Friends Magazine 2018 by Friends School of Baltimore

in this issue 5 Thoughts on Being a “Good Neighbor” 24 International Students Enrich the Community

FRIENDS SCHOOL OF BALTIMORE MAGAZINE

30 Meet Five STEM Standouts

2018

Nurturing Healthy

relationships

A holistic approach to sexual education is taking root at Friends — and it couldn’t be more timely.

IN AND OF BALTIMORE As part of the Reading Buddies program, 4th graders such as Cere Heughan ’26, center, travel to St. Vincent de Paul Head Start in East Baltimore to engage with the center’s preschool children. This special partnership helps build on the 4th graders’ oral fluency — and perhaps more importantly connects them to people and places in Baltimore they may never have discovered. Empathy grows as the youngsters at Head Start overcome their shyness and warm up to the big kids. Back on the Friends campus, the 4th graders also share their readaloud gifts with their Pre-Primary buddies, with whom they meet weekly.

Contributor

PHOTO BY DAVID STUCK

Nurturing Health Relationships Sarah Achenbach is a Baltimore-based freelance writer whose work often focuses on issues related to health and education.

in this issue 2018 Published annually by Friends School of Baltimore

FRIENDS SCHOOL OF BALTIMORE MAGAZINE MISSION STATEMENT Founded in 1784, Friends School of Baltimore provides a coeducational, college preparatory program guided by the Quaker values of truth, equality, simplicity, community, and peaceful resolution of conflict. By setting high standards of excellence for a diverse and caring community, Friends seeks to develop in each student the spiritual, intellectual, physical, and creative strengths to make a positive contribution to the world. Recognizing that there is that of God in each person, the School strives in all its programs, policies, and affairs to be an institution that exemplifies the ideals of the Religious Society of Friends. Sue De Pasquale Editor Heidi Blalock Managing Editor Mid-Atlantic Media Design Christine Pappas ’01 Director of Alumni Relations & Engagement Ashley Principe Director of Development Theo George Marketing & Communications Manager

SEND ADDRESS CORRECTIONS TO: Friends School of Baltimore 5114 N. Charles Street Baltimore, MD 21210 Attn: Christine Pappas ’01 alumni@friendsbalt.org Printing J.H. Furst Co. Photography Heidi Blalock, Rick Lippenholz, Laura Prichett, David Stuck, Justin Tsucalas and members of the School community. Please recycle.

You can connect with us in various ways. Join us online today!

14 NURTURING HEALTHY RELATIONSHIPS A holistic new approach to sexual education — encompassing everything from healthy body image and anti-bullying to consent and birth control — is taking shape at Friends.

22 THE BIG PICTURE All School Convocations, which unfold five times a year, are a cherished tradition that bring together students of all ages, faculty, and staff. We offer a glimpse of last April’s music-and-dance-filled Earth Day Convocation.

24 WINDOWS ON THE WORLD Whether they hail from China or Slovakia, international students at Friends bring enormous richness to the School’s community by sharing their cultures and unique perspectives.

30 GAME CHANGERS Meet five alumni, all standouts in STEM fields, who are advancing knowledge and improving health.

departments CMYK / .eps

5 QUERY

46 COMMENCEMENT 2018

10 NEWSMAKERS

48 ALUMNI AND CLASS NOTES

34 ACADEMICS 38 ARTS

Facebook – @friendsbalt @FSBALUMNI1784 Twitter – @friendsbalt Flickr – Friendsbalt YouTube – friendsbalt Instagram – friendsbalt

42 ATHLETICS

84 FSPA NEWS 86 DEVELOPMENT 90 THE FACULTY ROOM

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from the head of school Dear Friends, A few years ago, I attended a conference where one of the sessions was led by a professor with whom I’d studied in college. This professor described a strange and troubling phenomenon that he and his colleagues had observed; incoming students in recent years seemed increasingly aimless and adrift. He ascribed this malaise to the hyper-competitive pre-college culture in our society. His theory was that some significant portion of the “best and brightest” high school students, having focused obsessively on getting into the “right” college, appeared to be at a loss for motivation and direction once they arrived. Put another way, having gained the much-coveted “what,” they found themselves without a compelling “why.” Indeed, for more than a decade, editorials, research studies, and books (perhaps most notably William Deresiewicz’s Excellent Sheep) have documented the crisis of meaning that afflicts, in particular, the most highachieving and affluent young people — a crisis that many have traced to the lack of focus on helping students find relevance and connection in their pre-college experiences. Whether manifested in higher dropout rates or the dramatically increased need for mental health and emotional support services, the evidence is overwhelming that many college students (and graduates) are struggling to find their way. As New York Times columnist David Brooks has written, we run the risk of producing a generation of young people lacking in purpose, one of the fundamental ingredients in any meaningful existence. In the face of this phenomenon, I count myself lucky to be at Friends School, where we are, and have long been, so deeply intentional about helping our students find their “why.” Recently at Friends, we have committed ourselves in new and important ways to this task, through the adoption of Friends Connects, our strategic direction.

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The research clearly indicates that a sense of purpose emerges most powerfully when children are encouraged to make connections: to their inner lives, to those around them, and to the world beyond their immediate surroundings. In other words, children develop meaning from introspection, coupled with attention to concerns beyond themselves and beyond the immediate moment. From such a “moral ecology,” as Brooks describes it, comes the genuine and sustained motivation students need to maximize their potential and be their best selves. The various new initiatives emerging from Friends Connects (see p. 10) build upon our 234-year history of educating young people inclined and equipped to make a positive difference in the world. We’re confident that, through the deep connections these initiatives will make possible, our students’ achievements, and all that comes from them, will be suffused with the sense of meaning that characterizes a rich and full life.

Best wishes,

mmicciche@friendsbalt.org

query

//Q Independent schools like Friends often exist within urban environments beset by myriad challenges, raising the question: What, if any, is their responsibility to be a “good neighbor?”

A \\

Artist’s Viewpoint

Before this portrait, I had I would state that never used watercolor nor most, if not all, independent had I done blind contour. By schools do not have an inherent looking through different responsibility to be a “good neighbor” perspectives I was able to of service to the urban environments create this piece. in which many are located. That —Kienan Higgins ’20 is one of numerous consequences of white supremacy and the inequitable distribution of power and resources that allow independent schools to create and perpetuate their own figurative bubbles of comfortable ignorance. However, such a responsibility becomes prudent as the demographic and philosophical composition of the schools’ student, teacher, and administrative bodies begin to reflect the diversity of the environments that surround them and beyond. Many institutions find themselves in identity crises because of this evolution, and it would behoove them to acknowledge and adjust with the changes in perspective at the risk of becoming antiquated. From an existential standpoint, I believe there can be much discussion about differentiation in perceived responsibility among independent schools. Speaking for Friends, which was founded on the Quaker philosophy that espouses equality and the presence of God in everyone, such a responsibility to be of service to fellow residents in urban neighborhoods should always be a critical element within the zeitgeist of the institution. Has that always been the case? Unfortunately, no, but there is always time to change, and I can think of no better point in society than

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query now for Friends and other independent schools to be primary drivers of equity and liberation in their cities. What does it look like for an independent school to be a “good neighbor” in an urban environment? First and foremost, schools must acknowledge their role in allowing [a city’s] challenges to manifest and persist, even if that only means acknowledging that the school believed it was not their issue. Secondly, schools should make concerted efforts to break out of their bubbles of comfortable ignorance and confront those challenges and the people who are dealing with them daily, which may include many who attend and work at their schools. Third, the school must listen to those people without judgment, defensiveness, or the notion of fixing the problems their way. Finally, schools must be willing to use their assets and resources, including money and reputations, to become healthy allies in elevating the work of those dedicated to addressing the challenges. This cannot be passive and must involve consistent empowerment to aid in the reversal of oppressive systems that affect so many, myself included. David Olawuyi Fakunle ’05, Ph.D., is a postdoctoral fellow at the Morgan State University School of Community Health & Policy. He is also co-founder and CEO of DiscoverME/RecoverME, an organization that utilizes the African oral tradition to encourages the claiming of one’s narrative for personal and organizational growth.

A \\

Well, I suppose I’d begin with a slightly different question. If I see our city as a place beset by challenges, I’m not likely to see the vast resources and creative spirit present in Baltimore. And if I ask myself what responsibility, if any, I have to be a good neighbor, I am overlooking the reality that I am already a neighbor, already in relationship with Baltimore. If, as our strategic vision as a school asserts, we want to be a school truly in, of, and for Baltimore, we may have to change the lens through which we see ourselves and our city. John A. Powell, who leads the UC Berkeley Haas Institute for a Fair and Inclusive Society, reminds us that what we are yearning for as human beings is a deepening and widening experience of belonging. So what does it mean to belong in Baltimore? Belonging means knowing Baltimore’s history — and the forces that have shaped, and continue to shape, our political, social, and geographic landscape. Belonging means participating in the public processes that determine our civic life. Belonging

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means celebrating and engaging with the vibrant array of arts and Artist’s Viewpoint cultural institutions in our city. I created this photo while Belonging means being present, exploring the concepts of cultivating humility, and listening surrealism and color. deeply to wisdom different than —Natalie Shmerler ’20 our own. As we experience this deepening belonging, we’ll likely be forming relationships beyond our home or school neighborhoods that will weave a stronger civic fabric and enliven our sense of what is possible in this beautiful city. Amy Schmaljohn, Ph.D., is the first Bliss Forbush Jr. ’40 Chair of Friends School’s Institute for Public Engagement and Responsible Dialogue, which was founded in 2017. She leads the Upper School Peace, Nonviolence, and Social Justice course, which has focused in recent years on injustices present in Baltimore — including mass incarceration, gun violence, unequal access to quality education, rape culture, and health inequity.

A \\

For me, the first step of answering this question is to examine why we want to be a “good neighbor.” Independent schools and other institutions often talk about this concept in the context of doing service work, and/or in reflecting on the experience of having resources when a larger community is lacking. We should pause when we are going down that path of thought and shift the framework toward considering that we all have a stake in a just and fair community, not only those who are oppressed or marginalized. This quote by Lilla Watson, an indigenous Australian activist, sums this idea up powerfully: “If you have come to help me, you are wasting your time. But if you have come because your liberation is bound up in mine, then let us

query work together.” All independent schools have a responsibility to help their students grapple with Lilla Watson’s words, but most especially a Quaker school founded in the tradition of social justice. When we think about being good neighbors, we must remember that we are part of the neighborhood, not separate from it. We also must acknowledge that independent schools are made up of people who have different life experiences and thus different experiences at school. We can’t truly be good neighbors outside of Friends unless we are good community members to each other within Friends. Part of this is having the hard conversations about how race and class dynamics play out at a majority white, majority middle/upper class independent school like Friends. Like any institution, our school is not immune from the structural racism that plagues Baltimore. I am indebted to the students of color at Friends who have shared openly about their experiences within our community and who first opened my eyes to how much my own daily experience is shaped by being a white person. Too often, students and alumni at any school bear the burden of educating their white peers about their realities. I’m heartened that Friends has created a leadership staff position — a director of diversity, equity and social justice — to help students and faculty navigate these conversations and to send a message that it is not only on students of color to work through these issues. Liz Lauros (Lauren) ’98, lives in Brooklyn, N.Y., with her partner and two young children. She works as Deputy Commissioner of Strategic Partnerships for the City of New York’s Department of Social Services.

A \\

I believe our country is desperate for a renewed understanding of what it means to be a good neighbor. With the rise of suburbs, we seem to have lost the understanding of how to neighbor with one another. The invention of the automobile has led us to drive out of our neighborhoods and shop in spaces where we don’t know one another as we once had. In addition, the invention of the television has kept people in their homes glued to their favorite TV show and as a result, we talk face to face much less. Although we now have technology that connects us, we seem to be less connected. Being a good neighbor takes courage and effort. We want to live in good neighborhoods, but are we good neighbors ourselves? Our own city of Baltimore literally bleeds on a daily basis. This year we have had 209 (as of 9/18) homicides and nearly 24 percent of Baltimore’s residents live below the poverty line. Erricka Bridgeford, one of the co-founders of Baltimore Ceasefire, asked our community to help Baltimore not just by calling for peace during Ceasefire weekends, but

by attending community activism meetings. She Artist’s Viewpoint doesn’t want us to throw This piece is a commentary on the money at a problem, but idea of reflecting an idealized image of rather bring our children yourself, whether that is in person or and families in unity on the Internet, and how showing the together by getting to world that idealized image can often know one another … to come off as warped, creepy, and unwanted. listen and listen deeply. —Kai Jenrette ’19 As a Quaker independent school, we are called to teach the Quaker testimony of “community.” I believe schools, independent and public, can be leaders in the art of neighboring in our communities. We must have conversations with school stakeholders: students, parents, teachers, administrators, and staff, so that we all understand our responsibility in being good neighbors. First, we need to begin by understanding how to be a good neighbor inside the walls of our schools. We must do the important work, inside and out of ourselves, in the areas of diversity, equity, and inclusion. We must also reach into our neighborhoods by participating actively with those in our community who may be very different from us to help develop empathy in ourselves and our children. As a Friends school, it is our responsibility to provide opportunities for our community as a gathering space where we can connect, understand, and love one another, and it most certainly is the responsibility of our school to teach our children what it means to be a good neighbor … our future depends on it!

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query Heidi Hutchison, formerly Director of Community Partnerships at Friends, is now Director of City Curriculum at Friends Select School in Center City Philadelphia. She is also the parent of two Friends School students.

A \\

At Friends, I have learned what it means to be a good neighbor. Having gone to Friends for six years, the Quaker testament of community has been ingrained within me: We all have the right to a full, safe, and healthy life. A key part of Quakerism is integrity: Our School’s beliefs of equality and community must be manifested through our actions, and we must act on what we believe in. For these reasons, I believe that Friends’ responsibility to be a good neighbor is heightened. In the fall semester, I wrote a speech for my Literature & Politics class on the topic of turning an unused, on-campus home into a

refugee transition house. In my research on the topic, I learned that two members of the Stony Run Meeting are fully supporting two refugee families. As well, my research highlighted that Friends is based on the ideology that is found so strongly in Quakerism that we as a community need to help others. We donate unneeded items to drives such as the GEDCO/SAVERS drive, and we brought in items for fundraisers for Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands after Hurricane Maria. We give our time on Quaker Community Day and Earth Day. We sponsor clubs like Soccer Without Borders, and we support groups like the William Penn Fellows that work closely with the International Rescue Committee. As a School, we give our time and our goods to help our neighbors, whether they be from Jonestown in Baltimore or from the other side of the world. One of the most influential moments of my time at Friends has been volunteering at the GEDCO/SAVERS Food Pantry and helping run clothing drives for Quaker Community days. I had the opportunity to return to the food pantry every Saturday morning for a year, to the point where the majority of customers would recognize me. While the mandatory community service is important in getting students like me engaged with local communities, I have also been able to learn about being a good neighbor within my classes. In my Public Health History class, we learned what it means to be a good global neighbor by learning about HIV/AIDS in Tanzania and working with a local public health firm to make a brochure for Peace Corps workers in Iringa, Tanzania. We learned about being a neighbor in Baltimore by exploring how the opioid crisis affects our city and raising funds for Dr. Lawrence Brown’s Lead-Free Baltimore campaign. In my Diversity & Social Justice Practitioners Training Course, we learned through planning the Convocation Day for Social Justice how our School’s status as a majority white private school interacts with Baltimore. As a new Friends graduate who is about to enter the “real” world, I can attest that Friends has taught me a plethora of important subjects—ranging from how to take derivatives in calculus to the importance of meditation in Meeting for Worship. However, one of the most important has been how to be a good neighbor, and the responsibility we all have to be one. Ariana Sharifi ’18 graduated from Friends last June and is currently a first-year student at University of Maryland, College Park.

Artist’s Viewpoint For this self-portrait, I wanted to play with color and composition’s role in suggesting emotion. —Lulu Whitmore ’19

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query

A \\

For so many of my friends and colleagues, being “a good neighbor” in Baltimore means reaching out to help in some concrete way, whether it be tutoring or serving meals or rehabbing houses or providing needed supplies or chipping in with one kind of sweat equity or another. God only knows that I honor that, and have tried in some small way to do my part for decades. In a place with as many needs as Baltimore, one can never ever do enough. And then there’s the danger of seeing oneself as the savior in the cape who imagines that he/she knows exactly who is in need, as well as exactly what is needed. That’s a complex issue, and I have nothing but admiration for those who wrestle with it. Perhaps because of the fact that it’s less complex, I choose to take on the challenge of finding ways to take advantage of Baltimore’s myriad cultural institutions. Recently, I facilitated a trip by a group of students in my Theater of Revolt elective to the Vagabond Players in Fells Point to see the production of a play, Vanya, Sonia, Masha and Spike, that we had read in class. A few weeks later, I organized a more miscellaneous group of 15 students and colleagues to see an LGBTQthemed Peter Pan at the Single Carrot Theatre in Remington. During the 2017-18 school year, I shepherded groups of 10 to 25 kids and colleagues to plays at Center Stage (“Skeleton Crew”), Everyman (“Long Day’s Journey Into Night” and “Intimate Apparel”), Iron Crow (“The Goodies”), and the Chesapeake Shakespeare Company (“Red Velvet”). All of these theaters are in classic old, often-rehabbed, buildings downtown. To my way of thinking, these trips, mostly at night but occasionally for student matinées, are win/win. Members of the Friends community are getting what is often, if not always, a great experience at an urban cultural institution that likely needs all the support it can get. Last week, in conjunction with our reading of Richard Wright’s “Black Boy,” I took my American Experience II class to the Reginald Lewis Museum of African-American History and Culture near Harbor East to see an awesome permanent exhibit about the history of African Americans in Maryland. While charging each kid a $4 admission, my contact there never fails to thank me for my support of this somewhat struggling museum. But I’m taking the kids not out of altruism but because these are exhibits — about lynchings, school desegregation, Ethel Ennis, Ben Carson, Lenny Moore, and Verda Welcome — that they need to see. One of the beauties of teaching English is that you can find thematic connections to what the kids are reading everywhere. So, in addition to the Lewis Museum, I’ve taken red buses full of kids on midday field trips to the American Visionary Art Museum, the Maryland Historical Society, the Walters, the BMA, and the Baltimore Museum of Industry. Typically, I tell the kids to take pictures of four or five exhibits, and we subsequently spend class time writing about the connections between those exhibits and what they’re reading.

Artist’s Viewpoint Recently, I took an American Lit class down to North Avenue I wanted the box to look to see an exhibit of outdoor murals symmetrical, smooth, and seamless. of prominent African-Americans —Joseph Badros ’21 painted by Iandry Randriamandroso. For many of the kids it was their first trip to the Coppin Heights area — and I hope it’s not their last. All of my English elective students make presentations, and I encourage them to get into the city to visit cultural institutions and interview Baltimore icons. My Theater of Revolt kids have to see and report back on a show, and many have been to one of the many professional and semi-professional theaters alluded in the piece. Ditto my American Lit kids, who often find their presentation subjects about something peculiarly American in some unique corner of Baltimore. In one of his Baltimore Sun columns not too long ago, former Friends parent Dan Rodricks lamented that many kids’ sense of Baltimore begins and ends with Camden Yards. I get to four or five O’s games a year and love Camden Yards to death, but Dan has a point. It’s our job to make sure that our kids’ vision of Baltimore is a worthy one — encompassing not just the Bad and the Ugly to which they are overexposed, but the Good, too.

Tom Buck is an Upper School English teacher who has taught at Friends since 1987.

What’s Your Response to Our Query? Be a part of our online discussion group. Weigh in on something you’ve read here or add a new insight on our blog, The Thinking Cap, at blog.friendsbalt.org.

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newsmakers Strategic Direction Takes Shape with Innovative Initiatives

FRIENDS CONNECTS’ FOUR GOAL GROUPS Students and Employees Goal Group Co-Clerks: Travis Henschen, Upper School faculty Victoria Lebron, Lower School faculty Families and Alumni Goal Group Co-Clerks: Amy Mortimer ‘87, Director of Admission Christine Pappas ’01, Director of Alumni Relations & Engagement Baltimore & Surrounding Region Goal Group Co-Clerks: Katherine Jenkins, Upper School faculty Tod Rutstein, Middle School faculty National and Global Communities Goal Group Co-Clerks: Laura Flenorl, Middle School faculty Jennifer Robinson, Director of Academic Technology & Libraries

Friends Connects, the strategic direction adopted by the School’s Board of Trustees in September 2017, is powered primarily by faculty, staff, students, alumni and parents. Over the past year, more than 100 of these community members, organized into four goal groups, have been imagining and designing powerful experiences rooted in deep relationships within and among communities; on our campus, in Baltimore City, and around the world. Some of the initiatives that have already begun to take shape include: • A comprehensive review and revision of the School’s daily schedule so that we can best provide a more deeply personalized and powerfully relevant education — one characterized by real-world learning and application to give each student the opportunity to pursue areas of particular passion. • A growing partnership with the McKim Center in Jonestown — a community organization housed in the very building where the School was founded in 1784 — that will include classes meeting in that neighborhood and will permit students to take advantage of all the richness and diversity the area has to offer. • Inspired (Institute for Public Involvement and Responsible Dialogue), the program, through which we will lead the way in re-establishing the lost art of vigorous, respectful, and balanced discourse around challenging issues. • The Quaker Schools Learning Consortium, which will allow students and teachers to learn with and from the faculty of Friends schools nationwide and around the world. • A developing program for student exchanges with international schools such as Monteverde Friends in Costa Rica. • A variety of initiatives designed to more fully engage families and alumni in the life of the School. Read more about Friends Connects at connects.friendsbalt.org.

“ QUOTABLE

“The Goucher 3 Rs are relationships, resilience, and reflection. These three things turn out to be the best predictors of academic success in college. But it also turns out those three things are predictors of success in life.” José Antonio Bowen, President of Goucher College, whose appearance at Friends last spring was made possible by the Class of 2000 Lecture Series.

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newsmakers

Feeling the Buzz of Bee Week “You know the little cap the pope wears, the one that looks like a yarmulka? That’s a zucchetto,” says Sophia Clark ’24. The self-possessed 7th grader knows the meaning of the obscure Italian word — because she misspelled it after making it to round two of the 2018 Scripps National Spelling Bee, which took place May 27 through June 1 at Washington’s National Harbor. Clark was among 516 students in grades three through eight (including 23 from Maryland) who advanced to the national contest after winning their regional spelling bees. For Clark, that honor occurred in March when she took top prize in the Baltimore Bee competition. She shared her excitement after the regional victory with Baltimore’s Child. “There were four people left,” she recalls. “Three other girls went up, and they all spelled their words wrong. I went to the microphone, and they said, ‘Sophia, if you spell this word right you’ll be the winner of the spelling bee.’ They said, ‘Your word is versatile.” And I just started screaming in my head, ‘I know how to spell that word! I know how to spell that word!’ I spelled it right and they said, ‘Congratulations, you are the winner of the Baltimore Bee.’ I was so excited and happy and just elated that I had made it this far, and I was going to nationals.” Although disappointed at her subsequent elimination on the big stage, Clark shrugged off the loss. “I knew the next two words, ‘conventicle’ and ‘directory’,” she says. “There’s a lot of luck involved.” Clark’s achievement probably has more to do with her passion for reading than luck, her teachers say. The diminutive logophile checks out “probably 10 to 15 books a month,” according to her mom, Christy Clark, and she has “self-designated reading nooks all over campus,” says English teacher Anna Melville ’01, who adds, “Sophia is the first student I’ve taught who actually knew what I meant when I told the class that they needed not only to understand a character, but to ‘grok’ him.” [For those less in the know, the Oxford English dictionary defines “grok” as “to understand intuitively or by empathy, to establish rapport with.] Besides, as she quickly learned, spelling and competition are just part of the five-day adventure known as Bee Week. Clark was wowed by the glitzy opening ceremony with its giant LED-bulb bee that last year’s National Spelling Bee winner, Anany Vinay, switched on. She also enjoyed hearing from Merriam-Webster Dictionary editor-at-large Peter Sokolowski, who shared how the company annually revises its dictionary, and American astronaut Leland Melvin (“He told us to follow our dreams”). And then there was … the moment. “I was there when the kid won, which was fun,” says Clark. [“The kid” is Texas 8th grader Karthik Nemmani, who correctly spelled “koinonia” to take home the top prize.] Clark is already looking forward to competing in the next regional spelling bee and hopes to advance again to the Scripps competition in 2019. “It’s really fun. Plus,” she adds, her eyes lighting up, “you get to stay in the Gaylord Hotel all week!”

