History on the Edge of the Woods

HOW AN ARCHAEOLOGICAL FIND COULD LINK STUDENTS TO

EXETER’S REVOLUTIONARY PAST

By Patrick Garrity

Hunter Stetz squats beside a deep mud puddle in the woods, a small trowel in his hand. He sinks the trowel into the fallen leaves surrounding the hole. The tool halts with a clink. “This might have been a chimney base,” he says. He points to other spots around the perimeter of the soggy depression near a trailhead in the Academy Woodlands. “I think this was a cellar hole.”

A story is unfolding at the edge of the woods, a story originally told 240 years ago and now coming to light. Depending on where the tale leads, it could connect the Academy to one of the American Revolution’s most tragic heroes and o er its students the chance to study early Black American history in their own backyard. That’s because the cellar hole Stetz believes he has found might have belonged to Jude Hall.

Hall was an enslaved man who fought on the colonists’ side in exchange for his freedom. He settled in Exeter in 1783 after the war, and legend has long held that he lived with his family near a small pond next to what became Drinkwater Road. The pond today is even named Jude’s Pond.

But no house remains, and the exact location of the homestead has never been determined.

Stetz, a Hampton Falls, New Hampshire, native and a eld technician for a local archaeological consultant, became intrigued with Hall’s story — and the murkiness about the home’s location — a year ago. That curiosity led him to his discovery last fall, and he noti ed Warren Biggins, the Academy’s manager of sustainability and natural resources. “For me, the Academy Woodlands have always seemed an ideal version of a living laboratory, and one that o ers our students incredible opportunities for experiential learning across a wide variety of academic disciplines,” Biggins says. “I’m extremely excited for the potential projects and collaborations that may result from this discovery.”

Adds History Instructor Troy Samuels, a trained archaeologist: “For our curriculum, I do not think I am exaggerating when I say this o ers truly transformative opportunities to expand who and what Exeter history courses discuss. … This o ers a new thread for students to latch on to. In Jude Hall’s story, we are a di erent version of what it means to be American, to be a New Hampshirite, to be from Exeter.”

WHO WAS JUDE HALL?

Hall was born in the late 1740s. Enslaved rst to the Philemon Blake family of Kensington, Hall was sold to an Exeter resident named Nathaniel Healy shortly before the start of the Revolutionary War. Slavery was legal if uncommon in the region; Exeter Historical Society records show that 38 enslaved people were among the town’s 1,741 inhabitants in 1775.

How Hall came to enlist and ght for the colonists’ cause is not entirely clear. In his book Patriots of Color, George Quintal Jr. writes, “Soon after being sold to Healy, Hall ran away from his new master. When the war broke out, he enlisted and fought on the Colonial side.” Other reports theorize that Hall may have been Healy’s proxy, ghting in his enslaver’s place in exchange for his freedom.

According to a National Park Service account, Hall enlisted on May 10, 1775 — just weeks after “the shot heard ’round the world” at Lexington and Concord. A month into his service, Hall became one of more than a hundred Black and Native American soldiers to ght in the Battle of Bunker Hill, where he narrowly missed being struck by a British cannonball. His legend, told in The History of Kensington, NH, 1663 to 1945, is that of an outstanding soldier and a mighty gure who “could lift a barrel of cider and drink from the [tap].”

Hall would serve in various Continental Army units throughout the war. While applying for a military pension in 1818, Hall testi ed that he reenlisted in 1776 and 1779 and served “until the peace and then was discharged.” Records show he signed for military pay several times over the eight years, and he fought in some of the most famous battles of the war, including Ticonderoga and Saratoga. In the Battle of Monmouth in June 1778, Hall is said to have earned his nickname “Old Rock” while serving under George Washington and Alexander Hamilton.

