consulting business, Ruffin Mitchener ’11 with her mother, Vickie.

Balsa (balsaonhome.com), Ruffin is making it her mission to educate first-time homeowners on the intricacies of navigating the real estate market.

Growing up in Charlotte, N.C., in a family of real estate professionals, she learned from a young age the importance of investing in real estate. When she moved to Los Angeles in 2017 to work for the real estate technology company PeerStreet, she started looking to buy her first home and quickly realized that she did not know as much about homeownership as she thought.

“It was extremely overwhelming and really opened my eyes to how little I knew about the process,” Ruffin says. “I started to think maybe there is a big problem with financial literacy, specifically as it relates to homeownership. It didn’t really seem like it was something that people in my age group were really thinking about or talking about.”

In August, Ruffin started business school at UCLA’s Anderson School of Management, where the entrepreneurship program has helped her realize her dream of starting her own business. Armed with the theoretical knowledge gained from her business courses and the practical experience of buying a condo in L.A., Ruffin set out to help other young home buyers get started on the road to owning their first homes.

With recent blog posts on the basics of mortgage lingo, the truth about tax breaks, and five steps to owning your dream home, Ruffin hopes to spread the word and bust some of the myths about the home-buying process. Other offerings from Balsa include one-on-one goal-setting sessions with Ruffin, consultations in which clients are paired with agents in their desired city, and a webinar series on the fundamentals of home-buying.

EHS

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Coming Out Ahead How Brian Mascatello ’12 became an advocate for queer inclusion in sports and finance.

B Y A N N DES AU SSU RE BIONDI ’ 08

Brian Mascatello ’12 has been around sports his entire life. His father, a sports agent, exposed him as a child to the world of elite athletics. He went on to play varsity football at Episcopal and captain the varsity tennis team.

After graduating from Cornell University, Mascatello joined the corporate finance world. He also came out as gay to his family and friends, a move that led him to the realization that his life’s journey had taken him through three areas — private education, athletics, and corporate finance — that weren’t particularly accepting of the LGBTQ community. Moreover, he says, “These are areas that typically don’t have a big LGBTQ presence.” He set out to change that and soon was working to revamp the culture of professional sports teams as well as Fortune 500 companies.

Growing up in the late 1990s and early 2000s in Middleburg, Va., Mascatello didn’t see the LGBTQ community portrayed on screen or in pop culture like it is today. Gay characters on sitcoms were few and far between, and they often only confirmed stereotypes. He says: “I would look at that and say, ‘Well, that’s not me, so I’m not gay. I like sports. I like finance.’ It was very confusing.”

Mascatello began questioning his sexual orientation toward the end of his time at Episcopal, which led to some discomfort.

He says there were no openly gay students, and the world was generally less accepting of the LGBTQ community than it is now. Same-sex marriage wasn’t legalized in the state of Virginia until October 2014, two years after Mascatello graduated.

“People forget just how much has changed in my lifetime,” he says. “I definitely did not feel like I could be out and be the same person or have the same experience.”

Mascatello came out as gay after college while working at X10 Capital, a private-equity fund focused on the sports industry. “It was hard to come out to the male-dominated company,” 80

he says. “Sports is one of the few areas where homophobia is still very present. It isn’t widely condemned either.” The sports world, he adds, is “one of the last frontiers of the LGBTQ acceptance movement.”

While working at X10, Mascatello began volunteering with the You Can Play Project, a nonprofit that aims to ensure the safety and inclusion of LGBTQ people in sports from high school to the professional level — athletes, coaches, staff, and fans. With the You Can Play project, Mascatello helped minorleague baseball teams build diversity and inclusion training, marched alongside the San Francisco 49ers in the city’s annual Pride Parade, and got involved with the San Jose Sharks, the local NHL team, to host their annual Pride game night.

Inspired by this work, Mascatello continued with similar efforts when he moved to Bank of America and its ultra-high net worth team at Merrill Lynch. While banking is “slightly better” than the sports world in Mascatello’s eyes — employees can identify themselves as out at work on Bank of America’s internal employee website — he says there is a long way to go.

“It comes down to visibility, comfort levels, and making sure you have the same opportunities.”

Mascatello began collaborating with the head of the BofA Pride team and joined the Northern California Pride Leadership Team within the company, working with roughly 75 others on acceptance in the banking industry. While the Covid-19 pandemic curtailed the bank’s plans for the annual Pride Parade in June 2020, Mascatello and BofA Pride came up with virtual events to celebrate Pride Month, putting on a virtual film festival with the media-arts nonprofit Frameline and creating a mentorship program that pairs LGBTQ employees or allies with top leaders at the firm.

The LGBTQ community is “so widely accepted in the Bay Area that people might not realize it’s important to label yourself as out at work and try to be an example for others,” he says. By giving employees the opportunity to collaborate and learn from leaders at the bank, the group hopes individuals might be more willing to identify themselves as members of the LGBTQ community. The program is being piloted in Northern California and serves roughly 50 in the field, with the hope to expand nationally.

While Mascatello has since moved to J.P. Morgan, he is eager to bring his vision to future companies and help others who want to come out. “I have the best family and friends in the world, so I can’t imagine how hard it would be for other people who aren’t as supported,” he says. “If I didn’t have the background that I have, I might not be as comfortable being out in these types of environments. I’m very passionate about making it easier for other people.”

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As for me, I am enjoying my first year of business school in North Carolina with several other EHS alums and hope to see all of you soon.

’11

Elizabeth Henderson (C) 804-384-7854 eahenderson15@gmail.com Connor Gallegos connorgallegos92@gmail.com

Frances Ainsworth Rogers ’11 with husband Billy Rogers.

Olabisi Fraser Evans ’11 with husband Hashim Evans.

Frances Stone Edge spent the summer galavanting in the mountains of North Carolina while getting her 200-hour registered yoga teacher certificate. This winter she got her real estate license and was recently employed by a Keller Williams team. She’s currently waiting to see what orthopedic residency her husband, Carl, will match in. The horizon is looking bright, Fran!

We don’t have too much else to say except happy 30th birthday to most of us in the class of 2009! We have decided that this one didn’t count so you’re all invited to one more year of being 29 and a mass celebration in 2022.

Where should we go? Think on it before the next edition.

of our classmates who are proud Richmond residents.