“ QUOTABLE

“Watch your thoughts, they become words. Watch your words, they become actions. Watch your actions, they become habits. Watch your habits, they form your character. Watch your character, because it shapes your destiny.” — Freeman Hrabowski III, President of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC), one of the nation’s Top 10 “most innovative” national universities (20152018) according to U.S. News and World Report. Hrabowski, who has served as president since 1992, is a consultant to the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, the National Academies, and universities and school systems nationally. His October 10, 2017 appearance at Friends School, with WJZ-TV news anchor Mary Bubala-Smith, was made possible by the Friends School Class of 2000 Lecture Series.

Sophia Clark, 7th grader, winner of the 2018 Baltimore Bee

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newsmakers

Plugged In: Friends Moves to Renewable Electricity In a move to reduce its carbon footprint, Friends School is now powering its electricity using 100 percent solar and wind energy. The School has contracted with renewable energy company CleanChoice Energy, which buys electricity wholesale from regional wind and solar farms and sells it to homes and businesses through their existing utilities. The switch to wind and solar electricity was inspired, in part, by the School’s student-faculty Green Club, which last year met with administrators and trustees to discuss moving away from fossil fuels. (The same group, co-clerked by Upper School teachers Katherine Jenkins and Joshua Ratner, also spearheaded an intensive two-year certification process with the Maryland Association for Environmental and Outdoor Education that culminated in 2017 with Friends being named an official Maryland Green School.) Beyond powering the campus with clean electricity, the School is also helping to make solar energy available to low- and moderate-income residents through its participation as an anchor tenant in the Maryland Community Solar program. And it is

providing Friends families with opportunities through CleanChoice Energy to sign up for 100 percent renewable electricity for their homes. “As a Quaker school, Friends has a commitment to environmental stewardship, ecological justice, and equitable use of natural resources,” says Jenkins. “Investing in renewable energy is an important step in putting our values into action and supporting the greater community through our planned participation in the Maryland Community Solar program.”

‘I Really Want to Work Here’

Toni Woodlon, Middle School Assistant Principal for School Culture and Community Life

Toni Woodlon, who joined Friends School this academic year as the new Middle School Assistant Principal for School Culture and Community Life, went “undercover” on the day before her job interview last year to get a feel for the Friends community and to see if the School would be the right fit. Together with daughter Kyndal, she signed up to stuff care packages for Paul’s Place as part of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Day of Service. “I had never seen that before in an independent school. Usually MLK Day is a day ‘off’ instead of a day ‘on.’ That spoke to me,” says Woodlon. The two arrived for their assignment and began chatting and stuffing. Before long, Kyndal turned to her mom and announced: “I really want to go to school here.” “I looked at her and said, ‘I really want to work here!’” says Woodlon. “The focus on social justice and community service and inclusion and diversity — these are all the things I hold near and dear to my heart.” Woodlon came to Friends from Roland Park Country School, where she had been a Lower School teacher, math coordinator, and grade level team leader, and had served on the school’s

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equity and justice committee and the culture and climate committee. Prior to RPCS, she taught math at Highlandtown Elementary/Middle and Grove Park Elementary/Middle School in the Baltimore City Public School system. She also worked as an instructional coach for Building Educated Leaders for Life, a nonprofit organization that strengthens schools’ capacities to deliver excellent summer and afterschool learning experiences. “What I love about middle school is that this is an age when students are really starting to find their place in the world,” she says. “They are thinking about their own values and developing a moral compass. In our activities and discussions, we can really dig deep. Being a part of that growth and development is very rewarding.” Woodlon hit the ground running in July and Kyndal also got here wish: She’s now happily ensconced in the 3rd grade here at Friends. Both are grateful to have found just the right fit. “Friends is the real deal,” says Woodlon. “This is a School that knows exactly what it is.” Sue De Pasquale

newsmakers

A New Director for Diversity, Social Equity, and Social Justice

essy Molina, who has succeeded Priyanka Rupani as the School’s Director of Diversity, Equity, and Social Justice, has strong ties to Friends and deep breadth of experience in the world of diversity and inclusion. Molina, whose children Maya ’24 and Miles ’27 are both students at Friends, served most recently as director of diversity and inclusion at Garrison Forest School. And her involvement in diversity issues didn’t end there. For the past two years at Friends, she launched and facilitated the first SEED (Seeking Educational Equity and Diversity) group for families, and served on the Diversity Committee of Friends’ Board of Trustees. “When we moved to Baltimore from Atlanta in 2015, we were struck by the welcome we received at Friends; we felt warmly enveloped by the community,” says Molina, whose husband Mike is a teacher at Gilman. “We are a family who wants to use our skills and talents to make the world a better place, and to work with other people to do that. We found Friends to be in complete alignment with that.” SEED is a national organization, and Molina had spent two years leading SEED efforts for Garrison Forest's administrators and faculty before getting involved in similar work last year at Friends. “The 12 parents who participated in our group at Friends met monthly for two-and-a-half hours to have deep and honest conversations around difficult issues pertaining to race, economic class, religion, politics, gender, and sexuality,” she explains. “It was incredibly powerful. We discussed ideas and issues that most of us had been taught never to talk about — and we ended up finding real commonality. One participant put it so eloquently at

the end, when she observed: ‘It’s like we had been given keys to our own hearts in order to better understand ourselves, as a first step in better understanding other people.’” Molina, who holds a B.A. from Harvard and a J.D. from Yale Law School, previously served as director of education and training for Welcoming America, an organization focused on creating dialogue between immigrants and non-immigrants. She was also the national director of quality education as a Constitutional right, and the director of youth engaged in leadership and learning at the Gardner Center of Stanford University. On the job here since July, she’s been extremely impressed by the Friends students she’s encountered. “Both of my predecessors made great strides in empowering students here to take ownership of diversity and inclusion efforts, and I’ve found that students are eager to develop learning experiences for their classmates and teachers,” she says. Pointing to the Upper School students enrolled this year in the Diversity Practitioners Course, she notes, “When you have young people leading this kind of work, you know it will be transformative.” She is also enthusiastic about a new racial awareness curriculum, currently being developed and finalized, that will ultimately provide 40 hours of training for all Friends School employees. “It’s an exciting opportunity for the entire School to have a shared language around racial justice,” she says. The need for effective teaching around issues of diversity and inclusion could not be more acute, Molina notes. “We live in a time that is really polarizing, so it’s vital that we spend more time in self-examination, exploring our own biases and asking: ‘Where am I being closed off to other peoples’ experiences and viewpoints?’” “The goal,” she says, “is not to change other people’s minds on these issues, but to build understanding and empathy, and then to develop skills and practices so that we can live in community with people with whom we disagree.” SD

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Nurturing Healthy

relationships

BY SARAH ACHENBACH ILLUSTRATION BY CORTNEY GEARE

A holistic new approach to sexual education, which begins early and encompasses everything from healthy body image and anti-bullying to consent and birth control, is taking root across Friends School. Its champions say it couldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t be more timely. 14

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rom, the pinnacle of American teenager-hood, that magical night with the perfect date, dress, and Instagram post. At least that’s the message movies, TV, and social media send. But the fairy tale frays when Prom Night includes unwanted pressure to have sex.

“Just because you are taking someone to Prom, that doesn’t mean that you are required to have sex with them, even though that is something that’s a cultural expectation,” says Dora Hilker ’19, co-head of the Women’s Empowerment Club at Friends. “If everyone involved is enthusiastically giving consent, that’s great, but don’t feel pressured into it.” That was the message that Hilker and six other students shared last spring when they led the entire junior and senior classes at Friends on a deep dive into Prom’s party culture. Topics ranged from the dangers of substance abuse to what consent looks like using Planned Parenthood’s model, which underscores the point that “doing something sexual with someone is a decision that should be made without pressure, force, manipulation, or while incapacitated.” Hilker, who has championed feminist issues at Friends since arriving in the 9th grade, is one of four inaugural student members of the School’s new Healthy Relationships Task Force. Launched in spring 2017, it is comprised of parents, faculty, administrators, and Upper School students. Debunking myths about Prom’s culture of drinking and sex is just one of the ways that the Task Force is shaping the conversation around developing a schoolwide curriculum to address a comprehensive view of human sexuality. “I don’t know if I would’ve done the same amount of legwork that I had around Prom had I not been on the Task Force,” says Hilker. “The Task Force creates an environment where we all support each other and understand that what we do is for the benefit of the community as a whole.” CREATING A HEALTHIER FRIENDS The Healthy Relationships Task Force began its work in spring 2017 by researching sex education curricula,

exploring what an holistic human sexuality and healthy relationships program could look like for Friends, and in true Quaker fashion, arriving at consensus. “Everyone felt it was time for Friends to do what it does best: Look around, be thoughtful, and take our community to the best place it can go,” says Task Force member Laura Prichett, who has three children at Friends. She brought more than parental concern to her role: Prichett has a Ph.D. in population and health sciences and is a researcher for the Center for Child Health Research at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. The focus of the Task Force’s first year was guiding the School toward a comprehensive approach to teaching human sexuality and sexual education. With the goals of teaching students how to build healthy relationships, honoring consent from the earliest ages, and understanding sexuality from a values-guided, inclusive perspective, the Task Force chose the Our Whole Lives curriculum, a program developed by the Unitarian Universalist Association. Developed for elementary through high school-aged students (and beyond), the curriculum provides developmentally appropriate education about anatomy and human reproduction, birth control, sexual assault, healthy body image, conflict resolution, anti-bullying, consent, and more. The Task Force also hosted an Upper School Town Hall meeting, film screenings, and guest speakers, including clinicians from Baltimore’s TurnAround counseling center for sexual violence who spoke to Upper School students in spring 2017 on consent and caring for survivors. Every initiative is guided by Friends School’s values and inclusive ideals. Whether making personal menstrual hygiene products available to girls beginning in Lower School or having proactive, consent-centered

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discussions before Prom, the Task Force grounds its “[work] … in commitments to self-worth, respect, sexual health, justice, and responsibility” (from the Healthy Relationships Task Force Mission Statement). The initiative is important — and timely, notes Prichett, who has “spent several years reading about the landscape of teenage sexuality.” That landscape is not a pretty one. After conducting an analysis of federal crime data, the Associated Press concluded that from 2011 to 2015, nearly 17,000 sexual assaults in the U.S. were committed by secondaryschool students. The same study revealed that there are seven student-on-student sexual attacks for every adult-on-child sexual assault. Then there’s the smartphone generation’s all-too-easy-andrarely-monitored access to online porn, the effects of which are detailed in “What Teenagers are Learning from Online Porn” (New York Times Magazine, February 7, 2018). The article reveals harrowingly that, for many teens, porn not only Dora Hilker ’19 shapes how they view sex and relationships but serves as their sex education teacher. Currently, 26 states don’t mandate sex education, and for those that do, abstinence remains the central foundational tenet. The picture doesn’t get any better as teens go to college. According to the American Association of Universities, 23 percent of women are assaulted in college. As a parent, does Prichett feel Friends’

“The Task Force creates an environment where we all support each other and understand that what we do is for the benefit of the community as a whole.”

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early efforts to embrace the continuum of healthy relationships and sexuality is making a difference? “My younger son [10th grade] is talking more with his friends about these issues than my older son [12th grade] did at his age,” she says. “I attribute that to the 9th grade forum [on healthy relationships and human sexuality]. I hope it’s helping to address the bigger culture. I hope that the kids come out well-versed in all aspects of what it means to be in a healthy adult relationship, from body image to contraception to communication, and that they have a good skill set to understand the full spectrum of gender issues.” COMMUNITY-LED CHANGE OUT OF CRISIS Friends School has not been immune to issues of sexual misconduct. In early 2017, Head of School Matt Micciche shared news with Friends’ parent and alumni communities that three Friends students had come forward with allegations against another Friends student of peer-to-peer sexual assault — allegations that were reported by the media. This followed an early-September message to Upper School families about a different incident that took place off-campus over the summer. In his candid communications with parents, Micciche wrote that Friends School must “model for the children in our care that it is acceptable and important to discuss even the most painful subjects.” The alleged assaults gave an immediate and urgent focus to the issue of sexual misconduct and the need to educate the community about healthy relationships. Students embraced the teachable moment, particularly the Upper School students who had just completed Amy Schmaljohn’s Peace,

Non-Violence and Social Justice course that fall. They began the hard, necessary work of helping to lead the community from anger and distress to action and change. It was their efforts and partnership with the Women’s Empowerment Club, in fact, that set in motion the subsequent Healthy Relationships Task Force. Schmaljohn, who teaches English and history, created the PNSJ course in 2006 to provide upperclassmen with experiential nonviolent social justice and equity education opportunities through self-selected and researched projects. In the first few weeks of class, Schmaljohn teaches social justice theory, but “the bulk of the learning is driven by the students’ interest in whatever injustices and issues they are paying attention to,” she explains. What they were paying attention to was the issue of “rape culture.” A term coined in the 1970s by feminists, rape culture has come into the mainstream in recent years. It describes a societal setting in which rape is pervasive and normalized due to societal attitudes about gender and sexuality. Among the common behaviors associated with rape culture: victim blaming, sexual objectification, trivializing rape, and refusing to acknowledge the harm caused by sexual violence. “Students were aware that [rape culture] is shaping social interactions. They were motivated to change these patterns,” says Schmaljohn. Her students began deliberating on the topic in fall 2016, which made for tense moments and difficult conversations. “There was a concern among that class that we didn’t want to pour salt into any open wounds,” Andrew Ayers ’18 explains. “We wanted to be mindful of what the families had been through, and we weren’t sure that the School was ready for it.” The class decided to create an educational program to explain rape culture to the Upper School and push for a more in-depth sex education program. The next step was presenting the plan to Steve McManus, Upper School Principal. “When the first assault happened, I was so infuriated and angry that I didn’t really care what the response was from administrators,” recalls Alex Miceli ’18. “I wanted to make it known that it wasn’t OK, and my outlet was through the PNSJ class. Mr. McManus was super

excited about what we wanted to do. That eased my frustration and anger a little bit because we had him on our side.” Schmaljohn was confident that the Administration would lean into such a difficult topic: “That was when the students really felt power to make change at the School and felt the power of their agency,” she says. TEACHING PEACE, EMBRACING CHANGE Each PNSJ student researched his or her own topic within the broader issue of rape culture. Ayers and classmate Bennett Persons ’18 took on the issue of “toxic masculinity”— the idea that societal expectations can restrict the allowable emotional range and behaviors of men and boys, limiting them to anger and other “alpha male” characteristics. Ayers says he was shocked to discover how much he was

Friends upperclassmen, including Bennett Persons ’18 and Andrew Ayers ’18 (foreground), presented their research on rape culture to an audience of educators during the October 2017 AIMS Sexuality Education Symposium, which was held at Friends. The School will host the 2nd annual symposium this fall.

affected by rape culture and a society that lets “boys be boys” and tells girls to “act like a lady.” He began sharing what he learned with his teammates and male friends, and he and others in the PNSJ class shared information about rape culture and toxic masculinity in a presentation to all Upper School students at

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From left, Dora Hilker ’19, Andrew Ayers ’18, and Alex Miceli ’18

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CONVERSATION STARTERS The Healthy Relationships Task Force, which has advocated for clear sexual assault and survivor care policies at Friends, guided topics for the 2nd annual Sexuality Education Symposium to be hosted at Friends on November 13, 2018, in partnership with the Association of Independent Maryland Schools (AIMS). At the first AIMS Sexuality Education Symposium, held last October for regional educators, students from Friends’ PNSJ class presented their work, together with students from Park’s Upper School.

the April 2017 Convocation Day for Social Justice. Miceli adds, “Trying to break through to our male classmates that [rape culture] isn’t a male vs. female issue was hard. There was some difficult tension around that at first. It was a big challenge to help everyone understand that it wasn’t a gender issue — that we were in this together.” PNSJ’s approach to disrupting this injustice included a partnership with FORCE, a Baltimore nonprofit arts collective working to upset the rape culture. PNSJ members and other Friends students worked on FORCE’s Monument Quilt, literally stitching together survivors’ stories of rape and abuse. They spoke with Loyola University, Maryland faculty member Karsonya Wise-Whitehead, an expert on how race, class, and gender coalesce in American classrooms and in political and social environments. The class also supported a Gender Gap Bake Sale created by the Women’s Empowerment Club: Boys paid $1 and girls paid $.75 for baked goods to reflect the gender pay gap. Presenting what they were learning was an important class objective. In addition to leading workshops on aspects of rape culture during the Convocation Day for Social Justice, the class created a social justice campaign that spanned the digital — other area schools followed PNSJ’s Instagram @studentsagainstrapeculture — and the personal, with “safe space” debriefings for small groups of students. Clarissa Latman ’17, now at Northeastern University, says she knew the class’s message of rape culture vs. consent culture was sinking in when the posters they created were being torn down. They had produced 24 different posters debunking the myths of rape culture and hung them throughout the Upper School, with the Administration’s approval. “A small minority were taking them down, saying, ‘we know what rape is and we don’t need this in our bathroom,’” she explains. When it happened, she was frustrated, surprised, and proud. “You need a little bit of push back to know that you are infiltrating the culture.” Miceli concurs. “When we were having Collections and Forums dedicated to educating our community, it was well received, but there were a lot of side comments in the hallways about ‘Oh my gosh, it’s another sexual assault presentation,’” she says. “Our class loved that because if people were tired of hearing about it, that meant that we were getting through to them. I was seeing changes in people who were initially resistant to it.” Julianne McFarland ’17, who now attends William & Mary, was so passionate about the issue that she audited the PNSJ class as a senior. Three years earlier, she had founded Friends’ Women’s Empowerment Club as a freshman and had begun efforts to address and dismantle rape culture. The opportunity to collaborate with PNSJ peers and then serve, with Latman, as an inaugural student member of the Healthy Relationships Task Force were perfect capstones. “It was an opportunity to partner with the faculty and administration to create something that was large and sustainable,” she reflects. “[Disrupting rape culture] has been the most continuous campaign beyond the confines of the class,” notes Schmaljohn. Several students from the PNSJ class enrolled in her spring 2017 Social Justice Seminar and kept the work moving forward as the Task Force was coming together. “As the class was grappling with something new and leaning in, we saw the Administration doing the same thing,” says Schmaljohn. “Truth and safety are more important than institutional image. [The students] saw that the administration was not going to sweep it under the rug.” For Dakota Allis ’17, his PNSJ work was nothing short of transformational. This past year, as a freshman at Nazareth College in Rochester, New York, he sought out the Title IX office, which works to prohibit discrimination based on sex, shortly after his arrival. He worked to spread awareness of sexual assault on campus, appeared in an educational video on the topic for freshman, and recently declared a psychology major with the intent to work with rape survivors. It’s a career choice that’s met with skepticism from some of his friends.

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FRIENDS’ COMPREHENSIVE SEX EDUCATION PROGRAM: Q&A WITH AMY MELCHIN, LCSW-C, UPPER SCHOOL COUNSELOR Amy Melchin began her Friends career in fall 2016 and she’s the point person for many of the initiatives and policies created by the joint efforts of the PNSJ class studying rape culture and by the Healthy Relationships Task Force. We talked with her about the genesis of change at Friends and of its lasting impact. Q: What is the role of the Healthy Relationships Task Force? We have been meeting since spring 2017 to make recommendations to the School. We are building capacity for a human sexuality and healthy relationships curriculum. We want all members of our community to gain competency in discussing healthy sexuality and building healthy relationships, and be ready to have conversations with their children. There is a willingness from the faculty to embrace the idea of sexuality as a fundamental part of our humanity. It’s not about intercourse education. It’s how we empower students to lead healthy lives and relationships. This is foundational to our School mission. Children have a right to know how their bodies work and how to interact with other bodies. Q: Why is this work so important? Because sexuality is a fundamental part of our humanity. We must teach our children how to communicate effectively with others. Children have the right to know about their bodies and others’ bodies. We need to help develop a literacy around how to have healthy relationships. We know parents should be the primary teachers in this area. We want to partner and support them in their conversations with their children. Otherwise, our children can be taught largely by what they see in the media, and that can be dangerous. Q. What are the specifics by division? We’ve trained some Upper Amy Melchin School faculty for specific curriculum and developed formal classes for 9th and 10th grades. Healthy Relationships and Sexuality curriculum meets twice a cycle in the Upper School. Other classes are exploring nonviolent communication. We are looking at healthy body image and acceptance, and at proactive ways to initiate restorative justice practices [around sexual assault]. In the Middle School, we’ve increased funding for the Planned Parenthood educators (who teach the course) for more frequent sessions. Currently, our formal education begins in 4th grade, but our long-term goal is to implement PK12 comprehensive sexuality education. Right now, we are identifying needs and learning how to build our capacity for this type of education. For example, in the 2nd grade, teaching consent might look like explaining that all people have the right to tell others not to touch their bodies when they do not want to be touched and teaching them how to respond if someone makes them uncomfortable. [At that age], we might also talk about using proper names for body parts, and explain why bullying is wrong. The Our Whole Lives [curriculum] is an excellent, values- and evidence-based program that focuses on a broad definition of sexuality. It includes so much more than teaching about bodies, like how we communicate with each other.

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“It’s really annoying that someone can look at you and immediately assume things about you,” he says. “I’m a white lacrosse player from Baltimore. My Nazareth teammates tell me that it’s not normal [for guys] to go into this work, but I’m not afraid to go against the grain. There are not a lot of people doing something about this injustice. Why not me?”

The picture doesn't get any better as teens go to college. According to The American Association of Universities, 23 percent of women are assaulted in college.

#METOO AND TIME’S UP Last fall, as Hollywood’s victims of sexual assault came forward to tell their stories, and the #MeToo and Time’s Up movements gained traction in other industries, Dora Hilker watched the impact on campus at Friends. “Now everybody is reassessing our culture, especially teenagers,” she says. “There are people teenagers idolize who are coming forward and saying that it happened to them. It makes the culture more aware.” Miceli reflects on the evolution of her work at the School and on what the

national conversation means for her future at the University of Delaware, where she started this fall. “The work of embracing #MeToo and supporting survivors is definitely more popular among college communities,” she says. “In PNSJ, an important thing for me was imprinting on little kids a sense of what is right and what is wrong in terms of consent, obviously phrasing it in ageappropriate language. We didn’t have those kinds of conversations in Lower School when I was there.” “The main thing is that we keep talking about rape culture and sexual assault, and that it doesn’t fall through the cracks,” adds Hilker, who spoke about creating a comprehensive sex ed program on a panel at the Young Feminists Leadership Conference in Washington, D.C. in March 2017. “Rape culture … is trendy right now, but if we let [the focus] drop, it’s going to be as bad as it always has been. Statistics about sexual assault in colleges are insane. You are three or four times more likely to be sexually assaulted in college.” She thinks back to the pre-Prom conversations she led and the ways she and other students have pushed the conversation. “If what we teach in high school can prevent people from being hurt later, when the culture crashes in on you, then we can really change a lot of lives. That’s what keeps me going.” “At the end of the day, it’s about providing the best environment possible, and that includes sex education,” adds McFarland, whose passion for educating others about rape culture and sexual assault has inspired her public policy major at William & Mary. “I learned that when something is important, you push for it. You stand up, you knock on Mr. Micciche’s door and ask when the next meeting will be. If you show that passion, people will see that and be equally on board and dedicated to the issue.”