Hall returned to Exeter in 1783 — the year PEA opened its doors to its inaugural class. Now a free man, he married Rhoda Paul, a member of one of New Hampshire’s prominent free Black families, and by all accounts they settled beside a small pond near the Exeter-Kensington town line to farm and raise a large family. Were his story to end there, Jude Hall would likely be a mostly forgotten gure of early America. But his tale turns tragic. Three of the Halls’ four sons — born free — were abducted and sold into bondage. From the National Park Service, citing an 1833 a davit by the Halls’ son-inlaw Robert Roberts: In 1807, their son Aaron was kidnapped in Rhode Island, “sent to sea, and has not been heard of since.” Six years later, David Wedgewood of Exeter claimed their 18-year-old son James Hall owed Wedgewood four dollars. Wedgewood had James “tied and carried to Newburyport jail, and the next morning … put on board a vessel bound for New Orleans, and sold as a slave.” At an unknown date the Halls’ son William “went to sea. ... After arriving in the “THIS OFFERS TRULY West Indies, [William] was sold there as a slave.” TRANSFORMATIVE William Hall would ultimately escape after 10 years

OPPORTUNITIES and ee to England. Aaron and James most likely died

TO EXPAND WHO as captives. Jude Hall would never AND WHAT EXETER see or hear from his three oldest sons again. He died HISTORY COURSES on Aug. 22, 1827, and was buried in Exeter. Rhoda Hall

DISCUSS.” moved to Maine after his death, leaving behind the house next to the pond.

HIDING IN PLAIN SIGHT

Today, that pond — formally catalogued by the U.S. Board on Geographic Names as “Judes Pond” — is part of the 836-acre Academy Woodlands. Over decades, the Academy acquired land straddling the Exeter River that comprises the woodlands. Most of the tract that includes the pond was received as a gift to the school in 1910. The pond sits along Drinkwater Road near an entrance to a trail network that crisscrosses the woods. The “one-story, two-room house” Hall reported owning while applying for the military pension is gone, however. Whether it was demolished, fell down or burned to the ground, the house is lost to history. That’s where Stetz comes in. He took an active interest in nding the location of the homestead after his rm, Independent Archaeological Consulting, in Dover, New Hampshire, was unable to determine its location

CHRISTIAN HARRISON Barbara Rimkunas, curator of the Exeter Historical Society, leafs through records noting Jude Hall’s signature and an 1802 map of Exeter.

while working on a project at the Blake Family farm in Kensington. “I basically took it as a challenge,” Stetz says.

Stetz combed the area around the pond on foot looking for any evidence of human use on the landscape. He made use of LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) maps of the region that reveal what the ground surface looks like underneath vegetation. “Stone walls are a great example of things that are evident on LiDAR,” he says. “I looked for irregular depressions and checked out a few I saw on the map, but the only location that was promising just happened to be the rst depression I encountered.”

He zeroed in on a sunken spot in the land near Drinkwater Road and the pond. What set apart this location from other candidates around the pond, Stetz says, is the presence of large stones surrounding the depression. “There are a few stones visible above all the dead leaves and pine needles that accumulate and decompose every year, but I stuck a thin metal rod in the ground in various places and found that there were more stones beneath the ground surface that made a rectangular shape and that there were hardly any stones within or outside of the rectangle.” Stetz estimates the rectangle to be approximately 15 feet by 18 feet.

Barbara Rimkunas, curator of the Exeter Historical Society, said there are no known records showing Hall owned a house or land in Exeter. An 1802 map of Exeter shows an unnamed road that was to become Drinkwater Road, with a few homes identi ed along its path. None belongs to Hall. But an 1822 murder trial o ers clues as to the location of his house. Hall was called as a witness in the trial of John Blaisdell, accused of the fatal assault of John Wadleigh. His testimony, published in pamphlet

Hunter Stetz and Warren Biggins, the Academy’s manager of sustainability and natural resources, at the possible site of Jude Hall’s homestead.

PATRICK GARRITY

form, reveals where the Hall home was in relation to some noted landmarks:

“Between 8 and 9 on the evening of [February] 18th, somebody knocked at my door. My house is near the Exeter line and about a mile and a quarter from Folsom’s. Told my children to open the door. Blaisdell came in and appeared frightened, and asked where the Captain was, (meaning me). He said, he wanted me to help lead Wadleigh in, that he was drunk and had been ghting with a sleigh. … Wadleigh’s house is between the Cove bridge and mine, about 30 rods from mine. I heard heavy groans, found the deceased, lying on his side. I lifted Wadleigh up and led him home — he appeared to shudder with cold. I got a re which he seemed to need. … Blaisdell went away and wanted me to go home with him — I said don’t go, and Blaisdell said he must go to take care of his cattle. Wadleigh died about three quarters of an hour before day — I was with him at that time. Blaisdell’s house is in Kensington about a half a mile from my house.”