The most important headline coming out of Urbanna is that Robert and Rachel are expecting their first baby in July! Rest assured, the newest Kittrell will be immediately groomed to join the Class of 2039. It’s safe to say that the future varsity soccer goalie position is in very good hands.

In October, Audrey Humleker Garrison, Alexa Williams, Emily Fay, and Jessica Kim descended onto Charlottesville for a fun weekend together. All are doing well!

After five years in San Francisco, Martha Perez-Sanz is back in the Midwest, where she now calls Minneapolis home. She asks for any EHS folks in the area to look her up!

Beirne Hutcheson and Coles Lawton met while they were in Vail over the holidays for Covid-safe socially distant skiing. Coles also caught up with Benjamin Baldwin when they were home in South Carolina. After battling pandemic delays, Benjamin and his fiancé, Dani Score, are excited to finally get married in September in California!

Alexandra Vandeventer reports that she enjoyed connecting with Alix Wright in Breckenridge, Colo. Alexandra is still living in Denver and recently started remote classes for interior design at Parsons School for Design in New York City. Congrats, Alexandra!

’10

Whitt Clement (C) 804-477-5732 wwc3uk@virginia.edu

There is plenty of news and big life updates to report.

Robert and Rachel Hurley Kittrell celebrated James Dorsett and Gene McCarthy’s birthdays in Urbanna, Va., with James’s fiancée, Regan Murphy (Congrats, James!), and Jordan Nulsen. To top off the weekend, James caught his first rockfish. Robert reports that he also went hunting recently with Brendan Luther, who has now joined an elite group

Greetings from The Holy Hill! A huge thank you to Ambler Goddin, who is stepping down after serving us so well as class correspondent for five years! Connor Gallegos has graciously agreed to take over the position starting in September, so send Connor your life updates for the next magazine!

Connor also has an exciting update: He is moving to Philadelphia with his fiancée, Kristin. He has been such a valuable member of the Admissions Office and then Deans Office at EHS, and I will certainly miss having a fellow Class of ’11 member on campus!

Congratulations to Frances Ainsworth Rogers, who married William “Billy” DeForrest Rogers on Dec. 5, 2020, in Fayetteville, Texas. Audrey Humleker Garrison ’10 had the pleasure of attending, and Frances’s sister, Leigh Ainsworth Coutoumanos ’08, was there as well.

Olabisi Fraser Evans married Hashim Evans in October 2019. Congrats, Olabisi!!

Colin Thomas wrote in with a whole bunch of updates, including that he, Bennett Jones, Sutton Alford, and Max Graney attended and were in George Moore’s wedding in Boise, Idaho. Ruffin Mitchner, Addison Bortz, Caroline Andress, and Bailey Patrick were also there.

More from Colin: He moved in with George Reefer in New York City, where they frequently see Max, Sutton, and Stanley Gaines. Colin also writes that he started at the Darden School of Business at the University of Virginia and Fielding Harrison and Austin Boyd started business school at the University of North Carolina.

Addison Bortz got a golden retriever (@marvelousmissmabel17), Ruffin Mitchner got a corgi (@montague_thecorgi), and Bennet Jones’s pug’s account (@captainchunk_thepug) has a whopping 30K instagram followers!

Stewart Bova is a lieutenant junior grade, U.S. Navy. He is assigned to Joint Interagency EHS

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Task Force at the Truman Annex Naval Station in Key West, Fla.

’12

Celeste Jones (C) 434-414-4696 jonescelesteh@gmail.com

Chris Wasden got engaged to Landon Dooley!

Austin deButts and Johnny Bond are living together in Charlottesville and sometimes let Harrison Clement come over and hang out with them too.

Johnny Bond is attending the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business with Charles Patton ’11 and Harrison Clement.

Johnny Bond, Armour Shaw, and Wells Patrick traveled to the southern tip of Alaska in July for a 10-day fly fishing expedition.

Armour said, “While fishing was the main focus, we were stunned to interact so closely with grizzly bears. They are really no different than dogs and cats in the lower 48 and interact with fisherman regularly!”

Ben Strawsburg recently moved to Atlanta.

’13

Kurt Anderson ’13 and Morgan Treacy at their wedding, accompanied by Kurt’s family, including Kelsey Anderson ’16 (second from left).

Somer Glubiak sglubiak@gwu.edu

Kurt Anderson married Morgan Treacy in Stillwater, Minn., on Oct. 23, 2020! Bobby Burke, Eric McDonald, and Bobby Meyers attended.

Lee Stewart recently joined VistaPrint in Boston as an operations associate in human relations. Eric McDonald visited her and Cricket and Craig Stewart ’70 in Charleston in January. Eric recently moved to Raleigh for a job as an account executive with Red-on-line.

’14 ’15

Cici Sobin (C) 703-999-1277 cici.sobin@gmail.com

Presley Goode pgoode2@gmail.com Tyler Hartmeyer (C) 516-474-9843 tyler.hartmeyer@gmail.com Morgan Lineberry (C) 205-789-0447 morganlineberry12@gmail.com

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Lee Stewart ’13 and Eric McDonald ’13 together in Boston.

’16

Kelsey Anderson (C) 703-624-6968 kelseymanderson4@gmail.com

Lily Westbrook and Lane Ballentine moved to New York City in November. Lily is working at Guidepoint as a client services associate.

Ryan McKernan also moved to NYC and is working for Credit Suisse.

Porter Geer moved to D.C. and just got a bunny named Winnie!

’17

Halle Hughes (C) 904-322-2828 hughes.halle@me.com

Cadet Alexander Block delivered the game ball at the historic Army-Navy faceoff. Block ran 25 miles on his own, which contributed to a team total of over 400 collective miles and the ball traveling over 170 miles.

SUBMIT YOUR CLASS NOTES ONLINE! Just go to the homepage and click on “Alumni” and then “Submit A Class Note.” For help with passwords or login, please contact the Advancement Office.

Patrice Rene ’16, Litchfield Ajavon ’19, and Gray Goodwyn ’18 after the UNC vs. Notre Dame football game in November.

Stuart Greenspon ’17 and Janie Stillwell ’19 after a socially distanced lacrosse workout at Washington & Lee University.

where he recorded his first collegiate win on the mound in March 2020.

’18

Lexi Weger (C) 571-721-8585 lilweges33@gmail.com Erin Phillips erinphillips18@gmail.com

’19

Olivia Tucker olivia.tucker@yale.edu Lilly Whitner lfwhitner@gmail.com

’20 Natalie Block ’19 (right) at the United States Military Academy’s Air Assault School, where she rappelled out of helicopters.

