FENN: Winter 2014

Winter 2014

“Creativity is intelligence having fun.” – Albert Einstein

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From the Headmaster winter 2014

“The inner fire is the most important thing mankind possesses.” – Edith Sodergran “What does education often do? It makes a straight-cut ditch of a free, meandering brook.” – Henry David Thoreau

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ould it be that schools, more often than not, prove right Thoreau’s lament by failing to honor Sodergran’s primary principle about the human spirit? There is indeed that danger for any school as ever-present and expanding standardized testing can restrict and diminish the vitality of curriculum, learning, and teaching. Add to that danger the common circumstance of school budget cutting of the “non-essential” arts programs and “enrichment” classes and activities that are seen as expendable when hard financial choices are made.

Schools that are spared these educational strictures – and there are some, including Fenn – have the invaluable responsibility to spur students’ innate creativity, imagination, and ability to construct knowledge.

When schools provide broad and integrated opportunities for open-ended exploration in learning, not only in the arts but also throughout the curriculum, students readily embrace the chance to engage their work and in turn their intellects flourish.

Early last week at Fenn, we were treated to the performances of fourth and fifth grade students who had on their own created a Lower School Extemporaneous Speaking Contest. The rules called for a boy to draw a topic out of a hat and a few minutes later deliver a talk of two to three minutes on stage in the Meeting Hall to the audience.

With topics such as “What I’d really like to tell my teachers…” and “If I had my own golf cart on campus…” the

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young speakers delighted the audience with their richly imaginative soliloquies delivered with verve. Later that week, the student authors of the fourth grade hosted a “publishing party” in the new Jafari Library, proudly displaying their essays, stories, and poems for visiting schoolmates and the faculty who wrote comments on their work on critics’ review sheets.

In the prior week at All School Meeting, each member of the fourth grade sculpture class presented with commentary his fanciful animal sculpture that he created with recycled materials. And at the close of the meeting another student reminded his fellow club members that the Lego Club would convene during recess to continue its creative and collaborative engineering.

It’s not a surprise that in so many conversations I’ve had with Fenn alumni who are thriving in their professions that include engineering, computer science, drama, studio art, teaching, and the law, their common refrain is that a Fenn education provided them an inner spark of creativity and imagination that their profession and lives demand.

Our Fenn boys of today, before we know it, will be alumni in professional worlds that demand “the inner fire” that Sodergran cites. We hope Thoreau, if he were to know our graduates, would observe that Fenn had met the essential charge to preserve the “free meandering brook” of our students’ intellect and spirit. To miss meeting that charge would be a fundamental failure in educating Fenn boys.

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Editor and Writer Laurie O’Neill Editorial Board Derek Boonisar Anne Ames Boudreau Veronica Jorge-Curtis Jerry Ward Lorraine Garnett Ward Photography Ellen Harasimowicz Joshua Touster Laurie O’Neill Tony Santos Design Dan Beard Design

Creativity/ 2 Across the curriculum, teachers are taking creative approaches to help boys learn, and a trio of alumni explain how creativity is a vital part of their work.

Faculty and Staff News/ 14 Around Campus/ 18 Advancing Fenn/ 22 Sports Highlights/ 28 Tribute to Bob Duncan/ 31 Class Notes/ 32 Graduation 2013/ 43 Reflections/ 52 FENN is published twice a year for alumni, parents, and friends of the School. Letters and comments are welcomed and can be sent to Laurie O’Neill, The Fenn School, 516 Monument Street, Concord, MA 01742; loneill@fenn.org; 978-318-3583.

On the cover: In his eighth grade Honors Geometry class, Dave Sanborn uses an origami cube to launch “a playful line of mathematical inquiry.”

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Creative thinking – and doing – make learning “a lot more fun”

C re at i v i t y happens when one steps outside of his or her own experience and into the wilderness of imagination and intuition. Sometimes being creative means simply looking at things in a different way.

Fenn teachers know the value of encouraging boys to utilize their inborn sense of curiosity and wonder. Their students might make their own musical instruments and compose original music, propose solutions to the world oil crisis in Global Studies, consider how Newton’s Laws affect their design of a zip line marble delivery device in science class, write poetry in Latin or in Pen to Paper club on Friday afternoons, design their own makeup, lighting, and costumes for an original dramatic monologue, deliver an extemporaneous speech on stage in the Meeting Hall, analyze the construction of an origami cube to understand the methodology used to pack an auto airbag into a compact space, construct picture collages in English to learn how “theme” differs from “topic,” or invent interactive games for visitors to a historic house in Concord. In much of their day-to-day work, Fenn teachers encourage creative expression in their students, which they believe will help boys challenge their assumptions in order to solve problems and benefit from a handson approach to learning.

Says fifth grade teacher Jon Byrd ’76, whose students build and explode (safely!) volcanoes in science and construct houses for a fictional mouse in Language Arts, “In the end, the boys are displaying not only what they know, but who they are.”

On these pages, take a peek at what’s happening in classrooms, on stage, and in studios around campus and learn about some of the creative approaches teachers are employing across the curriculum. And meet a trio of alumni who illustrate that, as Albert Einstein believed, “Creativity is intelligence having fun.”

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“Creativity takes courage.”

– Henri Matisse

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“We create beautiful sound and art” Using computer programs such as GarageBand, Sibelius, imovie, and keyboard labs, Lower and Middle School boys create music from rap to jazz to classical. They hone their skills in MIDI composition (Musical Instrument Digital Interface), teaching themselves how to play the piano, making movie soundtracks, and sharing their compositions with their classmates. Another project

involves the boys making their own instruments from metal, wood, plastic, or two sticks and creating music, which could be a glorious march, smooth blues, or an angry blast. They learn a set of skills on the objects: notes and rhythm, which may be more or less complex given the age and experience of the child. We take nothingness and create beautiful sound and art.

– Maeve Lien, Instrumental Music Director

“Creative thinking can solve world problems” What if we knew the world was going to run out of oil within seven years? In the fall my ninth graders wrestled with this looming “crisis,” researching and brainstorming solutions while participating in a simulation called Sustainability Challenge 2021. Cameren [Cousins, Director of Sustainability] and I designed the scenario. Students represented different nations or non-government organizations at a summit where scientists have announced that the world is to run out of oil by the year 2021. They had to research and discuss viable solutions to the “crisis” and 4

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offer proposals on which everyone at the summit could agree. The boys were amazing. They took the challenge seriously and engaged in realistic yet creative thinking.

Activities like this engage students fully and prepare them to be change agents and problem solvers when they get out into the world. Problem solving scenarios are an excellent use of creativity in the classroom as they force the boys to use their own imaginations and to think outside of the box.

– John Sharon, Social Studies Chair

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“Creativity requires a leap of faith” I encourage creativity; it can’t be taught. Creativity shows up at unexpected times. It appears out of necessity in problem solving. Or as a way to distinguish ourselves.

We all have it, but we rely on it with differing amounts of confidence. The rare boy has a muse or an inner life at this age, but some do. They are in dialogue with an impetus or a creative force. Other boys need encouragement to take a leap of faith to engage their creativity. They might be prompted by competition, collaboration, or even desperation. Creativity is like kinetic energy, always there waiting for an opportunity to be used. I tell the boys we are the only species that creates art for art’s sake.

There is an artist in every one of us. Creativity requires us to guide something through an awkward stage.

It requires patience, faith, and exploration, and a willingness to make discoveries and pay attention to the process without being overly attached to the outcome. The oddest-looking pieces, such as some of the “animals” that the boys produced from plastic and tin recyclables covered with plaster, often, I feel, reflect the most creativity.

– Elizabeth Updike Cobblah, Art

“Wandering from the textbook provides opportunities for creativity” My ninth grade honors Latin students compose five-line poems called cinquains—an exercise intended to practice forming the present active participle. We studied the grammar, and they were still a bit shaky with it, but now I was asking them to write poetry—an opportunity to be more creative than our grammar-based textbook normally allows. The assignment must have spoken to them because they were so eager to take it on. They chose what to write about, after an exploration for inspiration outdoors, selected one vocabulary word over another, and employed, in a way that was meaningful to them, arcane grammar.

They did a stellar job. Here’s one, inspired by the gourd that grew in the Fenn garden compost bin:

Cucurbita.

Arantia, magna.

Crescens, radians, dominans.

Lacobe, e putrido cibo crevisti.

Divinum holus.

The pumpkin.

Orange, great.

Glowing, growing, towering.

Jack, you grew from rot.

God-like vegetable.

– Cameren Cousins, Latin

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In math classes, it’s “creativity in action” Creativity is fostered in part by a teacher revision of the way he or she presents the material. The context of a problem must be updated, relevance and humor are found in new topical settings, a seemingly divergent idea from a student exposes a connection to another math topic, and on-line resources constantly generate new ways to present or explore an idea. For example, I show the boys that the size of an origami cube is functionally related to the dimensions of the flat material from which the figure was constructed, and this relationship can be modeled very precisely when we analyze the folding pattern geometrically. This may seem like a rather playful line of mathematical inquiry, but it lies at the beginning of a realistic, significant scientific and mathematical pathway. It is the same methodology that is used to pack an auto airbag into a very compact space, to unfurl a massive solar sail or telescopic lens in orbit after its flight in a narrow cylindrical rocket, or to expand a lifesaving stent within a constricted artery.

Another example is in eighth grade Honors Geometry, where students have been working at an accelerated pace in math for several years. The course often presents problems that lack obvious signposts to a solution, and these capable boys really thrive on the challenge of reasoning their way to a solid proof or a definitive numerical answer. It’s creativity in action. I don’t tell them how to solve the problems; they figure out how to solve them. They learn to listen to each other, to assay ideas from unexpected angles, to defend or concede their arguments rationally, and to persist in stretching for new understanding. It’s a fantastic, and creative, experience for all of us.

– Dave Sanborn, Middle and Upper School Math

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A class combines research and imagination to tell the story of a historic house The Robbins House was built by the son of slavery survivor and Revolutionary War veteran Caesar Robbins in the early 1800s. It was originally located at the edge of Concord’s Great Meadows, in an area where self-emancipated Africans established their homes. In 2011 the Drinking Gourd Project moved the house to land adjacent to the North Bridge. I’m on the Project Board and wanted to get my seventh graders involved in helping teach visitors about the house and its place in Concord history.

We did research, the boys brainstormed, with each one proposing an idea, and we voted as a class on which ones we felt we had the time and resources to produce.

We wanted to fill the house with stories, not furniture, to show how these people lived their lives. Among the boys’ projects were an interactive timeline; a board game called the Robbins Game of Life, which is weighted against its players to illustrate how difficult life was for African Americans in 18th century Concord; an augmented reality tour; a QR code scavenger hunt; and Docs in Drawers, for which visitors could hold and read copies of real documents. Seventh graders Parker Weil and Dan Kent even served as docents at the house last summer.

All the boys’ input and efforts will help shape the future of the historic house.

– Rob Morrison, Integrated Studies

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If you build it, you will learn

There’s reading a book and there’s using one’s imagination to enter it more deeply. When my fifth grade class reads Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH, they make a replica of the Frisby house, but only after they reread the description of the house in author Robert C. O’Brien’s words and incorporate those details.

When they read Where the Red Fern Grows, they construct a mobile from which dangles what each boy believes are the ten most important events in protagonist Billy’s life. There are so many reasons for using creative approaches.

These activities bring life to the topics we cover. They enrich their knowledge.

It’s one thing to read about Mrs. Frisby’s home; it’s another to build it and understand it as she would. I enjoy watching the boys work together and learn from each other. Boys love working with their hands. When building Mrs. Frisby’s house, some of them come in with firm ideas of their own while others have vague ideas. By the end, everyone has changed or enhanced what they were doing based on their discussions and observations. The boys were able to play with their ideas, change their approaches, and finally pull it all together. I see results, and in the end, the boys are displaying not only what they know, but who they are. – Jon Byrd ’76, Lower School

“A physical way” to provide a good math foundation

Among many strategies for developing and improving students’ recall of math facts, games provide an ideal opportunity and appeal for the majority of students. A foundation in good mental math development can be created through simple activities such as throwing and catching a basketball. The teacher sets a target number such as ten and explains that students must catch and return the ball with the complimentary number bond. For example; the target is set at 10 and the teacher throws the ball to a student, calling out the number 3. The student catches and returns the ball by calling out “7”; hence the number bonds to ten are practiced. The target can be changed to challenge student needs. It is interesting to see the speed of the ball game increase as students become more familiar and confident. Learning facts by rote is often quite boring and avoided; this creative, physical way appeals to boys in that it’s competitive and they love to show off their skills. –Teresa Haughey, Lower School Math

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Extemp contest calls for creative skills Would you be able to speak confidently for three minutes about, say, the difficulties of being a Superhero, or the many ways to cook and eat snails? Maybe. But what if you were given only a few moments to prepare your response? This year twelve boys auditioned for the opportunity to face that challenge during the annual Hector J. Hughes Extemporaneous Speaking Contest held on stage each winter. It is a test of creativity, poise, and confidence, and a challenge the boys embrace. In front of a panel of judges, contestants might be asked to explain how one can get rid of unwanted houseguests, who might be, as one of last year’s competitors offered, “your best friend, your grandparents… or even your brother.” Some of the “extemps” go down in history not only for the speaker’s courage and poise, but also for having been particularly clever or entertaining, as was Jay Beaulieu’s. Jay, class of ’06, was asked to speak about what it would be like to possess superhuman vision. He confidently declared that his visual powers had allowed him to discern that former headmaster and then English teacher and football coach, Walter Birge, wore pajamas imprinted with stars and planets. The audience roared. At the end of the year Mr. Birge got up on stage and

Hands-on projects foster “experiential learning”

The judges: Matt Ward ’00, left, and Sean Melia ’99, center, and former Diversity Intern Justin McClean, right, present an award to the 2013 contest winner, eighth grader Louis Gounden.

presented Jay with a set of bed sheets decorated with stars and planets. “It is a huge risk, and an experience that provides any boy who participates with public speaking practice and the challenge of organizing his thoughts and ideas succinctly to clearly weave a story with nearly no time to prepare,” says English Department Chair Laurie Byron, who oversees the event. “The contest is a true testament to how creativity is valued and fostered at Fenn.”

– Laurie O’Neill, ed. FENN

We do projects because they provide opportunities for students to engage in real life communication, in context.

Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) is a hands-on project where the students get to have an experience of this Mexican holiday very much like a student in a Spanish speaking country would. Exploring the characters and plot of Don Quixote de la Mancha is experiential and language-based.

The boys live the story, sample Spanish food, learn about the language in which the novel is written, and get to know the characters and what motivates them.

– Gisela-Hernandez Skayne, Spanish Department Chair

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“The future will need creative solutions” In the seventh grade, we study electricity in its many forms and uses. Students use a series of labs to discover how a wet cell (a kind of battery) works. Armed with this knowledge, they are challenged to meet the requirement of one of four wet cell orders (a certain dimension of volume, a specific amount of amps and/or volts, certain cost limitations, etc.) How they meet those requirements is up to them.