The 1802 map locates “Cove Bridge” along the road and “Folsom’s Tavern” at the corner of what today is Drinkwater and Hampton roads. Hall testi ed that “my house is near the Exeter line and about a mile and a quarter from Folsom’s.” The pond is in fact 1.2 miles from the Drinkwater-Hampton junction and approximately two-tenths of a mile from the Exeter-Kensington town line. The trial testimony may be the best evidence and only documentation that Hall did in fact live at this location.

IS THIS THE PLACE?

Today the site o ers no obvious clues — and little else of note to the amateur observer. White pines tower overhead, and smaller trees partially obscure the site from the trail. One could appreciate how a hundred years’ worth of visitors to the woods passed by without noticing. Determining if Stetz’s discovery has historic value ultimately will require some digging. “I think the rst step is to do some minimally invasive investigation of the area to get a sense of what we have in terms of remains,” says Samuels, the Exeter history teacher. “Once we have a general picture, I think the next steps would be excavation, working, of course, with local and regional interested groups as well as our students to tease out as much detail about the archaeological remains as possible.”

The discovery of bricks, ceramic shards, glass and nails all could o er clues that a house once stood on the site. Dating such artifacts would further pinpoint a domicile’s vintage. Sometimes, you even get lucky. “I know one

homestead in which they found the initials of the suspected homeowner on a piece of bottle glass,” Stetz says. “There are all sorts of fun techniques we could show our students and use to get as holistic a picture of what took place at the site as possible,” Samuels says. “Will any of this de nitively show that this was Jude Hall’s homestead? Probably not — that type of de nitive information is

rare even in historic archaeology — but the more complete the picture, the more sound our hypotheses can be.”

Even the possibility that the site has historic signi cance is exhilarating for Samuels. The digging for history is nearly as important as its discovery. “Archaeology o ers historical teaching a certain vitality; you form a di erent relationship with the past when you are touching it than when you are simply reading about it,” Samuels says. “I am so eager to give our students that experience, to let them actively recover history, and especially the histories of groups who have not been given a leading role in the drama that is the history of America. … The opportunity to excavate and write the material history of such a fascinating and important person as Jude Hall — and to bring students along for the ride — is kind of the archaeological dream.” E

“YOU FORM A DIFFERENT RELATIONSHIP WITH THE PAST WHEN YOU ARE TOUCHING IT.” WHO WAS MOSES URIAH HALL?

The scourge of slavery stole three sons from Jude Hall, but he and his youngest son, George, left a legacy that is interwoven with the Academy’s.

George Washington Hall was born free in 1789, one of 10 children of Jude and Rhoda Hall. His older brothers William, Aaron and James would eventually be abducted and sold into slavery. George survived and remained in Exeter after his father died and his mother moved away. He married, and with his wife raised eight children. The family lived in poverty, but the town helped to support them through a charity established to assist people of color. That generosity would help lead to a historic rst.

In 1858, Moses Uriah Hall, one of George Hall’s sons and Jude Hall’s grandsons, entered Phillips Exeter Academy as the rst Black student to attend the school. According to an essay by David Dixon, published in the periodical Historical New Hampshire: “In winter, presumably to help support himself, [Moses Hall] drove a sleigh borrowed from Dr. Henry French, carried his white classmates to the academy, returned the vehicle to its owner, and then walked back to the school.”