“Everyone felt it was time for Friends to do what it does best: Look around, be thoughtful, and take our community to the best place it can go.” Task Force member Laura Prichett

FRIENDS’ SEXUAL VIOLENCE RESPONSE PLAN: A SURVIVORCENTERED APPROACH With the guidance of the Healthy Relationships Task Force, Friends School has adopted a survivor-centered approach to disclosures of sexual violence, similar to policies used by many colleges and universities. Should a student or other member of the Friends community experience sexual violence, the first point of contact is often Amy Melchin, Upper School Counselor, whose goal is to provide survivors with the therapeutic support they need, in and out of school. Balancing the care of the survivor with the needs of the community, together they determine any next steps. “Often the survivor’s story remains confidential if that is the person’s desire,” she explains. “But if there is an identified risk to the school community, sometimes we do need to engage other members of the School Administration, and sometimes parents, to protect that student and the community.” An important distinction is the School’s separate policy for child sexual abuse, which mandates reporting to authorities. “Reporting private information to the school principal or a student’s parents when the student isn’t ready to tell can severely damage a counselor’s relationship with a survivor,” Melchin explains. Forcing survivors to give up control over their stories robs them of control over their lives, mirroring the original trauma of sexual violence. “It is important that survivors’ needs are prioritized over a traditional school disciplinary process,” she says, “which can stop survivors from engaging with the adults they trust and really damage the healing process.”

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the big picture

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Five times a year — on the first Friday of the school year and again to mark the Thanksgiving, Martin Luther King Jr., Lunar New Year, and Earth Day holidays — Friends students, teachers, and staff gather in the gymnasium for All-School Convocation. These joyful music- and dance-filled gatherings close with the singing of “Simple Gifts,” helping all to feel connected to each other and to the School’s Quaker heritage. Here, the 8th Grade Dance Class performs a work choreographed by Friends School dance teacher and choreographer Torens Johnson at the Earth Day celebration last spring. FRI ENDSBALT.ORG | FR IEND S S C HOOL

PHOTO BY DAVID STUCK

Cherished Tradition

Declan Budnitz ’20 and Yunqing (Tony) Lyu ’20 shoot afterschool hoops at the Budnitz home.

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BY SUE DE PASQUALE

n a sunlit Sunday afternoon last spring, hundreds of parents, grandparents, and students sat raptly in the audience of the All-School Orchestra Concert as Chenjiayi “Sanny” Ye ’18 took her place behind a Chinese zither. Over the next few minutes, her gracefully flowing performance of “Desert Fantasy” by J. Wang held everyone transfixed, until the last note faded and the audience erupted in thunderous applause. About a week later, Varsity Badminton phenom Yutong “Rita” Li ’20 drew loyal teammates and supporters to Roland Park Country School, where she represented Friends School at the I.A.A.M. Championship, handily winning the A Conference singles tournament (see p. 45). Throughout the season, Li functioned as a player/coach, working to build the skills of her teammates and earning their admiration. “The last week of practice, when Rita and [Coach] Vincent Nguy were playing singles together, everything just stopped so that everyone could just watch, in awe,” says Head Coach Tom Buck. “It’s no exaggeration to say that world class badminton was being played in the Old Gym.”

Around this same time, Tianyue “Tony” Zhu ’19 learned that he’d been selected to a prestigious merit-based scholarship program that will fund his mathematics study at Johns Hopkins University during his senior year. The JHU math department’s Future Scholars Program offers awards to up to 10 top performers on a calculus-based exam each year. A standout in his advanced math classes at Friends, Zhu emerged as a class leader, says Upper School math teacher John Bonn who adds, “Many students seek his help, which he gives generously.” Ye, Li, and Zhu are among the dozen or so international students who have become an integral part of the Friends School community as part of a renewed international initiative now in its fifth year. *(The school welcomed its first exchange student in 1939.) In addition to about 10 students from China, who live with host families and attend Friends throughout their Upper School years, the School annually hosts two students through the ASSIST program, which has brought students from European and Eastern European nations who enroll for a single academic year.

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“The international students program has brought enormous richness to our community over these past five years,” says Head of School Matt Micciche. “These students are so willing to share their culture and their unique perspectives. We have become a much more interesting place with them here.” For their part, the international students who have joined Friends say they have found a welcoming community and an academic setting that encourages creativity and diversity of thought — something they truly value. “In China, the education department requires every teacher to teach the same thing, which can get pretty tedious,” says Yunqing “Tony” Lyu ’20. “There’s more freedom here and teachers can come up with their own syllabus and offer electives. I think that’s great.” “I particularly enjoy my humanities courses,” says Jialin “Carrie” Wang ’19. “In history, for example, we’re given multiple perspectives and then encouraged to look into an issue by reading different materials. Then I am allowed to make my own judgment. That’s one big thing I really love.”

BUSINESS AS USUAL The teenage years can be tricky for any adolescent, as they struggle with raging hormones, social and academic pressures, and issues of self-identity. Add to that the challenges of learning in a non-native language and living thousands of miles away from parents and siblings, and it’s easy to see why international students would need a support system. At Friends, that support team includes Dean of Student Life Bill Ball and Host Family Liaison Lela Knight, who meet weekly to discuss the students’ progress and to work out any challenges that arise in the classroom (Ball) or with their host families (Knight). Once a month, the two join forces with Upper School Head Steve McManus and admissions counselor Paula Senft. “Not all host families have had teenagers before, and not all of them are Friends families,” says Knight,

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Lela Knight and Bill Ball

“The two of them get along well, but they’re not best friends—and that’s just fine.” —Siobhan Budnitz, speaking of son Declan ’20 and host student Tony Lyu ’20

who finds herself offering counsel on issues ranging from: “What exactly is a senior project?” to “What limits should we be setting on video games?” to “Does everyone need a date to go to Prom?” Knight inadvertently talked her way into her position, newly created in 2016-17, after hosting Sanny Ye during the teen’s sophomore year. At that point Knight had no other Friends connection (her daughter started 9th grade at Friends just this year) and Knight approached McManus with some ideas about how the School could better support host families and students. His response? “Great ideas! Why don’t you take the ball and run with it?” As liaison, Knight says that it’s her job to make sure prospective families get a realistic view about what to expect before they sign on — and to assure them that help is just a phone call away should they run into any snags. (Such as late last New Year’s Eve, when Longyu “Gilbert” Cui ’20 got hung up in Customs at Dulles Airport when returning back to the U.S from holiday break. Host mother Mary Birckhead amazed the airport official — who predicted, ‘Ma’am, you won’t be able to reach anyone at the School; it’s New Year’s Eve’ — when she got Knight on the first try. Knight then called Ball and the two quickly sorted things out.) While the students in the ASSIST program, who are only here for a year, are usually eager to visit tourist attractions and go sightseeing on the weekends, Knight has found that the Chinese students often have different objectives in mind. “These kids are coming for an education,” she says. Most are intent on building a strong academic résumé, with the goal of applying to top American colleges. That means they may prefer to spend their weekends studying, rather than taking day trips, she says. Knight also encourages families not to have overblown expectations when it comes to family relationships. Bonds can take time to form and it’s unrealistic (and potentially disappointing) to expect a visiting student to become an instant big sister or big brother, she says. Most students in the program Skype with their families at home for several hours on Saturday or Sunday, and some even connect on a daily (or every other day) basis, Knight has found. (That’s not always the student’s preference. “I talk with my parents two to three times a week, and that’s too often for me,” says one student, chuckling good-naturedly. “It would be better if my parents gave me some more space.”)

While Knight has had to make an occasional course correction, moving a student to a new host family at mid-year, for example, she says most all of the students and host families in the program eventually settle in to a comfortable rhythm. “My husband and I were laughing as we thought about what it’s meant to have Tony live with us,” says Siobhan Budnitz, host parent to Tony Lyu. “That’s because it’s pretty much business as usual — there’s not a whole lot that’s changed for us, day to day.” She explains that both Lyu and her son Declan ’20 play on sports teams, so they are picked up together in the late afternoon and then the family sits down to dinner. The boys each retreat to their rooms to do homework (and play an occasional video game or shoot some baskets in the backyard) on weeknights. On weekends, Declan will often go out with his friends from the lacrosse team while Tony gets together with his own friends. (He’s a particular fan of playing paintball, which he says has been banned in China for safety reasons.) “The two of them get along well, but they’re not best friends — and that’s just fine,” says Budnitz.

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Jialin (Carrie) Wang ‘19, left, and Chenjiayi (Sanny) Ye ’18 enjoy a family meal with Greta and Tod Rutstein.

MY TWO GIRLS While not necessarily the norm, many international students at Friends and their host families have ended up forming lasting bonds. That was the case with ASSIST student Christian Filt from Slovakia, who spent the 2016-17 academic year living with the Ayers family. “He jumped right into things and my friends became his friends instantly; we were even in a band together,” says Andrew Ayers ’18. “My little brother was in the first grade at that time and he and Christian got very close. We were all very sad to see him go at the end of the year.” Last spring, Christian returned for a multiday visit to the Ayers family and Andrew has plans to visit Slovakia in the near future, he says. For Director of Academics Greta Rutstein, the spouse of Middle School history teacher Tod Rutstein and parent of four sons (all Friends School graduates), the decision to host Sanny Ye and Carrie Wang came at just the right time. With their last son off to college,

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the house had gotten pretty quiet, she says. “It’s been lovely to have children in the house again, and especially to have girls. Who goes to a mall? I didn’t know people did that!” she jokes. When the Rutsteins’ older son got married last year, both Ye and Wang attended the wedding. “They get along beautifully with our adult sons and they even have their own inside jokes with them,” says Greta. “At this point, I really consider them to be my two girls.” Wang, who attended an international boarding school in China before coming to Friends, shares that sentiment. “I basically share everything in my life with the Rutsteins,” she says. “They respect my culture and are really interested in my living habits back home. We are so close — I see them as my parents by now.” Now in her third year at Friends, Wang has thrown herself into extra-curricular activities. She performed last spring in the Upper School musical, Les Miserables, and is active in Model UN and diversity initiatives through the Office of Diversity, Equity, and Social Justice. In this regard, Wang is not unusual. International

students at Friends say they value the wealth of opportunities that await them outside the classroom and most are eager to explore new areas. “I played on the JV Basketball team last winter; I wasn’t that great, but I really had fun,” says Tony Lyu, who attended a basketball camp over the summer in China to help hone his skills on the court. For Upper School Head Steve McManus, Lyu’s experience lines up perfectly with administrators’ goals for the program. “We have a program at Friends that provides a very holistic approach to education, where academics, arts, and athletics all play an important role,” he says. “We want our international students to experience a Friends education as a seamless garment.” The international student program, McManus concludes, is moving the School “in exciting new directions.” “We’re preparing our students at Friends to live in a globalized world. It’s been wonderful to bring that experience ‘in-house,’ giving our students day-today practice in working alongside others of different cultures.”

>> To find out more about hosting an international student at Friends, contact Lela Knight at lknight@friendsbalt.org or Bill Ball at bball@friendsbalt.org.

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GAME Changers Meet five alumni, all standouts in STEM fields, who are advancing knowledge and improving health. BY SUE DE PASQUALE COL. DAVID SAUNDERS ’89, M.D., M.P.H. Product Manager/Medical Officer, Extremity Repair, Tissue Injury and Regenerative Medicine Program Office U.S. Army Medical Materiel Development Activity ..................................................................................................................................

How he got here: Saunders, the father of Helena Saunders ’19, majored in biology and chemistry at Earlham College before going on to earn an M.P.H. at Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine in 1997. Next came a stint in the Peace Corps as an assistant epidemiologist in Fiji, and then it was on to medical school at Johns Hopkins. Saunders completed his internship and residency at Tripler Army Medical Center in Honolulu, served time in Afghanistan as a field surgeon as part of Operation Enduring Freedom VII, and then completed his fellowship in clinical pharmacology at Walter Reed Army Institute of Research. From 2008 to 2015, Saunders worked for the Army in Bangkok, Thailand, where he served as chief of drug development and clinical trials for the U.S. Army Medical Directorate Armed Forces Research Institute of Medical Sciences, and led the department of Immunology and Medicine. Current work: Now at Fort Detrick, in Frederick, Md., Saunders is working to harness the power of regenerative medicine to aid amputees — like those soldiers injured by roadside bombs in Iraq and Afghanistan — in re-growing lost limbs. He and his colleagues are looking to nature, specifically animals like the salamander, which is able to regrow a lost limb, for inspiration. In humans, he says, “we’re not quite there yet,” adding, “What we’re trying to do is develop a toolkit for our trauma and reconstructive surgeons out of various regenerative medicine products as they emerge to improve long-term outcomes in function and form of injured

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1. extremities.” While scientists have had some success to date in using synthetic grafts to regrow muscle, nerve, and other tissues, he says, the results have not been as good as the original organs. The ultimate goal, he says, is to regenerate limbs using technologies that are as restorative as possible, resistant to infection, and durable — since, he says, “these are going to be implanted in young people who may go on to live another 60 to 70 years.” Memorable Friends teacher: Upper School biology teacher George Wright. “Without a doubt, he was one of my favorite teachers of all time,” he says. “He’d spin out these tales about biology. He had such a passion for the subject matter and clearly loved biology. He was inspiring.” Notable Friends School experience: “There was such a sense of collegiality at Friends, with everyone trying to help each other,” he says. “Not just in the classroom but also on sports teams and everywhere.”

“What was special to me about Friends was how bright all the faculty were. They were incredibly engaged and engaging — all had advanced degrees, and any of them could have remained

ESI LAMOUSÉ-SMITH ’87, M.D., PH.D. Director of Translational Medicine Immunology Early Development Janssen Pharmaceuticals R&D, Inc. ........................................................................................................

ow she got here: Lamousé -Smith H completed her undergraduate degree at SUNY-Binghamton, then took a gap year to do research in the lab of noted immunologist Suzanne Ostrand-Rosenberg at UMBC, where she had worked every summer during her college years. “She encouraged me to apply to an M.D./Ph.D. program,” says Lamousé-Smith, who went on to University of Pittsburgh to earn both degrees. Next up was a general pediatrics residency at Columbia University’s Children’s Hospital

in academia to teach at the college and

(including a stint as chief resident), and then a fellowship in pediatric gastroenterology at Harvard’s Boston Children’s Hospital. “Afterward I established a lab back at Columbia to continue working on a model I’d developed at Harvard; we were looking at the gut microbiome in infants, and particularly how antibiotics caused changes to the developing microbiome and [impacted] responses to vaccines and viral infections,” she says. While about 80 percent of her time at Columbia was devoted to research, she also saw patients as a pediatric gastroenterologist and mentored and taught fellows. Current work: Last November, LamouséSmith left the world of academic medicine to join Janssen Pharmaceuticals R&D Inc., an arm of Johnson & Johnson, where she now leads efforts to bring promising immunological therapeutics from the lab bench to the bedside. “We design early clinical trials in humans,” she says. “I’m learning new things every day and I’m blown away by how gifted and talented the people around me are,” she says. “I’m perhaps most struck by the diversity and broad representation of women at every level of leadership at Janssen/J&J,” which had not consistently been the case in academia, she says.

graduate school levels.”

Memorable Friends teacher: Biology teacher George Wright. “He just loved science and was so enthusiastic about it and to me that was incredibly infectious. I can remember dissecting frogs in his class and thinking, ‘This is great practice for medical school,’” she says. “What was special to me about Friends was how bright all the faculty were. They were incredibly engaged and engaging — all had advanced degrees, and any of them could have remained in academia to teach at the college and graduate school levels.” Notable Friends School experience: Lamousé-Smith was home visiting her parents recently and uncovered a folder of her creative writing assignments from Friends. “Creative writing teacher Helen Underwood is someone I still hear in my head almost daily,” she says. “She had a wonderful southern accent and her comeback to us was always, ‘Re-vise, re-vise, re-vise.’ From her I learned that the process of writing never ends. I am constantly going back to those lessons in my career as a physician and a scientist. There is a lot of communication that occurs — through oral presentations, grant writing, and in trial design early development plans — which all involves culling ideas and presenting those ideas in a clear, convincing, and cohesive way.”

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immunotherapy drugs to treat cancer, Lamousé-Smith leads project management for internal manufacturing and external contracts manufacturing. “We’ve got about 10 products already in the pipeline, including one aimed at metastatic breast cancer, which is farthest along,” says LamouséSmith. “It’s really exciting for me to be in pharmaceutical development, where what you are doing every day is aimed at getting drugs to patients who really need them,” she says.

ARABA LAMOUSÉ-SMITH ’88, PH.D. Senior Director, Supply Chain & CMC Management Biopharmaceutical Development and Manufacturing MacroGenics, Inc. .........................................................................................

How she got here: Like her sister Esi, Araba Lamousé-Smith was drawn to scientific research. Upon receiving an A.B. in applied math from Brown University, she continued engineering coursework started at Brown to earn a second degree, a B.Ch.E. in chemical engineering, from University of Delaware. Then she was off to MIT, where she earned her Ph.D. in biochemical engineering, working under the guidance of Professor Daniel I. C. Wang, a pioneer in biotechnology. She spent a few years in North Carolina with a contract development and manufacturing organization, learning the ins and outs of biopharmaceutical development and manufacturing, before landing a process development position with Human Genome Sciences (HGS) in Rockville, Md., where she

worked for 12 years. “It was an exciting time to be part of HGS because we were able to bring to market the first drug to treat lupus in 50 years — it was a real milestone,” she says. Her role gave her experience in biopharmaceutical development — coming up with methods to produce biologic drugs on a manufacturing scale. From there she moved to program management. “I realized how much I enjoy the high-level overview of how a drug is developed across all levels: clinical, manufacturing, commercial,” she says. Current work: At MacroGenics, a biotech primarily focused on developing

DAVID CHANG ’72, M.D. Clinical Professor of Ophthalmology University of California San Francisco .........................................................................................

How he got here: After attending Harvard College and Medical School, Chang completed his ophthalmology residency at the University of California, San Francisco, where he is currently a clinical professor. His interest in microsurgery attracted him to ophthalmology, where his clinical and research focus became cataract surgery. His private referral practice is in the heart of Silicon Valley, where he has been an active consultant and clinical investigator

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Memorable Friends teacher: Chemistry teacher Ken Drews: “He was tough, but his high expectations weren’t any different than those of my parents,” she says. “I remember a smaller advanced chemistry class that was more lab focused, and we were working on making esters [a chemical compound]. One of the esters we made was associated with wintergreen; I thought that was the coolest thing!” Notable Friends School experience: “In general, I felt that Friends was supportive of me following my interests in advanced math and advanced chemistry,” she says. I think everyone had the freedom and the opportunity to follow their interests wherever they led, whether that was studying Russian or performing in the School musical.”

for many companies developing new technologies for eye surgery. Chang is a past president of the American Society of Cataract & Refractive Surgery (ASCRS), and was recently named the 5th most influential person in ophthalmology by the international readership of The Ophthalmologist. He has given 39 named lectures internationally, including many of the most prestigious in his field. He has published more than 100 papers, four major surgical textbooks, and led many important professional committees.

SAMUEL POWELL ’06, PH.D. Postdoctoral Fellow, Queensland Brain Institute University of Queensland, Australia .........................................................................................

Current work: In developed countries like the United States, cataract surgery is the single most common operation performed. But that’s not so in resource-limited societies, where cataract is the leading cause of blindness. (Globally, cataract is the cause of blindness in more than 50 percent of cases, he notes). As chair of the ASCRS Foundation, Chang is one of the most visible leaders in efforts to reverse this global trend. “I was always passionate about advancing cataract surgery through new technology and techniques, but we need innovative, low-tech solutions in developing countries,” he says. “Fortunately, we have lowcost, surgical techniques that need to be taught and scaled.”

How he got here: Powell earned his undergraduate degree in electrical engineering at Washington University in St. Louis, then stayed on to earn his Ph.D. in computer engineering in 2017. His dissertation work focused on developing a new mode of underwater navigation based on passive observation of patterns in the polarization of in-water light. While humans can’t see the polarization of light, “it’s everywhere,” Powell notes. “These patterns can be used to infer the sun’s relative position, which enables the use of celestial navigation in the underwater environment.” Powell looked to biology for inspiration, focusing on the mantis shrimp—the “rock stars” of polarization vision, he says, which have “the most complicated eyes we know of, with at least 12 color sensors, when most other animals peak out at four.” He developed an underwater polarization video camera based on the bio-inspired polarization image sensor (from the shrimp) and the image processing and inference algorithms for estimating the sun’s position. Current work: At the Queensland Brain Institute, Powell is continuing his research on polarization using the underwater camera he developed. “We’re investigating what underwater animals

Memorable Friends teacher: “My history and Russian teacher was Claire Walker. She always challenged me to do extra projects and assignments — not for the grade, but to push my personal boundaries,” he says. “During the height of the Cold War, she learned Russian on her own and established one of America’s first high school Russian programs here at Friends. Traveling with her to Moscow for the first International High School Russian Olympiad made me appreciate how passionate she was about learning and then teaching Russian as a way to thaw the political hostilities between our two nations. She embodied so many Quaker ideals.”

with polarization are looking at and how they use it to navigate,” he says. “What we learn could be very useful for navigation involving underwater robots and submarines.” Twice a year, he takes part in underwater exploration projects off the coast of Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, which he loves. “This is the best working environment in the world, I think,” he says. Memorable Friends teachers: Middle School math teacher John Watt and Upper School math teacher Carl Schlenger. “I always enjoyed math and particularly their classes,” he says. “Mr. Schlenger was very enthusiastic about the material in advanced math, and always presented it in a way that I could understand.” Notable Friends School experience: “Friends prepared me very well for college. My advanced math and science courses really gave me a head start in the engineering program at Wash U,” he says. “At the time, I didn’t really appreciate my non-STEM courses but I’m starting to appreciate what I learned more as I’ve gotten older and I’ve realized how important it is to know history and understand literature.”

Notable Friends School experience: “Our smaller student body allowed me to try things that I could not have at a larger school,” he says. “I was introverted by nature, but playing sports and serving as Senate president gave me a chance to develop team-building and leadership skills that have been a foundation of my professional success. My friends and I wrote skits for morning Collection. They were pretty silly (thankfully there was no social media and therefore no lasting evidence) but I learned to instill some humor into everything that I do.”

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academics New Choices in Computer Science Ultimately, Romney hopes the new tech-driven interactive art course will inspire students to take their learning to the next level by taking the Upper School’s two introductory Java-based courses the following year. “Once students develop confidence in programming, they often want to pursue it further. I’ve seen it happen many times,” she says, noting that virtually all of the students who complete the Java sequence at Friends take the AP Computer Science Exam. The other new courses, Advanced Computer Science (ACS), launched this fall, and next spring’s Technology Incubation Design Entrepreneurship (TIDE), are taught by veteran math, English, and digital media teacher David Heath. “The two courses are intended to be taken as a yearlong sequence by students who have already completed Art teacher Heather Romney with Annie Xenakis ’21 and Thomas Ellberg ’21 two semesters of Java Programming,” explains Heath. He notes that ACS is “partly a third semester of Java,” in which students will focus on building dynamic data structures, like The Upper School this fall introduced three new courses to linked lists, stacks, queues, binary trees, and graphs. The course will also complement its computer science offerings and enhance student introduce students to PHP and MySQL, languages used in website engagement in programming. design to add database functionality to otherwise static web pages. “We want to be more inclusive of students who’ve not yet The Spring TIDE class uses a start-up entrepreneurial-type discovered programming as a talent and a passion, as well as of those approach in a digital/maker setting to ask, and hopefully answer, the who’ve taken every programming course we teach and are hungry for question: How can technology be designed and used to make a positive more,” says Jennifer Robinson, Director of Academic Technology and difference in Baltimore? “Students will engage in two distinct strands Libraries. — one individual, and one collaborating as part of a team,” explains The first course, Introduction to Programming with Interactive Heath. “They’ll take what they have learned in the fall and put it to Art, is taught by art teacher Heather Romney, who joined the faculty use in tech-based service projects.” last fall from Western High School, where she taught technology Student teams will be paired with local nonprofit organizations to and AP Studio Art and coached the robotics team. The class engages design and create a web application that will facilitate some aspect of students in design thinking and collaborative inquiry, using basic the organization’s work. In keeping with the incubation-collaboration computer science concepts to create collaborative and individual concept, Heath hopes to attract students with a wide range of interests artworks that require audience participation. Open to students in and skills, in addition to the programmers who continue on from the grades 9 through 12, the course requires no prior experience in fall course. “Ideally, our TIDE groups should include programmers, programming. designers, social justice-oriented people, and artists, who work “I’ve heard people say, ‘I’m not a math person so I’m not going together with the client to design solutions,” says Heath. to take computer science,’ but I think that is a misconception,” Noting that the TIDE projects tie in with Friends Connects, says Romney. “Programming is a language used to write a set of the School’s strategic direction for the future, Heath says, “Students instructions. Those instructions vary greatly depending on the need tend to respond well when their work has the potential to make a and often require synthesis with several different content areas. Lots positive difference in the real world, and we are all excited about the of contemporary artists use programming and algorithmic thinking possibilities here. Friends students will gain not only some highly to create their work.” marketable skills but also a closer understanding of the challenges Among the coding-inspired art projects students undertake are and needs of the nonprofit world in Baltimore. And our partners art-bots (robots that make art), instruction-based art (in which art will benefit from an enhanced web presence — or for some their is made directly on a surface using the artists’ instructions, similar to very first website — which hopefully will help them better serve the drawings of Sol LeWitt), and “choose your own adventure”-type their clientele.” branching logic websites.