Clare Henderson launched her art website www.clarehendersonart.com and was featured in her first online gallery.

Jared Young founded the See More Foundation which is a 501(c)3 organization created to teach basketball fundamentals and financial literacy basics to youth in central Pennsylvania. Find out more on the group’s Instagram page @smg.foundation.

William Wiltshire accepted a teaching job at Success Academy, a charter school network

Class Correspondents Needed

If you would like to share an update or volunteer to be the class correspondent, please contact Elizabeth Henderson ’11 at eah@episcopalhighschool.org or 703-933-4125.

with 20,000 students across Manhattan, Brooklyn, the Bronx, and Queens.

Hayne Ainslie is working at Sikorsky, the helicopter branch of Lockheed Martin.

Robert Clarke learned Arabic as a supplement for his thesis work on sustainable healthcare architecture in the Middle East.

After postponing his baseball career and taking a medical redshirt year at the University of Virginia in 2018 for shoulder surgery, Sen Kenneally transferred to Amherst College, EHS

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Births and New Arrivals

Marriages

Email alumni@episcopalhighschool.org with news of births, adoptions, and other family additions.

Email alumni@episcopalhighschool.org with news of any and all matrimonial unions.

Léonie Maribelle Liebler to Brian and Malsert Chapman Liebler ’99 on June 12, 2020.

Howell Morrison Wood to Emily and Jenner Wood ’06 on January 27, 2021.

Devon Claire O’Donnell ’99 to Garner McClayton on June 20, 2020.

Frances Byrd Clarke to Melissa and Dave Clarke ’01 on December 9, 2020.

Connor Kinsman Coale to Natalie and Danny Coale ’07 on November 28, 2020.

Mary Snowden Clarke ’04 to Richard Kincheloe on July 18, 2020.

Dorothy Amelie Fredland to Jonathan and Amelie Hereford Fredland ’02 on May 16, 2020.

Cooper Whiting Condon to Nick and Ansley Stewart Condon ’07 on September 3, 2020.

Yvonne Rose Pflaum to Jake and Suzanne Pinckney Pflaum ’02 on July 29, 2020.

Louis Robert Duffey to Jon and Kelsey Montz Duffey ’07 on May 21, 2020.

McCain Sullivan Symonds to Mary and Sam Symonds ’02 on December 30, 2020.

Marion Miller Johnson to Stephens and Lindsey Dorman Johnson ’07 on March 6, 2020.

Jack Lawrence Oelschlager to Austin and John Oelschlager ’03 on August 19, 2020.

Margaret “Meg” Stone Oswald to Wilson and Katie Grover Oswald ’07 on January 21, 2021.

Alexander Foxwell Murphey to Heather and Blake Murphey ’04 on February 16, 2021.

John Alan Williams, III to Alan and Julie Zambie Williams ’07 on January 6, 2021.

Lydia Katherine Gioia to Chris and Liza Morten Gioia ’05 on December 14, 2020.

Russell Tucker Clarkson to Rebecca and Tucker Clarkson ’08 on December 21, 2020.

Lauren Elizabeth Vance ’04 to Sam Stockstill on June 6, 2020.

Sarah Rowland Madden ’07 to Stewart Calder on October 23, 2020.

Forrest Taylor Robison ’07 to Kathryn Horn on May 4, 2019.

Douglass Scott Caslow ’08 to Hillary Bourke on November 21, 2020.

Catherine Randolph Harrison ’09 to Robert Culp on October 17, 2020.

Frances Higginbotham Ainsworth ’11 to Billy Rogers on December 5, 2020.

Olabisi Elaine Fraser ’11 to Hashim Evans on October 17, 2019.

Kurt David Anderson ’13 to Morgan Treacy on October 23, 2020.

Robert “Hank” Haines Hudgens to Laura and Phil Hudgens ’05 on December 26, 2020.

Charlotte Rose Molitor to Chris and Hillary Harper Molitor ’05 on November 24, 2020.

John “Jack” Alford Carrington, Jr. to John and Elizabeth Harrison Carrington ’06 on March 12, 2020.

Sal Virginia Osborne to Russell and Scout Douglas Osborne ’06 on December 2, 2020.

Emerson Wade Simmonds to Marshall and Caitlin Dirkes Simmonds ’06 on January 29, 2021.

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SUBMIT YOUR CLASS NOTES ONLINE! Just go to the homepage and click on “Alumni” and then “Submit A Class Note.” For help with passwords or login, please contact the Advancement Office.

In Memoriam The Rev. Robert Baldwin “B” Lloyd ’44 of Blacksburg, Va., died October 11, 2019

The Rev. Lloyd was a member of Episcopal’s fall tennis, winter track, and spring tennis teams. After graduation, he served as an intelligence officer and first lieutenant in the U.S. Army in Japan. He earned his bachelor’s degree from the University of Virginia and divinity degree from Virginia Theological Seminary. Rev. Lloyd was awarded honorary doctor of ministry degrees by the Episcopal Theological Seminary in Kentucky in 1982 and by VTS in 1983.

His ministry stretched from churches in Mineral, Va., where he was active in the Civil Rights Movement, to the campus of Virginia Tech and the St. Paul’s Episcopal Mission of the Monacan Nation of Bear Mountain, Va. Rev. Lloyd is survived by his wife, Mary Ellen West Lloyd, as well as three children, three grandchildren, and many more family members and friends.

Joseph Dill “Joe” Baker ’44

of Frederick, Md., died September 22, 2020

Mr. Baker was a member of the Wilmer Literary Society as well as the JV and cake football teams. After Episcopal, Mr. Baker attended Babson College and worked in finance. He started in banking and then worked in the insurance industry and established Joseph D. Baker Insurance.

Mr. Baker was preceded in death by his wife, Frances. He is survived by his four children, 11 grandchildren, and 11 great-grandchildren.

Haynie Sydney Robertson Jr. ’45

of Blackstone, Va., died January 27, 2021 Prior to his time on The Holy Hill, Mr. Robertson attended Blackstone High School and joined the U.S. Navy. At EHS, he sang in the choir and played on the Centennial basketball, Greenway baseball, and 130-lb. football teams.