Like his grandfather, Moses Hall eventually went to war, serving as a soldier in the Union Army during the Civil War. After the war, Moses Hall returned to New Hampshire and settled in Epping. He married Eliza Healey and worked for decades as a skilled stonemason. In her book Tales from Epping’s Past, historian Madelyn Williamson writes of the mark Hall made on the small town: “In 1915, when he was about 80 years old, Mr. Hall paved the sidewalks on Pleasant Street. Before that, he had built a wall on Prescott Road and set the foundation for a large shoe factory in Raymond, as well as for a new one here in town. He bricked up buildings, and set walkways, stairs, replaces and chimneys all over town. ... In 1917, as our town’s oldest citizen, Moses Uriah Hall became the fth recipient of our Boston Post Cane and the rst African American to be so honored by Epping. Mr. Hall died at well over 90 years of age. No doubt buried with military honors, this old Civil War veteran rests from a life well lived that would have made his father and his grandfather very proud indeed.”

Moses Hall’s gravestone in Epping, New Hampshire

CONNECTIONS

News and notes from the alumni community

Come Back Home

By Alexanderia Baker Haidara ’99

Every afternoon, I rushed to the library, working tirelessly on my senior project, “Our Voices: The African American experience at Phillips Exeter Academy,” a brochure to speci cally attract prospective Black students.

Dean Russell Weatherspoon was my adviser at the time. The Exeter archives became my peaceful place on campus. After discovering Exeter’s Black hidden gures, I felt like I belonged here.

If I had known that Exeter had admitted African American students 139 years before my arrival, I would have walked around campus with more con dence and purpose. Maybe I would not have felt intimidated in class.

Moses Uriah Hall, the rst Black student at Exeter, entered the Academy in 1858, ve years before the Emancipation Proclamation freed slaves. Young Moses could have been kidnapped and sold into slavery like his uncles at any moment.

The Academy soon admitted more Black students, furthering its commitment to attract “youth from every quarter.” Henry C. Minton, class of 1891, hailed from South Carolina. He was editor of The Exonian newspaper and later became a medical doctor, at a time when Black Americans had been free for only 26 years. How inspiring it would have been to have known that Booker T. Washington Jr., the son of civil rights icon Booker T. Washington, had attended the Academy in 1907.

In late spring of my senior year, Exeter’s campus was ooded with alumni from the class of 1979. I stood in awe watching them admire the new buildings and reconnect with their past. However, I was disappointed to see so few Black alumni in attendance and made a promise to myself to stay connected to the Academy.

My research indicated that there were Black students in the class of 1979 and de nitely in the 1980s. Why weren’t they attending their class reunions? From my conversations with many Black alumni and students, I found that Exeter had simply been traumatic for them. An opportunity that was supposed to help give Black students a full-court advantage in achieving the American dream instead left them with deep racial wounds that would take years to heal. Unfortunately, I was a victim of racism. One cold, wintry night a man in his truck drove by Main Street and shouted the N-word at me. While the principal apologized and tried to address the problem, I was still in shock. I could not run or cry to my mom in my dorm room for love and reassurance. Dealing with racism is just too much for a teenager to endure. Nevertheless, Exeter is still an embedded part of my childhood, and luckily, I have more happy memories than tragic ones. Going to Friday night dances at the Afro, attending the Annual Soul Food Dinner and dancing the night away on a cruise line for prom were unforgettable. Since graduation, I have attended class reunions and volunteered on the Admissions team. On many occasions, I have returned to campus unannounced, but my former teachers cleared their schedules because I was in town. On the pathways, students greeted me with their warm smiles and waves of hello. After all, I stand on the shoulders of 164 years of Black alumni who came before me.

I know that for my fellow Black Exonians, returning to campus is complicated. Exeter must rebuild relations with its Black alumni, students and faculty members. I would encourage the Academy to do more to heal the relationship. It is time for us to strive to truly make the Academy a welcoming place for “youth from every quarter.” E

C A T C H I N G U P W I T H A Y O U N G A L U M

MILES HOOVER ’15

Food for Thought

By Sarah Zobel

How did you come to be charged with opening a grocery store at age 22?

I interviewed with the StarkFresh executive director and said I’m a space-oriented person and want to see something through to fruition, and he handed me the reins to this project. I started ripping out carpet the day I was hired. I did wiring and lights; I painted with friends. I had the ceiling tiles — which are stickers — printed by the McKinley Museum. I chose the point-of-sale system and applied to accept SNAP EBT. We did everything ourselves, and I’m so proud of us. It was an absolute labor of love.