Students must think creatively to meet the challenges. I believe this is a common occurrence in the sciences: how to creatively come up with solutions to problems. The data defines the parameters, but the scientist needs to work out

the best solution while balancing often conflicting requirements. Even coming up with a conclusion to a lab, a scientist needs to deduce what the data means and, hopefully, take it to the next step by figuring out how this information fits with his or her understanding. Unless you can create a new model or a new way of thinking about a problem, the problem will remain. The future will certainly need many creative solutions.

– Derek Cribb, Science

Stagecraft students show Sua Sponte spirit

Stagecraft is the new theme of seventh grade drama class, and it’s all about the boys getting to make choices and using their imaginations when learning about production and performance. We read and discuss a play as a class while talking about the concept of a production team: who are the various designers, directors, and other people who make a performance possible? Most of the boys at this level have only had experience here as actors, and in this class they can do much more. They choose a character from the play—this fall it was The Hobbit—and develop that character’s voice both in physical and psychological terms: Is the character old or young? Sad or happy?

They learn what a monologue is and each boy writes a one-minute (or more) speech for his character, on which I provide feedback.

Each boy designs his own lighting, make-up, and costume by doing research on that character. I explain the basics—how to make age lines, bruises, and beards, for example, and give them their own brush kits and colors. As long as they can justify their choices for both costume and make-up so that it makes sense for their characters, the sky’s the limit. It’s a Sua Sponte activity, and the boys love it!

Stagecraft, which I developed with a curriculum grant, is part of the approach we’re taking in drama to provide boys with incremental theater experience each year, and each term culminates in a performance. The first Stagecraft class presented their monologues to their families, teachers, and classmates in November.

– Tiffany Toner, Drama winter

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Alumni Creativity

Like the music for that TV show? It may have been written by Jim Latham ’77 hy does Jim Latham, a Harvard grad with a degree in music, love to create scores for TV dramas such as The Blacklist, and animated shows including Men in Black, for which he twice received ASCAP (American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers) awards for Most Performed TV Theme?

“Because it beats working,” he declares, adding wryly, “And this from a guy who hasn’t left the studio before 3 a.m. this week.”

For Jim, composing and scoring is a labor of love. His jobs “run the gamut musically” and he has become proficient in a number of styles. Over the last ten years, his work has grown to include films and more song writing. If you ever watched Beverly Hills 90210 or Party of Five, or maybe saw the films Extreme Movie (2009), which was “completely raunchy and silly, but fun to score,” he says, or South of Heaven, West of Hell (2000), for which he co-wrote with Dwight Yoakum, you may have heard a Latham score.

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of a big orchestra. Richard Raynis, one of the producers of The Simpsons then and now, was involved in starting an animation department at Sony TV and made Jim the de facto house composer on about After graduating from Fenn and ten series there, from 1995 to 2001, when Middlesex School, Jim performed in a Richard left the studio. band in and after college, around Boston, Animation scoring, Jim says, “is the moved to Los Angeles to be a composer last bastion of orchestral scoring in TV,” in 1986, and “quit all my day jobs to live and since the mid-1990s he has been solely in music” in 1994. Early on, he honing those skills. Over the next seven worked as recording engineer. Several years he scored more than hundred song demos 450 episodes of shows inlater he landed his first cluding Jumanji, Extreme underscoring gig for the Ghostbusters, Men in Black, ABC series Moon Over and many more.

Miami, creating Dub The first step to Reggae music for the scoring a piece, he says, chase scenes. His first solo “is to narrow the possibilscoring was for Bump in ities to make the writing the Night, a kids’ program more manageable.” He for the same network, a Jim with Dick Van Dyke, when the latter was starring in Diagnosis: Murder and communicates with job he got when he ran Jim wrote and recorded a song for Van filmmakers, “finding out into Fenn classmate Clint Dyke while he “rapped” a lecture. what they like and disBajakian ’77, who was like, and what they hope for stylistically hanging out with the show’s sound effects and genre-wise.” Next he looks over the editor at a National Association of Music show “with my filmmaker hat on” to deMerchants show in Los Angeles. termine what music can help communiWhile he was doing 90210 and cate frame by frame. “Then it’s on to the Party of Five with simple, small group inspiration part, which is the only part orchestrations, he wanted to get in front of the process I can’t force. Finally comes the fun part: scribbling, orchestrating, producing, recording, and mixing.”

A time limit to compose, Jim says, “is a prerequisite to music happening”; he once heard Lyle Lovett refer to “the liberation of a deadline,” with which he agrees. “For artists, music seems just to come out. For me, it’s a matter of pumping the well.”

Jim took music appreciation while at Fenn, where he became close friends with Paul Slye ’77 and Steve Carell ’77, who attended Jim’s wedding last January.

Jim and his wife, Wendy, have three boys: Ian (14), Jamie (11), and Kai (9) between

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Alumni Creativity

them. Jim says his most important title is “Dad,” and that his older two sons are “my music supervisors. They clue me into what kids are listening to and vet anything I do that needs to be ‘cool’.”

Another passion is hockey—Jim named his company Slashing Music for his love of the sport—and despite many trips to the ER over the years, he is on

the ice at least once a week, with players half his age.

Jim anticipates the future of scoring and composing as “going towards a music library model; underscores will be prerecorded and then licensed. This is due to the downward pressure on music budgets and to the technology that is available to edit music into shows.”

Meanwhile, at his house by the beach in LA, Jim can’t believe he gets paid to do what he loves. His IMDb bio reveals that the best perk of being a composer and songwriter is that he can wear pajamas all day long if he likes, “which is a lifelong dream.”

Tech Innovator JP Labrosse Builds a Better Desk n the world of product development, creativity is essential, but it’s just a start. It’s not enough to generate a good idea; what’s most important is translating that idea into a real product and bringing it to market.

Jean-Paul ( JP) Labrosse ’90, a technology innovator with a twenty-plus year track record of success, learned this business maxim early on; after his first year at Stanford he took a year off and founded his first company, Kick Stix, in Palo Alto, CA; it developed and sold toys. Upon graduating with a degree in Mechanical Engineering, JP joined a small newspaper publishing startup in Silicon Valley and from there he became one of the first thirty-five employees of a Special Projects group at Apple, leading the engineering development team for two of the early iPods.

Next JP cofounded RayTracker, a solar tracking company which was sold to First Solar, Inc., the world’s largest solar company, with one of the highest investor returns of any acquisition in the solar industry. Now he is the CEO of Stir, a company he founded in 2012 that includes alumni from Apple, IDEO, and Disney, and other industrial designers, mechanical engineers, electrical engineers, software

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developers, user-interface designers, marketers, media folks, “and a whole bunch of smart business creators helping us along the way.” Fenn alumnus Alex Saltonstall ’90 is on Stir’s advisory board.

Stir recently revealed its first big innovation, the Kinetic Desk, which enables a user to move from sitting to standing so as not to remain seated for hours at a time.

Years ago office workers knew that being sedentary was not healthy, “but the gravity of the data grew,” JP says, “and now studies show that sitting too much can shorten life expectancy.” The desk learns its user’s

patterns and preferences and responds with “gentle, tactile reminders to breathe deeply and change things up.” Labrosse and his team developed a system by which the user of the desk taps lightly on its surface and it moves to the next position. “It gets one’s attention but doesn’t take him or her out of ‘the zone’,” JP says. Within a week of its launch, sixty of the hottest technology media outlets had reported on it. “If Apple were to build a desk,” declared Engadget, “it would look like this.”

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Creativity At Fenn

based on their potential for positive public impact and their alignment with his own interests. The seed for the desk was planted back at Apple, where JP used a manually adjustable desk and found that when he actively changed position throughout the day, he was more productive and felt more energetic. It took eighteen months of development and testing at Stir before the desk, which was included in the tightly curated collection of cutting edge gadgets in Wired Magazine’s New York City pop-up store in December, became a reality. The desk will be available through Stir’s website this winter at a retail price of $3890.

Though JP is no stranger to eighteen-hour days, he tries to keep his life in balance by getting outdoors and swimming or hiking and by playing music, which is his passion. He has been a drummer since his days at Fenn in the Marching Band under David Huston’s direction. JP and his close friend—then and now—Steve Gottlieb ’90, were recruited as cymbal players as young students. He still recalls vividly “coming around the bend into Concord Center

JP producing a web commercial for Stir

during the parade, when there is that part of Anchors Aweigh that is a cymbal crescendo, and seeing all of those cheering people. I think that laid the groundwork for the performing I continue to do and even the business things I’ve done.”

A “shy boy,” JP says he developed confidence at Fenn and attributes that in part to “so many great and dedicated teachers” including David Huston and Walter Birge. His education at Fenn helped him go on to Middlesex and he

says that “when I look back, both of those school experiences were very influential on what happened to me later.” Working for his parents at their Acton restaurant, Le Lyonnais, helped him learn “people skills” and provided some early instruction on running a business.

JP has a garage filled with drums from around the world at his home, which he shares with his wife, Elizabeth Pollman, a Loyola University law professor, and their “troublemaker” cat, Leo. He loves Los Angeles “because it is an incredibly diverse place in the broadest sense, and I think that helps fuel the creative process.” JP works as a DJ when he has time, because “the whole notion of creating a curated music experience for listeners is fun to do.”

Meanwhile, Stir is working on scaling up production and delivering desks to its customers, and doing future road mapping and patent creation. It has some designs up its sleeve, but innovations, JP knows, must translate ideas into real products and make sure there is a market for them.

Stay tuned, he says.

“If Apple were to build a desk,” declared Engadget, “it would look like this.”

“Making tomorrow better” is goal of Mike Poignand’s theatre company rom the moment Mike Poignand ’90 arrived at Fenn as a sixth grader in 1986, he was performing, he says. Kirsten Gould directed him in Treasure Island his first year, he later assisted Lynn Duval in di-

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recting Robin Hood, and in eighth grade he appeared in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. His ninth grade show was Bye Bye Birdie. “I remember them all,” says Mike, “and can sing the songs to this day.”

After working as a studio artist for companies including New Balance, Tiffany & Co., Chanel Inc., and Christies Inc., starting his own theatre company called Ring of Fire Productions (“Read: Off-Off-Broadway,” he notes), appearing on stage Off-Broadway and in regional theater, and becoming proficient at various dialects—“Posh Brit” to “Brooklyn-Polish”—and with various

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Mike remembers all of the songs he sang in Fenn shows, “and I can sing them to this day.” stage weaponry, Mike grew tired of the New York scene, he says, and decided that “if the goal wasn’t fame or fortune, why stay there?”

He wanted to create artistic pieces and felt that Boston audiences would pay for quality productions. Theaters were less expensive to rent there and better suited to the kind of plays he wanted to do. And the talent pool, though much smaller, “is every bit as skilled and professional as I have seen in all of my years working in New York.” Mike helped establish Anthem Theatre Company and serves as its Producing Director. The company has offered two productions in its inaugural season, which it calls Adaptation, most recently a reworking of Dickens’ A Christmas Carol at the Boston Center for the Arts’ Plaza Black Box Theatre on Tremont Street.

Anthem is dedicated to supporting talented local artists and its goal is to raise a portion of this season’s production costs in order to offer proper compensation for designers and stipends for actors and technicians, while still providing rehearsal and performance space to bring the plays to life. The company is at an early stage at which it can’t support us, Mike says, “but it is an intense passion project whose reward is the work we create for its own sake.” His “day job” is Senior Studio Artist at an ad agency in Cambridge, working for another Fenn alumnus, Zack Toth ’99.

After Fenn, Mike continued pursuing his passion for performance, acting in the musical each year at Concord-Carlisle

Mike works with operatic soprano Kathryn McKellar and pianist Dwight Rivera during rehearsals of A Christmas Carol.

High School and working with Kirsten one more time, at the Concord Players, where she directed him in Evita in 1993.

“I think myself extremely fortunate to have had her for a teacher,” he says. Mike studied Musical Theatre at Syracuse University, where he earned a B.F.A. in 1997.

Last March Mike married Bryn Boice, an accomplished actor, writer, and director, in a surprise wedding at a theater on 54th Street; the celebration had been billed as a going-away party. She is Anthem’s artistic director.

Mike is “great friends,” he says, with Fenn classmate Kevin Keegan, and is in touch with Tim Coravos and Robert Shephard (formerly Bobby Clapp.) His favorite class was English with Read Albright and ninth grade Russian History with Jim Carter ’54. “I have pictures of both men on my refrigerator, next to a photo of my father,” he says.

This spring Anthem will continue featuring new plays from adapted materials. “Nothing is as positively transformative as a cathartic theatrical performance,” Mike declares. “I think everyone wants tomorrow to be better, in some way, than today. Theater is the way I’ve chosen to make that happen.”

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Faculty Developments New Faculty and Staff

Fenn welcomes nine new faculty and staff members and a Fenn Fellow this year, two of them Fenn alumni.

Jessica Adani is Fenn’s new Director of Annual and Leadership Giving.

She comes to us from her role as Development Director for the Massachusetts Horticultural Society in Wellesley and previously worked in development for the Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation of America’s New England Chapter and for Gann Academy, Milton Academy, and The Park School. Jess, who is from New York, has a B.A. and a B.S. in Marketing from the University of Arizona (“Go Cats!”). Jess and her husband, Jonathan, have a son, Gavin, who is two. In her free time Jess, who has coached cheerleading and gymnastics, enjoys exercising, dancing, traveling (“especially to Arizona and to the beach”), and following college basketball. Jess has found her time at Fenn to be “busy yet fun.”

Geoff Cohane ’93 has returned to Fenn to serve as its Consulting Clinical Psychologist. An alumnus of Middlesex School and Williams College, Geoff has a Ph.D. from Clark University, where he completed his doctoral thesis on aspects of male psychological development. He completed his

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residency at McLean Hospital/Harvard Medical School, where he was an instructor in clinical psychology. Geoff, who maintains a clinical practice focused on boys and adolescent males, and his wife, Sarah, who teaches and coaches at Middlesex, live on that campus with their two-year-old son, Charlie, and dog Calvin, “who is very much a part of the family.” Geoff says he “knew I wanted to join a community outside of my private practice, and since I have such fond memories of Fenn, it seemed like the perfect choice.” He enjoys skiing, hiking, and swimming, and is passionate about meditation, which he has practiced daily for twelve years. “It is great to be back at Fenn, and I am struck by how generous and positive the community is,” he says.

Fadayz is Fenn’s hip hop dance teacher this year.

He is instructing two groups of ninth graders who are “really into it,” he reports, “and working like a team.”

Fadayz, who is “very thankful” to be part of the Fenn community, is a performer, dance teacher, and DJ. He was a familiar face at Fenn before he joined the faculty, as he had already given a workshop and performed during an assembly.

Fadayz has explained to his students the difference between “hip pop” (which promotes material possessions and can be rude and misogynistic, he says) and “hip hop,” which is “more about what you’re

feeling than what you’re wearing.” He believes that “even boys who think they can’t dance, can; it’s all about putting your personality into your movements.”

Several years ago Fadayz, who is from Hartford, Connecticut, founded the SelfExpression Project, “a movement aimed to empower people of all ages, cultures, nationalities, and economic backgrounds to embrace their unique differences, talents, and passions regardless of the materialistic definitions of beauty, power, and wealth that surround us.”