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academics

Building Empathy in the Classroom

Math Whizzes In a first for Friends School, two Upper School students earned an invitation to study advanced math at Johns Hopkins University this year, through JHU Mathematics Department’s Future Scholars Program. Tianyue (Tony) Zhu ’19 and Daniel Mertus ’19 were awarded merit-based scholarships through the program, which is highly competitive, after earning top scores on a calculus-based exam last spring. They are among just eight other high school students from Baltimore City and Baltimore County to be awarded the opportunity. “Students have found the experience of taking a math course on campus with current Johns Hopkins students very valuable,” notes the university’s math department. “And the benefits of a university transcript and credits while still a high school student, along with access to faculty for mentoring and advising are immeasurable.”

Morning circle is an essential practice in the Lower School, offering students and teachers alike a brief window, after the slamming of the lockers and hallway chatter, to set the tone for a productive day. Most morning circles are unremarkable. But one day last winter, 5th grade teacher Victoria Lebron sensed tension when students arrived. “There was a buzzy, anxious energy in the room,” she recalled. So Lebron did something she had never done: On the board she wrote the prompt, “Something I think you should know about me right now is …” The class took a few minutes to journal on the prompt and then they gathered on the rug. “My original intention was for those entries to live in the students’ journals and maybe serve as a point of reference later on in the year,” she says. “However, I felt something in the moment when I joined my students in the circle. There was vulnerability in the room. Perhaps the time was ripe to share and listen?” She asked if anyone was interested. A hesitant hand raised, and a student shared her story. Afterwards she smiled quietly and sat a little more comfortably. The group sat in the silence of the room a few more moments. Lebron continued to sit, holding her breath and hoping that more children would share. “Early in my teaching career, a mentor told me that wait time is sacred. A moment may feel like an eternity to a teacher, but a few more moments might open up a world of new revelations for a roomful of students,” she says. So she waited. Suddenly, another hand rose. This student shared about feeling overwhelmed between school and after-school activities. She felt like she could never work hard enough on anything. Heads nodded in agreement and support around the circle; Lebron’s own head bobbed as the child spoke. A friend moved closer to put a gentle hand on the speaker’s arm. Another friend clasped the speaker in a hug as she tearfully finished sharing her message. As soon as this student finished speaking, another hand rose; then three more hands. While each student shared, the room fell quiet, except for the heater and the sound of snuffles and whispered words of encouragement. In the span of 45 minutes, from the time the students arrived until they wrapped up their emotional meeting, Lebron’s class had bonded more than they had all year. “Together we cried for the struggles, joys, happy, and hard times we all face. One student, in the middle of this intense communal experience commented aloud, ‘I never knew my classmates were going through these things.’ This was my hope: to check in and remind us that, at the end of the day, we all want to feel safe and loved,” says Lebron. Afterward, Lebron reached out to colleagues and shared the experience and the prompt she had used to break through to students that cold, gray morning, noting, “It may be tricky to find the time to do this in Middle or Upper School classes, but I wonder how those older students might respond?”

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academics

Jimena Guallar-Blasco ’20, left, Halle Shephard ’18, and Ryan Hardy ’19 spent the summer in Seoul, Latvia, and Estonia, respectively, as 2018 NSLI-Y scholars.

Students Earn Prestigious State Department Scholarships Three Friends Upper School students spent seven weeks studying in far-flung locales this summer, after earning prestigious full scholarships through the National Security Language Initiative for Youth (NSLI-Y ) program, courtesy of the U.S. State Department. Ryan Hardy ’19 and Halle Shephard ’18 studied Russian in Estonia and Latvia, respectively, and Jimena Guallar-Blasco ’20 studied Korean in Seoul, Korea, through the language and cultural immersion program. The students lived with host families during their stay, attended language classes, and participated in a variety of learning opportunities, including cultural excursions to different parts of the country and partnerships with local high school students. Friends students have consistently distinguished themselves in the study of Russian, earning NSLI-Y scholarships (both summer and full-year) and in international Olympiadas. Since 2009, five Friends students have received full-year NSLI-Y

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scholarships and approximately 20 have been awarded seven-week summer scholarships to study Russian abroad. For Hardy, the summer study scholarship offered a return trip of sorts: In late fall 2017, he was selected by the American Councils of Teachers of Russian (ACTR) to serve on the United States delegation to the International Olympiada of Spoken Russian. He was one of just six Russian language students — and the only Maryland resident — selected.) The event took place in Moscow at the renowned Pushkin Institute from December 3 to 8, 2017. Although the School does not offer Korean as a language elective, Guallar-

Blasco, who takes French at Friends, has been studying Korean outside of school and travels to South Korea during summers with her father, Eliseo Guallar, a professor of epidemiology at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. The National Security Language Initiative for Youth (NSLI-Y ) program was launched in 2006 to promote critical language learning among American youth. The U.S. Department of State, in cooperation with American Councils for International Education, awards and administers meritbased scholarships to high school students for participation in summer and academic year immersion programs in locations where the seven NSLI-Y languages (Arabic, Bahasa Indonesia, Korean, Mandarin, Russian, Tajiki, and Turkish) are spoken.

Did you know? The School’s storied Russian language program dates

back to 1956, when history teacher Claire Walker — one year before The Soviet Union launched Sputnik — began teaching students the then-“forbidden” language. (At the time, the School was one of only 16 U.S. high schools, public or private, to offer Russian.)

academics

University Partnership Program Soars Friends School history teacher Josh Carlin still recalls the auspicious 2011 trip he and two Upper School colleagues took to Duke University, where they visited with professors Laurent Dubois and Deborah Jensen, codirectors of the Duke Haiti Humanities Lab. That meeting, the culmination of a months-long conversation about partnership possibilities between the two schools, resulted in a new Upper School course elective, “Haiti Lab: A Collaboration with Duke University,” and launched the School’s University Partnership Program. Fast forward to 2018 and UPP, as it is known, has engaged more than 500 Upper and Middle School students and dozens of Friends teachers in over 160 hands-on investigations with thought leaders from 21 colleges and universities, including Stanford and Johns Hopkins. Project length varies from a single class unit to a semester or even years. All provide students with opportunities to apply the skills and knowledge they’ve acquired in the classroom to real-life situations. Carlin is the UPP coordinator and is constantly seeking out ways for Friends

students to connect their learning to what he describes as “the bigger picture.” “Helping our students discover what research entails at a major university is a passion of mine,” says Carlin. UPP learning takes on many forms, from cataloging rare primary sources for a database on 19th century women writers in Baltimore – The inaugural class of Loyola-Notre Dame scholars, Friends’ an ongoing collaboration with newest University Partnership Loyola University Maryland English professor Dr. Jean Lee expand their reach into an untapped team Cole and the Maryland Historical Society – to of highly motivated learners who bring their working with Morgan State University professor curiosity and individual perspectives and Dr. Lawrence Brown and his graduate students experiences to the study. Not surprisingly, in the School of Community Health and Policy Carlin has amassed an extensive network of on the #Bmore Lead Free initiative to promote professional contacts, including many Friends lead awareness in Baltimore City. School alumni and parents, in higher education, A major factor in UPP’s success is that medicine, technology, and other fields. And the both sides benefit: Friends students gain momentum is building, says Carlin. “After seven exposure to areas of study they never knew years, colleges are now coming to us. They existed and enjoy mentorship and networking want to work with Friends kids.” opportunities. University partners, meanwhile,

Courageous Conversations in Middle School Middle School Spanish and French teacher Ann Porcella had not planned to bring the controversy surrounding DACA into her classes following the announcement, days earlier, of the Trump Administration’s plans to cancel the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. But then two things happened. The first was that Head of School Matt Micciche announced the year’s theme of “courageous community.” The second occurred later that day, when a friend of Porcella’s shared how her adopted Chinese-born daughter had come home from school that afternoon and asked, “Mom, am I legal?” “My friend was, understandably, upset,” said Porcella, “and then I began thinking about my own students, about how the school year was so new, and how I didn’t yet know them or their backgrounds.” Starting from a place of courageous community and the Quaker belief that there is that of God in everyone, Porcella relayed the story to her students and a rich dialogue ensued. “We didn’t go into it politically,” she explains, but using the target language [French and Spanish], the students then engaged in hands-on grammar and vocabulary lessons, creating colorful signs with such messages of hope and unity as “We are

Middle School students in Ann Porcella’s Spanish class demonstrate their support for children of undocumented immigrants with messages of hope.

all equal,” “We are a courageous community,” and “No human being is illegal,” which they then posted in the classroom and hallways.

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arts The Best of Both Worlds

funny thing happened on Renée Audette ’18’s path to following her calling as a string player: She also discovered a passion for the visual arts. (And did we mention she is also a singer and awardwinning writer?) Audette, who was a leader of the Upper School Orchestra and the Chamber Music Club during her years at Friends, began studying the violin at four, after being wowed at church by an electric violin performance. “I started begging my parents for lessons and I didn’t give up,” she says. Given her musical lineage, little Renée probably didn’t have to plead her case too vigorously. Her biological grandfather ( John Perry) and step-grandfather (Raymond Hanson) were both renowned classical pianists, as was her grandmother, Anne Koscielny Hanson, who was also a leading pedagogue at the Hartt School of Music in Connecticut and the University of Maryland College Park. Renée’s mom is Cecile Audette, longtime Middle School choral director and music teacher, who studied voice at Westminster Choir College. After starting violin lessons as a preschooler, Renée never looked back. Throughout Lower and Middle School at Friends, where she performed in School ensembles and musicals, she studied at the Peabody Preparatory on weekends and spent several weeks each summer at the Green Mountain Suzuki Institute in Vermont. Then, near the end of Middle School, a new horizon opened before her. Audette had always enjoyed drawing and painting in art class, she says, “But I didn’t realize you could do art as a job until the 8th grade. Once I figured that out, I really got into it.” Renée added art lessons to her busy schedule during Upper School — a schedule that also included voice lessons (she sang with the semi-professional Canticle Singers of Baltimore), weekend rehearsals with the Baltimore Symphony Youth Orchestras (BSYO), and participation in the Upper School and Summer Stock musicals (on stage crew, as a singer, and in the pit orchestra, depending on the show). She continued her music/art juggling act throughout Upper School — completing a music major her freshman year, then an art major her sophomore year — finding both personal fulfillment and external validation. She won a Silver Key

award in 2017 for her drawing, “Don’t Throw Any of Yourself Away,” in the regional round of the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards, a national competition. She also authored a short story, “The Orchestra,” that won a regional Gold Key certificate in the humor category last spring. Audette believes she has found the best of both worlds at St. Olaf College in Minnesota, where she is currently pursuing a visual arts major and taking violin lessons and performing with the college’s highly respected orchestra. “For now, I’m focusing on art as my academic major,” she says. “But I am leaving the door open to a double major.” Sue De Pasquale

Renée Audette ’18

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arts

Constellations leader Christopher Armstrong ’21, fifth from left, with ensemble members, from left, Manny Sachs-Kohen ’21, Jack Goodenough ’19, Alex Prichett ’19, Luke Rollfinke ’21, Zach Smith ’19, Steedman Jenkins ’19, Izzy Philosophe ‘19, Jack Lichter ‘19, andRuskin Nohe-Moren ‘21

Shooting for the Stars Move over, Quaketones. Make way, Pleiades. There’s a new studentled performance group on the scene, and if Christopher Armstrong ’21 has his way, it will earn a permanent spot in the Friends School arts pantheon. The Constellations, an instrumental ensemble that plays jazz, pop, rock, and soul, launched last academic year to great audience approbation. The brainchild of Armstrong — who has studied piano since the age of nine and is mostly self-taught on trumpet and saxophone — the group debuted with a soulful-yet-energetic performance of Chuck Mangione’s “Feels So Good” at last winter’s Upper School music concert that wowed all in attendance.

The magic, as Armstrong explains it, is the unique spin that Constellations players put on longtime favorites by the likes of Stevie Wonder and The Jackson Five. “As a group, we’ll start with a sheet of music and say, ‘We like this part, we don’t like this part, let’s rewrite this section, let’s add a solo here,’” he says. “We’re all very collaborative and there’s lots of room for improvisation.” Though only a sophomore, Armstrong is already laying the groundwork to make the student-led effort sustainable. “The group fills an important niche for musicians at Friends,” he says. “When I leave after 12th grade, I don’t want The Constellations to leave with me.” SD

Viva Les Mis! Last May, the Upper School mounted its first ever production of the Tony Awardwinning musical Les Misérables for three sold-out performances. With a cast of nearly 70 students, the buzz around this year’s show was palpable and tickets quickly disappeared. Those fortunate enough to have secured seats witnessed a tour de force of drama, music, set design, and lighting. The ambient buzz that preceded opening night continued well into the next week where, all over campus, praise for Les Mis was on everyone’s lips. From left, Pace Schwarz ’19, Jack Barrett ’18, and Baiz Hoen ’18

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arts

Emotion in Motion

Sam Principe ’25 tours the show with his grandmother, Jan Osburn.

Artists All Around

Dramatic costuming lifts an Upper School advanced dance performance to new heights.

The Dance Department, under the direction of Torens Johnson, last April presented a Middle and Upper School Dance Showcase. With memorable performances, including several studentchoreographed numbers, ranging in styles from modern and hip hop, to ballet, classical Chinese, and a rousing finale dedicated to the musician Prince, the multimedia performance

The All-School Art Show unfurled in May, filling the gymnasium for five days with vibrant works created by students from Pre-K through 12th grade. Equally awe-inspiring: the time and effort Friends’ dedicated art teachers and parent volunteers put into creating the dozens of two- and three-dimensional as well as digital art installations.

transported dancers and audiences alike.

Top Honors in Art Four Upper School students at Friends were recognized for their visual arts submissions in the regional round of the 2018 Scholastics Art & Writing competition. Presented by the Alliance for Young Artists & Writers, the national competition offers students in grades 7 through 12 opportunities to submit creative works across 29 categories. The Friends artists’ work was among more than 3,500 submissions from this region reviewed by a panel of judges. In an email congratulating the students, Art Department Chair Ben Roach praised the artists “for putting yourselves out there and getting work into a competitive arena.” He noted, “This is what real artists do.” Following is the list of regional honorees and their entries, including Gold Key winner Kai Jenrette ’19, whose work was automatically advanced to national judging. Ella Filardi ’19, Silver Key, Printmaking Brenna Firlie ’18, Honorable Mention, Painting Kai Jenrette ’19, Gold Key, Comic Art Kai Jenrette ’19, Silver Key, Comic Art Keelty Wyatt ’18, Honorable Mention, Film & Animation Keelty Wyatt ’18, Silver Key, Film & Animation

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“Song-bird” by Ella Filardi ‘19

arts

Oliver!

In March, the streets of Victorian England came to life on the Forbush stage as the Middle School presented the musical “Oliver!” for three performances. With nearly one-quarter of the student body participating in the cast or crew, the annual production is an important part of Middle School life for many Friends students.

Cast members perform the shifty Fagin’s motto, “You’ve got to pick a pocket or two!”

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athletics Celebrating Signing Day

n three different occasions last academic year, the Athletic Department recognized Friends’ NCAA college-bound student-athletes who were headed to play for Division I and Division III programs with National Letter of Intent (NLI) Signing Day Celebrations. The recognition events — which took place in the Forbush Auditorium on a stage festooned with banners from the

students’ colleges — brought together players, their families, and the School community to commemorate NLI signings by the athletes and their parents. There were celebrations in November and February for those competing in D-I programs, and in April for D-III players. While Friends has honored its D-I players in the past, the addition of D-III signing events speaks to the value of sports in developing well-rounded young adults, according

A Spirited Spring: Quakes Go Deep in Post-Season Play

The second time was the charm for the VARSITY SOFTBALL team, which last spring earned its first I.A.A.M. championship since 2005, defeating Park School, 14-2. The team had its sights set on the title from the get-go, having reached the playoffs in 2017. “Last year’s loss to Mt. Carmel in the championships really motivated this group,” says coach Ken Zalis. “They were determined to bring it home.” Led by seniors Bridget Barry ’18 (2nd base), and All-Conference picks Tyler Rifkin ’18 (pitcher), Lucy Meigs ’18 (CF), and Katie Capizzi ’18 (C), the team went 13-3 on the season, with every player contributing to its success, according to Zalis. “It was a magical ending to an almost perfect year — and one of the most determined teams I have ever had the honor of coaching” he said. BOYS VARSITY LACROSSE completed the 2018 season with a remarkable

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to Kara Carlin, the School’s Athletic Director. “The experiences students have on and off the field, the discipline, camaraderie, and joy that comes from team competition, are transformative,” she says. “Whether they go off to participate in a D-I or D-III program, we should celebrate each student-athlete’s accomplishments.”

16-3 record. Led by a 12-senior roster, four of whom will play at the collegiate level (see “Celebrating Signing Day”), the Quakers entered the M.I.A.A. B Conference playoffs as the top-seed but were upset in the semifinals, 12–11, by Gerstell Academy, a team the Friends laxers had twice defeated earlier in the season (once on the road, 19-9). Coach Bill Ball, the Upper School Dean of Student Life, praised his players and assistant coaches, Rich Seiler ’68, Drew Wardlow, and Tyler Ferrara, noting that while this group didn’t achieve its ultimate goal, “it was a season that none of us will soon forget.” Adds Ball, “The team came to practice each day with a sense of purpose, but also knew they were going to have fun out there each time they strapped on their helmets. This group of seniors has helped create a great culture of

The lineup, from left: Ayris Akbay ’18, University of South Carolina, swimming, D-1; Emily Wolff ’18, Stevenson University, swimming, D-III; Owen McManus ’18, Johns Hopkins University, lacrosse, D-I; Anne Tobin ’18, Haverford University, tennis, D-III; Patrick Linehan ’18, Connecticut College, lacrosse, D-III; Seraya Makle ’18, Skidmore College, soccer, D-III; Ross Blumenthal ’18, Drexel University, lacrosse, D-I; Emma Galambos ’18, Bates College, squash, D-III; Stephen Bogusky ’18, Sewanee: The University of the South, lacrosse, D-I; Katie Capizzi ’18, Towson University, softball, D-I; Skyler Kessenich ’18, Carleton College, football, D-III; Carli Freeman ’18, Johns Hopkins University, lacrosse, D-I; Jordan Finn ’18, University of Mary Washington, soccer, D-III; Lauren Curry ’18, Auburn University, equestrian, D-III; Kavon Samuels ’18, Butler University, football, D-I; Helena Ware, Yale University, sailing, D-III. Missing from photo: Sydney Wilson ’18, Juniata College, field hockey, D-III. Please see a Remembrance to Stephen Bogusky ’18 on p. 82.

support, combined with a desire to achieve, that will surely carry on for the underclassmen in the years to follow.” The GIRLS VARSITY LACROSSE team battled through a bumpy season to reach the I.A.A.M. Conference semifinals. Although the girls fell short in that contest, players and fans had much to celebrate throughout the 9-6 season. Among the highlights: a 14-13 win against eventual champion Mercy and an away contest against Park School, this year’s other finalist team, in which the Quakes prevailed, 14-10. Led by I.A.A.M. All-Conference players Carli Freeman ’18, Alex Miceli ’18, Charessa Crosse ’19, and Maren Helmacy ’20, the team’s young roster boasts plenty of talent, according to head coach Mandy Hudson. “We love how our players constantly work together and strive to set the bar high and play above the line, and

this year’s team was no different,” she says. “We are looking forward to the positivity, talent, passion, and determination our returning and new players will bring to the field next year.” After a two-year Quaker reign — in which the M.I.A.A. champions were undefeated and won 17 consecutive matches — the VARSITY GOLF team finished the 2018 season with an 8-3-1 record and tied for first place with the eventual champion Jemicy School. Coach Paul Levine credits the team’s senior tri-captains, Teddy Llinas ’18, and All-Conference selections Cameron Matsui ’18 and Michael Klausner ’18, for their leadership and says, “I’m excited about the progress of the team’s returning underclassman” as they seek to reclaim the championship in 2019.

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athletics

True Grit

Andrew Spawn has coached the Middle School wrestling team for 31 years.

Friends Varsity wrestlers like Skyler Kessenich ’18 (right) can trace their formative years in the sport back to Middle School science teacher Andrew Spawn, who has coached Middle School wrestling for 31 years. “Wrestling seems to be a sport that has great appeal for kids who are independent thinkers — those who don’t necessarily want to be a part of what everybody else is doing,” says Spawn, who also heads the North Baltimore Wrestling Club, for area grapplers age 5 to 14. Most of the boys (and a few girls) who come out for wrestling in middle school are new to the sport, and teams have ranged in size over the years from 29 wrestlers to six. Spawn gladly takes all comers: “Wrestling needs to be a sport where anybody can participate, not just those who bring unusual strength, or quickness, or talent,” he says. His Middle School team adheres to a tournament format known as the “Madison System,” Spawn explains, where there are no weight classes and students are instead paired into brackets based on their weight (and age and experience level) at weigh-in; this obviates the need for “weight cutting.” What’s the hardest move to master? “Not giving up,” he says. “Every move starts and ends with believing you can do it. And when it doesn’t go your way, you have to persevere and find a way to make it work,” he says. “Creatively attacking a problem — that enables kids to learn a lot about themselves.” Tim Kamphaus ’02, a talented wrestler who made it to the state tournament his 8th grade year, would agree. “Wrestling is a grueling sport that takes a lot of practice, effort, and mental determination. I definitely owe Coach Spawn for imparting a lot of knowledge about the sport and preparing me for those similar situations later in life,” says Kamphaus, today a policy analyst for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. SD

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Down to the Buzzer Last February, Skyler Kessenich ’18 became the third Friends School wrestler ever to compete at the National Prep Wrestling tournament, which took place at Lehigh University February 23–24, 2018. Wrestling in the 220-pound. weight class, the 6-foot-3 Kessenich had a storied senior season: He achieved a 40-6 record, pinning in most of his matches and losing to only four different opponents. He placed 3rd in the M.I.A.A. conference tournament and was ranked 10th in the state heading into nationals, where he competed against elite wrestlers who hailed from independent schools around the country. After losing his first match against a wrestler from Wyoming Seminary in Pennsylvania, Kessenich managed to pin his opponent (from Rye Country Day School in Rye, N.Y.) in the second period of match two. His third match was extremely close — tied 3-3 with just 25 seconds left in the third period. Kessenich ultimately lost 3-4, putting him out of the tournament. “Although this last result was a disappointment,” says Friends Upper School wrestling coach Bill Hardy, “Skyler went out wrestling the match aggressively to the final buzzer.” Currently a freshman at Carleton College in Minnesota, where he plays varsity football, Kessenich was a three-sport athlete at Friends. He wrestled during his freshman and sophomore years but switched to basketball in his junior year. In retrospect, he says, “Coming back to wrestling was the best decision I ever made.” In addition to Kessenich’s strong season last year, several other Friends wrestlers put in notable performances: Lance Kevin ’18 went 27-10 for the season and 108-60 for his high school career. Caleb Trudeau ’18 went 23-10 for the season. And Kessenich and Zach Smith ’19 were also named B Conference All-Conference in their weight classes for making it the farthest in the MIS Tournament.