What have you learned about yourself through your work?

At age 5, Miles Hoover ’15 boldly announced his career plan: to “be everything.” He imagined a life “trying a di erent thing every day,” he says. And while his experiential outlook remains, he nds ful llment today in focusing on a singular passion — food justice.

After graduating from Kenyon College with a degree in anthropology, Hoover moved back to his hometown of Canton, Ohio. Looking to make positive change at the local level, he took a post with AmeriCorps VISTA to spearhead the opening of a StarkFresh grocery store on Canton’s northeast side, a so-called food desert, in the middle of the pandemic. The store’s mission: to provide the community with locally sourced, nutrient-dense and a ordable food options.

Currently, Hoover juggles two food-centric jobs and volunteers as a de facto consultant for Canton for All People as that nonpro t makes plans to open a grocery store in Shorb, an area Hoover describes as “the poorest and highest-crime neighborhood in Canton.” We caught up with him to hear more about what drives his non sibi work.

I’ve always been academic, but I have ADHD that was undiagnosed through college. When I started ripping up carpet and wiring lights, lifting watermelons, running the grill — doing all this hands-on work — I found that I could go to work every day and feel good. I nally decided to take a deep breath and say, it’s OK if I don’t have an “email job.”

You were an anthropology major (with English and chemistry minors). How does that play into your interest with food?

I’ve always been passionate about food and food justice. I did research around local food systems at Kenyon using photovoice, which was the most enriching thing I’d ever done. Recently, I brought photos I took of the [Shorb] neighborhood to a Canton for All People barbecue and invited community members to provide qualitative feedback. I’m excited to do more of that kind of work. It’s a way of looking at the world, of wanting to understand how the people who live closest to the problem see the problem. E

P R O F I L E

GREGORY ANDERSON ’85

Speaking For the World

By Juliet Eastland ’86

It was a humid, pre-pandemic day in the remote Sepik River area of Papua, New Guinea. Linguist Gregory Anderson ’85 was sitting with a local man, quizzing him about his language. The two were sharing a snack of live grubs. “Gooey and bland,” Anderson recalls. “Not that bad, but kind of weird.”

In fact, not that weird for Anderson, whose passion for identifying and preserving endangered languages has led to many memorable meals around the world. As the founder of the nonpro t Living Tongues Institute for Endangered Languages, he visits areas with poor language documentation to meet local decision-makers, interview community members, and o er training in writing systems and digital media. Over the years, he and team members have helicoptered to Siberian hinterlands and camped in Indian backyards. He’s interviewed Native American Oregonians and recorded Nigerian villagers, amid revving motorbikes and bleating goats. In areas without plumbing, he’s gathered water from streams. Interactions happen everywhere, from spontaneous meetings to how-to demonstrations to religious ceremonies. “Once people understand, ‘Wow, this person is actually interested in learning our language,’ they’re usually quite receptive,” he says.

These cross-cultural immersions amplify Anderson’s lifelong joy in learning languages and parsing their systems. After taking courses in all ve languages o ered at Exeter, he entered Harvard University, where, 15 minutes into his rst linguistics class, he realized, “This is who I am.” He ultimately earned a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago, specializing in languages of Siberia and tribal languages of India.

As part of his goal “to ensure language survival for generations to come,” Anderson publishes “Living Dictionaries,” collaborative, in nitely expandable, free online compendia combining written data with speakers’ audio recordings, in languages from Achi (Guatemala) to Хызыл (Republic of Khakassia, Siberia). He encourages users to contribute to his and to create their own. In this context, he says, “Your expertise as a native speaker is profound and vastly superior to any outside scholar’s.”

He laments the “global language extinction crisis,” whereby dominant languages (English, Russian, Spanish, Standard Chinese) rapidly supplant minority ones. Within 100 years, he estimates, nearly half of the world’s languages could vanish.