Teresa Haughey is teaching fourth grade math and science and serving as a learning specialist in the Middle School. A native of County Down, Ireland, Teresa came to the U.S. in 2000 and taught at Saint Jude School in Waltham for seven years. She attended Goldsmiths College, University of London, and earned a B.Ed. in Mathematics and Computer Studies.

Prior to joining Fenn she ran a math tutoring business for students in fifth through ninth grade. Teresa and her husband, Kevin, a technical architect, have a son, Sean Michael, who is six. “Fenn is a little sanctuary for boys, and fourth grade is such a rewarding place to teach and learn,” Teresa says. “And there’s an obvious element of happiness in the halls,” she adds, among not only the boys but also the staff and faculty. Teresa enjoys swimming, playing golf, and entertaining.

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Faculty Developments

Veronica Jorge-Curtis is Fenn’s Director of Advancement, having served for fifteen years as Director of Development at Shady Hill School and prior to that, Assistant Director of Annual Giving at Buckingham Browne & Nichols.

Veronica earned a B.A. in Latin American and World Politics and minored in Spanish Literature at Hamilton College.

Originally from Queens, she moved at nine years old to the Dominican Republic, where her father was born (her mother is from Ecuador), and returned to the U.S. for summers and college before moving to Boston in 1994. She and her husband, Todd Curtis, have two daughters, Emma (15) and Corinna (12).

Veronica spends her weekends cheering on her children who are “really into” rowing, soccer, hockey, and lacrosse. She is “thrilled to be here,” she says, and has “long admired Fenn for its commitment to the education of young boys.”

Stephen “Kofi” Obeng is the Diversity and Teaching Intern this year. After earning a B.A. in psychology at Guilford College in Greensboro, North Carolina, Kofi was “driven by a passion to work within academia.” He is an assistant teacher in Ellen Campbell’s Integrated Studies classroom and is helping out in Admissions while working with Diversity Director Tete Cobblah and Assistant Director Jenn Youk-See to organize and facilitate diversity events and develop diversity lesson plans. Kofi is coaching basketball this winter. Prior

to his Fenn internship, he worked in archiving at Wellesley College and at an after-school program in Framingham.

His interests include taking in live music in Cambridge, reading, playing sports “on any open court or field,” and relaxing in front of a movie at his parents’ house in Wellesley. “Fenn practices what it preaches in terms of Sua Sponte, and of [the core values of] honesty, respect, empathy, and courage,” Kofi says. “It is a community of individuals who are invested in one another, whether it is in the classroom, cafeteria, or hallway.”

Jon Schmalenberger joined the Buildings and Grounds staff this fall. A former woodshop teacher at Fenn, Jon left to start his own furniture making business, which he continues to run part time, spending the mornings at his shop at Emerson Umbrella. His wife, Marilyn, has worked at Fenn since 1987 and currently serves as Assistant to the Director of Admissions and Financial Aid. Jon is pleased to have stayed in touch with the Fenn community through Marilyn, he says, and he has been sometimes seen on the Fenn stage playing acoustic or electric guitar.

Jeffrey Trotsky ’06 has joined the community as a Fenn Fellow, an opportunity extended to Fenn alumni recently graduated from college. Jeff’s day-to-day duties vary widely, and he calls himself “the Swiss Army knife” of the faculty. Most of his work takes

place in the Lower School, but on some days he might cover an Upper School social studies class in the morning, have lunch with the Middle School, and build birdhouses with fourth graders in the afternoon. He is coaching boys across all divisions, from fifth grade football to Varsity lacrosse. Jeff, who is from Sudbury, earned a B.A. in history from the University of Vermont. As a college student in Burlington, he spent his free time skiing and fly fishing, and serving as a fly fishing guide, and continues to pursue those passions, working in the shop at Concord Outfitters when he has time. Jeff says he chose to return to Fenn because he hopes to become a teacher.

The Fellowship provided him with “the privilege of learning from the best of the best in the field,” he says.

Leslie Hale Warner joined Fenn as Assistant Nurse last spring. Leslie was most recently a Community Health Nurse at Children’s Hospital. She has a B.A. from Wellesley, where she majored in Women’s Studies and minored in Africana Studies, and a diploma in nursing from Miami Valley Hospital School of Nursing. Leslie continues to pursue an education in health care.

She is an active volunteer, working for numerous organizations, advocating for victims of domestic violence, the homeless and working poor, and abused and neglected children, and for more awareness of women’s health issues.

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Faculty and Staff News

Fenn faculty and staff members have been busy since last summer, taking advantage of a variety of professional development opportunities and bringing back ideas to their colleagues and classes: Derek Boonisar, who now serves as Associate Headmaster after five years as Assistant Headmaster, attended the Heads’ Equity and Diversity Seminar at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., last June. Among the goals of the program were to “support the critical role Senior Administrators play in interrupting privilege, managing the subtle dynamics of power, and breaking the cycle of oppression in order to equip our students with the skills for success in the 21st century.”

Director of the Academic Program Steve Farley and Director of Technology Jeff LaPlante attended the AISNE workshop Educating Modern Learners: Teachers and Students with author and former public school educator Will Richardson. Steve says that among the great take-aways of the conference was that “we are living in the most ‘disruptive’ moment in education and that this disruption is occurring much, much faster than it has ever happened. It is the outcome of the emergence of easily accessible and inaccessible mobile technology, which in turn allows learners easy access to an astounding amount of information and ‘teachers.’ It was noted, he says, “that this is the most amazing time to be a learner: we have access to the sum of human information via a device that can fit into our pocket.” Steve, Jeff, Math Department Chair Ralph Giles, Spanish Department Chair Gisela Hernandez-Skayne, and Science 16

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Department Chair Dave Duane attended the EdTech Teacher iPad Summit in Boston last fall.

Several faculty members took advantage of the National Council of Teachers of English conference held in Boston in November. Ellen Campbell, who teaches Integrated Studies, took in a session on encouraging reluctant writers, “which provided all sorts of ideas for different writing prompts and exercises he has used successfully to encourage writing fluency and, more important, student confidence.” English Department Chair Laurie Byron says that the message of the conference was “it is important to remember to create, create, and create. Real learning comes from the trying and failing that naturally happens when we try to create.” Also attending the NCTE conference were Ben Smith ’85, Winnie Smith, Elise Mott, Jen Waldeck, Jon Byrd ’76, Kathy Starensier, this year’s Diversity and Teaching Intern Kofi Obeng, Kristin Fitzgerald, Liz Wei, Luke Thompson, Lynn Duval, and Eden Dunkel. Fenn hosted an English Teacher Forum with Fay School in October, offering sessions including Lower School teacher Jen Waldek’s “Hidden Gems” about student writing strategies, Upper School teacher John Fitzsimmons, who spoke on rubricbased writing, and Director of Learning Support Services Eden Dunckel, who offered tips on how teachers and students can use Google to write and organize their work.

Instrumental Music Director Maeve Lien traveled to the New England Band Director’s Institute in Plymouth, NH, in July, where she worked with clinicians from the University of North Texas and Cincinnati Conservatory of Music, and other music educators in the region, refreshing concepts in “Repertoire as Curriculum,” effective score preparation workshops, a music technology workshop, and sight reading sessions of new music for grades four through twelve. Peter Bradley attended the Anja Greer Math, Science, and Technology Conference at Phillips Exeter Academy in late June, learning “a lot about the iPad” and leaving with “a lot to think about as we consider whether it is the right device for math and science.” Lower School teacher Kristin Fitzgerald took a workshop at

Tiffany Toner

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Faculty Developments

John Sharon

Harvard called Teaching Ancient History with Technology. “It was wonderful to share ideas with history teachers from all around the country,” she says. “We worked with platforms like Socratic, ExplainEverything, Google Sites, Tellagami, and Book Creator.”

Cameren Cousins, Director of Sustainability, attended the NAIS Sustainability Summit at Hotchkiss School, which was organized by Fenn alumnus Josh Hahn ’93, who is Assistant Headmaster there. “The conference was wonderful,” Cameren says. “I came to understand over four days what our peer schools have been up to, what new resources we have at our fingertips, and just how far Fenn has come over the past several years.” Cameren attended with Melissa Joyce, the new general manager of the Connelly Dining Hall, from Sodexo, who is interested in establishing a sustainable kitchen. Kofi Obeng, Fenn Fellow Jeff Trotsky ’06, and Spanish teacher Freemon Romero ’04 found the New England New Teachers Seminar helpful and inspiring last summer.

Director of Marketing Olivia Achtmeyer Boger attended the NAIS School Leadership Institute in Washington, D.C., a “wonderful opportunity to take stock of one’s experience thus far as an educator while also evaluating personal leadership skills and ‘blind spots’,”

she says, calling the experience “quite inspirational.” Lower School Director George Scott was in Alexandria, VA, last June at the NAIS Diversity Leadership Institute with Lower School teacher Kathy Starensier and Athletic Director Bob Starensier, where there was discussion about the cultural differences students bring with them into school.

“The interactions were rich and spirited,” Kathy notes. “I was stretched and challenged to acknowledge the privileges I take for granted and to consider therefore what my responsibilities and opportunities are as a teacher and as a person.” John Sharon, Chair of the Social Studies Department, was a plenary speaker at the conference and he offered the keynote at the AISNE Middle Schools Diversity Conference held at Fenn in November.

Integrated Studies teacher Lynn Duval attended the International Boys’ School Coalition Conference in Richmond, VA, last summer. The theme was how boys reach out to each other to connect, she says. The keynote speaker, Rosaline Wiseman, author of Masterminds and Wingmen, provided “solid strategies for parents and teachers with helping boys cope with school yard power, locker room tests, girlfriends, and the new realities of the boy world.” A “must read,” Lynn says.

to teaching drama on a summer curriculum grant: Stagecraft, whereby Middle School students design their own makeup, costumes, and lighting for their performances, and an improvisation class for Upper School boys.

Steve Farley, Library Director Lisa Francine, Assistant Headmaster for Finance and Operations Dave Platt, Business Manager Dana Pacheco, and Admissions Director Amy Jolly last fall attended an AISNE workshop titled Crossing the Bridge from Strategy to Value.

In December the NAIS People of Color Conference drew Kofi Obeng, Director of Diversity Tete Cobblah, Assistant Director of Diversity Jenn Youk See, Freemon Romero, Admissions Assistant and Diversity Committee member Marilyn Schmalenberger, Integrated Studies and Social Studies teacher Elise Mott, and Director of Development Veronica Jorge-Curtis.

In exciting personal news, Athletic Trainer Jennifer Mangano, below, was married to Nick Geller on September 14, 2013.

Lower School teacher Liz Wei attended a Responsive Classroom summer workshop in July and a Teachers College Reading and Writing Project summer institute on writing. The Responsive Classroom program “has changed my approach to running the classroom,” she says. “In the fall we built our Classroom Code of Conduct together and I have worked hard to set up clear, consistent routines and expectations. We get started on the right foot as a community each day.” Tiffany Toner worked on two new approaches winter

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Around Campus

From the first, balmy days of school last fall, when

Upper and Middle school classes took day or overnight trips to reconnect with their classmates and the boys enjoyed a warm and bright Fall Festival afternoon, to the crisp, late days of autumn, which brought the traditional Thanksgiving Assembly, the extemporaneous speaking contest, the holiday assembly— featuring Fenn’s own version of A Christmas Carol—various visiting groups such as Audiobody, which delighted students, and finally, exams, the first half of the year was busy and fun at Fenn. Fourth graders took their annual tide pool trip to coastal New Hampshire, discussions and speakers marked Respecting Differences Day, the first Fenn Forum offered TED talk-style presentations by Fenn parents and faculty, and the School hosted the AISNE Middle Schools Diversity Conference.

President Cormac Zachar ran Friday All School Meetings, Hip Hop debuted among the array of arts classes, and boys raised money for Breast Cancer Awareness Day, sewed scarves and blankets for the Pine Street Inn, collected canned food for Open Table Pantry, candy for the troops, and Toys for Tots, and worked at Gaining Ground Farm. Wonderful drama performances included original monologues by the seventh grade Stagecraft class, scenes from Shakespeare and mythology, and a powerful and stirring one-act play about the Holocaust offered by the Upper School drama class. Students and teachers relished the spacious, well-equipped classrooms and labs in the new Science Center, and boys flocked to the Jafari Library, making it the most popular place to be before, during, and after the school day. Here are some photo highlights of fall at Fenn.

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Around Campus

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Around Campus

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Around Campus

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Advancing Fenn Jafari Library Dedicated Before Capacity Crowd ith members of the Board of Visitors in attendance, the entire Fenn community gathered during All School Meeting time on November 7th to celebrate the formal dedication of the Jafari Library during a two-part program. Donors Robert and Amanda Jafari, parents of Charlie, a seventh grader, and Blake, a sixth grader, watched as Blake snipped the blue and gold ribbons stretched between the columns at the library entrance as members of the Board of Trustees and the President and Vice President of the School looked on.

Adjourning inside, where students and faculty had packed every corner of the spectacular new space, Headmaster Jerry Ward thanked members of the Jafari family for their generosity and vision, a sentiment that brought forth sustained applause from the appreciative audience. In response, Mr. Jafari expressed his pleasure at having “played a part to make this library a reality for the Fenn School” and Charlie noted his classmates’ excitement about the expansive and comfortable new space. School President Cormac Zachar presented Mr. Jafari with a thick collection of letters and notes written by students across all levels who conveyed their excitement about and appreciation for the library.

Some of the sentiments included these: “I always feel welcome and happy in the new library,” declared a fifth grader, adding, “I don’t think there could be a more relaxing place on earth!” One eighth grader quoted Cicero: “A room without books is like a body without a soul,” and called the new space “an infinite source of entertainment and knowledge.”

Construction of the new library was made possible through the generous lead gift given by the Jafari family and with support from other members of the Fenn community donating to the Boys at the Heart capital campaign.

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Blake Jafari snips the blue and gold ribbons as his family, members of the Board of Trustees, and the President and Vice President of the School look on.

The Jafari family in front of the dedication plaque

“I always feel welcome and happy in the new library. I don’t think there could be a more relaxing place on earth!” – a fifth grader School President Cormac Zachar presents Mr. Jafari with a collection of notes written by students in appreciation for the new library.

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Advancing Fenn

The boys enjoy using the array of digital resources in the new library.

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Advancing Fenn

“I wanted to get a sense of him” Sculptor Honors Founder in Bronze Portrait or about a month last fall, a young woman, her brow knitted in concentration, her long brown hair pulled back in a loose bun, stood in the Kane Gallery transforming dull gray clay into a striking likeness of Roger Fenn, the School’s founding Headmaster. Occasionally one or two boys would pause as they passed to watch Domenica de Ferranti, a British sculptor, absorbed in her work, glancing at an easel that held photos of Mr. Fenn, and returning her focus to the clay form atop a pedestal.

One day a few “little ones,” as Domenica called the Fenn Lower School boys who asked to interview her for an assignment, took down every word laboriously in their notebooks as she answered their questions.