Mr. Robertson attended Hampden Sydney College and the New England Conservatory of Music. He spent a few years in New Hampshire, singing and playing the upright bass.

He returned to Blackstone and became the owner and operator of Blackstone Fuel and Supply Co. until 2012.

Mr. Robertson was preceded in death by his wife, Mary Elba Fraher. He is survived by two children and three grandchildren.

Dr. Benjamin “Ben” Francis Weems III ’46

of Royal Oak, Md., died September 26, 2020

At EHS, Dr. Weems was a member of the JV football, Centennial basketball, and Greenway baseball teams. He also was chair of the glee club and a member of the Blackford Literary Society and the 8:30 club.

After Episcopal, Dr. Weems served in the U.S. Marine Corps and then graduated from Princeton University.

He was called to service again and was stationed in Japan for one year. Dr. Weems taught at the University of Vermont and then attended Columbia University, where he received his Ph.D. in English literature. He taught at Columbia University, Brown University, Penn State University, and McGill University in Montreal.

Dr. Weems was preceded in death by his cousin Benjamin Francis Weems II ’42. He is survived by his wife as well as a brother, four children, and seven grandchildren.

Hugh Pendleton Nunnally Jr. ’47

of Sea Island and Shellman Bluff, Ga., died September 30, 2020 On The Holy Hill, Mr. Nunnally played JV football, Centennial basketball, and Greenway baseball.

Mr. Nunnally studied at the School of Architecture at the Georgia Institute of Technology and then served in the U.S. Army as a staff sergeant. Following his service, he worked in the finance sector and was a founding partner in two companies: Budd & Co. in 1958 and Presidential Financial Co. in 1973. Mr. Nunnally was one of the first investors of the Chicago Board of Options Exchange. He also was a philanthropist who contributed to the Southeast Georgia Health System as well as the College of Coastal Georgia. He was on the board of the Peachtree Golf Club and the Ocean Forest Club.

Mr. Nunnally was preceded in death by his wife, Miriam. He is survived by his three children, three grandchildren, two sisters, and many nieces, nephews, cousins, and friends.

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IN MEMORIAM

William “Billy” Kirkland Bruce ’48

Dr. Augustus “Gus” Loftus Middleton Jr. ’48

of Houston, Texas, died January 5, 2021

of Charleston, S.C., died February 7, 2021

Mr. Bruce was a monitor, waiter, and member of the Fairfax Literary Society, Egypt, and the Missionary Society. He played varsity football, varsity basketball, and spring tennis. In 2009, Mr. Bruce was inducted into the EHS Athletics Hall of Fame as a member of the 1947 varsity football team.

After Episcopal, he attended Sewanee: The University of the South and joined the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve in 1953. Mr. Bruce attended Officer Candidate School in Quantico, Va., and served in active duty during the Korean War, then was honorably discharged with the rank of captain. Following his service, he returned to Houston to join his family’s insurance business, George Bruce & Co., which merged later into Alexander & Alexander. In 1973, he joined Johnson & Higgins and remained there until his retirement in 1990.

Mr. Bruce was preceded in death by his brother, George “Sandy” Stubblefield Bruce III ’53. He is survived by his wife, Ann, as well as two children, son-in-law Gerrald Anthony Giblin Jr. ’77, four granddaughters, and one great-granddaughter.

As a student at Episcopal, Dr. Middleton was a monitor and received the Johns Prize in 1946 and the Whittle Prize in 1947 and 1948.

He graduated from Princeton University and studied medicine at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons. He served in the U.S. Coast Guard in Charleston, then moved to Jackson, Tenn., to join the pathology department at Jackson Madison County General Hospital. Dr. Middleton served on the board of the National Accrediting Agency for Clinical Laboratory Science and was one of the founders of Episcopal Day School (now University School of Jackson). He retired from formal medical practice but participated in medical missions trips to countries such as Kenya, Nepal, and Saint Lucia.

Dr. Middleton is survived by his wife, Beverlye, as well as his sister, brother Henry Woodward “Woodie” Middleton ’52, five children including Charles Russell Middleton ’85, nine grandchildren, and nephews Henry Woodward “Woody” Middleton Jr. ’86 and Frank Bailey Middleton ’87.

Hobson “Hobby” Cosby McGehee Jr. ’48

Dr. Frederick “Fred” Hart Cleveland ’52

of Jackson, Miss., died December 27, 2020

of Fort Worth, Texas, died November 14, 2020

Mr. McGehee was a monitor and vice president of the Missionary Society.

He also was a member of the Stewart Athletic Committee as well as the Chronicle and Whispers Boards. Mr. McGehee played Greenway baseball and was on the 1947 varsity football team, which was inducted in 2009 into the EHS Athletics Hall of Fame.

After Episcopal, he graduated from Hampden-Sydney College, where he studied geology. Mr. McGehee began farming with his father in Berryville, Va., and then worked for the Virginia Highway Patrol. He later moved to Jackson to work in the family oil business, where he became president of Minerals Management, Inc., and also served on the board of directors of Jones-O’Brien, Inc. Mr. McGehee is survived by his wife, Bettie Payne, as well as a daughter, two sons, 13 grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren.

At Episcopal, Dr. Cleveland was co-captain of the squash team, a waiter, and a post office keeper. He was also a member of the Whispers Board, Blackford Literary Society, and the wrestling and tennis teams. He received the Whittle Prize in 1950 and 1952 and the Johns Prize in 1951.

Dr. Cleveland joined the U.S. Air Force in 1954 and attained the rank of lieutenant colonel. He received several medals for his service, including the Distinguished Flying Cross, Bronze Star, Air Medal, and Commendation Medal for assignments in the United States, Europe, Africa, and Asia.

After earning his bachelor’s degree from Texas A&M in 1960 and his master’s degree from MIT in 1966, Dr. Cleveland retired from the Air Force in 1974. He worked for Lockheed Martin as an electronics engineer and then earned his Ph.D. from the University of Texas at Austin in 1985. Although he retired from Lockheed, he remained active as an adjunct mathematics professor for the University of Maryland in Japan as well as for Tarrant County College in Fort Worth.

Dr. Cleveland is survived by his wife, Betty Newport King, as well as five children, seven grandchildren, and four great-grandchildren.

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Ula Hubert “Dick” Cozart III ’52

of Wilson, N.C., died December 14, 2020

Mr. Cozart was a monitor, schoolroom keeper, and member of the varsity football team as well as the JV football, basketball, and baseball teams. He was also a member of the E Club, Egypt, the Blackford Literary Society, choir, and glee club.