Skyler Kessenich ’18 with Varsity Wrestling coach Bill Hardy

athletics

Badminton Phenom International student Yutong “Rita” Li ‘20, who joined Friends last academic year, made her mark on the badminton court, ending the year with an undefeated record and advancing to play in the junior tournament SPBA Midwest Open Regional Championships last May. “I was recently asked if I thought Rita was the most dominant athlete in the School, and I had to say ‘yes,’” says Badminton Head Coach Tom Buck. “If she played basketball, she’d be going to U Conn.” Adds Assistant Coach Vincent Nguy, “She’s motivated in wanting to be good at everything she puts her mind to. She could definitely be top 3 in her age bracket.” Quaker Nation, the School’s student-led sports desk, caught up with Li near the end of her noteworthy season. Here’s what she had to say: It’s obvious you have put in many hours playing badminton. Is the game different in the U.S. from China and other places you have played? Li: Playing badminton here is very different from my school in China. In my middle school, we practiced from 4 to 7 pm three times a week for the whole school year. The tournaments were usually on weekends, and they lasted a whole day. My middle school badminton team was very strong. During the summer holiday, we still needed to practice and prepare for the national championship. At Friends, the matches against other schools have been easy, but I enjoy them a lot. I also joined the Loch Raven Badminton Club and have played

in many tournaments with the members of the club. In the Baltimore Charity Open tournament, I placed first in singles and women’s doubles and second in mixed doubles What’s been the best part of your time at Friends so far, either on the court or off? Li: I think the best part is when our Badminton team plays with other schools. I like the times when we are cheering for each other in the games. I am happy that I can help our team to gain one point for the total score. Also, I have made many friends from playing with other schools. Sometimes I even go out to play with my new friends from other schools, like Garrison Forest and Bryn Mawr.

Yutong “Rita” Li ’20 was the 2018 I.A.A.M. A Conference Badminton singles champion.

Follow Quaker Nation on Twitter @Quaker_Nation.

Under the Lights The Varsity Baseball team on April 20 challenged Annapolis Area Christian School during a nighttime game at Johns Hopkins University’s Babb Field at Stromberg Stadium.

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commencement 2018

Take a Bow!

Beneath vivid blue skies on a warm breezy evening on June 12, Friends seniors crossed the threshold from student to alumni in a tradition dating back to 1870, the year Friends graduated its first class. The students, decked out in white dinner jackets and dresses, gathered at Stony Run Friends Meetinghouse for one last time, celebrating their final moments of high school before descending the verdant stairway to the dais below.

Seniors proceed down the path from Stony Run Meetinghouse to School.

Friends School of Baltimore

Class of 2018 College Acceptances and Matriculations The University of Alabama Albright College American University Amherst College Arizona State University (2) University of Arizona Auburn University University of Auckland Bard College Bates College Baylor University Binghamton University Boston College Brandeis University Bridgton Academy (2) Brown University Bucknell University Butler University California Institute of the Arts University of California, Santa Barbara

University of California, Santa Cruz Carleton College (2) Case Western Reserve University Chapman University College of Charleston University of Chicago Christopher Newport University University of Cincinnati (3) Clark Atlanta University Clemson University Coastal Carolina University Colby College University of Colorado at Boulder University of Colorado at Denver Columbia College Chicago Connecticut College University of Connecticut Cornell University (2) Davidson College University of Delaware

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University of Denver (2) Dickinson College Drexel University (4) Duke University East Carolina University Elon University Emory University Flagler College Florida State University Fordham University Franklin & Marshall College Furman University George Mason University The George Washington University Georgetown University Gettysburg College Goucher College Grinnell College Haverford College Hawaii Pacific University High Point University Hofstra University Howard University

Indiana University at Bloomington Ithaca College James Madison University Johns Hopkins University (4) Johnson & Wales University Juniata College Kalamazoo College Kean University Kenyon College La Salle University Lehigh University Lesley University Louisiana State University Loyola University Maryland University of Maine University of Mary Washington University of Maryland, Eastern Shore Maryland Institute College of Art University of Maryland, Baltimore County (3) University of Maryland, College Park (4) Marymount University University of Massachusetts, Amherst

commencement

Teddy Llinas ’18 and Zeke Texter ’18

This year’s class had nine legacy families, students whose parents or grandparents attended Friends. See p. 82.

The Class of 2018 CMYK / .eps

Chase Andre ’18 and Cassius Comfort ’18 Go to Flickr.com/friendsbalt to see more images from the event.

Carli Freeman ’18 and Fayth Pearson ’18

McDaniel College McGill University Messiah College Miami University, Oxford University of Miami (2) Michigan State University University of Michigan Middle Tennessee State University Middlebury College (2) Misericordia University Morgan State University Muhlenberg College The Naropa University University of New Hampshire at Durham New York University The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill University of North Carolina at Wilmington Northeastern University University of Northern Colorado Oberlin College of Arts and Sciences Pace University, New York City

Pennsylvania State University (2) University of Pittsburgh Pitzer College Pomona College Pratt Institute Quinnipiac University Reed College Regis University Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Rider University Rochester Institute of Technology Rollins College Russell Sage College Rutgers University, New Brunswick Rutgers University, Newark Salisbury University Savannah College of Art and Design School of the Art Institute of Chicago Sewanee: The University of the South Skidmore College (2) University of South Carolina (2) Spelman College St. Lawrence University

St. Mary’s College of Maryland St. Olaf College Stetson University Stevenson University (2) Susquehanna University Syracuse University (2) The University of Tampa Temple University Texas A&M University The Ohio State University Towson University Trinity College Dublin/Columbia University Tufts University Tulane University University of St Andrews Ursinus College Vassar College University of Vermont (2) Virginia Commonwealth University Virginia Tech University of Virginia Wake Forest University (2)

Washington and Jefferson College Washington and Lee University Washington College Washington University in St. Louis University of Washington, Tacoma Wesleyan University College of William and Mary University of Wisconsin, Madison Wittenberg University Worcester Polytechnic Institute Yale University

Bold – A member of the Class of 2018 is attending this school (#) – The number of members of the Class of 2018 attending this school when more than one is attending

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alumni

Alumni Weekend 2018

ast spring’s Alumni Weekend drew more than 400 alumni and guests back to campus May 3-6. Classes ending in 8’s and 3’s celebrated their Reunions, and alumni from all over the country — and the world — enjoyed reconnecting with each other during an array of campus activities.

ATHLETIC HALL OF FAME INDUCTION & RECEPTION

Coach Carol “Sam” Samuels, Candice Davis Hawkins ’88, Natalie Santos Ferguson ’90, and Kimberly Hubble-Doll-DeSha ’88 accept their awards for the 1987 Varsity Field Hockey Team.

On Friday, May 4, alumni athletes were inducted at the Friends School Athletic Hall of Fame Induction & Reception. Friend School’s new Athletic Director Kara Carlin, along with Hall of Fame Chair Kitty Bryant ’75, opened the ceremony and Mike Lurie ’81 once again presided as master of ceremonies. Thirty-one individuals and two teams — the 1978 Boys Varsity Lacrosse Team and the 1987 Varsity Field Hockey Team — were inducted this year. Visit alumni. friendsbalt.org/HOF to see the full list of inductees and to learn how to nominate future inductees.

Inductee Frank Windsor ’58 (second from left) with Jonas Katkavich, daughter Kate Windsor ’85, and wife Ann McAllister Windsor ’60

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alumni

Martha Brantigan Stowell ’68 as a student

Members from the 1978 Boys Varsity Lacrosse Team accept their awards.

Martha Brantigan Stowell ’68 wears her school uniform, which still fits beautifully. HALF-CENTURY SOCIETY BREAKFAST

The fun continued on Saturday morning, May 5, as alumni from the Classes of 1968 and prior enjoyed breakfast at the James L. Zamoiski ’68 Alumni Center. Back by popular demand, Alumni Association Board Co-Chair James Bigwood ’08 gave a presentation about the history of the School: “Friends School Odds ‘n’ Ends!” A highlight of the breakfast was Martha Brantigan Stowell ’68, who surprised guests by sporting her old school uniform.

Individual inductee Betsy Banghart Bratz ’58 accepts her award.

Presenter James Bigwood ’08 with his 1st grade teacher Carol Sieck H ’16, and Marge Felter ’63. Behind them is a photo of James and Marge in September 1994 after Marge, who worked in the Admissions Office, helped admit James to Friends.

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CAMPUS TOUR

Milestone 50th & 25th Reunions THE CLASS OF 1968 CELEBRATED ITS 50TH REUNION

Director of Admission Amy D’Aiutolo Mortimer ’87 led alumni on a tour through some of their favorite campus haunts, as well as some new spaces they had never visited. Led by the Upper School diversity student practitioners, alumni participated in an experiential workshop that focused on identity and diversity work.

THE CLASS OF 1993 CELEBRATED ITS 25TH REUNION

BACK TO THE CLASSROOM SESSIONS

CMYK / .eps

The Choral Room was packed with alumni to hear retired English teacher Gary Blauvelt H ’97 (1963 – 2004), who captivated his audience by sharing his current favorite poems.

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For more Reunion photos, go to Flickr.com/friendsbalt

alumni

REUNION RECEPTION From left: Savithri Nair ’98, Justine Alger Forrester ’98, Jennie Ray ’98

From left: Rev. The Charles Graves ’08, Charley Fogel ’08, Elaine Kwon ’08

Celebrating their 70th Reunion, Dottie Snodgrass Goldsborough ’48 (middle) and Jill Morrel Coleman ’48 with Dottie’s husband, Les Goldsborough ’47. Nick Bentley ’93 and Damon Brown ’93

Lanny Mackall ’68 and Frank Bond ’69

From left: Meg Catzen-Brown ’73, Jackie Ross ’73, and Lisa Shuger ’73

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alumni

2018 Alumni Association Awards

Melinda Burdette ’68 with her husband Russ Sweezey

riends School annually honors alumni for their outstanding professional and personal achievements and for their dedicated service to the School. This year, six individuals were recognized during the 31st Annual Robert A. “Mr. Nick” Nicolls Lunch on May 5.

Alumni Weekend student ambassadors Emma Galambos ’18 and Alex Raynes ’18 with Marge Felter ’63 and Alumni Director Christine Pappas ’01

OUTSTANDING ALUMNI SERVICE AWARD: MELINDA BURDETTE ’68

Melinda Burdette ’68 has served the Friends School community in countless ways — as a student, an employee, and a volunteer – for more than 50 years. With classmate Mark Curtis she served as class representative to the Alumni Fund during her senior year. Since then she has served on planned giving committees, and has helped plan all of the Class of ’68’s Reunions, from their 15th all the way to their 50th last May. (Melinda worked closely with classmate Arlene Bowes ’68 and the Alumni Office to ensure a splendid gathering!) During her 12-year career at Friends, she served as the School’s public relations liaison, working closely with the Alumni and Headmaster’s Offices, and served as editor of Collection Magazine (precursor to Friends Magazine), which was first published in the fall of 1977. “Reflecting on my 43 years as a professional and a volunteer, my greatest satisfaction comes from engaging people with an organization, who are then able together to explore new possibilities, seize opportunities, and achieve their visions and dreams,” says Melinda. “The activities that drive my passion are those that forge and strengthen connections, build loyalty, and inspire philanthropy.”

DISTINGUISHED ALUMNI AWARD: DR. ROBERT MCCAULEY ’68

OUTSTANDING ALUMNI SERVICE AWARD: MARGE ROWE FELTER ’63

Marge Felter ’63’s connection to Friends already ran deep when she joined the staff of its Pre-Primary department in 1977. After all, Friends is where she met her husband, Jeb ’63, and it’s where they enrolled their two children, Elizabeth Felter Farrell ’88 and Wilson Felter ’90. But it was in the Friends School Admission Office, where as associate director for Pre-K-5th grade she thoughtfully shepherded countless families through the admission process, that her true talents lay. Describing his longtime colleague, former admission director Tad Jacks H’05 shared, “During our more than 20 years working together, Marge’s manner and care for each person in the admissions process was consistent: always fair and with a true desire to do the best for the families and the School.” Beginning in the 1960s, Marge and Jeb served as “decade captains” and fundraising volunteers, and over the years Marge has helped plan nearly every one of her class’s Reunions, most recently serving, with Jeb, as one of the 2018 National Reunion Co-Chairs alongside Jasmine Powe ’08.

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Dr. Robert McCauley ’68 received his medical degree at the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine in 1977 and went on to hold such esteemed positions as Professor of Surgery, Pediatrics, and Chief of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery at Shriners Hospital for Children in Galveston, Texas, and as Medical Director of both the Tissue Bank and Skin Tissue Culture Laboratory. He retired in 2017. Dr. McCauley spent the bulk of his career at Shriners Hospital for Children and the University of Texas Medical Branch. His research efforts during those 30 years centered on scarring, and he dedicated himself to improving the outcomes for children with burn injuries. He served in more than 50 leadership roles in numerous national committees and organizations, including the FDA, the American Board of Plastic Surgery, and the Society of Black Academic Surgeons. A committed mentor, he established a pediatric burn fellowship in Galveston for surgeons doing their residency. His publications included 42 book chapters, 110 published abstracts, and 69 peer-reviewed articles in scientific journals. Friends School was truly honored to present this award to Dr. McCauley during his 50th Reunion year.

DISTINGUISHED ALUMNI AWARD: ASHLEY PARRISH ’98

Ashley Parrish is a role model, not only for women in business, but for all young people who are preparing to launch their careers. After graduating from Friends, she went on to receive a degree in journalism and mass communications from New York University. From there, she worked her way up from her first job at Harper’s Bazaar, taking risks and creating opportunities for herself. Today, she is an award-winning producer and educator, currently serving as the executive producer of the TODAY Show digital operations and as vice president of strategic content for the NBC News group. She sits on the board of several companies and nonprofits as a digital advisor, and she is also an adjunct professor at her alma mater, NYU. During a Collection presentation that she gave while visiting campus, Parrish drew parallels to her work and her Friends education noting, “Friends equipped me not only with the academic skills I needed to succeed, but also with empathy, a sense of community, and an ability to look beyond myself and my own world.”

Ashley Parrish ’98 with Director of Development Ashley Principe HONORARY ALUMNI AWARD: DR. MICHAEL R. AND MRS. SHELLY CAMP H’18

From left, Honorary Alumni Dr. Michael Camp and Mrs. Shelly Camp with his sister Mindy Campeneschi and her husband Cristian von Reitze

Detailed biographies of the 2018 award recipients can be found: friendsbalt. org/page/noteworthyalumni

Dr. and Mrs. Camp have embraced the School’s mission, and through their philanthropy have been extraordinary supporters of Friends School and the citizens of Baltimore. “The Camps are remarkable people,” says Head of School Matt Micciche. “I’m deeply moved by the care they extend to our community.” The Camps’ children, Nina ’89 and Ben ’00, are Friends graduates and the name of Michael’s late-brother, Jonathan Camp ’74, is emblazoned on a wing that was added to the Upper School Math/Science Building in 2005. The Camps established two scholarships with the specific purpose of supporting students of color from Baltimore City. A graduate of Stanford University (B.S.), the University of Maryland (M.D.), and the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania (M.B.A.), Michael Camp combined his 30-plusyear career in medicine with working for his late father, Dr. Oscar Camp, whose multidivisional healthcare company eventually became United Healthcare. Shelly Camp is an accomplished artist and a passionate supporter of immigrant families from Central America who have settled in Baltimore. She volunteers as a translator and interpreter for the Esperanza Center and the University of Baltimore Civil Advocacy Clinic.

National Reunion Co-Chair Jasmine Powe ’08 with Alana Naslund ’08

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classnotes

Members of the 1969 Boys Varsity Basketball team, from left, Dave Owen ’71, Carl Robbins ’70, Bill Sherman ’69, Frank Bond ’69, Bob Decker ’69

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classnotes

This is the place. In these pages, generations of alumni have shared life’s significant milestones and reminisced about their Friends School days. Be a part of the tradition. Send your news and photos to alumni@friendsbalt.org.* * Digital images should be 1 MB or larger and sent in .jpg format.

This class presently does not have a Class Secretary. If you are interested in volunteering for the post, please email alumni@friendsbalt.org.

problems, and just finished deep study of the prophecies, Daniel and Revelation. Hope to be walking the boardwalk in the fall.”

Jill Morrel Coleman, along with Dottie Snodgrass Goldsborough and her husband Les Goldsborough ’47, attended their 70th Reunion on campus this past May. In April, Jill published a book, TCAS and the Irascible Genius Who Invented It. The book is a definitive biography of her father, J.S. Morrel, inventor of the collision avoidance system for airplanes in flight. It is available on Amazon.

Mara D. Dudrow maradudrow@gmail.com

Classmates, please send your news!

Carol Lee F. May carollee.may@gmail.com

Classmates, please send your news!

Susanne D. Emory vermontsue@aol.com

Classmates, please send your news!

This class presently does not have a Class Secretary. If you are interested in volunteering for the post, please email alumni@ friendsbalt.org. Sue Hoffberger Gross reports that she and classmates Wilson Davis, Judy Miller Hampton, Skip Hearn, Mike Mahr, and Dick Whiteford enjoyed their 65th Reunion on campus and had a delightful dinner together at Michael’s Restaurant in Timonium. She said, “Even after so many years, it was really fun to be together!” Judy Hampton seconds Sue’s sentiments, saying it was a “lovely weekend.” Moni Albert writes, “I am being realigned to correct my physical

This class presently does not have a Class Secretary. If you are interested in volunteering for the post, please email alumni@ friendsbalt.org. Nancy Lang Brown is still living in Pasadena, Md., on the Magothy River. She writes, “My family has grown. I now have a total of nine kids (two of whom have died), six daughter/son-inlaws, 16 grandchildren, four greatgrandchildren. I retired from coaching swimming full time but still swim and compete and sub when needed. Love it! Thanks to Larry Peacock who led me into the sport when I was at Friends. I am still fighting peritoneal cancer which developed in the fallopian tube, and was diagnosed in July 2011. It truly is a miracle I am still alive and have a good quality of life. I attribute this to my surgeon Dr. Armando Sardi, the oncology staff at Mercy led by Dr. P. Ledakis, to my swimming and staying active, and of course, God.”

Patricia P. Tisdale Ptisdale96kp@gmail.com

A grateful thank you to Lynn, Ginny, Bob, and Gilbert who responded to the request for news for our class column. We are becoming one of the oldest bunch of alumni to be published, and it would be nice to keep the “what’s what” rolling. Page Singlewald Williams sent an e-mail saying there was not much news from her end. It is always good to hear from her. Lynn Bahlke Mills wrote a grand update from Canada, noting, “My first great-grandchild, James Oakley Church, was born September 27, 2017, and of course we think he is super smart and wonderful. He laughs, talks and is almost walking. His mother, my granddaughter Nicola, and her husband Greg live

in Renton, Wash. After getting her B.Ed., Nicola established her own business, a placement agency called West Coast Nannies. I am as busy as ever being on the Strata Council for our condominium community (159 units on 33 acres). I always loved the rhododendrons and azaleas of Sherwood Gardens, so I am happy that we have them here. Then of course, there is my hobby of caring for the 50 plant containers on my own deck. Barry manages to get to golf even though he is my water boy. We are celebrating our 62nd wedding anniversary May 18th, so I guess he is going to stick with me, even though he says I should have married a farmer. I still love my tutoring of 6th to 8th grade hockey players in our Hockey Academy. Good effort and homework faithfully done are strict requirements for participation, so they are well motivated.” Proud grandparents Ginny Pearce Mitchell and her husband Fred have had a special spring as they attended three grandchildren’s graduations: grandson Scott graduated with honors from Penn State in a double major and is going to work for Capital One in Arlington, Va.; granddaughter Kristina graduated with a major in mathematics and is hoping to go into teaching; and granddaughter Rebecca graduated from St. Andrews University in Scotland, majoring in international studies, and she will attend Washington & Lee Law School in the fall. Bob Kriel and his wife Linda have moved to a high-rise condo, which makes Minnesota winter much more reasonable. Bob says that their daughter Helena is living in their old house and “invites me to help with her winter snow removal. “Bob and Linda plan to come to Baltimore in June 2018 for his 55th medical school Reunion at Johns Hopkins. The Kriels still sing and travel – their last trip was to Malta – and they have become avid bird watchers. He says that he hopes to see everyone next spring. Our next Reunion is two springs from now. Gilbert Cohen answered the

plea for news and said, “My wife Pat surprised me with a trip to Italy in September 2017 to celebrate my 80th. It was for eight days and it was truly a surprise, all I knew is that we were going overseas. On a different note, my wife Pat is a music groupie. Being from the Birmingham area of England, she grew up with all the great music from the 60’s that had at its roots, The British Beats. Her favorite group was the Moody Blues which began in Birmingham. She has followed them faithfully for years and has attended three cruises which were all music, and the Moody Blues were the main attraction. Not surprisingly, these cruises were sold out. In April 2018, she capped off all her hopes and dreams as she attended the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction in Cleveland. As more music events come about, she will be there.”

Lorinda R. McColgan lrmccolgan@verizon.net

I sent out my email to everyone asking for contributions for Friends Magazine and received very little response. I am hoping this means the Class of 1956 is well and keeping busy. Martha Horner continues to be busy as a member of the Waterfowl Festival Board of Directors, Talbot Mentors Board of Directors, and the Talbot County Garden Club. She also travels north, south, and west to keep up with graduations and visiting with family. Trying not to feel like 80 as it fast approaches! Linda Siecke enjoyed a few cold days at the end of January visiting Iceland with her son, Warren. The rest of the year she is busy with Master Gardeners of Hunterdon County, N.J. However, her most exciting news is that she became a great-grandmother on June 6th with the birth of Sumner Joseph Siecke. This makes the sixth in a long line of Sumners. Several members of the class went to Penny Nichols Watts’s funeral on January 2, 2018. Her son and a granddaughter spoke. Penny would have been so proud. She

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classnotes always called me to be sure to include information about General John Nicholson in the next issue of Friends Magazine. I hope everyone has good times for the rest of 2018.

Nancy H. Aronson nharonson@gmail.com

Classmates, please send your news!