A classically trained artist who was elected in 2012 to be an associate member of the Royal Society of British Sculptors, Domenica arrived at Fenn in mid-September with a goal of finishing the scale model of the bust in about four weeks. She gathered archival photos, read articles, and talked to people who knew Mr. Fenn. “I needed to know what he was like. I wanted to get a sense of him,” she said. “The photos were very formal, but I learned that he was a really active man who loved the outdoors and who was passionate about teaching. He had a sense of humor and was a prankster.”

Domenica initially created a maquette, or three-dimensional sketch, of the bust, which she used to test ideas before she produced a full-scale piece that would be supported by a metal and wooden armature. It was the first time she did not work from life, relying instead on photos and “what I could learn about the subject.” At the beginning, she worked fast, “slapping mud about,” she said, and imparting the piece with movement and energy, knowing that next would come the “crucial but not as exciting editing phase.” The bust portrays Mr. Fenn as in his 40s or 50s,

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and bears “a hint of a smile and heavy brows,” she says, adding that “he appears wise but with a sense of humor.”

Lucy Kent, daughter of architect Malcolm Kent, met Domenica when both were in Florence, Italy, and they became friends. When Domenica received an email from Malcolm, letting her know he had suggested her for the Roger Fenn project, she was thrilled. The commission that followed enabled her to spend time in the Concord area, where she stayed with Board of Trustees member Julia Krapf and her husband, Alex.

Domenica spent four years training at an atelier under Charles H. Cecil in Florence, studying the work of the Old Masters while focusing on portrait painting and sculpture. She creates small and large pieces, such as the life-sized sculpture of a Tanzanian fisherman in a shallow canoe that she is working on in a barn at her parents’ farm outside of London, where she has a studio. She loves to travel and is always in search of interesting faces and characters to translate into her portrait sculpture; half of her time is devoted to her own work and half to commissions.

When the scale model was finished, Domenica took it to the Green Foundry in Eliot, Maine, in late October, where a moldmaker created a rubber mold of the bust, into which microcrystalline wax was cast. After she returned to examine the cast and made slight changes, artisans made a ceramic shell mold on the wax, which was later boiled out. Finally, the shell was fired in a kiln and the bronze melted in a furnace; when the shell reached the right temperature, it was removed from the kiln and cast with bronze.

The bust will be installed in the niche outside the library, above the new granite bench, and dedicated later this winter or in the spring. A plaque will note that the sculpture commemorates the vision and work of Eleanor and Roger Fenn, whose dream was to build a school for boys in Concord.

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Advancing Fenn

A Focus on Libraries at the BOV Annual Meeting

t the 12th Annual Meeting of Fenn’s Board of Visitors, held on November 7th, Chair Adam Winstanley ’82 welcomed some sixty members and noted with thanks their engagement and involvement with the School.

Board of Trustees Chair MaryWren vanderWilden offered highlights from the new Fenn Strategic Plan, including the goals of supporting teachers through increased professional development, increasing the diversity of the School’s faculty and student body, and The Board of Visitors in the new Jafari Library strengthening the academic program through the enhanced use of technology. Headmaster Holmes Library at Phillips Andover Academy, offered their Jerry Ward followed, calling the Board of Visitors “the glue of personal thoughts on libraries of the past vs. libraries of the future. the Fenn community,” and updating the Visitors on campus Among the observations made were that libraries are transitioning news, referring to the Jafari Library and new science center as from places where librarians are the “keepers of stuff” to places having the “wow factor.” He also mentioned several key fall where the focus is on the librarian as an educator, helping people events hosted by the School, including a lecture by psychologist navigate, evaluate, and consolidate information in a world where Michael Thompson, “a national voice for boys’ education,” we are inundated by data. The panelists felt that flexibility would and a Fenn Speaks program on define the library of the future parenting your active son. These and that libraries would differ are part of a broader effort in from place to place based on the support of Fenn’s strategic goal needs of the community. Indeed, of positioning itself solidly as a libraries are increasingly central to recognized leader in the education the creation of community. of middle school boys.

In response to a question After visiting classes and about books vs. e-readers, attending the dedication of the panelists agreed that it doesn’t Jafari Library (see separate article), have to be an either/or situation members of the Board of Visitors and that people should find the BOV member Steve Correia visits a fifth grade class and chats with Will Skelly. participated in a discussion modality that works for them titled “The Future of Libraries, Technology, and Learning,” in the moment. Finally, it was noted that while traditional moderated by Steve Farley, Director of the Academic Program. education focused on the delivery of information, modern Panelists Laura Beals D’Elia, Head Librarian at the Pine education will be about discovery that is shaped by students—as Glen Elementary School in Burlington; Tim J. Fish, Associate they engage in self-directed learning, anytime and anyplace, Headmaster for Enrollment Management and Strategic Affairs including in libraries. at the McDonough School in Maryland; Lisa Francine, Fenn’s The Visitors enjoyed lunch in the Alumni House after the Library Director; and Elisabeth Tully, Director of the Oliver meeting.

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Advancing Fenn

Meet Our New Trustees

Fenn is extremely fortunate to have an exceptional group of volunteers who give generously of their time and energy as members of the Board of Trustees. Our thanks go out to them for their tireless efforts and selfless support of the school.

Elizabeth Cochary Gross joined the Board of Trustees three months after Thomas ’13 graduated from the ninth grade. “His experience was so positive, I couldn’t say no,” she says. “I believe Fenn changed his life for the better, and it is a wonderful place we are happy to support.”

Liz earned a B.A. in biochemistry from Mount Holyoke and an M.S. in nutrition and Ph.D. in Nutritional Biochemistry from Tufts University.

She holds a faculty appointment at the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy, where she previously served as Director of Admissions and Recruitment.

She is also a trustee at Mount Holyoke College and Tufts. Liz is passionate about her local work at Emerson Umbrella Center of the Arts in Concord as a board member and Development Chair. She is also involved with the American Cancer Society and its Hope Lodge, the Boys and Girls Club of Boston, Heading Home, and the Friedman School Alumni Association. Liz and Phill also have three daughters, Kelly (20), Anna (19), and Jessica (17).

Janet Correia is serving as the Fenn Parents Association President this year.

Janet and Steve’s two sons are Fenn boys: Scott ’12 and James, an eighth grader.

Their daughter, Adrienne, is in the fourth grade at Nashoba Brooks. Janet earned a B.S. in Operations Research and Industrial Engineering at Cornell and spent twenty-two years at Accenture, a global management consulting, technology services, 26

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and outsourcing company. She helped clients with technology implementations, business process improvement, and organizational change, among other projects. She is an active volunteer in her children’s schools and has chaired several committees. “I love Fenn and what it has done for my boys, and volunteering my time is my way of giving back. I also feel that parents are an important part of the Fenn community and that getting involved is a way of becoming part of that community,” she says.

Jill Steele Engerman, mother of Brendan, a fifth grader, earned a B.B.A. and M.B.A. at the University of Wisconsin and worked in finance in New York for eight years. In 1997 she decided to pursue a long-standing interest in psychotherapy, earning an M.S.W. from Smith College and working as a therapist for children and adults at two of Massachusetts General Hospital’s mental health centers before spending eight years counseling students at the Brandeis Psychological Counseling Center.

Jill, who is a Fenn Board of Visitors member, works as a psychotherapist in private practice. She and her husband, Mark, also have a daughter, Kaylin (12).

They are particularly interested in helping disadvantaged young people receive a good education. “I feel incredibly fortunate to have my son at a school that truly supports

the development of the whole boy,” Jill says. “I want to give back to Fenn and ensure it continues to be as strong in the future.”

Chris McKeown, father of Thomas ’14, has spent his entire professional life in the reinsurance business, starting in 1984.

After spending several years in Bermuda with ACE Tempest Reinsurance as its chief U.S. Underwriting Officer, he was promoted to CEO. In 2004 he was hired

by Citadel Investment Group to establish their reinsurance business in Bermuda and as CEO, he recruited a team that became pioneers in the use of alternative capital in the reinsurance industry. In 2009 Chris and his family moved back to the U.S. After working and serving as Vice Chairman for Guy Carpenter & Company, where he had started his career, Chris stepped aside to spend more time with his family and to work on other projects in the reinsurance industry. Recently, he was named CEO of New Ocean Capital Management, a startup alternative asset manager based in Bermuda. Chris and Mary have four other children: Quinn (19), Clare (16), Clementine (13), and Teddy (8). Since moving to Concord, the McKeowns have been active in local charities such as Open Table and Heading Home. “I believe strongly in Fenn’s mission to educate the whole boy,” Chris says. “The dedication and commitment of everyone at Fenn is inspiring, and finding ways to help ‘spread the word’ is of particular interest to me.”

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Advancing Fenn

Andy Ory, father of fifth grader Tyler, has a B.A. from Harvard and is the co-founder of Acme Packet, for which he served as president and CEO from its inception in 2000 to its acquisition last March by Oracle Corporation.

During his tenure, he spearheaded the company’s growth as a young startup pioneering a new technology called “session border controllers,” which are fundamental to Voice Over IP (VoIP) communications. Prior to his work at Acme, Andy was the founder, CEO, and chair of Priority Call Management, which produced technology that allowed service providers to offer prepaid calling, enhanced messaging, and one-number services. Andy serves on the board of Thinking Phones Networks, Inc., The A.R.T., the Lincoln Historic District Commission, and the Codman Community Farm. He is a co-founder of 12x12, a Governor Deval Patrick-sponsored initiative to multiply entrepreneurship in Massachusetts with the help of CEOs and VCs across the state. Andy and Linda have two other children, Abigail (15), and Audrey (13).

Robin Shapiro is the founder and Executive Director of the LEAP schools in Lexington, Concord, Sudbury, and Bedford. Robin consults in both the public and private sector in Early Childhood Education, Early Intervention, Professional Development, and Family Systems.

A graduate of the University of Vermont, where she earned a bachelor’s degree in psychology, Robin also has an

M.A. in Expressive Arts Therapy from Lesley College. Prior to founding the LEAP schools, she worked at Children’s Hospital in Boston, in independent schools, and for a state-run program as an educator and therapist. For six years she served on the Nashoba Brooks Board of Trustees. Robin and Marc are the proud parents of David ’09 and Robert ’11 and were very involved in the Fenn community when the boys were here.

“Being part of the community is an opportunity for me to give back in some small way to a community that has given so much to both of our sons,” she says.

Paul F. Van Houten ’81 is a partner in Ropes & Gray’s corporate department, with a practice that focuses on representing private equity sponsors in connection with their investments in a wide variety of industries, including technology, retail, consumer products, and professional and financial services.

He also represents advisors in connection with internal matters and fundraising, regularly working with Gridiron Capital, Lineage Capital, and other groups, and investment management firms in connection with strategic transactions, including mergers and acquisitions, divestitures, and restructurings. Paul earned a B.A. and a J.D. cum laude at Georgetown University. A member of the Fenn Board of Visitors, he is married to Christina and the couple has two boys: Will (11) and Jack (9). Paul believes that the middle school years “are the most formative years for boys, and Fenn was the most rewarding educational experience of my life, putting me on the path for future academic and career success. I want future generations of boys to be given the same opportunity I had.”

Parke Receives Kidder Award

Kevin Parke, chair of the Board of Trustees from 2006-2013, was presented with the Kidder Award at Prize Day in June, honoring his “exceptional and dedicated service” to the School. To mark this honor, Kevin received a Paul Revere pewter bowl engraved with the Fenn minuteman.

The award, which was established in 1977, honors the Kidder family and all that they have done for the School, both individually and collectively.

It is given to a member of the Board “whose spirit, trusteeship, dedication and leadership have helped perpetuate the ideals on which The Fenn School was founded—one of being a school which cares and nurtures the individual through the creation of an environment in which individual interests, talents and strengths can grow and prosper.”

The Kidder Award is not presented every year, only when an especially worthy candidate is identified. Kevin, who is the father of Fenn graduates Calvin ’08, Oliver ’09, and Tyler ’12, is the first Kidder Award recipient since 2002.

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Fenn Sports

S pr i ng 2013 LACROSSE The Varsity lacrosse team took home second place in the New England Junior School Lacrosse Tournament, losing to Hillside in the championship game. Captains Will Haslett and James Sanderson, with other seniors on the team, did an incredible job, according to Nat Carr, who coached with Topher Bevis.

The team closed the season with a 10-1 record in the regular season and 5-1 in the tournament. Coached by Alan O’Neill and Luke Thompson, the Junior Varsity team tallied a 7-4-1 season record. Leading scorers were Chewy Bruni, Zack Goorno, and Jack Tyrie, and playing excellent defense were Jacob Dudley, Spencer Royal, Hayden Galusza, and Rob Brower. Patrick Lessard stepped up from Middle School lacrosse to fill the void in net, with Robbie O’Brien and Jack Tyrie helping out.

BASEBALL “It was a great season,” says Coach Bob Starensier of the Varsity baseball team, which posted a 11-4 record and “really improved from March to May, with big 28

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regular season wins over Fay, Fessenden, and Shore.” Jake Goorno, John Hart, Mitchell Groves, and Mike Demsher served as unofficial captains and “did a great job of leadership.” The team battled hard in the New England Junior School Baseball Tournament, but lost a heartbreaker in the first game and then beat Fessenden to come in third. The Junior Varsity team, coached

by Rob Kettlewell and Sean Patch and led by captains Joe LaRocca, Timmy Jones, and Titus Wilson, posted a 5-2-1 record.

TRACK Coached by Dave Duane, the track team tallied twelve wins and two losses in dual and tri-meets, and took sixth place at the Hillside Jamboree, where many personal records were set, and third place in the Fenn Relays. Captains were Marcus Mazzotti, Nick Johnson, and Rohan Upadhyayula. Ben Ludwick won nearly every mile and 800 during the season and won in the Fenn Relays. Nick Johnson placed fourth in the pentathlon at the Jamboree; Marcus Mazzotti high jumped five feet to win in the Fenn Relays.

TENNIS The Varsity tennis team, captained by Alex Muresianu and Nate Winneg, posted a 6-3 record. Alex played #1 singles and “consistently did well against some of the top ranked players in the region,” according to Coach Rob Morrison.

Ethan Bondick played #2 singles most of the year and he held his own, often against ninth graders a foot taller and a hundred pounds heavier. Reid Parisi and Tommy Kaye at #1 doubles went undefeated through the first half of the season “by using a crafty variety of shots and a defensive style that drove their opponents to distraction.” The Junior Varsity team, coached by Dave Sanborn, experienced a challenging season, posting a 1-7 record. Co-captain Connor McAvoy played aggressively at #1 singles every week, “demonstrating exemplary spirit and sportsmanship against varsity-caliber opponents in every match,” says Coach Sanborn. Co-captain Dillon Cronin was “exceptionally steady at #2 singles, winning a number of his matches with patient, determined baseline play.”