After serving in the Navy ROTC and graduating from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, he became a supply officer on a destroyer from 1956-59. He then returned to his hometown to become a partner at Cozart Eagles and Co. as a tobacco farm and warehouse manager. Mr. Cozart held various roles at the Cozart Farms Partnership and served as the president of the Wilson Tobacco Board of Trade. He was active in the development of Wilson and sat on several boards and committees, including the Downtown Redevelopment Board and the Wilson County Zoning and Planning Board.

Mr. Cozart was preceded in death by his brother, William “Bill” Thomas Cozart ’58. He is survived by his wife, LouAnn, as well as a daughter, son Thomas Moye Cozart ’78, a grandson, a sister, and nephew William Thomas Cozart Jr. ’85.

Evan Kenny Houseman ’52

Allan “Al” Monroe Rathbone ’52

of Murraysville, Pa., died December 29, 2020 At Episcopal, Mr. Rathbone was a monitor and sports editor of the Chronicle. He also was a member of the varsity football and JV basketball teams, the Whispers Board, choir, glee club, Missionary Society, and Egypt.

He received the Wilmer Memorial Junior Medal in 1949, the Johns Prize in 1950, and the Whittle Prize in 1951 and 1952.

Mr. Rathbone was in the ROTC and commissioned as a second lieutenant in the U.S. Army after graduating from Lehigh University. He was honorably discharged in 1958 and returned to Lehigh for his master’s degree in metallurgy. Mr. Rathbone then began work in Pennsylvania’s steel industry, starting as a research engineer and ending his 36-year career with U.S. Steel as director of research. He retired in 1996 and started spending his winters in Gulf Shores, Ala. Mr. Rathbone was preceded in death by his brother, William Vinton “Vint” Rathbone Jr. ’51. He is survived by his wife, Yvonne, as well as three children and three grandchildren.

Dr. Charles Richard “Dick” Furman Baker Jr. ’53

of Wilmington, Del., died January 12, 2021

of Edisto Island, S.C., died January 25, 2021

On The Holy Hill, Mr. Houseman was a member of the Fairfax Literary Society and a business manager for dramatics. He ran all seasons of track and also played tennis.

After Episcopal, he earned his bachelor’s degree from Yale University, his master’s degree from the University of Delaware, and his MBA from Drexel University. Mr. Houseman worked for DuPont Co. for more than 36 years and retired in 1993.

He is survived by his wife, Ann, as well as a sister, three daughters, and six grandchildren.

At Episcopal, Dr. Baker was a monitor and business manager of the Chronicle and Whispers. He played varsity football, Greenway baseball, and tennis; he also wrestled and ran track. Dr. Baker was a member of the Missionary Society, Blackford Literary Society, dramatics, E Club, and Egypt. He received the Whittle Prize in 1950, 1952, and 1953; the William Holland Wilmer Medal in 1950; the Johns Prize in 1951; and the Randolph Fairfax Memorial Medal in 1953.

Following his time on The Holy Hill, Dr. Baker graduated from Princeton University and went on to medical school at Johns Hopkins University. He did his residency at the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston and was the chief surgical resident in 1966. He then served in the U.S. Air Force in 1967-68 in Taichung, Taiwan, and retired from active duty with the rank of captain. Dr. Baker moved to Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas, where he had a fellowship in trauma training.

He went on to become a faculty member at Emory University in the 1970s and also served as director of the Surgical Emergency Clinic at Grady Hospital in Atlanta. In 1981, Dr. Baker moved to Lubbock, Texas, where he was instrumental in establishing the emergency medical system for Texas Tech and the West Texas

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IN MEMORIAM

region. He was appointed chair of the Surgery Department at Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center in 1995. He retired in 2001 and returned to his homeland of South Carolina.

Dr. Baker was preceded in death by his father, Dr. Charles Richard Furman Baker Class of 1919, and a son. He is survived by his wife, Jo Anne, as well as two children, four granddaughters, and 14 great-grandchildren.

Edward “Ed” Wier Hutchins ’53

He is preceded in death by his brother, George Lamb Buist Rivers Jr. ’50. He is survived by his wife, Mary, as well as seven children, including Thomas Pinckney Rutledge Rivers Jr. ’84, and 12 grandchildren, three great-grandchildren, and many extended family members, including nephew George Lamb Buist Rivers III ’79 and great-nephew George Lamb Buist Rivers IV ’12.

Dr. John “Jack” Ingle Yellott Jr. ’56

of Mesquite, Nev., died December 15, 2020

of Laguna Beach, Calif., on December 4, 2019

While on The Holy Hill, Mr. Hutchins was vice president of the Missionary Society, a monitor, a waiter, and a member of the varsity football, track, and wrestling teams. He was also in choir, drama club, E Club, Egypt, and glee club.

Mr. Hutchins received his bachelor’s degree and later his MBA from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He started a career in the banking industry, working in the international department for Bank of America in New York and San Francisco. After falling in love with the Western United States, Mr. Hutchins worked in the gaming industry for the last 50 years of his career, mostly in Las Vegas.

Mr. Hutchins was preceded in death by his brother, Frederick “Fred” Strickland Hutchins Jr. ’51. He is survived by his wife, Lenora, as well as a niece, nephew Frederick “Rick” Strickland Hutchins III ’79, great-niece Kate Buchanan Woltz Shelton ’05, three brothers-in-law, a sister-in-law, and many more family members.

Dr. Yellott was a member of the Missionary Society, Blackford Literary Society, the Whispers and Chronicle Boards, dramatics, and the wrestling team. He was also manager of the baseball team.

After EHS, Dr. Yellott studied pre-law at Stanford University, returned to receive his doctorate of sociology in 1960, and earned a master’s degree in 1961. He earned his Ph.D. in psychology from Stanford in 1966. He was an assistant and then associate professor of psychology at the University of Minnesota until 1971 and studied at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton University, specializing in mathematical learning theory and reaction times. He then joined the School of Social Sciences at the University of California at Irvine, where he spent the rest of his career. He served as the founding chair of the Department of Cognitive Sciences from 1986-91 and again from 1995-99. He became professor emeritus in 2002.