The loss would be momentous. Studies show that bilingual graduates of K-12 immersion schools generally emerge with higher graduation rates and average salaries, and lower rates of incarceration and substance use, than their monolingual counterparts. In one study, bilingual Canadians showed an average 4.5-year delayed onset of dementia compared to monolinguals. Since language spread typically accompanies economic power, dominant-language mastery often re ects education level and socioeconomic opportunities. “Because people who use the more divergent-from-the-standard form [of language] are devalued, so too is their language variety devalued,” Anderson says.

Inspired by conservationists’ “biodiversity hotspot” maps, Anderson maps “language hotspots” — areas with low language-documentation levels, high language endangerment, and high linguistic diversity (referring not to number of individual languages, but to “language families,” aka “genetic units” — language groups descended from a common forebearer. Romance languages, all descended from Latin, constitute a language family.). To date, his map has yielded 20-plus global hotspots, collectively containing 85% to 95% of the world’s genetic units.

Ultimately, Anderson says, preserving language means preserving human cultural diversity.

He admires India’s Ho speakers for their “elaborate way of expressing noteworthy or interesting features of people,” with words for “walking with a dragging limp” and “talking while spitting through one’s teeth,” for example. “To waddle along on short legs (like a duck or a fat child)” is tapa.tupu. The word has a pithy beauty, doesn’t it? The world would be a poorer place without it. E

Anderson (on floor) recording Koro Aka in Arunachal Pradesh, India.

DR. K. DAVID HARRISON

G I V I N G B A C K

GRANT MORAN ’74

Animating Support

By Debbie Kane

Grant Moran ’74 exudes enthusiasm, humor and grace — qualities that have made him a respected writer and producer of children’s and family content for 30-plus years. Known for his contributions to animated shows such as “Rugrats,” “Jimmy Neutron,” and “Guardians of the Galaxy,” the Emmy Award-winner has earned accolades and respect from his peers. But it’s his role as founder and president of Kids Entertainment Professionals for Young Refugees (KEPYR) that has been, he says, most rewarding.

In 2015, Moran was deeply moved by the tragic stories of Syrian children escaping that country’s civil war. A self-professed “softy” when it comes to kids, Moran says, “Until then, I had no idea the crisis of displaced children was so huge — over 38 million children worldwide have been forced to ee their homes, the highest number since WWII.” Eager to do something tangible, he looked for a kids media industry-based charity focused on refugee children to support. “And it turned out there wasn’t one,” he says. “I was shocked. I gured it was up to me [to create one]. It was a classic ‘put up or shut up’ moment.” He founded KEPYR in partnership with UNICEF to rally his industry to support young refugees around the world. The grassroots organization has raised nearly $300,000 to date, including $20,000 in one week from an emergency appeal in March, created in response to the Russian-Ukrainian con ict.

EXETER FOUNDATIONS

Moran’s non sibi ethos was shaped, in part, by his Exeter experience. One of four Morans to attend the Academy — his late father, Bill ’40, and brothers Reed ’69 and Richard ’71 are also alumni — Moran quips that he was “the least quali ed” in his family to be an Exonian. Unprepared for Exeter’s rigor, he found his emotional footing and friendships in the school’s drama program; Fisher Theater was his safe space. “I spent my life there,” he says. “I think that was partially a function of my unhappiness. Exeter was a struggle for me.” In addition to acting, writing and directing (including his own plays), Moran was president of DRAMAT. Exeter’s writing program helped him strengthen his own work, as did the listening skills he developed around the Harkness table.

After receiving bachelor’s degrees in drama and philosophy from Dartmouth College, Moran returned to Exeter as a teaching intern in the Theater Department. “I wanted to be a warm presence on campus because I understood how the school could be di cult for some students,” he says. “I also knew instinctively that high school students will give you amazing performances if you inspire them and you know how to speak to them as a director. They’ll take inspiring risks.” He became a dramaturg at Portsmouth’s Theatre-by-the-Sea, a behind-the-scenes role supporting play development and an experience that led him to a graduate program at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art.