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Fenn Sports

fall 2013 SOCCER The Varsity soccer team made huge strides as the season went on, says Bob Starensier, who coached with Jason Rude and Freemon Romero. Captained by Leo Kafka and Matt Killian, the team truly learned to play together and worked incredibly hard to put themselves in the position to beat a very good Fessenden team in the regular season and go undefeated and unscored upon in the Eaglebrook Soccer Tournament, where they took third place. Leo was the only goalie in the tournament not to surrender a goal. Season record was 8-2-1. Junior Varsity Captains Nick Schoeller and Sammy Hankaoui “anchored the team with intelligent, reliable defensive presence and savvy ball-handling in the backfield,” says Dave Sanborn, who coached with Rob Morrison. “Alongside Paul Michaud, they played virtually every minute of every match, often against strong varsity opponents, with skilled determination in front of the well-trained goalkeeping tandem of Rob Brower and Jake Dudley and with Alex Zhang’s

calm, capable ball control at center half and Scott Irving’s goal-scoring instinct and intensity on the front line. These eighth graders were complemented by a strong cast of classmates and fleet, creative seventh graders to form a cohesive, spirited, good-natured team that practiced and played with exemplary sportsmanship,” he says.

FOOTBALL The Varsity football team wrapped up the season with an all-out clash with Fay on Reynolds Field. With four minutes remaining, Andrew Brown ran the ball six yards to tie the score 6-6, but Fay stood ground, blocking the ensuing Fenn rush and setting up a dramatic finish, says Coach Joe LoPresti, who guided the team with Dave Rouse, Jeff Trotsky ’06, and Topher Bevis ’02. Fenn lost the heartbreaker 12-6, and finished the season with a 1-4 record. Captains were Andrew Brown, Peter Blunt, Joe Conroy, Zeke Golnick, and Cole Hatch, and Coach LoPresti gives “a shout-out to all of the players for staying the course and

improving weekly. They have learned how to play the game as individuals and as a team,” he says.

CROSS COUNTRY Captained by Cormac Zachar and Spencer Davis, the cross country team placed second out of thirty-three teams at the Jim Munn Invitational in Gloucester, and fourth out of thirteen teams at the Roxbury Latin Jamboree. The team won the Lexington Christian Academy meet, coming in first of five teams. Top runners were Pipo Fitzsimmons, Jeremy Feininger, Tad Sheibe, Matt Kleiman, Spencer and David Andrysiak, and Conor Zachar.

Cormac Zachar and Jimmy Allen were top two and medaled at the Invitational, and Jimmy Allen placed fourth overall in his age group at the Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association championship. Coaches were Dave Duane and John Fitzsimmons.

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Bob Duncan: 1942-2013

“…a place for our small student body to be

grounded in the spirit of Sua Sponte…went on to represent something larger and more important: the legacy

of those who had gone before and built our school on a goodly foundation…”

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Faculty Tribute

“He served them all his days.”

B

ob Duncan, a treasured member of the school community for decades who passed away last fall, was memorialized on October 27th in the Meeting Hall in front of family, friends, and colleagues. Grand-nephew of Roger Fenn; son of Roger and Mary Duncan, who served as faculty members in the earliest years of the School; father of Fenn alumni Roger ’86, Ritchie ’89, and Alec ’94; and husband of Lucinda, Bob dedicated his teaching career to Fenn boys and his beloved school across three decades.

During the service, which was punctuated with tears and laughter, Bob’s sons spoke lovingly of their father; Headmaster Jerry Ward and Instrumental Music Director Maeve Lien offered remembrances; and the Fenn Band performed Anchors Aweigh while marching down the aisles of the Meeting Hall.

Arriving at Fenn in 1979, Bob was a passionate teacher, an inspiring coach, and a dedicated advisor. His “What’s best for the boys?” approach involved conducting heart-to-heart talks with them to take care of problems in the moment. Mid-way in his career he was appointed Assistant Headmaster, a role he filled until his retirement in 2008. In his tribute to Bob at the service, Mr. Ward noted that Fenn was Bob’s first home, literally, as the new infant son of Fenn teachers who lived in the Farm House dormitory.

Of Bob’s “moral and educational compass,” Mr. Ward said, “there was only one true north, and that was Sua Sponte. When Bob rose to speak in All School Meeting, addressed the Lower School boys in the dining hall, counseled a boy in his office, or spoke with a boy on the sidelines or in the hallway, [his] instructive stories, appeals, and advice never veered from his and Fenn’s bedrock principle of accepting personal responsibility to do what is right.”

Bob “knew boys and knew Fenn through and through,” Mr. Ward said. “He loved this school and its students and served

them all his days as an educator.” After he retired, Bob returned to Fenn each winter to teach ice skating to Lower School boys and each spring to provide support to the Fenn Band in preparation for Concord’s Patriots’ Day Parade—he marched alongside the boys—which was a highlight of his Fenn year.

For two years Bob battled lung cancer, but during his treatment he would periodically visit Fenn. In an All School Meeting the week preceding the memorial service, the community remembered him with reflections from many faculty members and from some of the boys whom Bob taught how to skate or supported in the Fenn band.

Said Peter Bradley, “Bob knew the value of hard work; he would wear his sleeves rolled up above the elbow... He always said that the most important place for a faculty member was to be ‘out among ‘em,’ and whenever he spoke, one knew that his words were considered and informed by his own first-hand experience, which was significant.” Ninth grader Eddie Uong recalled being “terrified of skating” as a Lower School boy, but that “Mr. Duncan, whom I didn’t know at all, was so kind and helpful, saying, ‘Try it, you’ll like it!’ He was so genuinely interested in wanting kids to succeed.”

Dave Duane, who, like Bob, served in the Peace Corps, said that his colleague “made a difference to those around him on a daily basis and this is his legacy here at Fenn. From his perch today,” Dave declared, “he remains a true friend, steward, and mentor for faculty and students, reminding us all to ‘pull up our socks’ and remain faithful to Fenn’s essential mission of putting boys front and center.”

In keeping with Bob’s wishes, the Duncan family has requested that donations be made to The Fenn School in support of the band program.

To donate, please send a gift to the School to the attention of the Advancement Office or go to the Supporting Fenn tab on the school’s home page and click on Online Giving.

Of Bob’s “moral and educational compass,” Mr. Ward said, “there was only one true north, and that was Sua Sponte.”

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Class Notes — 1936 —

Brooks Hoar will be flying to Arizona to see Larry Lunt ’37 in early 2014.

— 1955 — Ben Day reports, “My wife of 23 years, Roseann, and I moved to Plymouth a year ago from Amherst, NH. The only Fenn person I’ve seen was Dave Bushnell several years ago at a tennis match (he didn’t remember me). A few months ago I looked up teachers Mark Gibson and Dave Edgar only to find they had both left us. Dave Edgar diagnosed my inflamed appendix one evening and called a doctor who whisked me off to Emerson and from there to Boston Children’s where they operated that night!”

— 1971 — Paul Counihan writes in to his fellow classmates, “I have been in Asia since 1989, first arriving in Guam to open a Las Vegas style dinner show theatre with a mega Disco called SandCastle. After four typhoons (and three direct hits!) back in 1993, I moved to Thailand for five years, before settling in

Indonesia (Jakarta and Bali) in 1997. After Milton, I took the nine-year college plan— teaching tennis professionally in St. Thomas and St. John resorts, before returning to UMass Amherst and graduating from their Hotel School in 1984. Back to St. John and Rockresorts at Caneel Bay, and then to hotel and entertainment gigs in NYC, Chicago, Las Vegas, Reno, Palo Alto, and San Diego.

My family calls me the “Social Director” and I still love to party and entertain. My work is mostly in development and marketing/ promotion as managing partner of the Red Square Group, with several bars and restaurants in Jakarta, Bali, and Surabaya. Our concepts include a vodka bar; a mega club; a sports bar; Mexican, Cuban, and Caribbean restaurants and bars; an American steakhouse; a jazz supper club; karaoke club, and coming soon Chicago style Prohibition bar and steakhouse. Trendy, design-driven food and beverage concepts are booming here. So if you guys are looking out of the box, look to Asia, and I am happy to entertain you here!”

— 1975 — Bill Barrett of Esdaile, Barrett, Jacobs & Mone was the subject of a cover story in New

England’s Best Lawyers 2013. Blair Lyne’s daughter Clare graduated from Middlesex last spring and was recognized with the Outstanding Senior Girl Athletic Award.

— 1980 — After a terrific nine-year run with Marquis Jet/NetJets as their Executive Vice President, Business Development, Mark Sage has a new position as a senior executive reporting directly to the Founder and President of a new company called Relationship Science (RelSci), working on marketing partnerships and business development opportunities.

As Mark describes it, “RelSci is a new business networking company that helps you map your relationships to the top 2 million plus most influential people and organizations in the world. Think of LinkedIn on steroids to the 1%! It is a business-to-business tool that provides deep information about influential people; who they are, who they know, what you have in common with them and most importantly how to gain access to them and their organization through personal connections.”

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Class Notes

experience, humbling and fun.” He is looking to do a full ironman this year. Outside of teaching, Billy is involved in an educational computer programming company and enjoys singing with a choir band each week. Tom Hudner started a new job in July at a company called Eduventures, which does research, analytics, and consulting for colleges and universities. As Senior Account Director, Tom is selling the company’s offerings in Development and Enrollment Management/ Admissions in the Northeast.

— 1990 — Andy Boger married Olivia Achtmeyer, Fenn’s Director of Marketing, in an outdoor wedding in Woodstock, VT, on October 19.

Olivia Achtmeyer Boger and Andy Boger ’90

— 1981 — Jim Dwinell’s daughter graduated from Middlesex this past spring and was recognized with the Outstanding Senior Girl Athletic Award. She now attends Princeton University. Mischa Frusztajer writes, “It’s been a very, very long time since I submitted an update to this magazine, during which time I’ve moved around a lot: Tokyo, Boston, San Francisco, Moscow, and New York. Having recovered fully from the moving bug, I’m now settled happily in Guilford, CT, with my wife, Edina, and three little boys. I split my working time about half and half between business that I do out of a home office and classical singing, mostly in New York City. Hope everyone is doing well and thriving!”

— 1985 — Aaron Worth’s wife gave birth to a daughter named Michelle on September 27, 2013.

— 1987 — Billy Hackett reports that he is still teaching middle school full time in Pasadena while living in LA. He trains with a triathlon group called “California Triathlon” and recently participated in the Wildflower Long Course event in Bradley, CA. “Long Course” means half the distance of an ironman triathlon. Billy describes it as a “great

— 1992 — Reid Adams and his wife, Satya, welcomed a daughter, Lekha Boylston Adams, to their family on August 7, 2013. Carter Kasdon lives in Weston, seven houses away from the house he grew up in. He has two daughters, Lilia (9) and Marly (7). He is a self-employed advertising art director. Carter still keeps in touch with his classmates from Nancy Hall’s ILP class.

— 1993 — Geoff Cohane is back at Fenn, serving as the School’s consulting psychologist (see page Katie Curran Carr and Nat Carr ’97

14). David Osgood and his wife, Caitlin, welcomed baby daughter Sadie Marie to their family on May 26, 2013. They live in Hingham, along with their older daughter and dog. Zahid Rathore works at Price Waterhouse Coopers Health Advisory.

John Van Slyke got engaged to Beth Sayers this past fall. They are living in Seattle.

1994

reunion

Rob Achtmeyer returned to the paid workforce this fall when Maret, the school where he used to teach, called on short notice trying to fill the 5th grade humanities teaching position that Rob left in 2010. Rob writes, “I am very excited to be back, though the timing is about one year too soon in my opinion. Henry is a year and a half and Kevin will be four in October. Kevin is in preschool half days, which is great, and since Henry has only been with me, we didn’t want to throw him in daycare, so we have hired a nanny.

In the end it will all be great, but in the meantime, it is a lot of change for everyone, Kate and me included. We have been lucky enough, up to this point, to always have one of us at home with the kids. Though of all the jobs in this city, this will be the easiest to transition back to since I know the school and actually designed this curriculum.” Eren Tasar has moved from the Midwest back east and is now an assistant professor in the history department at University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill.

— 1995 — As of May, Nathan Goshgarian was in northern California doing owl research.

Andrew Schannen is currently in Tucson half way through his fourth year of orthopedic surgery residency. He is applying for hand and upper extremity surgery fellowships.

— 1997 — Aaron Beatty wed Sara Kimmel on September 29, 2012. Nat Carr, Fenn’s Director of Secondary School Placement, married Katie Curran on August 17, 2013. Nat is spending the year as a Klingenstein Fellow at Columbia University. winter

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Class Notes

Have brush and bucket, will travel: friends-since-Fenn run car detailing business “We’re easy going guys,” says Pete Stone ’03, of his friends-since-Fenn relationship with his classmate George Lovejoy. Talk about “all in the family”: Peter’s brother, Will, and George’s brother Spencer, both class of ’05, share an apartment in Boston. George calls Pete’s sister “sis,” their moms are good friends, and their families “match up perfectly,” George says. “Even our dogs get along.”

The two became “instant friends” at Fenn, Pete says. Despite attending different schools after graduating (Lawrence Academy and Rider University for George; Middlesex and Colby for Pete), they remained close, “chilling on weekends” when both were still in the area, and sometimes there were Lovejoy/Stone family get-togethers and vacations. After high school graduation, they decided to start a business together.

While pondering what to do, they made an observation: “There were a lot of dirty cars around,” George says. They remembered waiting in the pick-up line at Fenn and piling into minivans “that really needed cleaning,” Pete adds with a grin, preferring not to name names. They banked on appealing to car owners who would appreciate detailers coming to them so they wouldn’t have to spend time in waiting rooms or drop off a car and have to pick it up later.

“All we needed was a hose and a source of electricity,” George says.

And so, George and Pete’s Elite (“We liked the rhyme,” Pete says) Car Detailing was born. To find a customer base beyond their families, who offered their vehicles as “test dummies” when the team was honing their detailing skills, they got into Pete’s car and put fliers in mailboxes all over Concord. “But then we got a call from the Postmaster, who told us this was illegal,” Pete says.

Business cards and lawn signs followed. Word of mouth was their best source of clients, and the business was profitable its very first summer. Expenses, after all, were low, once Pete and George “learned the hard way” to buy soap and other supplies in bulk. Another Fenn alumnus, Abram Dawson ’05, designed the company’s website, and the testimonials one can find there refer to the company’s “meticulous attention to detail” and the detailers as “always

George Lovejoy, left, and Peter Stone

arriving with a smile—they even leave biscotti [made by their moms and sisters] on the steering wheel!”

The job calls for “being thorough, but also being friendly and talkative,” its owners agree. When Pete and George did the detailing those first years, it wasn’t unusual for them to “talk to the owner’s kids and throw a ball for the dog.” The company cleans mostly cars, about which George says with a grin, “Oh, we could tell you stories,” and then describes vehicles in which the interiors are covered with dog hair, the windows with stickers, and the floors with Cheerios. The company has also detailed horse trailers, boats, and motorcycles.

With seven summers under their belts, George and Pete’s Elite, which serves the Metro West area, continues to thrive. Its owners now have full-time professional jobs—George works in customer service at Symphony Hall and Pete is with a startup called LevelUp, a mobile payment company—necessitating the hiring of college-age employees who have included Fenn alumni Matt Carroll and John Bumpus, both class of ’07, and Henry Bumpus ’09. (They’re always looking for “great Fenn employees”; email them at georgeandpetes@gmail.com).