Susan S. Hossfeld shossfeld@comcast.net

A big thank you to all of the Class of 1958 for their support by attending the Reunion and sending updates from the last five years. It is a special class and we did have a lot of fun! Those who attended one or more activities at Reunion were Frank Windsor and Ann McAllister Windsor ’60, Sandy and Dick Jeanneret, Carl and me, Susan Rugemer Kurtz, Betsy Banghart Bratz, Ron Renoff, Eric Rudolph, Betsy and Hap Mortimer, Jack and Nancy Born Edwards, Kandi Foell Slade, Bettie Mullikin, Bill Grant, Barbara Long O’Brien, Barbara Goldberg Leand and her husband, and Jeanne Morrill Owings. Marty Bald Huyette sent wonderful pictures, now in the class scrapbook. These consisted of pictures from long ago, current photo shots of Friends School classmates, and of her new home in Washington State. The exciting news for the Class was the induction of Betsy Bratz, Frank Windsor and Barbara Leand into the Athletic Hall of Fame. All three were present on Friday and were honored with a special ceremony and reception. The class dinner on Saturday evening was delicious and provided many opportunities to catch up. Sunday brunch was a lot of fun, relaxing, looking at the scrapbooks, and sharing memories of the Class of 1958. Frank and Ann Windsor recently moved to RiveWoods Lifetime Care Retirement Community in Exeter, N.H. They have seven grandchildren and have been married 58 years as of June 2018. Frank is an avid Johns Hopkins Lacrosse fan! Bill Grant sent a picture of his beautiful family. His son lives in Atlanta, and his daughter and her family live near them in Baltimore. Bill and his wife have four grandchildren, twin boys (now in college) and two girls. Both girls are honor students who play all

sports. Bill played tennis for over 50 years as well as basketball and softball leagues, and took up golf at age 50 which he really enjoys. Bill and his entire family have traveled far and wide from China to Israel and many countries and islands in between. Kandi Slade has four grandchildren. Two granddaughters were married in June in two different states two weeks apart. Kandi is still enjoying her job in property management and is still the glorious, energetic actress in the Paint and Powder Club and their productions. It is with deepest regret I report that Jeanne Morrill Owings lost her husband Jim on January 12, 2018. Dr. Owings married Jeanne in 1982 and they adopted two children from India. He taught at the University of Maryland as a professor of mathematics for many years and he devoted his life to caring for his family. On a brighter note, their granddaughter Amy was married in November 2017 and their grandson Jacob is a freshman at Salisbury State. Marsha Norris Cerquitella reports she was unable to attend the Reunion, but was with us in spirit. She mentions that Mr. Shivers ranks at the top of her list of excellent teachers and remembers with fondness the musical production of The Song of Norway. After leaving Friends she went on to graduate from the School of Nursing at the University of Pennsylvania and had a gratifying career as a nurse until her retirement in 2005. Marsha cherishes her memories of her classmates and she would love to hear from them! Susan Stott was not able to attend Reunion this year but she was able to catch up with Nancy Edwards in Vero Beach in March. Betsy Bratz continues to enjoy retirement, initially with her husband Bob, now deceased, and currently with her husband Paul who we all were fortunate to meet at Reunion. They have lived at Skidaway Island, Ga. through two hurricanes and a tornado in the last two years. They have many wonderful friends who shared evacuation and clean ups. Betsy is on two boards, Skidaway Audubon Inc. and Park Place Outreach Inc., a residential shelter for children from ages 11 to 17. Mac Price was sorry to miss Reunion this year and sends his best to everyone. Mac has three great-grandchildren! After graduation from Friends, Eric Rudolph graduated from Dickinson and the University of Virginia Law School. He was in the

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legal department of Southern Bell Telephone and Telegraph Company (now AT&T) for 30 years. He was very involved in lacrosse at college as a player and post collegiate. He began officiating lacrosse (men’s and women’s) and now assigns men’s college lacrosse officials in a number of states in the southeastern U.S. He is also involved in other roles with a number of lacrosse organizations, including some internationally. Nancy and Eric travel around during the summer and winter in a motor home, last summer to Alaska and this summer they plan to go to the Maritime Provinces of Canada. Marty Huyette reports she has recently moved to Friday Harbor which is reached by ferry and is part of the San Juan Islands in Washington State. She currently rents a studio apartment on five acres with beautiful scenery where there are country roads, pine trees, fishing in fresh water streams, and she is close to her daughter Reed and her two grandchildren. Summers in Friday Harbor are dry and the weather is mild year around. She hopes to come to Baltimore this fall and her message to the Class is “love you guys.” A special thank you to Marty for the great pictures! Hank Allers called to say he would be unable to attend Reunion, is “kind of retired” and living in Houston, Texas. Sadly, he lost his wife of over 50 years about six months ago. He says to say hello to his classmates. Dick Jeanneret reports he and Sandy stayed dry last year during the flood. They have recently been on an extended fall trip to London

and a cruise around the British Isles. Thanksgiving in Tampa, Fla., was spent with son and two grandchildren. December for Sandy’s 75th birthday was spent in New York, with lots of great food and two shows. Christmas was spent with son and family, Sandy’s mother and brothers. Sandy’s mother is 98. Last March, Sandy and Dick took a three week trip to China with four days in Beijing and then a cruise for 17 days with port stops in Shanghai, Xiamen, Hong Kong and Ho Chi Min, Saigon and Bangkok. Sandy’s son John, has two children and Dick’s son, Daniel has two children. As for me, this winter we were in Snowmass for two trips, one with the International Rotary Ski Group (Carl still skis) and then in March with the children and grandchildren. Carl and I are taking off this summer for a three week trip to Luebeck, Hamburg, and Berlin, where we will spend a few days then board a river boat on the Elbe River to Prague. I am thinking ahead to our 65th!

Anne C. Bowdoin abowdoin@mac.com

I heard from Frank Grant who has been active since his retirement from advertising in 2016. Frank told me that one of his songs I Love the Way You Dance has been sung more than a dozen times in New York jazz cabarets last year and had great reviews. Another, Just One Person, has been used by the group Indivisible, which was started after the election of 2016 when the country became so divided. You can hear it on YouTube if you search for Just One Person

Martha Kegan Graham ’59 getting her award

classnotes

A few representatives of “Beta Nu” a group from the Class of 1959 who began meeting in the cafeteria when they were students and still meet today, From left, Nick Stoer, Bob Feild, Henry Hammond, Karl Pfrommer and John Pollard

Indivisible. It’s on the composer’s YouTube site; Frank was the lyricist. When you search make sure you include “Indivisible” in the title, since Jim Henson wrote a song many years ago with the same title. I did go to YouTube to check it out. It was the one showing the Statue of Liberty at sunrise. It is a beautiful song which made me very nostalgic for those early days when my girls were so little and tuned into Sesame Street. I hope you will all look for it on YouTube. Great work Frank and thanks for sharing. Frank and Syrette travel to Riviera Maya, Mexico every year for R&R and love it there. They still live in New York. Other news was from Martha Kegan Graham, who recently won first prize at the Worcester County Arts Council exhibit for her painting, “It’s a Dog’s Life.” Congratulations, Martha! We missed seeing her this past February in Sanibel, Fla. because she and Jack have sold their house and now spend the winter in Maryland. Meredith Felter has written a book and it is a beautiful one! The title is Devon Hill: Long Walk through the Seasons. On the stunning cover is a painting by her son Kurt. The book is full of her photos and drawings of Devon Hill, the Baltimore community where Meredith and Bud live. The gardens were designed by the

Olmsted Brothers, well known landscape designers in 1905, and the book includes copies of their letters to the owner, Ellen Jenkins, which are fascinating to read. The letters discussed the plans and listed the thousands of plants, shrubs and trees planted on the property from 1905 to 1916. Meredith describes it as “the traditional concept of the 1880’s country estate.” In her photographs she has included flowers, wooded walkways on the estate, wildlife, closeups of tree leaves, and butterflies. We walk through the four seasons and are enchanted. The book has received rave reviews and is in its second printing. If you would like a copy contact Meredith. Kitty Woodcock Smith wrote from her home in England to describe two events that were happening in her village in June. First, a garden tour of many beautiful English gardens. Wouldn’t you love to see them? The village also holds a fundraiser for a charity called the Scarecrow Trail, where visitors can see about two dozen scarecrows at different homes and vote for their favorite. It’s nice to hear about daily life in other parts of the world. Dan Reed and eight members of his family, including son Ryan Reed ’95, traveled to Oregon and Washington State in April. Dan’s cousin has a winery there

and the family was treated to a tour of the vineyard and learned how wine is made. Along the way they saw the breathtaking scenery along the Columbia River. Nick Stoer reports that he has had a life-long hobby but did not realize it until 10 years ago when he became a certified master gardener in Queen Anne’s County. He recalls working in his father’s Victory Garden in the early 1940s, but never put it into context. He’s always had a garden and just accepted that as a normal activity. Nick reports that he annually volunteers “a couple hundred hours” of time in addition to his own gardening and landscaping. There are about 65 master gardeners in his county, about 3,000 in Maryland, and about 100,000 in the U.S., all organized through the USDA and each state’s 19th century land grant colleges. In the course of working on family genealogy, Nick realized that his father, grandfather, and great-grandfather all had a life-long interest in gardening, something that he didn’t fully appreciate until he took advanced courses in horticulture. This has turned into a great retirement activity for Nick, who wonders how many Baltimore Friends School alums are in a Master Gardener program. I have heard from a few representatives of “Beta Nu,” an informal group of six

boys (now men) who began meeting in the cafeteria during school. Karl Pfrommer, Henry Hammond, Nick Stoer, Chip Bupp, John Pollard and Bob Feild kept up their Beta Nu friendships and have been meeting for lunch or dinner once a month for all these years. There is always much laughter and banter and often insults during these get-togethers. I am including a photo of five of them, (Nick, Bob, Henry, Karl and John) at a recent lunch. Just an example of how important and long lasting Friends has been for many of us. I also heard from Chipper Bupp who says that he and Marie-Paule will be there for our 60th Reunion next May. My year has been rather quiet as Bill and I have settled into our second year at RiverWoods, our retirement community in Exeter, N.H. We have plans to visit Ireland and Scotland in September. Last September we flew to Vancouver, B.C., and boarded The Rocky Mountaineer train. After two days we arrived in Banff and explored this beautiful area and walked on a glacier before returning home at the end of a week. In June 2017 we traveled to southern Spain on one of the best trips we have every taken. The history of that area was fascinating; the architecture, a combination of Muslim and Christian, is stunning. I recently discovered

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classnotes

Tom Baker ’60 and Susan DeHoff Montgomery ’60 on their visit to Shell Point, Ft. Myers, Florida

Susan Huff Schmitt ’60, Tom Baker ’60, and Susan DeHoff Montgomery ’60 in Shell Point, Ft. Myers, Florida

that Frank Windsor ’58 and Ann McAllister Windsor ’60 have moved to RiverWoods. We arranged to meet for dinner, and as we had not seen each other in 59 years we very wisely wore name tags. In fact, they looked as young as ever (as all of us do)! We had a wonderful time that evening remembering our days at Friends. One last word… Class Reunion coming up May 2019. Let’s all try to make it!

Mary E. McElroy mary.mcelroy@comcast.net

Alice Morse Mellin and her husband enjoyed their winter spent in Maine even though it was very cold. They usually spend winters on their boat, sailing in southern waters, but Alice says that spending time with family, sons, and the grandkids up north is always a joy. She misses the Baltimore spring and hopes to attend the next Reunion in 2020. Tom Baker reports that he and Susan DeHoff Montgomery have continued to enjoy their new relationship and in July 2017 they purchased a Sandy ’60 & Gail Cochran

condominium in Manchester, Maine, a suburb of Augusta. It is near both families’ summer shore cottages and has served as a base to explore Maine, a state they both love. They ended last summer with a visit to Monhegan Island with Bruce and Betsy Beatty Gable before getting on the road back to Denver (with a stop in northern Virginia to visit with Tom’s son Joel and his family) for the winter. In March they paid a visit to Susan Huff Schmitt in Shell Point, Fla. (whose sister, Sally Huff Leimbach ’64, lives nearby several for several months during the year); and in May they returned to Maine for the summer. Tom and Susan’s first guests in their new Maine home were Brad Meyer and longtime friend Sylvia Pope. Brad happily reported to me that he and Sylvia will be married this September. Congratulations! They recently visited Sandy Cochran and his wife Gail in Miami, whom they had run into last December on a trip to Europe on the Queen Mary 2. How likely is it that they would be on the same winter crossing! Cathie Felter reflected on a very meaningful service experience she had with the American Friends Service Committee in 1967-68, volunteering as part of the VISA program (Voluntary International Service Assignments) at a Children’s Hospital in Saigon, Vietnam. The group of 12 Americans left in January 1968 after the Tet Offensive and is celebrating their 50th anniversary this year. Betsy Gable says she and Bruce enjoyed a wonderful spring in Massachusetts after a “horrible,

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very cold January” (I concur, Betsy!). Like many of us, she is working to winnow out some 50 years of accumulated belongings in their house. In late June Tom Baker and Susan Montgomery paid them a visit during the Rockport Garden Club Tour. Then Betsy and Bruce visited Tom and Susan on Bailey and Monhegan Islands in Maine! Geraldine Hisle says she continues to enjoy playing bridge. Arlene Lacher Clauss and her husband Jerre celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary on June 22nd with a visit to Williamsburg, Va., one of their favorite places. I continue reducing my jewelry inventory so I can finally close up shop and turn my full attention to family genealogy, especially on my father’s side. Not much is known about where his relatives entered the country or exactly where they came from. I traveled to see the Cotswolds in England in July 2017. The area looks just like it does on the PBS shows - very quaint! In September of 2017 I visited again with my family in Portland, Ore., which is always a fun time. John Novogrod is busier than ever and loving it. On January 1, 2018 he became a partner in the New York law firm of McLaughlin & Stern (with Lynn Patton ’60 and her friend Alan

Brad Meyer ‘60 and Sylvia Pope, who will marry in September

branches in five other locations). His wife, Nancy, retired after 21 years as editor-in-chief of Travel and Leisure Magazine, is busy creating new businesses in the travel world. Their son Jamie is the L.A. bureau chief of Vice News and he and his wife Sarah (who grew up in Baltimore) are expecting twins (a boy and a girl) in September. Their daughter Caroline is a banking lawyer in the NYC law firm of Debevoise & Plimpton. She and her husband Sebastian, an assistant U.S. attorney in the southern district of New York, have a son, Sam, 2. John and Nancy spend as many weekends as they can at their home in Kent, Conn., and love having their children and grandchildren visit. Lynn Patton says she is continuing to design her porcelain daily, plus teaching and giving seminars in state and out. She is represented by two galleries now! Some of her creations are posted on Facebook. In September she held her annual show at Stony Run Friends Meeting. She and Alan enjoy time with their children and grandchildren. They see the North Carolina family often; visit Maryland several times to see their Severna Park family members; and visit their son and granddaughter in California twice a year. Guy Strickland and his wife Vicky visited the Cotswolds in

classnotes enjoyed kayaking in Kiawah, S.C., paddling up a river that starts in marsh grass then goes through swamps to woodland and farmland. The Kiawah River gets very narrow, with trees draped with Spanish moss overhanging. The water becomes jet black with the tannins in the swamp. “It was like paddling in ink, but quite beautiful and exotic,” says Susan, who also reports that she finally has a red-headed grandchild!

61 Ann McAllister Windsor ’60’s orange tree that she planted 50 years ago

England two years ago with a Williams College group and loved it. This year they went with another Williams group to the Netherlands. One of the alumni who went with the group has become a respected expert in Flemish art and took them behind the scenes and gave the group a personal tour of several museums in Amsterdam. Guy and Vicky then went on to London, going to shows, and then on to Scotland. Ann McAllister Windsor, husband Frank Windsor ’58, and their three dogs, relocated in March to RiverWoods, a continuous care retirement community in Exeter, N.H. It is only 30 minutes from their old home which their daughter, Dr. Katherine Windsor ’85 and her husband Jonas Katkavich, purchased. This year Ann and Frank celebrated Frank’s 60th Friends Reunion and her 58th. The orange tree that Ann planted as a tiny seedling 50 years ago continues to thrive! Susan Mears Whiteford reports that she has thoroughly

Linda B. Stevens lindabstevens@aol.com

Hello Class of ’61 from sunny – at last – Myrtle Beach! Please give us a call when you are traveling this way, we would love the opportunity to get together with you. Don and I enjoyed a trip through North Carolina last fall. Mort and Susan Stafford Trew were able to get away from their farm in Tennessee and meet us in Asheville. What a special time we had with very dear friends. Traveling east we then met with Nate Smith and his wife Geri for a delightful time catching up on family, retirement activities, and togetherness. Love being able to be with friends and classmates! Of course all trips in fall lead to a football game if you live with Don Stevens, so on to Boone for the Coastal Carolina vs. Appalachian State game. In retirement Sylvan Seidenman and his wife Sandy remain involved with the students of the New World School of the Arts in Miami where Sylvan enjoyed serving as a guidance counselor. Sylvan’s posts on Facebook show how much pride he takes in his students, who are now involved in developing a strong alumni organization. Larry Hanley is now walking five-plus miles per day

Susan Mears Whiteford ’60 kayaking in Kiawah

and has lots of newfound energy. This achievement is an amazing feat after aortic valve surgery just six months ago – hard work to recover from such a difficult surgery. Great work Larry! He says he is good “for the next 75 years or 50,000 miles.” Bob Dalsemer is enjoying retirement in North Carolina, where he recently led his 700th contra and square dance! An accomplished musician, Bob spent 10 days in England performing for the Brasstown Morris Dancers. Serving as Guardian Ad Litem for foster care children, and teaching classes for new guardians, takes up quite a bit of time as well. Says Bob, “The complication of opioids now in our society is a challenge today in family situations.” Great work Bob! Nina New Cohen and Marty stay busy in Rhode Island. Their trip to Chicago over last Labor Day during the jazz festival sounded like such fun. As a member of the Chicago Architectural Foundation they enjoyed walking, bus, and water tours. Having Nina’s college roommate in Chicago ensured great places, restaurants, and plays they might not have experienced. They then they went on to Denver where they rode six classic trains touring Colorado and stayed in historic hotels. Remember the jump that Robert Redford and Paul Newman made in Butch Cassidy? That place was on their tour! Fall and winter were not the healthiest. Nina’s pending shoulder replacement surgery will limit her work with Pan-Mass, a bicycling event to benefit Dana Farber Cancer Institute and the Music Festival. Maybe Nina’s granddaughter will one day perform in the Festival? Nina proudly reports that she composed all the music for her high school play. Others in the family are also quite musical. May your shoulder surgery recovery go well Nina! I’m sure you all have enjoyed hearing the news of classmates. Please send me your updates to share with the class. It is meaningful to keep in touch.

Eleanor B. Fuller eaerobic@hotmail.com

Apparently, John Littleford has decided to not slow down. As a consultant working with independent and international schools and other nonprofits, he is on the road 300 nights a year. He has been doing this for 28 years. Fortunately for his wife, Mary, he does spend most of the

summer in Atlantic Canada, where they own a home. Linda Kardash Armiger and her husband, Buck, have had a long year. Buck started out needing a stent but ended up in Washington Hospital Center with a triple bypass. They were very lucky that his recovery was successful and quick. Then he was diagnosed with diverticulitis and, after clearance from his cardiologist, he had surgery to correct this issue. Fortunately, he has totally recovered and is back to normal now. They feel so fortunate and appreciate all the help and sacrifice the family provided during each surgery. They are planning several trips in the coming year, hoping for time to unwind and enjoy time together. Emily Holman has recently returned from a trip to the Baltic Capitals and St. Petersburg as well as a surprise day in Helsinki. She enjoyed the beautiful old towns, the interesting people she met, and the concerts she attended. Auschwitz and the KGB Museum in Vitnius were very sobering. She prays that these horrid activities by the Nazis and Stalinists/ Soviets will not be repeated but it seems that they go on in various places. “We humans cannot seem to learn to love each other as we love ourselves.” She will also be attending her old college roommate’s 50th wedding anniversary celebration in California, where she’ll catch up with her other California friends. Emily and her sister Elizabeth Holman ’69 were planning a trip to Austria and Italy in September. Emily has settled in well at Oak Crest, a retirement community in the Baltimore suburbs, where she’s been for about a year now and enjoys different activities as well as being near her brothers, John ’67 and Hugh ’64. Well, Bruce Goodwin reports that he is flunking “remedial retirement” and that he is still working for some clients if the projects are interesting or in interesting locations. Bruce and Lucy have been enjoying more pleasure travel (Croatia/Montenegro last November) with plans to celebrate their 50th in Scotland in August 2018. They had the pleasure of seeing Mindy Mordecai when she visited San Diego in April to speak before a medical convention regarding ECAN. Bruce was happy to see her and finds it so hard to believe that it has been 10 years since Monte Modecai’s passing. Diana Fleischer Schofield tells us that her grandson, Gray Blanchard ’18,

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classnotes who spent the majority of his academic time at Friends but left so he could access higher math courses at Poly, graduated this spring. He is going to Maryland in the Honors program with a total scholarship. He was accepted at Georgia Tech, Duke, Case Western, Penn, Carnegie Mellon, and UMBC. Larry has finally retired but is still coaching volleyball and substituting in Howard County. Diana is still working part-time in group practice in Ellicott City and loving not having to commute to Baltimore. Diana is also still very active in her Rug Hooking Guilds. She just returned from a workshop in Canada which she loved. In fact, she would consider moving to Canada if it were not so cold! Is it a surprise that Chris Sherman Raywood stayed home in Delray Beach this summer? She is still playing bridge and volunteering at the Flagler Museum, where it is her 24th year as a docent! Her family is all doing well, grandkids are working, and her son is thinking about retirement in another year or so. How can this be? On to her travels… Last September, Chris spent three weeks in France visiting Provence and then driving up through the Southwest Dordogne region. She loved Sarlat, a lovely medieval town. At Christmas, she spent a week with her brother Bill ’69 and family in Baltimore. It is always fun with their grandkids and their excitement of Santa arriving. For New Years, she went to London for a week. She and her friend William had a wonderful dinner at the Savoy Grill on New Year’s Eve. Unfortunately, he came down with a bad cough and cold and had to spend the next three days in the hotel to get over it. Chris roamed various museums each day: V&A, National Gallery and The Wallace Collection. Then she arrived home and came down with bronchitis so winter was miserable for awhile for her. This spring Chris spent three weeks in England visiting the Cotswolds, NW Cornwall, Wales, Salisbury, and Windsor. She enjoyed exploring them again, cool as it was, as she had not been to those areas in a few years. At this writing she was looking forward to visits from her niece Becky and fiancé, Steven. Chris will visit Bill and his family in Baltimore later in June 2018 and is hoping they will come visit her. Chris will return to Provence in September and then up through the mountain-area to Cahors and Moulens before getting back to Paris for the

weekend. She will end the trip in England at a town near Heathrow for her trip home. Other than that, Chris is doing nothing, poor thing! Chris, I always admire your travels and your stamina. So glad the knees are holding up well for you. Wayne Sutherland and his wife, Colette, have enjoyed the last five years living in Rehoboth Beach, Del. but it is hard when your families are in Baltimore requiring lots of driving and tolls. Wayne’s son, Josh, is the CFO of The Children’s Guild, which is part of the Archdiocese of Baltimore. His daughter, Jennifer, has chosen to step away from practicing law to go to Hollins College in western Virginia, where she hopes to get an M.F.A. in writing, something she has gotten very good at, having published poetry in several magazines and won several writing competitions. She will be remarrying in October 2018 and Wayne will get to walk her down the aisle a second time. Wayne’s grandson, Ben, is attending community college. Twins Brian and Brianna are 16 and will be juniors. Zack is 15 and will be a sophomore at Archbishop Curley High School, where he plays soccer and lacrosse as well as travel club soccer for Baltimore Union. Charlotte will be 12 and attending Perry Hall Middle School. She also plays travel club soccer for the Union. Their other daughter works for St. Agnes Hospital in Baltimore as a certified coder for the National Cancer Registry. She is highly regarded in this field and will be working toward her bachelor’s degree, which is tough as she is a single mom with a very lively and bright three-year-old. Colette continues to work seasonally in Rehoboth Beach and Wayne continues to be retired. He is chief yard man, dishwasher and laundryman. Wayne says a “hello” to all of his classmates wherever they may be! John Slingluff and his wife, Paula, report all is well with their crew. The girls are busy with the grandkids. The two oldest boys are 16. Ryan is close to six feet tall and Johnny is well over six feet by a couple of inches. Kathleen’s 8-year-old Sean is an avid Caps fan and loves “knocking kids down and being knocked down” playing ice hockey. They are all excellent students and, of course, enjoy a variety of sports such as soccer, basketball, baseball, track, gymnastics and we know lacrosse would be in the mix. John’s daughter,

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Carol D. Methven ’62 and her son John with other relatives at his Change of Command

Jenny, had another good year coaching at UNC. They were ACC champs and made it to the semifinals of the NCAA. She was named the U.S. Women’s National team coach last fall. The aim for lacrosse in general is to be an Olympic sport for the Los Angeles games in 2028. Laura is the assistant athletic director at St. Andrews School in Potomac, Md. Becca is the biology and earth sciences teacher at Kent Island High School and Kathleen is a scientist working on gene modifications at NIH. Paula and John are planning to downsize to a much smaller abode. They want to be able to lock the door and go see the grandkids more often and of course spend more time in the Adirondacks. John hopes that everyone else is doing well. Susan Bliss writes that her husband, Jerry, is undergoing chemotherapy for t-cell leukemia. He is so fortunate that he is not suffering major side effects other than loss of hair. No one knows what the future brings, but Susan, do not let this get you down. Always be positive and visualize what you hope will be the outcome. I speak from experience and am hoping for the best outcome for you and your husband.