Dr. Yellott was preceded in death by his father Dr. John Ingle Yellott Class of 1926, uncle Kinloch Nelson Yellott Class of 1918, and relatives Ernest Helfenstein Jr. Class of 1915, Benton Timanus Boogher Class of 1927, Benton Timanus Boogher Jr. ’50, and Ernest Helfenstein III ’50. He is survived by his wife, Dorothea, as well as three children and a grandson.

Dr. Thomas “Tommy” Pinckney Rutledge Rivers ’53

of Charleston, S.C., died November 30, 2020

At The High School, Dr. Rivers was a member of the Honor Committee, Egypt, Blackford Literary Society, and the varsity football and track teams.

He was also a monitor, secretary of the Missionary Society, a head usher, and head of the Chapel Committee.

He received the Bryant Scholarship Medal in 1953.

Dr. Rivers graduated from Davidson College, where he served in the Army ROTC. He received his medical degree from the Medical College of South Carolina and then was stationed as a physician at Fort Jackson in Columbia, S.C., until 1968. Dr. Rivers began his 40-year career as an OB/ GYN in Charleston.

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Dr. Gordon Buck LeGrand ’57

of Raleigh, N.C., on November 21, 2020 At Episcopal, Dr. LeGrand was a member of the Fairfax Literary Society, Chronicle and Whispers Boards, rifle club, Chapel Committee, and the Missionary Society. He played for the cake football, winter track, and tennis teams. Dr. LeGrand received the Whittle Prize in 1956, the Launcelot Minor Blackford Medal for Excellence in Latin in 1957, and the William Garrett Bibb Medal for Excellence in Shakespeare in 1957.

Dr. LeGrand earned his bachelor’s degree from Davidson College and graduated from the University of North Carolina

Medical School. He did his residency and fellowship in pathology at North Carolina Memorial Hospital in Chapel Hill and practiced pathology and laboratory medicine at Wake County Memorial Hospital in Raleigh. Dr. LeGrand also served in the U.S. Army as a pathologist at the Army Hospital at Ft. Hood, Texas.

Dr. LeGrand was preceded in death by his uncle, Harrison Leigh Buck Class of 1925. He is survived by his wife, Judith, as well as two sons, a grandson, and brother John Lillington LeGrand ’61.

Glenn Hampton Lemon Jr. ’57

of Roanoke, Va., on December 29, 2020

Mr. Lemon was a member of the Chronicle and Whispers Boards, Missionary Society, dramatics, and grins and grimaces. He played soccer, tennis, and 130-lb. football. A member of the Blackford Literary Society, Mr. Lemon received the Declamation Medal in 1957.

After Episcopal, he graduated from Yale University. Glenn served in the U.S. Navy for four years, during which he attended Officer Candidate School and was stationed on a destroyer. Following his service, Mr. Lemon worked at Chase Bank in New York City. He retired to Williamsburg, Va., where he volunteered at the Jamestown and Colonial Williamsburg historical villages.

Mr. Lemon was preceded in death by cousins Dr. Hugh Henry Trout Class of 1898, Dr. Hugh Henry Trout Jr. ’30, Dr. Philip Cocke Trout ’34, and Albert Henry Trout ’48. He is survived by his brother, Philip Henry Lemon ’60, as well as a son, a granddaughter, and cousins Dr. Hugh Henry Trout III ’59 and Robert “Bob” Powel Trout ’66.

He was preceded in death by his father, Charles Rapley Hooff Jr. ’31, and uncle John Carlyle Herbert Hooff ’37, grandfather Charles Rapley Hooff Sr. Class of 1902, and relatives James L. Hooff Class of 1842 and John J. Hooff Class of 1860.

Mr. Hooff is survived by his wife, Gudrun, and four children, including Carlyle “Carlie” Fairfax Hooff Casella ’00, as well as 12 grandchildren, a sister, nephew Gary Stephen “Steve” Bierman Jr. ’92, and many more family members, including John Carlyle Herbert Hooff Jr. ’67, Eugene “Gene” Prince Hooff ’72, John Carlyle Herbert Hooff III ’95, Eugene “Gene” Prince Hooff Jr. ’01, Alexander “Alec” Rapley Hooff ’02, Robert Easley Hooff ’04, and Elizabeth McLean Hooff ’24.

Francis Armistead “Steady” Cash Jr. ’60

of Charlotte, N.C., on December 29, 2020

Mr. Cash was a monitor, treasurer of the Blackford Literary Society, and schoolroom keeper. He was a member of the Missionary Society, E Club, Sibley Room Committee, choir, glee club, and dramatics. He played on the varsity football, varsity basketball, and Greenway baseball teams.

After graduating from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Mr. Cash worked for the Parnell-Martin Cos. in Charlotte, which his father-in-law owned.

He became the CEO and sold the company in 2004. Mr. Cash was a co-founder of the Charlotte Leadership Forum, served on several local boards, and was the chairman of the national board of trustees of Young Life from 1998-2000.

Mr. Cash is survived by his wife, Barbara, as well as three children, a sister, 12 grandchildren, and nieces and nephews.

Donald “Don” Lewis Fitzhugh Jr. ’60

Charles “Charlie” Rapley Hooff III ’58

of Thorp, Wash., on September 15, 2020

On The Holy Hill, Mr. Hooff was a cheerleader and a coach for the winter track team. He was a member of dramatics, the Blackford Literary Society, the Daemon, the Chronicle and Whispers Boards, and Egypt.

Following his time on The Holy Hill, Mr. Hooff graduated from George Washington University and worked for Air America. He joined the family business of real estate in Alexandria, eventually becoming the managing director and principal broker of Charles R. Hooff, Inc. Mr. Hooff managed and developed properties, including the historic Torpedo Factory in Old Town, Alexandria.

Mr. Fitzhugh was the senior class president, a senior monitor, chair of the Honor Committee, alternate captain of the varsity football team, vice president of the Blackford Literary Society, and secretary of E Club. He was also a member of the Missionary Society, choir, glee club, the Chronicle Board, and students committee.

After EHS, Mr. Fitzhugh graduated from Princeton University, enrolled in the U.S. Army Reserve, and was enlisted to active duty.

Following his service, Mr. Fitzhugh worked at the Washington Evening Star newspaper for two years and briefly taught English at St. Paul’s School in Baltimore. He then moved to Charlottesville and worked in construction and masonry. Mr. Fitzhugh moved to rural Washington state in 2000.

of Lorton, Va., on February 1, 2021

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IN MEMORIAM

Mr. Fitzhugh was preceded in death by his father, Donald Lewis Fitzhugh Class of ’33. He is survived by his daughter Lisa Fitzhugh, brother James Matthew Fitzhugh ’67, a sister, and a grandson.