Despite having been friends for fifteen years and business partners for nearly half that long, the two have never fought, Pete notes, adding, “We’ve just always been on the same page about everything.”

“There were a lot of dirty cars around. All we needed was a hose and a source of electricity.” – george lovejoy

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Class Notes

Bay area, Santa Barbara, and the Los Angeles (like a Tony), and has done metropolitan area. Red Sammons works for TV and commercial work. a global capital markets consulting firm and Anthony also toured in recently returned from three months in India. a show called Sex Signals about gender roles, rape, and Billy Stone is in nursing school and has a full time job as a paramedic. consensual sex which was part of a sexual assault prevention program. His role — 2003 — included serving as a discussion facilitator. Ronnie Otero Geoff Curfman earned a master’s degree at the is based in Santa Monica London School of Economics in internationworking in film. He formerly al relations, then spent a summer in Beirut worked with Nick Dimancstudying Arabic. Later he interned in a think (l to r) Ryan Kieffer ’99, Justin Kieffer ’97, Jon Byrd ’76, and Alumni Association President Chuck Huggins ’74 at the annual Alumni Golf Outing esco on documentaries. Erik tank in Washington, DC, which focused on Trautman is living in San Francisco and international relations in the Middle East.

— 1998 — working on a startup focused on making a Geoff is now employed as a strategy and web development education accessible to operations consultant for federal agencies and Woody Hoyt is living in Denver working for anyone, anywhere. is currently working with an environmental consulting firm. He and his the National Guard Bureau. wife, Kate, have been married for a bit over a Last spring Tim Padden year. Alan O’Neill married Lauren LaPointe — 2001 — became engaged to Megan on October 26, 2013.

Garbe.

Chas Andres is working at an administrative job at CBS television and 1999 reunion trying to break into the 2004 reunion TV writing game. On Alex Artinian recently started a jewelry wholesale company with different products he a trip to India in June, Harrison Abry teaches Caleb Balou got engaged is branding. Greg Fincke married Page Halmarine science programs in to Rachel Caliri at the Taj lock on August 10, 2013. the lab and on a research Mahal. Tom Cote works vessel for the Ocean for an investment company Institute in Dana Point, — 2000 — in Greenwich, CT. He CA. Peter Burd is living Elizabeth LaPointe O’Neill and recently moved out of NYC Alan O’Neill ’98 in Chicago and working Anthony DiNicola lives in Chicago, works to be closer to the office. Trevor Hambright as Analyst, Client Services at Surgical Care as an actor, was nominated for a Jeff Award was married to Lori Akalaski on October Affiliates.

13, 2013 on Long Island. They honeymooned in Paris and Rome. Dave Khuen — 2005 — has moved to Atlanta to sell solar inverters for Advanced Energy. His job is to open up Upon graduating from Santa Clara Univerthe Southeast region for his company. Eric sity in June 2012, Abram Dawson moved Kester has moved to New York City and is to San Francisco to pursue his interest in a graduate student enrolled in the Columstartups. He started working at a small bia University Writing Program. venture capital firm focused on seed/ angel investing in consumer tech. In May Keep your classmates updated Malcolm Eaton was accepted as a Nuclear — 2002 — by sending us your news!

Power Officer Candidate in the US Navy.

Lindsey Kennard graduated from RensseAndy Burd has moved from Hartford, CT, to laer Polytechnic Institute in 2012 with a New York City, where he started a new job Email: alumni@fenn.org in August. Andrew Hack is engaged to Ashley major in computer science. He works for Alumni Office a small software startup in Wakefield but Minton. Mac Kern is a team member (Lead was hoping to finish up his master’s degree Officer for Planning and Revenue Strategy) The Fenn School at Northeastern this past fall. Eric Lax for Surf Air, a private, all-you-can-fly private 516 Monument Street graduated summa cum laude from Amherst airline offering memberships for business Concord, MA 01742 College in May with a triple major in math, and leisure travelers. It was launched in June economics, and behavior economics, 2013. It flies to and from the San Francisco

Changed jobs? Back at school? Traveled?

Moved? Expanded your family?

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Class Notes

an interdisciplinary program. At Amherst Eric “made great friends, played intramural sports, and was on the debate team, but above all I had the freedom to explore my intellectual interests and had a great academic experience.” But his senior year was, he said, marked by “less sleep than usual,” due to a Fenn connection that he made.

In the fall he and Jamie Matheson ‘04 (the two were close friends at Fenn and used to say they should go into business together) launched a software company called Trext, Inc. with two of Jamie’s fellow Hampshire College students. They developed the interface for a simple tool that allows businesses and nonprofits to engage in interactive, automated conversations with customers

for business two months after they graduated, and Trext has been on the front page of Hacker News and was called one of 35 hot tech startups flying under the radar. As CEO of Trext, “I manage developers, raising capital and negotiating partnerships with companies that can sell our technology to particular vertical markets or incorporate it into their offerings to Rob Kolowich ’06 (at right) demonstrates video drone with his father, Michael these vertical markets. We’ve — 2006 — received initial seed money from Silicon Valley venture capital fund and from family Malin Adams graduated from William and and friends. We’re working very hard…and Mary College summa cum laude with a degree will sleep someday,” in business administration. He traveled to he adds.

Thailand this past summer before starting a

John McBride is now a Press Intern at the US House of Representatives. Will Notini graduated from New York University in the spring and is headed to the University of Chicago to pursue a (l to r) Tony Howland ’68 joins 2006 classmates Fred Essieh and Tyler Davis at November alumni Pub Night master’s degree after spending the summer job in New York City in July. Eric Benvein Guatemala doing nuti graduated from Hamilton College last research. Greg Pierson spring with a BA in economics. Tyler Davis started law school this has been hired as an assistant paralegal at a Jim Carter ’54 congratulates Fenn 2006 classmates J.B. Henderson, Luke Rogers, fall at Stetson UniverBoston law firm which works on immigraand Jeff Trotsky at their University of Vermont graduation in May. sity in Gulfport, FL, tion issues. He graduated from Lafayette near St. Petersburg. Chris Schelzi received via text messaging. Decision-free texting, or College in May with a bachelor’s degree in his BA from Fairfield University College of “trexting,” involves texting multiple recipients government and law. Luke Eddy finished his Arts and Sciences in May. (who have opted in) with pre-programmed football career at Columbia with six all-time text that asks questions and leads a conversarecords for place kicking in their 123-yeartion along a flowchart old football program. His of responses. Eric records include most field reports that several large goals, extra points, and extra companies are testing point attempts in a season. the software for use in He also holds the record communicating with for the most extra points their employees, and and attempts in a career. In that the Center for addition, he had the most Disease Control issued consecutive extra points in A Day Camp for girls and boys ages 5 - 15 a task order for testing a season and a career. Luke the feasibility of Trext was the leading scorer in Day Camp Program Specialty Programs Day Tripper Adventure replacing its existing 2012 and Freshman Player SMS application for of the Year in 2010. Dan disaster relief. Eric and Giles wrote a play titled Sea his partners opened Change as part of his senior 3 6 www.fenn.org

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Class Notes

(l to r) Philip Skayne ’10, Dan Skayne ’07, and Peter Quayle ’07 met up at Middlebury College, where Dan and Philip are students.

thesis at Harvard, which he then directed on the college’s Loeb Theater Mainstage last April. The play centers on the relationship between Mary Shelley and her husband Percy Bysshe Shelly and their supposed collaboration on Frankenstein, which Mary published in 1818. In the play, actors, musicians, and puppeteers alike chronicle Percy Shelley’s early death and Mary’s attempt to reanimate her love for her late husband through her own memories. JB Henderson received his BA degree in economics from the University of Vermont last spring. Roger Hurd received his BA degree in economics cum laude from Yale University. This past summer, Rob Kolowich and his father Michael used a high-definition camera mounted on a very small remote-controlled helicopter to create an aerial video essay about Fenn’s new campus, showing off the spectacular expansion and

the elegant blend of new and old. Both Long is teaching Spanish and coaching soccer at Meadowbrook School this coming academic year. Scooter Manly recently joined the staff in Lawrence Academy’s development office.

Henry McNamara graduated from Bowdoin last spring with a degree in economics and environmental studies and a minor in government and legal studies. Luke Rogers graduated from the University of Vermont last May with a BA degree in history and spent the fall interning in Fenn’s Advancement Office.

— 2007 — After spending a year at Kenyon College, Ian McWilliams transferred to the United States Military Academy at West Point, where he is a junior. Joe Rinaldo has one more year left at Dickinson College. He spent this past summer farming at The Food Project in Lincoln. James Smith is majoring in computer science at Fordham University.

University of Massachusetts undergraduate Accompanist Award, a scholarship given to the top accompanist in undergraduate piano study. He was the musical director for Spring Awakening and Curtains put on by the UMass Theater Guild. Luke is also a freelance musical director and pianist with the Reagle Music Theater in Waltham and the North Shore Music Theater in Beverly.

This past summer, Boyd Green and Matt Boone worked for Lawrence Academy’s Summer Programs. Winston Pingeon is studying Justice, Law, and Society at American University and interned for the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department in their community relations or community liaisons divisions this past fall.

JC Winslow is loving Holy Cross and playing club hockey there.

— 2009 —

Jamie Billings is starting his sophomore year at Dartmouth, where he rows on the Varsity — 2008 — Men’s Heavyweight Crew team. Thomas Paul Bierwagen spent the sumMichael Hoffman ’09 Cooper won the Sarah mer studying ecology in YelGray Megan Award in Music, the Cornelowstone and Grand Teton National Parks. lius Ayer Wood ’13 Prize in music, and a Last spring Luke Flood was awarded the Thoreau Medal for music at the Middlesex Alumni soccer coaches representing Fenn and peer schools join Jason Rude and Bob Starensier at this year’s Eaglebrook soccer tournament: (l to r) Brad Khuen ’00 (New Canaan Country School), Both Long ’06 graduation last spring. Ryan Hoey finished (Meadowbrook), John Boger ’94 (Meadowbrook), Jason, Bob, Sean Melia ’99 (Shore Country Day School), Freemon up his post-graduate year at Pomfret School Romero ’04 (Fenn), and Kevin White ’93 (Fenn) last spring. Michael Hoffman recently completed his “Plebe Summer” at the US Naval Academy. Michael began thinking about attending the U.S. Naval Academy right after his Fenn graduation. “Every day, looking at the banner with Honesty, Respect, Empathy, and Courage on it, as well as Sua Sponte, had a pretty significant effect on me. By the time I graduated, my character and values were more important to me than my grades. I am now being prepared to lead men and women and to serve my country. A lot of people rely on others to serve, but my family, friends, Fenn, and St. Mark’s were all things I cared too much about to leave it up to others to protect. I never want to take for granted the people and places I love and how lucky I’ve been. That’s a lesson my dad and Fenn taught me for years. I hope all is well at Fenn. winter

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Sua Sponte are still his words to live by: Officer Bryan Resnick ’94 When Officer Bryan Resnick visited Fenn last

During that “intense” week, he recalled, the team, which offers paramedics, canine units, and cross-trained personnel spring, he stood up when Headmaster Ward introduced him including six snipers, became part of a sustained operation at All School Meeting. Though he hadn’t prepared to speak, involving the protection of “soft venues”—hospitals where he did not hesitate before urging the boys to “view Sua victims had been taken and hotels where runners and visSponte as a call to take personal responsibility in all you do.” itors were staying. The team’s duties included providing Later Bryan observed that “This is an age in which protection for President Obama as he attended an interfaith people blame others for a problem and want them to fix service for the victims. it. All of the issues in today’s world require us to stand up When TV news outlets played footage of the operations and take responsibility.” His six years as a police officer in in Watertown, Bryan was shown in a helmet and uniform, Norwell have challenged him to live the motto of personal carrying an assault rifle, his head and torso visible above the responsibility that he learned at Fenn and which, he said, roof hatch of an armored personnel carrier called a BearCat. “has made a huge difference in my career, for I learned that “I got little sleep that week,” he recalled. blaming others does no good.”

Usually his work with the SWAT team falls under such Before joining the police force, Bryan spent seven categories as “barricaded suspect,” or “hostage rescue,” years in active Army duty, which included a deployment to Bryan explained, and he an FBI Intelligence Sorting is sometimes involved in Center after 9/11 as part securing the scene of a crime of Operation Noble Eagle. where there is intelligence Bryan never thought he that weapons are involved. would become a police “Basically we attempt to officer. After the army he help a community solve a returned to college, earning problem,” he says. a degree in Communications When asked how he from UMass. He interned can put himself into life at an ad agency, where he and death situations with spent his days “sitting in a confidence, Bryan thought cubicle and making spread for a moment and replied, sheets.” During that time he “The fear is not of what I am met a man who owned race facing but of the possibility cars and Bryan became his Officer Bryan Resnick in a BearCat right after the Marathon bombings. that I could make a mistake pit mechanic, traveling to and cause someone to get Europe and England with the hurt or that I could let my colleagues down. But the most team. When he returned about ten years ago, “I had a quarterdangerous thing in our industry is complacency,” he added, life crisis,” he says. “I felt listless.” He pondered returning to “so a little fear is good.” the Army, but he was in a serious relationship with his future Police officers must “deal with the darker side of wife, Lizzie, and knew that “active duty is a tough place to be humanity,” Bryan said, “and with people in crisis.” It’s the when you are married.” lack of appreciation that first responders receive except A buddy suggested law enforcement, and Bryan spent during a high profile situation like the April bombings, he the next two years as a Suffolk County Corrections officer. said, that also makes law enforcement challenging. “The He graduated from the Police Academy first in his class and people who do this for twenty or thirty years—it’s so difficult joined the Norwell department. A few years later he earned day in and day out, when it’s mostly so thankless—well, you a master’s degree in Criminal Justice. His new career took have to have fortitude to last.” root, “providing stability at a time I needed it.”

Still, Officer Resnick loves his job and would not do As a police officer, he cross-trained to become a Metro anything else. “I believe we’re put where we’re supposed to SWAT member, serving on the team that played a role in be,” he declared, “and this is a good place for me.” the aftermath of the Boston Marathon bombings last April.

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My [Fenn] friends (Charlie Peters, Nick Weigel, Wyatt Bramhall, and Ryan MacDonald) are still my closest.”

AJ Lucchese finished his Middlesex School lacrosse career as the 2nd most productive player in school history, producing 200 points on 106 goals and 94 assists, trailing Fenn graduate Jamie Atkins ’03, who ended his career with 206 career points.

AJ was the first lone captain since 1990 and led the Independent School League in scoring for the second consecutive year, posting 78 points on 38 goals and 40 assists his senior season. For his efforts, he has been recognized with US Lacrosse All American honors. AJ was selected to play in the 2013 All-American Lacrosse showcase held in Lake Buena Vista, FL, in July alongside 96 of the nation’s elite high school players. He was chosen based on his performance in the Massachusetts All Star game. AJ will be playing lacrosse at Brown University. Jeff Mara spent the summer at Kirtland Air Force Base in Albuquerque as part of a select group of undergraduates who get internships there.