Carol Davidson Methven reports that last June they visited Maine for a week and really enjoyed it, especially the lighthouses and lobster! In July 2017 they went to Virginia to celebrate their son John’s Change of Command. He was promoted to Commander of an Air Group (CAG) and commands seven air wings, consisting of 70 airplanes per air wing. He plans to retire next year after 25 years in the Navy and hopes to then fly in the private sector. Last October they took their annual trek to Montana, and Yellowstone and Jackson Hole, Wyo. They enjoy searching for wildlife and “got,” (not took, obtained, acquired, gathered but got, Miss Diebert, so sorry) lots of pictures of moose and bears this year. Their oldest granddaughter, Lauren, turned 21 in February and two of their grandchildren, Kendall and Dylan, turned 16 this year. Where does the time go? They have several graduations next year. They lost their sweet little Yorkie to renal failure in March, which was very sad as she was only eight years old. They are currently awaiting a new puppy in the next few months. Carol continues to play bridge, golf, and sew/quilt to keep busy and out of trouble.

classnotes Georgeanna Jones Klingensmith (Bee to us) is now officially retired from 40-plus years as a pediatric endocrinologist at the Children’s Hospital Colorado and the Barbara Davis Center for Childhood Diabetes, University of Colorado, although she still has three to four junior faculty and endocrinology fellows that she mentors. She feels very fortunate to have had such a long career in one place that she has completely enjoyed, especially wonderful colleagues, patients and their families who also became friends. Her husband, Bill, is also retired so they have more time together, even for lunch, and she says that is a good thing! Retirement has given them more time to visit their two sons and their families. Both have two wonderful grandchildren and Bee and Bill are happy to visit them in Colorado also. She thinks that is the best part of retirement. If anyone is traveling to or through Colorado, she would love to see you. Terry Walker reports that he and Kathy now have a fifth grandchild -- Ivan Walker, who was born in Philly last September and “is a real pistol!” Nick Nicolls and his wife, Robin, say they have had a pretty uneventful year after the big move back to Baltimore last year. They are enjoying being closer to children and grandchildren and catching up with old friends after 18 years of being on the Eastern Shore. They made a trip to Florida in February but missed touching base with us as they have done for the past couple of years and hope to again in the future. I, Eleanor Blake Fuller, missed all of you who attended Reunion last year due to my husband Cliff’s stroke, which he suffered while we were in Madrid, Spain. We are in Pennsylvania at the moment where the home is modified with a flat surface for Cliff to wheel around. We hope to get (oh dear, “return” is what I meant to say, Miss D.) to Florida one day soon when we can do some modifications. We continue with therapy as we can. Our son is running our business out of necessity. Our granddaughter is a senior in college studying criminal justice. The other granddaughter recently moved to Charlotte, N.C. to work for Nascar. Her dad and my husband who is from N.C. are both avid fans and excited for her journey. My daughter, her husband, and grandson live in Orlando and are spending the summer at their cottage

in New Hampshire to get away from the summer heat. Our grandson is in fourth grade and is a gifted student with a love for baseball, and he’s taller than I am! Not saying much, huh. He is in a Christian school with only 15 children in his class, which is wonderful as Florida schools are not so wonderful generally. I am so glad to catch up with many of you and learn about your “mostly retirement” activities. This is the time that we should be able to enjoy life a little bit. For those of you and/or spouses with health issues, we wish for the best for you. Cliff and I have been fortunate to travel quite a bit and have a lot to positively remember. And, Robin Nicolls, we do hope to see you next year in Florida!

Donna L. Hasslinger

Dhassli@aol.com Our classmates continue to keep in touch through our email group and we meet for lunch several times a year in Maryland. In August 2017 Linda LaMonica Monk, Marge Rowe Felter, Judy Klingelhofer O’Mara, Anne Skinner White, Mike Keene, Gail Moran Milne, and I had lunch in Annapolis with Bob Caffee, who had sailed up the East Coast for the summer from his home in Florida. Bob told us about the catamaran that he and his sailing partner, Jage, were sailing and that they were carefully watching the hurricane reports before they decided when to return to Florida. Mike had also spent a lot of time out in the ocean when he had assisted the Smithsonian Institute with a fishery project. We also learned that Linda had a busy summer with family visiting before she joined us for our class lunch, and I (Donna) shared that I organize a group for theater, ballet, and concerts in the Washington, D.C. area where I live. Over the winter, Rob Wiltshire let us know that he and his wife, Margie, moved to Ferrum, Va., population 2,000. They love the area of mountains and forest and he is working on a conservation plan for the land. Trudi Feinberg Cohen shared that her son wrote and directed the music for the popular TV series, Psych. He certainly captured the personalities and antics of the two main characters in his score just perfectly! Lin Parker and his wife, Anne, enjoy watching their grandchildren play lacrosse, compete in wrestling, and become

Wade Hooker ’63 in his sail plane

social activists. Joan Shinnick Kreeger led a tour to Hawaii and then left for a South American cruise with her partner, John, before ending up in California. She’s doing a great job of avoiding the cold weather in Maryland. Gail Moran Milne continues to travel, most recently on a tour of country houses in England. Then she headed for the Adirondacks for a week and traveled to Vienna, Prague, and Budapest. In March 2017 Steve Greif, Joane Knight Schumacher, Gail Moran Milne, Marge, and I met for lunch in Timonium. We discussed our upcoming 55th Reunion and decided to add a breakfast on Sunday for departing classmates and those who had conflicts with other Reunion activities. Steve continues to work part-time at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab, a perfect way to edge toward retirement. Marge and Joane are still tending their gardens and Gail and Donna continue to enjoy their lifetime learning classes for seniors. Before our 55th Reunion we heard from a former classmate,

Wade Hooker, and welcomed him to our email group. Wade has lived in upper New York State for over 45 years. He was an engineer for IBM, and since he retired, has been spending a lot of time in the summer flying his vintage sailplane over the New York Finger Lakes and in the winter shoveling snow. Now we have two pilots in our class, Wade and Biff Forbush. We also heard from Keiko Hashimoto Kishimoto, one of our exchange students, and her husband, Taichi, wishing us a great Alumni Weekend in May, and letting us know that their elder son, Kazuhisa, was married last November at the age of 46. In May 2018 we had our 55th Reunion and saw quite a few of our classmates: Marge and Jeb Felter; Chuck Harlan and his wife Mary Dell Harlan ’65; Judy and her husband Jack; Hank Kaestner and his wife Josie; Barry Stott - after 55 years! and his guest Barrie; Gail Moran Milne; Joan Shinnick Kreeger; Rob and his wife Margie; Chick Fetter Deegan and her husband Mike; Anne Skinner White; Mike Keene; Deb Blucher Irvin and her husband Tom; Linda and her husband Harrison, and myself. We congratulated three of our classmates, Adrian Hughes, Alex Levi, and Barry who were inducted into the Athletic Hall of Fame, and Marge who received the Outstanding Alumni Service Award! On Saturday we attended the reception and our class dinner at L’Hirondelle, and on Sunday morning Rob and his wife Margie, Chick,

Hank Kaestner ’63, Chuck Harlan ’63, and Barry Stott ’63 at the 2018 Athletic Hall of Fame ceremony

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classnotes Marge, Gail Moran Milne, and I met for a farewell breakfast and started discussing plans to get together in the future. Everyone at the Reunion had a wonderful time and we missed our classmates who were not able to attend. We also had some sad news in the past year. Our sympathies went out to Linda LaMonica Monk and her husband, Harrison, on the death of their daughter Christine Monk Huxtable ’87, and to the family of our late classmate, Ann Firminger Howard, who passed away in May 2018. We hope that our classmates who return to Maryland from time to time will get in touch so we can arrange to see them when they are in town.

Susan G. Dingle s123dingle@aol.com

The Class of 1964 notes with sorrow the passing of our classmate Faris Worthington. Faris will be remembered for many reasons, but here’s a good one: Faris was that math genius who could fill the auditorium with “Oh What a Beautiful Morning” in the 1963 mixed chorus production of “Oklahoma!” He played the role of “Curley” opposite my “Laurey” (with Sally Huff Leimbach as “Auntie Eller” and Marianne Benson as “Ado Annie”), and behind that maroon velvet curtain was Paul Newbury, recording and mixing. The year of our 50th Reunion, Paul was indisposed, and how we missed his presence! The latest from Paul is, “Nancy and I are doing well. She has just started receiving this year’s tree shipment to add to her tree farm. So if the snow would just stop, she could start planting them. We had two new grandkids this month. David had his second child, a girl, and Saralinda had her second, a boy. I am keeping busy with a new church that has spun off the church we go to in Emlenton, it’s in Grove City and I’m doing sound for them and keeping their books. Daniel is teaching in Dubai this year and really likes it. Nancy went to visit him last fall and was very impressed with the country. Michael is still with Whitaker Corporation, where I used to work. Nancy still loves to travel, though I tend to stay home and watch the farm. She was in Africa for two weeks in January to visit Heart for Uganda (she’s on their board) and plans to be in Canada later this

month for a conference. We will both be going out to California later this spring to see David and our new granddaughter.” Margot Kahn Pettijohn has kept in touch by sending her remarkable photographs. Anyone who can capture the essence of the natural world in a lens the way she does really should be in National Geographic. Kudos, Margot! Our other classmates are out there too, some retired, some traveling, so busy they did not have time to write, so I haven’t heard from them but if I do, I’ll tell you! (Note to classmates: We miss hearing from you.) My personal note is that you can visit my website for updates, www.susandingle.com. I’m still writing, performing, and even preaching. Stay tuned.

This class presently does not have a Class Secretary. If you are interested in volunteering for the post, please email alumni@friendsbalt.org. Christine Windisch Keightley writes, “My husband Chase and I have been living in Arroyo Grande on the central coast of California since August 2017 and love it here, the politics of California notwithstanding. I am still singing and am a member of four choral groups -- two, soon to be three, in town and two out-of-town, one in Sacramento and one in Santa Fe, N.M. I spend my time growing flowers and making beaded jewelry. I just started volunteering at a local Humane Society to get my ‘cat fix.’ We are rehabilitating our decks and hope to be able to fashion a cattery so I can have my own cats again soon. With the help of our winemaker son, we have been making our own wine since 2014 and currently have three vintages bottled with the 2017 vintage still in the barrel. No major trips planned but we will be visiting Yosemite in the fall yet again and New Mexico for Christmas.” After four years in Nicaragua, Lynn Edwards and her husband are happily settling into retirement in Portland, Ore., enjoying its cultural amenities and natural beauty. Brenda Chambers Cutter writes, “With my husband of almost 50 years, I own a computer company, run a horse farm, take care of my 96-year-old mom and still continue taking classes in various subjects. I also have a Healing Touch/Reiki practice. Let’s hear it for neuroplasticity!” Stephen Cole says

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he is enjoying retirement and will soon be moving to Atlanta in to be near his granddaughters. “After living in the same house in Baltimore for 40 years it’s going to be quite a change. If anyone knows someone down there that they think might make for congenial company for us, please let me know. We know very few people in the ATL. I got married in December in Waterford, Ireland, a little more than seven years after my first wife passed away. Outside of that, nothing much has been happening. By the way, my email address is currently: thecoles4300@comcast.net. I was getting class info at my work address so I am currently out of the loop and would like to get back aboard.”

Nina L. Patry ninapatry@icloud.com

Classmates, please send us your news!

Emily Jane Thursby mejanemd@gmail.com

It’s been a year since our fantastic 50th Reunion where so many classmates attended. I know that you have news since then, and Class of 1967, there is no trivial news. Your classmates are interested! Rudi Horner wrote that she had nothing exciting to report, and she sees that as a good thing. Is that why I don’t hear from y’all? I’m allowed to use that contraction being I’m a Georgia girl now. Candy Nolan Hallett shared that her husband, Ron, had two cardiac interventions in the last 10 months and is now successfully recovering with two stents and one pacemaker. He’s growing stronger daily and they are now preparing for a trip back to the East Coast later this month. They’ll visit extended family in the Boston area and then travel up to Vermont for their granddaughter’s wedding. The ceremony will take place at the Trapp Family Lodge in Stowe and Ron and Candy will co-officiate! It should be beautiful and memorable! Otherwise, they continue to make their home in Hawaii, the Big Island, home to Kona coffee growers, Hawaiian chocolate, gorgeous tropical flowers, and a continuously erupting volcano! They are quite safe and thankful for the amazing diversity that surrounds them. Congratulations to Geoffrey Greif, who in October received the

University of Maryland, Baltimore 2018 Teacher of the Year Award. Michael “Mike” Teller sends his best to everyone and included this update about his life: “Six years ago, the stars aligned, and we were in a position to cut our salaries in half and double our quality of life. We got out of the D.C. ‘inside the beltway’ and ‘K Street’ madhouse, and moved to Boise, Idaho. Since then I’ve retired and am adjusting to many new challenges. I had many years’ experience with public sector finance, but I’m now learning about the banking community as a board member for one of our local credit unions. I’ve also received my qualifications from Idaho Fish and Game as a range safety officer at the local firing range. Typical of Idaho, we go out of our way to make things family-friendly. One of my favorite activities at Black’s Creek Range is being with families who are enjoying an outing. As in nature, the female is the more dangerous of the species, the little girls with their pink Cricket .22’s are real sharp shooters, taking great pride in hitting the target. Naturally their brothers take great pride in shooting fast and making noise. I’m also a volunteer for Global Talent Idaho, helping refugees find professional employment, and for Mission 43, helping vets find civilian employment. Most folks do not appreciate that Boise and Idaho have a long history as a sanctuary city and state. Idaho became a territory in 1863 and shortly thereafter became a refuge for southerners fleeing the Confederacy and seeking sanctuary in the aftermath of the Civil War. Eastern Idaho also became a sanctuary area for many Mormons. Today Idaho is about 25% Latter Day Saint. Idaho also has the largest concentration of Basques outside of Europe. Many Basques found refuge in Idaho and took up sheep herding. Today, most of the sheep herders are Peruvian Indians! Idaho, besides growing potatoes, is the fourth largest dairy producer in the United States, 98% of the dairy workers are of Hispanic origin. We live inside the city limits of Boise. Our front yard is in a very nice and modern suburban community. Our backyard fronts on a nature preserve, the Boise River, and the foothills. We see many raptors, ranging from small prairie falcons, to mid-sized northern harriers, to great big golden eagles. Deer, many many quail

classnotes families, coyotes, rattlesnakes, bob cats, and an annual visit from a cougar are among our “backyard” neighbors. When I’m not volunteering, I like to get the Subaru Outback dirty going into the mountains and exploring. Idaho has more wild rivers and untamed country than you can imagine. After leaving the wheels at the end of a dirt road, for me a couple of solitary hours huffing through the trees and hills to the top with no sounds of cars, radios, and phones (of course there is zero cell phone or Internet service) is wonderful. One of the peculiarities of Idaho hills and mountains is that everything is uphill. Whether you are going up the mountain or coming back down it is like a big Escher painting … you are always climbing.” William “Bill” Beers provided this wonderful observation on his life: “As for me, the facts of my life are less interesting than the feelings evoked by their memory. Here’s one … At the end of a 10-day river trip in northern Ontario, 2015, our gear stowed, and the canoes lashed to the pontoons, we piled into the float plane. After feathering it to the end of the lake, the pilot turned the craft into the wind and throttled up the engine. As it accelerated, we bounced across the choppy water and finally lifted off, shooting out over the larger bay, gaining altitude. As we cleared the trees at the other end, I looked out the cockpit window over the territory through which we had just paddled. As far as my eye could see there was only water, trees, and sky. The wilderness out of which we came the day before and hundreds of thousands of years before that, has to be large, has to be able to swallow us up in her immensity, or we won’t understand. They call her Mother Earth because she is what matters. Wilderness – that impenetrable solitude of unknowingness – is everywhere if you care to look for her, but the grandmother of them all seemed to undulate below us as the pilot banked to the south and headed us back to that other world still trying to kill her. Thirty hours later, exhausted and exhilarated, I stood in our kitchen, one hand on the satiny edge of a wooden cabinet door I had made, the other surfing the deep runnel of a woman’s back beneath a layer of cashmere, a woman I was in love with. To mark this communion, I pulled wine glasses from the cabinet and opened a bottle of cabernet. With the first sip the

blackberry red wine stained the corners of a mouth I wanted to lick. When she’d asked how the trip was I said it was complete. Everything and everyone from my past was there. It was sparkling and delicious. It was depressing and delightful. Sometimes hard, sometimes smooth, sometimes over-crowded, sometimes lonely, the way I like it. The way I’ve lived my life.” As written in the last class notes, we lost two of our classmates right after Reunion. Tom Ascher’s and David Frank’s deaths came as a shock to us all, but little did we know that the summer would see two more leaving us. John “Johnny” Mears’ death came first in July but we didn’t hear about it until two months later. Education was very important to Johnny. He received a B.S. from the University of Virginia where he was a member of St. Anthony Hall, studied law in England at St. John’s College, Cambridge, where he was an avid court tennis player (he was nationally ranked) and a member of the University Pitt Club, completed his law degree at George Washington University, and later in his life went on to receive an M.A.T. in education from the University of Virginia. Johnny worked as a lawyer, farmer, and teacher of English, classics, and poetry. He had many passions and hobbies, including a lifelong love of the land, farming, working with his hands, and being outdoors. He also enjoyed skiing, court or “real” tennis, squash, literature, creative writing, and poetry. Johnny was dedicated to studying his family’s ancestry and was proud to be a direct descendant of Benjamin Harrison, who signed the Declaration of Independence, William Henry Harrison, the 9th President of the United States, Captain George Gaston Otey, who organized Otey’s Battery during the Civil War, and William Claiborne, who established Maryland’s first permanent settlement on Kent Island in 1631. John attributed his love of Vermont to his ancestors, Aaron and Gloriana Keeler, who moved to Vermont after the Revolutionary War, and to his grandfathers, who were both born in Vermont. I had the opportunity to talk to Johnny, albeit briefly, at the 50th Reunion class dinner. My memories of Johnny revolve around his family farm, and I was so happy to hear that it had been put into a farm trust for future generations to enjoy. Mike Teller

shared that, before they could drive, he and Johnny, who, with Sarah Elmendorf Zirpoli, commuted from West Baltimore, would take the #11 bus downtown after practice; then Johnny would transfer to the bus heading down Wilkens Avenue and Mike would take the bus heading out Edmondson Avenue. Once he was old enough to drive, Johnny got a Corvette and the three of them carpooled frequently, sharing stories of high school angst with each other. Bill Beers has two memories of Johnny, 60 years apart. “In our 5th grade art class, the two of us laboriously copied anatomical drawings of the human body. Doctors we were to be. During that bonding period, on a sleep over at the Mears’ farm we had a jelly bean fight in his room. I’m talking chewed jelly beans hurled at each other, sticking to everything. I would have been skinned alive for that in my house, but their maid simply cleaned it up. We moved outside and wandered across a meadow. Johnny had some matches. We started small fires in the dry grass, and quickly put them out. The last one, however, was fanned by the wind into a blaze we franticly stomped on until the 10-foot circle seemed about to explode. We barely managed to get the thing out. From there we went on to the rest of our lives, until we began corresponding during the lead up to our 40th Reunion. He was working on his house in New Hampshire and would occasionally email me with questions. I had been a carpenter during one of my early incarnations and would send possible solutions. When I qualified to run the 2013 Boston Marathon with some friends, John offered us his brownstone on Dartmouth St., a gesture I deeply appreciate. That was the year of the bombing and we sat on his steps as the slower runners filed by quietly into the evening, redirected from Hereford. The cell phone system was overrun by callers but his text from New Hampshire got through, and I assured him I had finished before the bombs and that we were safe. Johnny Mears … Who would have guessed he’d be the preview of a soon to be playing feature attraction in our lives?” Mark Merlis passed in August 2017 from ALS and complications of pneumonia. I heard the next morning in news from Mark’s husband, Bob Ashe. Peggy Ramsey and I tried to get Mark to the Reunion, but he was already too weak.

He did contribute a hilarious capsulation of our Upper School years which Peggy “performed” at the class dinner. No one was surprised by how good it was, least of all me since all my memories of Mark revolve around his many creative talents. He played a mean piano and wrote amazing music. One of his pieces, very difficult and beautiful, was performed at the Christmas program our senior year. Mark starred in or had a major role in every stage production we did. He was King Arthur in “Camelot” and Albert Peterson in “Bye Bye Birdie.” He also gave an amazing performance in the “King and I,” stepping into the role of Kralahome at the last minute. I sat next to Mark in several classes and saw him as smart, funny, and fearless. In Latin with Miss Hederick, Mark was the unfortunate recipient of daily spit. (Miss Hederick had the habit of spitting when she conjugated verbs and Mark’s desk was right in front.) Finally, frustrated, he pulled out an umbrella and opened it up. Miss Hederick even thought it was funny! Toward the end of our junior year, college admission requirements were on everyone’s mind. Most colleges required a SAT in an area of history. Since our year of American history with Mr. Roemer was severely lacking in content, Mark decided to take that SAT in world history – a course we had not yet taken – and he received a perfect score of 800! Mark attended Wesleyan University and Brown University and subsequently worked with the Maryland Department of Health to support himself while he was writing. In 1987, he joined the Congressional Research Service at the Library of Congress as a social legislation specialist and was involved in the creation of the Ryan White Care Act. Beginning in the 1990s, Mark published a series of novels. His first novel, American Studies, was published in 1994 and won the Ferro-Grumley Award for LGBT Literature and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction in 1995. His second novel, An Arrow’s Flight, was published in 1998 and won the 1999 Lambda Literary Award for Gay Fiction. He also published Man About Town in 2003 and JD in 2015. Mark received many accolades during his lifetime, including a tribute in the Washington Post. Talented, smart, and missed. As for me, since the Reunion my news is that

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classnotes my surgery went well. They found out from the pathology that I didn’t have lung cancer but instead had a tenacious form of endometrial cancer that does not respond well to chemo and that had metastasized to another spot, albeit small and contained. So, they biopsied the spot, found it was hormone sensitive, and I have been on drug hormone therapy since then. The spot has shrunk and weakened, which the doctor thinks is great, and that the drug which really has no side effects is doing its job. I get to die from something else (ha-ha)..

Arlene D. Bowes adbowesdmd@gmail.com

Over one third of the Class of 1968 gathered for their 50th Reunion on May 4-6, 2018! These half-century alumni were treated to a special breakfast and dinner in the Zamoiski Alumni Center. Inductees into the Athletic Hall of Fame on Friday included Chuck Barton (in his football jersey), Milton Brownstein, Wink Briddell Cowee, Lanny Mackall, Tim Pitts, and Clay Sieck. On Saturday, Reunion co-organizer Melinda Burdette was honored with the Outstanding Alumni Service Award. Classmate Robert McCauley received a Distinguished Alumni Award in absentia. After dinner, every classmate gave a brief summary of his/her last 50 years! As your class secretary/Reunion co-organizer I took copious notes, but realized that this magazine is not large enough for the results. For staying in touch, find us on our Facebook page, Baltimore Friends Class of 1968. For those of you who stayed away, here is the list of classmates you missed: Chuck Barton, (myself) Arlene Dannenberg Bowes, Milton Brownstein, Melinda Burdette, Libby Chambers, Steve Corrsin, Wink Briddell Cowee, Denise Dalmasse, Joan Boyle-Dugue, Charmie Watts Flora, Chris Blair Furr, Bucky Gunts, Libby Mitchell Henkin, John Kaestner, Dan Kardash, Lanny Mackall, Tim Pitts, Buffy Price, Rich Seiler, Clay Sieck, Martha Brantigan Stowell, Sally Chester Williford, and Dave Wilson.