EARLY CAREER

Moran worked in professional theater as a director and dramaturg for a decade before transitioning to screenwriting. He co-wrote scripts with his brother Reed, an author and successful television screenwriter. In the early 1990s, a spec script he wrote for “The Wonder Years” television series, based on a seriocomic childhood incident with his brother Reed, turned into an opportunity to write and produce animated programs for Warner Bros. Animation. A lifelong fan of “Bugs Bunny” and other classic Warner Bros. cartoons, Moran was thrilled. His rst project was collaborating with Warner Bros. and with Steven Spielberg’s Amblin Entertainment on “Tiny Toon Adventures.” “It was a wonderful time to be in animation, a real renaissance period,” Moran says. “Suddenly, with no background in the eld at all, I found myself working on high-pro le programs with the most talented people in the business.”

His work with Warner Bros. led to projects with nearly every major animation studio producing children’s programming, including Nickelodeon and Marvel Entertainment. While at Nickelodeon, Moran was head writer and co-producer of “Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius.” Under the auspices of Global Monster Media, his creative consultancy, Moran has produced, developed or written such shows as “The Wild Thornberries,” “Marvel’s Spider-Man” and “WordGirl,” a PBS KIDS show that earned him a writing Emmy in 2015. He even helped iconic Barbie make her animated series debut, developing and serving as head writer on “Barbie Dreamhouse Adventures” for Mattel Television. “I’m particularly proud of that one, believe it or not,” he says. “Our team played a key role in the character’s recent evolution as a contemporary empowering icon for young girls.”

SUPPORTING CHILDREN IN NEED

KEPYR, however, is perhaps Moran’s most important passion project. He draws on his extensive network of children’s programming professionals — from artists to executives — to support the nonpro t’s work and highlight the world’s ongoing refugee and migrant children crisis, e orts that took on new urgency with the RussianUkrainian con ict (over 1 million children ed Ukraine in March alone). All of the money KEPYR raises — through online fundraisers, live events and special appeals — supports UNICEF’s refugee relief e orts. As KEPYR became more visible, thanks in part to social media outreach and Moran’s participation in industry events,

A graphic for Moran’s refugee support nonprofit, KEPYR

more and more people have stepped up to help. “We’ve drawn support from across the kids media industry, from games and comics to animated television, publishing and feature lms.” In 2021, the organization was honored with the President’s Volunteer Service Award for “dedicated service to children around the world.” “Our team played a key role in [Barbie’s] recent evolution as a contemporary empowering icon for young girls.” In a sense, Moran’s career has come full circle: thousands of people in the industry he loves support a cause bene ting its young audiences. “Children’s entertainment found me and I didn’t want to let it go,” he says. “I’ve learned from my years working among them that the people drawn to the children’s entertainment eld tend to cherish childhood. I felt con dent that once they knew what I’d come to know about the refugee crisis they’d be moved as I am and be motivated to act. And that faith’s been borne out.” E

From Every Quarter

Exeter’s community of alumni remained connected, gathering together online from points across North America and around the world. Exonians showed up with enthusiasm and ingenuity to help make events meaningful, educational and inclusive.

Making the Dorm Connection

The Academy’s celebration of the 50th anniversary of coeducation inspired a string of dorm-based Zoom calls this year for the First Exeter Women, or FEW, a self-created group of women from classes 1972 through 1978. “It was meaningful to reconnect with friends across classes,” says organizer Vicky Thomas ’74. “So much of the depth of the Exeter experience happened for us in the dorms. Dorm life was our refuge and solace from the pressures of always being on display.”

Tench

Laws

ZIEGELMEYER PHOTOGRAPHY

Davis

Hunter

Challenging the World

Sam Perkins ’71 and Roland Merullo ’71 came up with the creative idea to have class discussions that reflected on the past 51 years. Dan Hunter ’71 was the host and had this to say about the lively talks: “We were eclectic, opinionated and rebellious. Little has changed. We are still distinctive and passionate — each with our own view of how to challenge the world, from the scholarly science of Rick Allmendinger ’71 to the rock and blues of Benmont Tench ’71 to the deeply moving discussions of racism by Kip Davis ’71 and Cory Laws ’71 to the loving spirit of Susan Ruel ’71. Even after the myriad paths we have taken, we still have a commitment to our friends — seeing each other again, acknowledging our di iculties, our pain and our successes.”