He was doing research for the space vehicles directorate of the Air Force, working one-onone with a scientist building and optimizing a component that could be used for the thermal control of satellites. Jeff’s long-term dream is (l to r) Matt Boudreau, Miles Petrie, and Hunter Moskowitz, all class of 2011, at the New England Division 3 Cross-Country Championships for Independent Schools held in November

to be an astronaut. At Middlesex graduation, AJ Lucchese and Billy Olson won the Joseph K. Lang Bow Prize for sports and citizenship.

Nick Stewart graduated from Middlesex last spring and won the W. Hunter Platt ’57 Music Award, the Trustee Prize in English, and the Spanish Prize.

— 2010 —

team. Last May Tommy Crowley was honored with a Student-Athlete Award for his achievements on the gridiron. Jalen Joncas is attending Lasalle College in Newton and studying fashion design. Andrew Long started his freshman year at Dickinson College this fall. Michael Queenan is attending Wesleyan University and rowing crew for them. This fall Dan Razionale started his freshman year at Eckerd College in St. Petersburg, FL, and is studying marine biology. Adam Reid headed off to Johns Hopkins University this fall. David Rengpraphun entered Boston University.

Philip Skayne started his freshman year at Middlebury College. Ned Southwell graduated from Rivers School in June and is now at Dartmouth College.

— 2011 —

Woody Ahern, Thomas Cowan, and Will Noble Hunter Arnold was named started their freshman year a Dual County All-Star in at MIT this past fall. Gabe lacrosse last spring. He is curArnold is attending Conrently a senior at Acton-Boxnecticut College. Julian borough High School and Baeza Hochmuth entered was the quarterback of the Emerson College in the fall.

A-B football team. Ranger Ben Balter participated in Beguelin, who plays goalie for Ben Balter ’10 the prestigious 113th annuthe Concord-Carlisle High al U.S. Amateur Golf Championship in School varsity ice hockey team, came to the August, and though he did not advance to assistance of the girls’ field hockey team this the match play round, he is on his way to fall when he heard they needed a goalie for an exciting future in the sport. A two-time the season. Ranger’s participation was comFCWT (Future Collegians World Tour) pletely legal under the Dual County League All-American, Ben led his Class of 2011 graduates now at Lawrence Academy: (l to r) Morgan Brennan, team at the Community Sebastian Sidney, Chase Newton, Sam Woodring, and Oliver Johnson School in Naples, FL, to top-3 finishes at the state tournaments in 2011 and 2012. A four-time letter winner at the school, he is a three-time Naples News All Area High School golfer.

Ben entered Wake Forest University this fall, where he will major in economics and play on the Demon Deacons, the Wake Forest golf winter

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Class Notes

an All-Star in tennis. Tim Joumas is writing for the Lawrence Academy newspaper, The Spectrum. His first piece was about Spoon Hunt, an LA tradition. Johnny Lamont was named an All Star in baseball.

— 2013 —

High school and college-age Fenn alumni gather in August at the Summer Barbeque.

rules, which state that students can play on co-ed teams if a gender specific alternative is not available. Despite some ribbing from friends and extra scrutiny by referees, Ranger made a successful transition from ice to turf and helped the field hockey team clinch a playoff spot in the post season. Matt Boudreau is headed to Botswana this spring to spend five weeks studying at the Maru-a-Pula School as part of the Brooks School Exchange Program. Sabri Eyuboglu, who attends Belmont Hill School, was named Independent School League MVP and

Globe All Scholastic in Alpine Skiing. Stevie Gleason served as a captain of the Middlesex School soccer team this past fall. Miles Petrie, representing Middlesex School, medaled at the ISL Varsity cross country championships held at St. Mark’s in November. He went on to place 9th with a time of 17:24, at the New England Division 3 Championship Cross-Country race for Independent Schools held November 9 at St. George’s School, where he met up with Hunter Moskowitz (Concord Academy) and Matt Boudreau (Brooks) who were also competing. Robert Shapiro was one of the captains of the CCHS football varsity this past fall.

— 2012 — Austin Dorsey has transferred from St. Marks to Middlesex School. Carter Jones was named

Pranov Tadikonda, who attends Phillips Andover Academy, writes a monthly column on sports and fitness for Channel6 [sic], a magazine based in India. He also writes for his school paper, The Phillipian, and maintains a sports blog titled Beantown Sports Online (http://www.beantownsportsonline.com).

“My main goal in writing these articles is to spread awareness about sports that may not be as prevalent in India; marathon running is a relatively new concept there, golf fitness is growing in popularity, and American football is a budding sport. I’m technically not a ‘trained expert’ in marathon running, but I feel that I am well-versed in terms of physical conditioning, and although I have never run a full marathon, I do long-distance running to stay in shape.” Nate Winneg was among 8,000 athletes from 79 countries who participated in the 19th quadrennial Maccabiah Games in Israel this past summer, which included 48 sports and Paralympics events. An accomplished gymnast, Nate won a place last winter on the U.S. Juniors Gymnastics team that would participate in the Games, the world’s largest Jewish athletic event. He competed in all events—floor, pommel horse, rings, vault, parallel bars, and horizontal bar—and placed eleventh overall and fourth on the high bar.

Nate’s team took home the Silver medal.

Members of the Class of 2013 gather at the dedication of the bench which was their class graduation gift.

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Class Notes

Fenn alumni run service programs abroad Countless alumni say they learned at Fenn the importance of making a difference, among them Tyler Andrews ’05, who leads a program called Service Trips for Student Athletes (STRIVE), and Andrew Long and Sam Rice, both class of 2010, who with a friend founded Play On For Africa (POFA), which helps disadvantaged children learn the basics of team sports.

In 2012 Tyler took over as the co-owner and president of STRIVE, where he had been working as a group leader, while still an undergraduate in Mechanical Engineering and Astrophysics at Tufts University. He runs the company with Nic Windschill and Rob Martin, fellow group leaders. STRIVE offers international travel and athletic training to students who don’t have to sacrifice their summer training to gain service experiences. The program is privately funded, in part by participants who raise money before their trips. During three-week sessions in the Sacred Valley in Peru or in Iten, Kenya, participants spend their days running or working out and volunteering on projects such as teaching English. A safari through the Masai Mara or a hike through the Andes closes each session.

Tyler became passionate about running and distinguished himself on the cross country and track teams at Concord Academy under the guidance of his coach, Jon Waldron. After graduation, he traveled to Ecuador to volunteer in a children’s hospital, thinking that he might want to become a doctor. The trip “had the longest lasting impact of any one period of my life,” he says, “and I left there a different person.”

At Tufts, Tyler became a national caliber varsity athlete. He has built an impressive resume of running accomplishments, including four-time Academic All-American honors, nine-time All-Conference honors, and two trips to the NCAA National Championships. He is the three-time defending champ of Boston’s Run to Remember Half Marathon and his goal is to compete at the Olympic Trials in 2016 and 2020 for a spot on the marathon team. In his engineering classes, Tyler had to learn to think, solve problems, work efficiently,

and manage his time, all of which he says help him run an organization in a Third World country.

“We want to create a real, long-lasting impact on the communities in which we work,” says Tyler. “I think a lot of life is about trying to be a good influence for others and being around other good people. STRIVE allows me to share that goal with others.”

For Andrew Long and Sam Rice, 2010 Fenn graduates who were friends on campus and off, Fenn’s emphasis on diversity and community service was inspiring. It “definitely planted in my mind the idea of giving back,” Andrew says.

Sam had traveled to Africa in 2005 with his family and observed the poverty and suffering of millions of children; many have lost parents to AIDS and are unlikely to receive an education, good health care, or sufficient food.

In their tenth grade year at Concord-Carlisle High School, Andrew, Sam, and another C-C student, Sam Howes, decided to offer team sports coaching to boys and girls in a sub-Saharan Africa village. POFA is completely supported by their fundraising: appeals and small events. On a village soccer field (“usually just sand”), POFA’s coaches teach the basics of Ultimate Frisbee, touch football, basketball, and volleyball while encouraging the spirit of cultural exchange and youth leadership.

Sam Rice is now a senior at Salisbury School and Andrew attends Dickinson College. POFA heads into its fourth year this summer, with representatives in Africa advertising the camp off-season and recruiting young people to participate. The program is making a difference. “The kids are so much happier by the end of the session,” Andrew says, adding that the experience has “completely changed the way I look at the things I have in my life. I appreciate what I used to take for granted.”

For more information about STRIVE go to http://www. strivetrips.org. To learn more about POFA, go to www. playonforafrica.org.

Andrew Long in Africa, at left, and Tyler Andrews as he races through the finish line ribbon

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Former Faculty and Staff News Norma Harrington is a Learning Specialist at Applewild School and is also pursuing her goal to provide tailor-made learning options for children and adults through her service, MindWise Learning. Justin McLean lives in Watertown and works at Meadowbrook School. Jim Wiggenhorn is “essentially retired,” he says, but works on his house, rides his bicycle, and does some tech work.

Sue Finney continues to love life in New Hampshire; last summer the whole family was there for activities including her granddaughter’s baptism at the village church and a gathering of friends and family to celebrate the wedding of her son, Dave. The Finneys traveled through Turkey, the Greek Islands, and Athens in September.

Tom Hudner is working at Eduventures, a company which does research, analytics,

enjoy running their B&B and consulting for colleges in Tobago from October and universities. Tom through March and spend is selling the company’s the rest of the year at offerings in Development home in New Bern, NC. and Enrollment Bill Purdy retired from Management/Admissions Duke University two years in the northeast. The ago and divides his time position aligns with his between Durham, NC, experience and interests and Lakeside, MI, with and “has been great so far,” frequent trips to San FranTom says. Rob Achtmeyer cisco to visit children and ’94 is back at Maret grandchildren.

School, teaching fifth grade humanities. Rob had Jen Pineau Wilson and her husband, Scott, have a new son, Beckett Arthur Jim Carter ’54 is spending been at home taking care Wilson, born July 20, 2013. He joins two to three days each of Henry (2) and Kevin older brother Colton. week at Fenn volunteering (4), and had planned to his time to go through the archives trying take another year to be with them, but the to identify hundreds of photos taken over return to his old job was “too hard to turn down…I know the school and designed the the years, then scanning them so we have a permanent record. (Thanks, Jim!) In curriculum.”

November, Mark and Jane Biscoe helped him out a bit the day before the Board of Silvy Brookby now has two sons at Fenn Visitors annual meeting. and is still teaching at UMass Framingham. Win and Bea Sargent continue to

in memoriam

Frank D. Abbott July 29, 2013 Father of Russell Abbott ’66

Robert C. Duncan Former Fenn Faculty 1979-2008 October 21, 2013

Douglas J. Arnold ’48 September 9, 2007

Charles P. Fisher ’34 December 15, 2012 Father of Charles Fisher ’59

Robert A. Bastille ’35 August 28, 2013 Eric Billings ’38 November 23, 2007 Jan R. Bloch ’51 May 13, 2010 Donald H. Brown ’31 March 25, 2002

Robert F. Foster, Jr. ’40 May 21, 2013 Stephen P. Gardner Former Fenn Faculty 1975-1979 July 17, 2013 Father of Chris Gardner ’99 C. Kevin Landry August 1, 2013 Father of Chris Landry ’85

Philip J. Lawrence Fenn Trustee 1992-1999 July 23, 2013 Father of Andrew ’93, Brian ’98, and Brendan Lawrence ’00

Frederick L. Reynolds ’78 May 21, 2010 Brother of Matt Reynolds ’74

Alexis Morgan ’50 November 29, 2004

Jane E. Row Former Fenn Faculty 1976-1978 and 1980-1982 May 7, 2013 Mother of Gordon Row ’78 Grandmother of Ronnie Otero ’00

Joseph O’Connell ’78 April 1, 2004

Bradford P. Stevens ’68 November 21, 2013

Charles W. Pratt ’48 May 27, 2012

Zachary L. Sulkowski ’02 September 3, 2010 Brother of Adam ’89, Gregory ’93, and Victor Sulkowski ’00

John W. Locke ’39 April 6, 2013

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Graduation 2013 S

ixty eighth and ninth graders received their diplomas at the 84th Fenn School Graduation Exercises on June 7, 2013.

As the Meeting Hall bell pealed, the graduates

processed across the green and into the New Gym, where Headmaster Jerry Ward offered personal

reflections of each senior, singling him out for such traits as honesty, intellect, spirit, and enthusiastic

commitment to Fenn life. Several prizes were awarded for excellence in character, service, academics, arts, athletics, and citizenship, with additional awards presented on Prize Day earlier that week.

The Fenn Band and the Treble Chorus performed,

and the outgoing school President and Vice President

addressed their classmates and teachers, staff members,

families, and friends, with President Gordon Hargraves urging fellow graduates “not to leave Fenn behind.

Take the person that Fenn made you and bring him to your new school, and you will make it a better place.�

After the ceremony, the new graduates walked along the traditional receiving line so that faculty and staff members could wish them well.

Earlier in the week ninth graders and their parents

gathered for dinner and the traditional serenade

written and sung by their advisors, with a verse for each graduate. Eighth graders and their parents, teachers,

and advisors honored those class members who were

leaving Fenn and provided those who were returning

an opportunity to come together and look towards their

futures as seniors. Mr. Ward offered personal reflections of each graduate, and four student speakers, selected by their peers, addressed their classmates and guests.

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Graduation 2013 Feature

awards and honors

Each year, before diplomas are awarded at graduation, the headmaster presents, on behalf of the faculty, six prizes that recognize in different ways members of the eighth and ninth grade classes for their exceptional character, effort, achievement, and growth, all vital elements of a Fenn education. The recipients are chosen on the basis of recommendations and votes of the Fenn School faculty.

Faculty Prize The Faculty Prize is Fenn’s highest honor. It recognizes a ninth grade student or students whose breadth, character, and consistency of involvement in the life of the school have best exemplified the faculty’s ideals for Fenn students. This year the Faculty Prize was conferred upon (l to r): Michael D. Demsher, Jacob B. Goorno, Odom K. Sam, and William O. Haslett.

Lovejoy Prize Created in 1998 by Trustee Emeritus Frederick H. Lovejoy Jr. ’51 and his family, the Lovejoy Prize honors a graduating eighth grade student or students whose exceptional character, effort, and achievement have so enriched the life of the school as to merit special recognition from the faculty upon their departure from Fenn. The prize is awarded only in years when there are students of extraordinary merit. This year the Lovejoy Prize was presented to three members of the Class of 2014 (l to r): Joseph M. C. LaRocca, Christopher J. Ruediger, and William R. Hrabchak.

Walter W. Birge III Prize for Philanthropy and Support of the Fenn Community Nominated by the faculty and selected by the headmaster, the recipient of the Birge Prize demonstrates qualities that were championed by Mr. Birge, Fenn’s fourth headmaster (19831993). The prize recognizes one or more members of the ninth grade class who have continually distinguished themselves through their support of Fenn community service projects, their helpfulness to teachers, and their support of their peers. The prize was awarded this year to Michael D. Demsher.

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Graduation 2013 Feature

DR. SAMUEL C. FLEMING MEMORIAL PRIZE Established by members of the Class of 1965 on the occasion of their 25th Fenn reunion, the Dr. Samuel C. Fleming Memorial Prize honors their classmate and friend who wore a “wonderful, ever-present smile.”