David “Dave” Kent Higgins ’66

of Charleston, W.Va., on February 13, 2021 At Episcopal, Mr. Higgins was a senior advisor and copy editor of the Chronicle. He was a member of the Missionary Society, E Club, Blackford Literary Society, Wilmer Literary Society, and grins and grimaces. Mr. Higgins ran winter track and played on the varsity baseball, Greenway baseball, varsity football, cake football, and varsity wrestling teams. He received the Whittle Prize for Academic Excellence as well as the Robert L. Whittle Medal for German. In 2017, Mr. Higgins was inducted into the EHS Athletics Hall of Fame as a member of the 1966 baseball team.

After graduating from Washington & Lee University, he served in the U.S. Army in Vietnam. Following his service, Mr. Higgins received his law degree from Washington & Lee University Law School in 1975. His career in law led him to become a founder of Robinson & McElwee PLLC in 1979. Mr. Higgins served two terms on the Charleston City Council from 2003-11 and was appointed to the West Virginia House of Delegates in 2007. A lifelong supporter of The High School, he served as a member of Episcopal’s Advancement Committee.

Mr. Higgins is survived by his wife, Patti, as well as three stepsons, four grandchildren, his brother Rev. Stanley Kent Higgins ’63, nieces and nephews, and cousins Kemble White III ’62 and David Swanton Alter ’68.

Porter Farrell II ’73

of Fort Worth, Texas, on February 10, 2021 Mr. Farrell was the senior class secretary/treasurer, a monitor, news editor of the Chronicle, and managing editor of Whispers. He wrote for the Daemon and was also an acolyte and a member of the Discipline Committee. He played varsity and JV lacrosse, junior baseball, marauder football, and ran track. He was also a team manager for cake football and soccer. At commencement, Mr. Farrell received the Gold Medal for Excellence in French and the William B. Ravenel Bowl.

After his time on The Holy Hill, Mr. Farrell returned to Texas yet his heart remained with The High School, where he served as a member of the Board of Trustees from 1998-2004. One of Mr. 90

Farrell’s proudest achievements was overseeing the formation of Episcopal’s Athletics Hall of Fame while serving as the president of the Alumni Association’s Executive Council. He was also a class chair, class correspondent, reunion chair, and past member of the Development Committee. In 2006, a gift from his mother’s estate established the George J. and Margaret R. Farrell Scholarship.

A graduate of the University of Texas at Austin, Mr. Farrell moved to Houston for a career in the oil business and later investment banking. He received a business degree from the University of Houston in 1982 and was a contributor to the Houston Chronicle. In 1995, he married Margaret Penn Tennison and moved to Fort Worth. Mr. Farrell established a production company and in 2015 he wrote, produced, and directed the award-winning film “Windsor,” set in the fictional town of Hoxton.

Mr. Farrell is survived by his three stepdaughters, five grandchildren, a cousin, and many extended family members.

Bruce Daniel” Dan” Sapp Jr. ’79

of Mill Valley, Calif., on October 24, 2020 Mr. Sapp was a member of the E Club, the Student Admissions Committee, and the varsity football and track teams. He was also the president of the Athletic Advisory Board and received the Gold Award for football.

After Episcopal, Mr. Sapp attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, then worked for the communication consulting firm Speakeasy in Atlanta for several years. He later moved to San Francisco, where he launched his own consulting firm focused on communication for senior executives. Mr. Sapp’s clients included Nokia, Visa, and start-ups based in Silicon Valley.

He is survived by his wife, Anne, as well as two sons and three sisters.

Garth Kleber Dunklin ’81

of Charlotte, N.C., on January 14, 2021

Mr. Dunklin was a monitor, president of the debate club, and co-captain of the varsity soccer team. He was a member of the Advisory Committee, Admissions Committee, international relations club, E Club, Young Republicans, Model United Nations, Model Supreme Court Justice, and the Blackford Literary Society. Mr. Dunklin graduated cum laude and received the Peyton S. Hawes III Soccer Award.

He earned his bachelor’s degree from the University of North Carolina, where he was a Morehead Scholar, and his juris doctor from the UNC School of Law in 1988. During his career in real estate law, Mr. Dunklin co-founded Venn Law Group and was recognized as realtor of the year by CRCBR. He also taught commercial real estate classes at UNC-Charlotte in the Belk College of Business. Mr. Dunklin continued his love for soccer beyond The High School, instilling the passion in his son and coaching his children’s youth soccer leagues.

He is survived by his wife, Helen, as well as two children and a half-brother.

John Gilbert Stallings ’84

of Richmond, Va., on November 2, 2020

At Episcopal, Mr. Stallings was the editor-in-chief of the 1984 Whispers.

He ran varsity cross country and played varsity lacrosse. While on The Holy Hill, he received a National Merit Letter of Commendation in recognition of his outstanding academic promise.

He also was listed in the “Who’s Who of American High School Students” and received the Cummings Medal for School Publications Work.

Mr. Stallings attended Vanderbilt University and earned his MBA at Washington University in St. Louis. He worked in banking for 30 years and served as a devoted volunteer and trustee of many organizations, including United Way, the Virginia Bankers Association, and Greater Richmond YMCA. Mr. Stallings also coached boys’ lacrosse and taught Sunday school while living in Raleigh, N.C., from 1996-2010.

He is survived by his wife, Celeste, and their two children.

Sylvia W. Geer, past EHS faculty family member

of Williamsburg, Va., on December 21, 2020

Mrs. Geer was the wife of the late Lucien “Lu” Miner Geer, who was an EHS faculty member and coach from 1971-91 and the mother of two alumni. To honor Lu, the Class of 1976 established the Lucien Miner Geer Award, given annually to the student who has inspired the entire school community in all phases of school life by exhibiting spirit, courage, and a sense of humor.

Mrs. Geer grew up in Colorado and attended Grinnell College in Iowa, where she met her husband. They moved to Sheffield, Mass., where she taught at Florence Crittenton, then moved to Alexandria. Mrs. Geer earned her master’s degree in education from George Mason University and taught special education and English at Washington-Liberty High School (then known as Washington & Lee High School) in Arlington for 20 years.