Asking the Big Questions

While one group of 1961 classmates compared the features of Harkness and Zoom, another explored a “big question” of common interest. “Sixty years have passed since the Academy launched us into the world under the banner of non sibi,” Jack Russell ’61 says. “‘Are the prospects for humankind better or

worse than in 1961?’ We enjoyed 90 mostly optimistic minutes

together and a second group did the same.”

Focused Discussion

George Bain ’69 and David Underhill ’69 curated some focused gatherings for their class meetings after several early “gabfests” were well received. The topics ranged from an e ort to create a sustainable shery for scallops on the New England coast, led by John Williamson ’69; lessons learned from the American withdrawal from Afghanistan, led by retired Ambassador Peter Galbraith ’69 and retired Army General Richard Rowe ’69; and retreats to the holy isle of Iona, led by church organist Bill McCorkle ’69.

FILM SCREENING

At the urging of his classmates, videographer Mark Woodcock ’61 shared his private Iranian travelogue, captured during a group tour in 2015, with his class for a virtual reunion event. “The result was a virtual screening followed by a two-hour discussion of the film, whose aim was to convey something of the cultural heritage and complexity of that country to Americans, at a time of tense relations between our countries,” Woodcock says. “There is nothing more gratifying than sharing a work with a group of one’s peers, whose appreciation — both of the film and why I wanted to make it — was enriched by our years at Exeter.”

READING TOGETHER

Despite the interruption of standing in line for a COVID test during the meeting, Alexander Lee ’93 offered his thoughts on a lively class book group. “We picked a book, How to Educate a Citizen, by E.D. Hirsch, that elicited strong opinions, making some wonder if its highly recognized, nonagenarian author had set foot in a classroom in the past couple decades.”

HONORING TRADITION

Last spring an important reunion tradition was upheld with a bit of assistance from staff and technology as the class of 1950 met with Evan Gonzalez ’22, the recipient of the William G. Saltonstall Scholarship. “Evan shared his Exeter experience with our class and helped connect us to a school very different from the Exeter of 1950,” Dave Baker says. “Exeter has been a truly life-changing experience for him.”

UPCOMING EXETER EVENTS

In addition to virtual engagement opportunities, Exeter is also returning to in-person events and receptions. Check out www.exeter.edu/alumnievents for a list of all upcoming events.

How to Learn a Language

By Kaylee Chen ’23

lesson 1: y to a country you do not dare to call your own. taste the words that ow o the tongues of your relatives, and when you spit them out, a jam of syllables and accents, watch for the lemon-sour purse of their lips. can you feel your misshapen gratitude when your grandmother hands you a gift, a souvenir? remind yourself that your time here is temporary.

lesson 2: tolerate a thousand stilted video call conversations with your grandmother, realize you are looking for an escape between every sentence, hiss when your mother grips you tighter. you will whisper how do you say this in chinese? and the phone will say connectivity issues and while she answers your grandmother’s face will be frozen in a smile.

lesson 3: hear the arguments are when they think you’re asleep and let them fester in your memory when you lie awake. remember, cancer is equally devastating in all languages. remember, hospital bills are expensive in every country. remember, your grandmother has curly hair, soft between your ngertips. remember, you must pronounce her name correctly when you start praying.

lesson 4: do not learn, and do not recognize the tears that ow when your grandmother dies the way your sti syllables always did-slow, painful, withering away into ash and air. bite down on your mutinous tongue, let the blood rise sharp and hot in your mouth, feel a fraction of the pain she must have, count how many times you told her i love you and know that no matter how much you practice saying it now it can no longer be enough.

lesson 5: listen to the things your mother whispers on her knees, the musk of incense seeping into the oorboards. do you recognize what rots in the space between her sentences, the crevices of her cries, the way every word trembles with regret? speak in those lagging video calls with a grandfather you are determined to call your own, let the words fall at and pick up their remnants, because at least you are trying, and maybe this time it is enough to say

LAUREN CROW

. i love you. know that this is worth all the misshapen words in the world. E

Kaylee Chen ’23 received the American Voices Medal, one of the highest writing honors awarded in the 2022 Scholastic Art & Writing Awards competition, for this poem.