The prize is awarded each year to an eighth or ninth grade student or students who merit recognition for determination and perseverance in meeting academic challenges, whose efforts never languished, and who contributed to the school through qualities of friendliness, unselfish conduct, and sensitivity and warmth to their classmates. This year the faculty honored (l to r): eighth grader Thomas B. Kaye, and ninth graders Leo J. Saraceno and Nathan I. Winneg.

Mark Biscoe Award Named for retired master teacher Mark Biscoe H’95, who gave thirtysix years of service to the school, the Mark Biscoe Award honors the extraordinary example that Mark set for his colleagues and students.

The award is presented to a ninth grade student or students who, through their personal growth in their years at Fenn, have come to value and live out the ideals of school citizenship which Mr. Biscoe, as teacher and coach, inspired generations of Fenn students to embrace.

This year the honor went to (l to r): Luke J. Maguire Newman, Edward J. Fitzsimmons, and Mitchell M. Groves.

Burbank prize The Burbank Prize is awarded by the teachercoaches of Fenn to those graduating athletes who have distinguished themselves through their generous and unselfish spirit, which fostered the success, happiness, and self-esteem of their teammates. This year the prize was awarded to (l to r): Edward J. Fitzsimmons, James L. Sanderson, Leo J. Saraceno, John P. Hart, and William O. Haslett.

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awards and honors ELEANOR B. FENN MODERN LANGUAGE PRIZE Originally a prize for achievement in French, the Eleanor B. Fenn Modern Language Prize commemorates the many contributions of Mrs. Fenn, the school’s first French teacher and the dedicated wife of founder Roger Fenn.

Today, with this prize, Fenn recognizes the most accomplished Spanish students for their talent and interest in the language and culture of Spain and for their exemplary academic work in the Spanish language. This year, ninth graders (l to r) Michael D. Demsher, Edward J. Fitzsimmons, and Gavin M. Black were honored with the prize.

ALAN S. MOATS MATHEMATICS PRIZE The parents of Alan S. Moats ’62 established the Moats Mathematics Prize in 1966 in their appreciation for Fenn’s excellence in preparing their son for the rigors of Phillips Exeter Academy. In its first year, the prize was given “for the curiosity which raised questions, the perseverance which sees through to the answers, and the thoroughness which is the mark of excellence in any field.” This year the Moats Mathematics Prize was awarded to (l to r) ninth grader Michael D. Demsher and eighth graders Joseph M.C. LaRocca and Lincoln T. Berkley.

LENNOX LINDSAY LATIN PRIZE Lennox Lindsay was Fenn’s first Latin master, who taught at the school from 1929 to 1939. Mr. Lindsay, according to Roger Fenn, “made Latin a living language, not a dead one” through his explorations of Roman manners, culture, and artifacts. Initially conferred upon the boy who shared Mr. Lindsay’s passion for these areas of the curriculum, today the Lennox Lindsay Latin Prize is awarded for overall excellence in the study of Latin. This year the prize went to (l to r) eighth graders Zachary J. Lisman and Thomas B. Kaye.

GOULD ARTS AWARD The Arts Award is named for Kirsten Gould, who retired in 2011 after twenty-seven years at Fenn, for her “visionary shaping of Fenn’s Arts program in its rich and full dimensions.” The award is given by vote of the Arts department faculty and is presented to three students who have demonstrated throughout their careers at Fenn exemplary dedication and accomplishment respectively in music, drama, and the visual arts. This year, from the Class of 2013 (l to r), Michael D. Demsher was honored for distinction in music Edward J. Fitzsimmons for distinction in the visual arts, and William O. Haslett for distinction in drama.

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Graduation 2013

MILLAR BRAINARD SCIENCE PRIZE The Millar Brainard Science Prize was established by Edward C. Brainard II ’46 in memory of his father, an old friend of Roger Fenn’s at the time the school was founded.

The prize is awarded to a member or members of the ninth grade class who have not only demonstrated an outstanding knowledge of science but have also displayed enthusiasm, creativity, and an impressive understanding of the scientific method. This year the winner of the Brainard Science Prize was Michael D. Demsher.

BAND AWARD The Band Award is presented for leadership and dedication. The winners, with Instrumental Music Director Maeve Lien, were (l to r) eighth grader Joseph M.C. LaRocca and ninth graders Michael D. Demsher, William O. Haslett, and Joshua A. Cabral.

THE CARTER PRIZE FOR HISTORY AND SOCIAL STUDIES The Carter Prize for History and Social Studies, named in honor of Jim Carter ’54 for his distinguished forty years of teaching history and social studies at Fenn, is awarded to a graduating student or students who in their years at Fenn have shown exceptional interest, knowledge, and diligence in their study of history and social studies. This year the recipients of the Carter Prize, shown with Jim Carter, were (l to r) eighth graders Thomas B. Kaye and Daniel P. Kramer and ninth graders Connor McAvoy and Kyler B. Hall.

WILLIAM O. TRAVERS WRITING CONTEST At graduation in 1979, the Fenn School Board of Trustees established an English prize to honor the long and dedicated service of William O. Travers, English teacher and assistant headmaster from 1956 to 1979.

Mr. Travers’ keen interest in writing and his long-held desire for a composition prize prompted a contest to be created in each division of the school for which submissions of imaginative, creative, and descriptive writing were sought. This year, in the Poetry category, the winners were Peter F. Cook (Lower School), Owen P. Elton (Middle School), and Joshua A. Cabral and Graham M. Adams (Upper School). For Personal Narrative, the winners were Timothy C. First (Lower School), Benjamin S. R. Zide (Middle School), and William R. Hrabchak and Benjamin B. Ludwick (Upper School). In Fiction, prizes went to Marshall G. Wesel (Lower School), Mark E. Herdiech (Middle School), and Thomas B. Kaye and Henry K. Griffin (Upper School). Travers Prize winners in the Upper School are pictured, (l to r): Joshua Cabral, Henry Griffin, Thomas Kaye, Graham Adams, William Hrabchak, and Benjamin Ludwick.

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awards and honors P.G. LEE MEMORIAL PRIZE Each year, the P.G. Lee Memorial Prize is awarded at Prize Day to honor a member or members of the graduating class who contributed outstanding determination, hard work, positive spirit, and cheerfulness to their athletic teams. Established in memory of P.G. Lee ’87, the award honors the spirit of a boy who was a true competitor but is perhaps best remembered for “his smile and his ability to make people laugh, and the happiness he brought to people around him.” This year’s eighth and ninth graders voted to honor (l to r) James L. Sanderson, John P. Hart, and Odom K. Sam. Leslie Warner, P.G. Lee’s mother, attended the Prize Day ceremony to congratulate the winners.

citizenship prizes

Awarded by faculty to students in their divisions, Fenn School Citizenship Prizes honor boys who show exceptional citizenship traits: they are especially hard working in their school activities, they are particularly cheerful, positive, and supportive to other students, and they are relied upon by faculty to lend a hand when important jobs need to be done. This year the following students were honored with Citizenship Prizes on Prize Day: AUSTEN FOX RIGGS AWARD First awarded by the Class of 1951 as their parting gift to Fenn, the Austen Fox Riggs Award is given in memory of Austen, a Fenn student from the Class of 1955 who lost his life attempting to save his younger brother from drowning in the Concord River.

Determined by vote of the Lower School faculty, the award is given to the student or students who most resemble “Autie” in the helpful effort he contributed in work and in play. This year the Austen Fox Riggs Award was presented to fifth graders (l to r) Oliver E. Cheever and Lucian W. Sharpe.

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4 th GRADE Alexander J. Brown Peter F. Cook Thomas J. Fitzsimmons Camren W. Fries Marshall G. Wesel

7 th GRADE Robert P. Brower Walker L. Davey Nicholas E. Schoeller Nicholas R. Steinert Benjamin S. R. Zide

5 th GRADE Nicolo A. Carere James J. Ewing Matthew J. Gainsboro

8 th GRADE Alec M. Reiss Edward R. Uong Rohan Upadhyayula Cormac A. Zachar

6 th GRADE Tyler E. Arle Kevin C. Ewing Samuel J. Farley Keven P. Querido Thaddeus M. Scheibe Maxwell K. Steinert

9 th GRADE Gordon F. Hargraves Kyler B. Hall John P. Hart Marcus C. Mazzotti

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Graduation 2013

fe n n

grad u at i n g

class

of

2 0 1 3

Gavin M. Black Kimball Union Academy

Mitchell M. Groves Lawrence Academy

Andrew C. Najda, Jr. Concord Academy

Joshua A. Cabral Tewksbury High School

Kyler B. Hall St. Mark’s School

Luke J. Maguire Newman Lawrence Academy

Maxwell L. Cantara Holderness School

Gordon F. Hargraves Middlesex School

William J. Robertson Kent School

Dillon J. Cronin Lincoln-Sudbury High School

John P. Hart St. Mark’s School

Odom K. Sam St. George’s School

Michael D. Demsher Phillips Academy, Andover

William O. Haslett Northfield Mount Herman

James L. Sanderson Middlesex School

Edward J. Fitzsimmons Maynard High School

Zachery J. Lisman Rivers School

Leo J. Saraceno St. Paul’s School

Jacob B. Goorno Middlesex School

Marcus C. Mazzotti Medford High School

Reid R. Shilling Deerfield Academy

Thomas P. Gross Lawrence Academy

James C. McAvoy Concord Academy

Nathan I. Winneg Concord Academy

Theodore J. McCluskey Lincoln-Sudbury High School winter

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Graduation 2013

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Graduation 2013

fe n n

grad u at i n g

class

of

2 0 1 4

Graham M. Adams Concord-Carlisle High School

Raef J. Gormley Concord-Carlisle High School

George B. Littlefield St. Mark’s School

Christopher J. Ruediger Concord-Carlisle High School

Liam P. C. Bannon Woodside Priory School

Shepard M. Greene St. Mark’s School

Benjamin B. Ludwick Acton-Boxborough High School

Jackson W. Stark Concord Academy

Lincoln T. Berkley Concord Academy

Henry K. Griffin Belmont Hill School

Jackson A. Lyman Concord-Carlisle High School

Cory J. Tibbets Acton-Boxborough High School

Daniel J. M. Broun Concord Academy

Blake B. Griffith Rivers School

Alexander J. S. Muresianu Middlesex School

Duncan J. Umphrey Noble and Greenough School

Hunter M. Corliss Rivers School

William R. Hrabchak Deerfield Academy

William W. Page Concord-Carlisle High School

Rohan Upadhyayula Phillips Exeter Academy

Matthew J. Cunningham Nashoba High School

Nicklas J. Johnson Concord-Carlisle High School

Reid P. Parisi Middlesex School

Chadwick J. Valpey Cambridge School of Weston

Liam T. Early Phillips Andover Academy

Thomas B. Kaye Middlesex School

David G. Perkins Concord-Carlisle High School

Matthew T. H. Wilson Concord-Carlisle High School

Ryan A. Ewing Middlesex School

Daniel P. Kramer Middlesex School

Alec M. Reiss Groton School

Randy Zhou Commonwealth School

Richard P. Gallo St. Sebastian’s School

Joseph M. C. LaRocca Concord Academy

Justin S. Robb Acton-Boxborough High School

winter

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Reflections

“Our lives changed forever” Kevin White ’93 recalls the Marathon bombings e didn’t even want to be there, at the finish line, after he had accompanied his parents to a Newbury Street restaurant for lunch on April 15, 2013. “I had suggested we go home,” says Kevin White. But he was there, and when the first of the two bombs went off, he, his dad, William, and his mom, Mary Jo, were less than six feet away from the infamous black backpack.

All Kevin remembers is screaming, intense heat, the blinding white flash of the blast, and shock; he was blown away from his parents and into a storefront. The explosion was so powerful that the coins in his pocket were bent. The next thing he knew he was lying down in a phone store, and then being pushed in a wheelchair to an ambulance headed for Faulkner Hospital. It was news footage of that moment that flashed across TV screens in Portland, OR, and was spotted by a friend of Kevin’s brother, Andrew ’89, who is a clinical psychologist there.

Kevin couldn’t feel his left arm and thought it might be broken, then realized his fleece jacket had melted onto his skin.

His right eardrum was blown. He had a concussion. His legs were so swollen he couldn’t walk for two days. At least ten shards of metal were imbedded in his skin, some deeper than others. One of them is still lodged in his jaw. Another was wedged behind his right eye. Had the doctors ordered an MRI before that discovery, he could have been blinded.

Mary Jo and William were alive, she, bloodied and battered, at Boston Medical Center, and he, with a leg too damaged to save, at Massachusetts General. Kevin insisted on being discharged in order to find them and

H

called his friend, Chris Millerick ’93, to come get him. When he got out of the car at Boston Medical, he suffered a seizure and fell, sustaining another concussion. He was admitted there.

Kevin collectively calls what followed that horrible day “the aftermath.” William was 72, and “losing a leg was not something you expect to deal with when getting older,” Kevin says. He went into cardiac arrest at the hospital, where “it was touch and go for awhile.” In those early, surreal days, President Obama, who was visiting the victims, walked into William’s room and shook his hand.

William struggled to get used to his computer-chip controlled prosthetic and found, too, that it was a “horrible reminder of what happened,” says Kevin, whose mom is doing well, but still has metal fragments in her body. The checkbook she carried in her purse is an eerie reminder of the astounding force of the blast; a large, ragged hole was blown right through it.

Now the family is in the recovery stage, finding that they “will never forget what happened, but we’re not angry anymore,” says Kevin, his welling eyes a window to the pain beneath the resilience he demonstrates. The City of Boston has been remarkably supportive, he says, and the family has become close to many of the other victims, like the two women whom he helped comfort in his ambulance. When William was invited to step onto the field at a Patriots’ game, he wryly observed, “I am part of the worst fraternity you would ever want to belong to.”

Kevin, who does consulting work for a family-run investment firm that buys small companies and real estate, visited Fenn not long after the bombings for an alumni gathering. Last fall he helped coach Varsity and Middle School soccer.

“Fenn is a familiar and comforting place for me, and the community has been so caring and supportive,” he says. He returned in November to talk to Upper School students about his experience.

Months later, Kevin admits to being frightened by loud noises and he is hyperaware of his surroundings.

Even opening his mailbox can cause him to tense in fear: what might be in there? But as the Whites adapt to a new normal, they have grown closer, and their connection to other victims has, Kevin says, enriched their lives. William, who had been semi-retired as a consultant, is now helping the One Fund Boston project develop ways to help amputees understand the prosthesis process and to raise awareness of options.

“We’ve weathered the storm,” Kevin declared. “This is an opportunity for a second chance.”

“We’ve weathered the storm. This is an opportunity for a second chance.” – Kevin White ’93 52

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1/16/14 9:25 AM

The Fenn School 516 Monument Street

Concord, Massachusetts 01742-1894

Parents of Alumni If this publication is addressed to your son, and he no longer maintains a permanent address at your home, please notify the alumni office of his new mailing address (978-318-3525 or aboudreau@fenn.org).

Thank you!

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