Mrs. Geer was preceded in death by her husband. She is survived by her daughter Martha Geer, sons Matthew “Matt” Harold Geer ’79 and William ”Will”Lucien Geer ’80, and three grandchildren.

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n CHAPEL TALK

“GOOD THINGS ARE ALWAYS ON THE WAY” In a Chapel talk, Addie McElveen ’21 reflected on an accident that changed her life — and who she is.

T

he thing about trauma is you either can recall everything that happened or nothing. I can remember everything.

I remember the strong current in the water while I sat on my surfboard, and the confidence I felt paddling toward my boat, like I had done countless times in my life. I remember seeing my friend Chloe standing at the back of the boat, ready to switch positions with me in the water.

But what I remember most vividly is the look of complete disbelief on my dad’s face when he pulled me out of the water.

While I lay on my back screaming, “Help me, someone help me,” my dad yelled for help from other boaters. Chloe held my leg together with a towel, and I looked up to see her bawling.

As my brother called 911, I stared up at the sky. It was peaceful, yet everything else was not. As I looked at the sky, I prayed that I would make it through this and thanked God for the incredible life I had lived so far.

The adrenaline made me unable to feel pain until I was in the ambulance. I did not cry until I saw my mom in the emergency room.

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When I was growing up in South Carolina, we were always around the water, and being out on the boat was just a thing that nearly every kid did. I learned to wakeboard when I was 6 years old, and one of my fondest summer memories was riding with my friends on a tube towed by the boat, getting thrown around.

Though we were warned to stay away from the propeller, it seemed unthinkable that we could be injured by one. Prior to the moment the boat propeller hit my left leg, I never really believed anything like this would happen to me.

The physical healing of my leg was a very lengthy process, and I’ve endured 12 surgeries, including one just a year ago. But the hardest part was healing from injuries you couldn’t see, like the severe PTSD that came along with my traumatic accident. Many nights were spent sleepless, or I would awake in a manic state due to nightmares about the accident or some other dramatic events, such as falling off of a cliff or saving my family from a shooter.

When I woke up, I would believe I was in the hospital because of the events in the nightmare. At first, I could not wrap my head around my injury and how it was changing my life. Most of my

Despite 12 surgeries on her left leg following the boating accident, Addie ran cross country for three years.

flashbacks stem from the feeling of fear and helplessness and the thought that I might die from blood loss or lose my leg.

My accident happened on a Sunday, following just the first two days of eighth grade. This was a transition period for me. I had shifted from being someone who only cared only about gymnastics to someone who wanted to be with my friends and develop my own identity. Social media was influencing my thoughts about myself, and my family saw that I was growing disconnected from them.

I intentionally do not call my accident bad, because it wasn’t all bad; I choose to view my accident as a blessing because of the lessons I learned. In order to wake up, some of us need a wake-up call, and this was mine.

My whole world was turned upside down in a matter of seconds — not to mention the strain it put on my parents. One of the things that I struggle with most is making sure my dad does not feel guilty for my pain; it is called an accident for a reason.

Parts of being in the hospital were easy. The nurses were so nice, and I felt safe in the hands of the doctors. But I struggled with seeing the small child in the room across from me who, at the age of 2, was dealing with terminal cancer. That is what broke me.

Knowing that even if I lost my leg, I would still live my life more or less to its full extent, and that seemed unfair compared to what other children in the hospital faced.

Witnessing others this way was new for me and unlocked a deeper sense of empathy. I’m not going to bash the person I was before my accident, but you probably would not recognize her compared to the person I have become because of the insight and belief systems I have developed as a result of my trauma.

My perception of the world around me is different now. My senses are heightened, so sometimes it can be difficult to release feelings of stress or anxiety. However, I appreciate the small yet beautiful moments that would go unnoticed before. What happened to me could have been multitudes worse, so I felt lucky to have avoided a serious life-hindering injury.

I was determined to keep a positive attitude throughout the process, and I can say with confidence that I did just that. There were many moments of uncertainty regarding my leg, but I was lucky enough to, with time, make a full recovery. Still, healing is not linear. There are still days when I am constantly afraid something terrible is about to happen, or that my friends cannot calm my anxiety.

At the same time, I would not have decided to come to Episcopal if I had not been in my accident. While recovering from surgeries, I was homeschooled for a year by my mom and did an eighth-grade online program. This made me feel out of control of everything. I could not take a regular shower for about half of the year and couldn’t walk normally for a year. I sat in the hospital bed for about a month trying to imagine what it felt like to walk or to stand up on a surfboard.

I began my ninth-grade year in a wheelchair at a high school of 5,000 students. I was eager to become independent and in control

of my life again, which led me to look at boarding school. I felt like a small fish in a big pond at my local school, and I wanted to get to know my teachers and peers on a more personal level. I also had a new outlook on life and wanted to take advantage of every opportunity that came my way, like Episcopal. So here I am now, four and a half years later. I am still recovering, but I am proud of myself for the way I handled this hardship.

As a sophomore, I asked Rev. Carmody, the EHS head chaplain, if I could give a talk in Chapel. Her reply was, “I would wait, Addie. Your story is not finished yet.” That is one of the truest things anyone has ever said to me. We all have our struggles big or small. They are all equally important to our lives, and the way you face a horrible situation shows more about you than the difficult thing you are experiencing.

So I urge you to not run from the so-called bad things in life but to embrace them with your most true and unique self. One day, when you’re surfing the perfect wave or doing what you love most, you will appreciate it more than you would ever imagine.

Good things are always on the way; you just have to believe they’re coming to you.

“Positivity … got me through the difficult days,” says Addie, here with Lucy Bland ’21 on an Outdoor Leadership trip last year.

I have chosen to not allow my accident to define me as a person, but to rather enjoy life through this new perspective I have been given. I realized that life is precious, but that does not mean you ever have to stop taking risks. I also know that my accident could have been much more extensive if I had been hit anywhere else. As we all know, life is never going to stop presenting its challenges, and everyone deals with their own personal battles. We get to decide how we face those challenges. Positivity, even in the hardest of times, got me through the difficult days, along with faith that things would get better.

Today I get the privilege of walking to class and surfing during the summers. I was even able to run three seasons on the cross country team, something that at one point seemed impossible.

Most important, I have had the incredible privilege of being an Episcopal student these past three years and would not change my experience for the world because it led me here.

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