Frank Bond fbondini.bond@gmail.com

The sense of the class as we approach our 50th Reunion is stunned

disbelief that we graduated a half century ago! Helen Blumberg writes, “My husband Bob and I have been retired for four years. We travel a lot, enjoy our son, Jon Yeager ‘97’s comedy shows and love spending time with our grandkids, Madeline and James, children of Pete Guarnieri ’00 and Liz Yeager Guarnieri ’00.” Julia Frank is now professor emeritus of psychiatry “with all the rights and privileges that pertain thereto” - chief among them, on campus parking! Julia wants us to know, “I still deeply miss my brother, David Frank ’67.” Terry Halle is marking his 45th year of video editing. He and Wendy have two grandchildren, Lucie and Charlie, and he is looking forward to looking back even beyond a half century with classmates! Gail Victoria Harvey (Vicky Nelson) has retired from her work with the Boy Scouts, but she has become active in the women’s ministry at her church. Older son Dan is working on a degree in environmental science, and younger son Tom is completing Ph.D. work in Norway. She is looking forward to her 40th wedding anniversary in October! David Julyan writes that even though he has not been connected to Friends since graduation, the 50-year mark seems the perfect time to change that! David is an attorney and lives in Great Falls, Va. with Pam, his wife of 32 years. His daughter, Ashley was recently wed in the South of France. Son Matthew begins law school in the fall. Maria Lasagna reports from Iowa that she is constantly uplifted and inspired by “the level of activism by students, teachers, etc. Hoping that by the time of our Reunion, the landscape will look more like the country whose ideals we all cherish.” Kathy Neustadt knows something about international weddings. This past summer, she attended her son Nick’s wedding in Greece on the island of Paros. Before embarking on the journey, Kathy and a classmate went to Boston to visit her daughter Casey and her husband, Daniel. Kathy has recently been drawn into the world of poetry and developed quite a passion for the power of verse. Christine Ramsey says that retirement is a beautiful thing, which she has crowded with volunteer work, travel, friends and more time in the garden. But it’s her first grandchild, a girl, who Chris says, “has brought me a level of joy I didn’t know was possible.” Speaking of joy,

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Graham Yearley has been singing in THREE choruses! I, Frank Bond, am retired from The Newseum, but go back each June to a luncheon for high school students, all self-described “free spirits,” where they watch the video I produced on the Freedom Riders of the Civil Rights Movement and then ask questions. The biggest event for me was the birth of my grandson, Miles, who celebrated his first birthday in June.

Melissa M. Pitts lpitts@friendsbalt.org

Classmates, please send your news!

Lucy C. Price hardimanprice@gmail.com

Classmates, please send your news!

Beth Holcomb bethholcomb54@gmail.com

Tom LeGrand writes: “I’m still a demography (population studies) professor at the Universite de Montreal in Canada, where I’ve been working since 1991, teaching in French. Almost all my work has focused on population issues in low-income countries, mostly in French-speaking West Africa, but some in Bangladesh and Brazil. In January 2018 I became the president of the International Union for the Scientific Study of Population (the international population/demography association) for a four-year term. I was previously on the board of directors for two four-year terms, and vice-president for another four years. Much of my work will deal with restructuring activities to better serve members and better attract funding from major donors (currently and in the recent past, the Hewlett Foundation, the French Government, and the UN, and hopefully soon, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation). One of our main activities will be planning the next International Population Conference, to be held in India in 2021. Because of these responsibilities, I’ll be retiring from my professorship in September, to free up time and also to have some time to engage in other activities I’ve been putting off for many years (learning Spanish, working as a volunteer with environmental organizations, etc.). I’m still married to

Marie-Helene Flandrin, who I met while studying in France way back in the 1970s. We have one fantastic daughter, Anna, who is now 22 years old and who we adopted from China when she was just 6 months old, plus our lovable mutt Sophie.

Sarah S. O’Loughlin somohopo@comcast.net

We had 21 classmates gather for our 45th Reunion in May. It was great to see everyone, and we all look forward to an even bigger turnout at the next one! Beth Belcher Blake recently moved from Richmond, Va. to the west coast of Florida. Her first grandchild was born in April. Andy Cooper is a partner at the law firm of Bader and Cooper in Baltimore, and has been practicing law for 36 years. He and his wife, Carol, have a 27-year-old son John Cooper ’09 who graduated from Loyola in New Orleans and married his college sweetheart, and a 24-year-old daughter Ella Cooper ’12 who was the captain of the women’s lacrosse team at UVA her senior year. Andy enjoys walking and relaxing with his golden doodle, Lily. Melissa Maynard Moore writes that she is sorry to have missed the Reunion. She lives in Cape Charles, a small, quaint bayside town on the eastern shore of Virginia. Last May, she retired from working as a lawyer for the Federal Public Defender’s Office. She has a 29-year-old son in Virginia Beach and a 24-year-old daughter who lives in Texas. Melissa gets back to Baltimore at least once a month to see her mother and her brother. She hopes to make it to our 50th!

Sally K. Slingluff sallykslingluff123 @gmail.com

Here is a link to great article about David Blumberg in the Washington Post: wapo.st/2Qsa3xb. I have started a new job at ECAN Esophageal Cancer Action Network, working with Mindy Mintz Mordecai, the widow of Monte Mordecai ’62.

This class presently does not have a Class Secretary. If you are interested in volunteering for the post, please email alumni@friendsbalt.org.

classnotes

Lisa Corinne Davis ’76 after her sixth half marathon

John E. Humphries jehriver@aol.com

Lisa Corinne Davis writes that while on sabbatical from Hunter College she had a number of shows at such spaces as Esther Massry Gallery, College of Saint Rose, Albany, N.Y.; Curator Gallery, New York, N.Y.; Real Estate Fine Art, Brooklyn, N.Y.; Koenig & Clinton, Brooklyn, N.Y.; Zolla/Lieberman Gallery, Chicago, Ill.; Galerie Gris, Hudson, N.Y.; Ohio State University, Lima, Ohio. She also ran her sixth half-marathon. Keith Tabatznik was inducted into the Maryland State Soccer Hall of Fame on May 11th. Coach Ed Morse, Randy Cooper H’16, and classmates Hank Entwisle, Steve Stuart, and Phil Stewart were all in attendance. Jon Patz was invited this year to give a TEDx talk. You can find it on YouTube under the title, “Climate Change is Affecting our Health: Is There a Cure?” MaryAnne Bues Bartlett reports that her eldest son, Arthur, recently got married. Guests were advised to “dress wacky.” The celebrant wore a pink bunny suit, Arthur wore a slinky satin wedding dress and the bride, Raven, a tuxedo. MaryAnne and husband, Sam, wore their SCA (Society for Creative Anachronism) garb.

This class presently does not have a Class Secretary. If you are interested in volunteering for the post, please email alumni@friendsbalt.org.

MaryAnne Bues Bartlett ’76 with husband Sam at their son’s “dress wacky” wedding

Debbie Brown ’76 visiting a winery in Virginia in spring 2018

Keith Tabatznik ’76 (holding award) with (from left) Phil Stewart ’76, Hank Entwisle ’76, Steve Stuart ’76, Randy Cooper H’16, and Keith’s mom at the Maryland State Soccer Hall of Fame induction ceremony

Marc Forster writes, “I am still a professor of history at Connecticut College, where I have been teaching since 1990. Tina and I have been married now for 33 years. My older daughter Sara is getting married in summer 2018 to a fellow alum of Swarthmore College. My younger daughter Jenny is a high school teacher in Minneapolis, where she settled after graduating from Carleton College. In my free time I coach little kids’ soccer and high school softball, which I learned from coaching my daughters. I still come regularly to Baltimore to see my parents, who are 87 and 92, living at Broadmead in Cockeysville. I am also still a long suffering Orioles fan.”

Douglas G. Stevenson dougstevenson@hotmail.com

On the first weekend of May the

Friends School Class of 1978 marked our 40th year free of the shackles of high school, when for the most part we launched our late-teenaged selves into the we-think-we-knoweverything-but-we’re-sorely-mistaken stage of our lives. We were so much older then; we’re younger than that now. Roughly a third of the class, along with a few brave spouses and significant others made it back to campus Saturday evening for festivities in and around the still-new and impressive Forbush Auditorium, where some of us hormoned our way through middle school, and where we all attended Collection every morning. Those in attendance were: Michele Levine Brill, Dan Klein, David Julian, Doug Stevenson, Ed Warfield, Jay Bond, Ilana Tabatznik Brett, Dale Fine Reden, Katharine Davis Hope, Lee Riley, Laurie Rosenberg Levine, Martin Rosol, Natasha Gaganidze MacPherson, Norm Forbush, Nina Siebens, Marcy Michael, Rob Beckelheimer, Scott Spence, Blair Baltus, Russell Burton, Jill Reifler Lehr, Kathy Shulman, and Steve Sindler. You can see pictures of the reception and the class photo here https://www.flickr.com/photos/ friendsbalt/albums. Norm and Kathy Forbush graciously hosted our class party later that night where, apart from the catching up, noshing, and imbibing, the highlight was a toast Norm offered. He noted that no matter our differences from decades ago we could come together in the 21st century and genuinely enjoy each other’s company and, notably, support the School that contributed to making us the fine folks, parents, and grandparents (!) that we have become. In that vein, largely thanks to Tim Hearn and Norm’s generous challenge gift, the entire class raised $27,560 in gifts and pledges that will help Friends to continue providing the kind of education that helped get us all where we are today. A number of us started the weekend at Friday’s Athletic Hall of Fame induction where Jay, David, Lee, Scott, and Doug were inducted for their individual athletic careers, and where the 1978 MSA “B” Conference Champion boys’ lacrosse team - including those previously mentioned, Josh Marvil, Stanley Levy, David Russo, Blair, Ed, Steve, Norm, Tim, Coaches Carl Ortman and Downie McCarty ’64, and a bunch of underclassmen from our last spring

FRI ENDSBALT.ORG | FR IEND S S C HOOL

classnotes

Alison Coles Ball ’79

Nancy Marchetti ’79 and Carol Stude Knapp ’79

on Charles Street - was also honored. Pictures can be found at the Flickr link mentioned above. Afterward, Lee graciously invited a bunch of us to an impromptu get-together in his kitchen where, among a number of tales told, we tried to solve Dale’s coming relocation conundrum - hot or not, west or south? My memory proved remarkably inadequate. This was all capped off by a late night, shall we say…um…quick…drive in a German-engineered vehicle on the Jones Falls Expressway. Scooting up and down the JFX? That’s something we can all remember! Be sure to check out some fun pictures, including Martin’s reprisal of a yearbook photo, posted to the class Facebook page here https://www.facebook.com/ groups/151573141607554. Lastly, you’ll note the lack of news apart from Reunion. Please send a note (and pictures, natch) to Doug by email or on Facebook to share what’s happening in your life. Otherwise, after the hullabaloo of the 40th Reunion, our

class notes section will return to . . . crickets. Cheers, everybody!

Anne Hockett annehockett@me.com

Nancy Marchetti is still at the U.S. Department of Labor in Washington, D.C., working in the Criminal Enforcement Division where she tries to protect private sector retirement and health plans from unscrupulous individuals. She is a doting aunt of two future Friends alums, Mason ’20 and Julian Marchetti ’21, and enjoys bringing her mom, Ruth S. Marchetti, 93, to campus to watch the boys’ soccer and lacrosse games. Nancy lives in Alexandria, Va., but her most recent passion is serving as a board member of Almost Home, a South Carolina animal rescue and sanctuary. Although she doesn’t spend as much time as she’d like with the animals, she handles all of the organization’s legal, tax, fundraising, and business work, which gives her great satisfaction. If

Barbara Shulman-Kirwin ’79 and Anne Burton Hockett ’79 attended a course at Omega on Past-Life Regressions

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you are in the D.C. area, please look her up. She would love to see and catch-up with her classmates. Alison Ball tells me, “Life is good and full of changes with bittersweet launch of son to college, new job as physical therapy assistant in outpatient office, and more dancing and performing. The unexpected gift was finding and reuniting with my amazing lovely birth mother. I’m a lucky duck!” Sharon Burris-Brown writes, “I am doing well up in Minneapolis, where I have started my own business as a holistic health and parenting coach. Our son is a rising 9th grader and my bonus daughter will be starting a graduate program at Northwestern University in data science this fall. I don’t have a current family photo but our two Bernese Mountain Dogs are the most photogenic of all of us. Bill Rudow writes, “Jill and I are enjoying being empty nesters. We go climbing together. Son Michael Rudow ’12 is a computer science Ph.D. student at Carnegie Mellon. Daughter Alex Rudow ’10 works in management for global transit company Via in D.C. Jennifer Freeman is still living on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. “I am a staff writer/editor at Environmental Defense Fund, where I mostly cover Bill Rudow ’79 and wife Jill

Sharon Burris-Brown ’79’s Bernese Mountain dogs

efforts to protect clean air and climate, including wringing carbon out of our energy system. I’m still married to Walker Stevenson. For fun we like to labor on our friend’s sheep farm a couple of hours north of New York City. Our two boys are 21 and 23: Jack is in the second year of a Ph.D. program in chemical biology at UCSF in San Francisco, and Leo transferred from Middlebury to Brown, where he is majoring in philosophy. Stephan Pocock says, “A lot of changes for me since I last checked in. Last fall, Boccalone, the artisanal salumi company I had been working at and then running for 10 years closed. It’s a complicated story that I won’t bore everyone with, but it came down to arithmetic. The real complicated part was that our apartment was part of my salary package, so I was not only out of a job but we had to find a new place to live as well! We had wanted to move away from the dodgy neighborhood for some time, but Jill and I were hoping to last another year so the kids would be off to whatever came after high school. Anyway, we found this really lovely house in a really nice neighborhood in Oakland — the kids, Henry and Charlotte, can get to and from school in San Francisco Stephen Pocock ’79 and wife Jill

classnotes

Jennifer Freeman ’79 and family

as well as to their mom’s house easily. Salumi/charcuterie jobs in the Bay Area are virtually nonexistent, so I have gone back to school (again!) to see what my next move could be. I am studying to get certified as a drug and alcohol counselor in California. This is something I’ve been thinking about for a few years, so the adage about doors opening and closing holds true. In other news, the kids are now seniors in high school and are super stressed about college, but having a good time. Charlotte won second place for poetry in the San Francisco Unified School District Literary Arts Awards and Henry is playing tennis. Jill is still at Autodesk and is on Barbara Shulman-Kirwin ’79 and family

the board of Autodesk Women In Leadership. In February, she and I went to Iceland. It’s amazing. Glaciers, Northern Lights, Rye bread ice cream (the best!). Everyone should go, but don’t fly Wow Airlines. P.S. I’m still making bacon.” Julie Bledsoe writes, “Hi everyone! I continue to be happy and healthy here in Seattle. Both of our kids, Sean and Tess, Korean adoptees, went off to college this fall but are staying in the Northwest. I have a rewarding job at the University of Washington working as a pediatrician with children adopted from overseas and foster care. My husband and I took our family to his native Scotland next week for an awesome adventure.

I have so enjoyed seeing all of you who post on Facebook...keeps me thinking of you, the special Friends I grew up with. Please visit me if you are ever in Seattle! Love to all.” Barbara Shulman-Kirwin says, “Life is full! This past year all three of our grownup children serendipitously found themselves living at home one more time for one glorious year. It has been a beautiful year of upcoming change and growing love! I am still creating glass fusion creations at my gallery, Chroma, in our hometown of Guilford, Conn. I opened a new private practice concentrating on forgiveness in which I see clients two days a week and give talks on the subject. Anne Hockett

Julie Bledsoe ’79 and husband Brian

Gray Marshall ’79 and son Ethan at his graduation

FRI ENDSBALT.ORG | FR IEND S S C HOOL

classnotes and I took the training process together three years ago. Hope all is well with everyone!” Gray Marshall writes, “Well, another few years and another few movies…The past year brought colorist work on Gordon Ramsey’s TV show, “Hell’s Kitchen,” as well as working on Marvel’s “Black Panther, Avengers: Infinity War,” and the upcoming “Ant Man & The Wasp.” More importantly, our son, Ethan, is no longer an “Ant Eater,” having completed his B.S. from University of California Irvine, specializing in biomedical engineering. The year was rounded out by an incredible trip to Andalusian Spain, with stops in Madrid and Barcelona ( just in time to see Federal Police take over the city). Current plans are to stay in L.A. for at least the next few years. Give me a shout if you’re in the area.” As for me, Anne Hockett, I’ve had a wonderful year with family and friends. Steve and I celebrated 31 years of marriage and I’m still in love! Work is going really well and I’m traveling more now that the girls are in college. Babs and I attended a course at Omega on Past-Life Regressions. Too fun! I saw Ann Ramsey, Scott Loane, and Babs at my father’s memorial service in May. So grateful they came. Sending love out to all those I haven’t seen or heard from recently!

This class presently does not have a Class Secretary. If you are interested in volunteering for the post, please email alumni@ friendsbalt.org. Quinn Stills writes, “I am still running a small investment management firm in Santa Monica, Calif. I have transitioned

to an empty nest as my two daughters are away in school now. If anyone is visiting the Los Angeles area they should feel free to visit.”

Dahira A. Lievano-Binford

baltimorebinfordbunch@ verizon.net Classmates, please send your news!

Joyce M. Jennings joycejen@berkeley.edu

Classmates, please send your news!

Shawn Dorman dormanshawn@gmail.com

A big thank you to Lisa C. McKissick for collecting the class notes for this issue of Friends Magazine. Jayne Rosenwald Myers is thrilled to brag it’s her 10-year anniversary opening up Pebble Players Youth Musical Theater and has been president of Stony Hill Theater for her fifth consecutive year. “We are a small regional theater in New Jersey, and Pebble Players has kids ages 9-19 performing throughout the year! My students are going places! I have students on ABC American Housewife, Nickelodeon, one in all three Despicable Me movies, one starring in a new Disney movie, one on tour in Hamilton, and two on Broadway in Fiddler On the Roof, The Lion King, and Sponge Bob! Pebble keeps me very busy and I spend available days/nights watching our boy Spencer play hockey all over the U.S. for the New Jersey Devils AAA National Ice Hockey Team.

Coaches Larry Smith ’83 and Randy Cooper H’16 with their LTRC basketball teams

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Our daughter Haley is a junior at Washington University in St. Louis, and daughter Camryn is a sophomore at Miami of Ohio. My husband Rob and I are celebrating our 25th wedding anniversary this year and hope to visit Haley in Hong Kong this spring. If you are in New Jersey or NYC give me a call. The Reunion was great! We missed those who couldn’t make it!” Larry Smith writes, “This June I married a wonderful woman at my new horse farm in Westminster, Md. It was truly ‘living the dream.’ It was great to see Jayne Rosenwald Myers and Victor McKusick a few weeks before at our Reunion and an honor to accept Liddy Williams GarciaBunuel’s certificate of induction to the Friends School Athletic Hall of fame on her behalf. Unfortunately, I missed out on the Mt. Washington Tavern class get together because my band, now in its 22nd year, had a gig that night at Outward Bound for their annual gala. Fond salutations to all my dear classmates!” Larry also had a chance to reconnect with his former basketball coach Randy Cooper H’16 in the coolest way this past year. Larry writes: “Our rec council, LuthervilleTimonium, needed a 14-and-under boys’ coach pretty desperately. I woke up one night, and said, ‘Shucks, let me ask my old coach.’ So I called Randy and he said he would be delighted. It’s really great being out on the court with him again! I took my 1983 yearbook to one of the games that showed us together back then. The players loved it!” Trish BackerMiceli is happy to announce that her daughter, Alex Miceli ’18, graduated from Friends this past May and headed off to the University of Delaware this

fall. Lisa C. McKissick celebrated her 29th year at Hopkins in July 2018. She tells people she started at Hopkins when she was nine. She is currently the vice chair of the board of directors for a federal credit union. She had a great time catching up with Jayne Rosenwald Myers (and her parents) and Margo Mildvan in June. Lisa is celebrating her second anniversary to her wonderful husband, Karl.

Staige D. Hodges sdhpdx@gmail.com

Robert G. Spencer-Strong robertstrong@hotmail.com Classmates, please send your news!

Sharon B. Stewart

ladystewart1234@ gmail.com Classmates, please send your news!

Roger W. Hughes reosavvy@yahoo.com

Classmates, please send your news! My brother Rodney Hughes and I are next door neighbors in Hamilton/ Lauraville. Rodney has four children, including two in college and one at Western High School, and three grandchildren, ages 7, 5, and 4, who are the same age as my three children. Rodney and his wife Janet are celebrating 28 years of marriage. I am single again; matchmakers are welcomed but forewarned. Our families are active at Union Baptist Church where Rodney is a deacon and where Kimberly Campbell-Davis is a choir director. Kimberly enjoyed spending the summer with her husband and twin daughters, now in their second year of college. She continues to joyfully serve as an educator for Baltimore City Public Schools and as a choir director for Providence Baptist Church. Kim mentioned that she enjoys keeping in touch with classmates on Facebook and hopes we can get together soon. Kim is known for having lovingly referred to Rodney and I as the “good twin” and the “evil twin”; karma is so Friend-ly. Kimberly and I play Ruzzle on a daily basis; Kim is a word assassin on this Boggle-on-steroids app. Lesley Davis is still living in Bloomington, Ind.,

classnotes where she has served for the past 15 years as assistant dean for international programs at Indiana University Maurer School of Law, traveling all over the world and the country (she attended Indiana University for graduate school). She recently saw Jenny Freeland in Sacramento, Calif. and Anna Allen and her daughter, Leontyne, in NYC. Lesley and her husband, Matt Murphy, have a 12-year-old son, Paul. If you’re ever in the lower Midwest, look her up! Charley Case lives in Aspen, Colo., with his wife of 10 years, Toni, and their daughter Charlotte, 7. As many in our class have, he moved past the mid-century mark in May. He says he’d love to connect with anyone who makes it out to Colorado!

Shelley C. Stein shelley.stein@gmail.com

Sadlly Christine Monk Huxtable passed away on February 23, 2018.

P. Angelo T. Valle gelovalle@gmail.com

It was another impressive showing by the Class of 1988 for our 30th Reunion! The weekend started off with the individual induction of Ron Anderson and team induction of the 1987 Field Hockey Team into the Athletic Hall of Fame. Although I was disappointed that I missed them and my sister Carmina Valle ’93 being inducted, I was pleased that other classmates were able to show their support. Brad Dwin organized an informal meet up later in the evening that drew classmates and former members of the class. Saturday’s events were capped off by another wonderful party hosted by Jennifer and Burck Smith, and organized with the help of Marshall and Anne Friedlander Henslee, and Heidi and Dan Moylan. By my count, 37 of our graduating class members plus a few more former class members made an appearance at some point during the weekend’s festivities. Others had planned on making their way back to North Charles Street for the weekend but weren’t able to manage with schedule conflicts. Maureen Sullivan wrote, “I’m truly sorry that I won’t be able to attend the Reunion this weekend...I wish everyone well and a happy Reunion!” She is in the final months completing her family medicine residency in Utica, N.Y. “This has been a wonderful

experience beyond words. Until recently, Utica was one of the largest refugee resettlement sites in the U.S. It is a privilege to serve people from all over the world who have endured so much.” Maureen has been in Utica for about three years. “For fun, when I had some free time, I biked along the Erie Canal, hiked and biked in the Adirondack Mountains, and swam at Colgate University. As I progressed in the program, I became joined at the hip to our computers for the constant work in the EMR/EHR world. So much for free time...If anyone can create a computer program that is efficient, safe, and useful for providers and patients, we would be overjoyed to have a new option so that we can look at our patients during office visits again.” It’s good to know Maureen has been enjoying the area. “Utica is a neat place. I like the town slogan: ‘Utica...starts with you.’” Christianne Myers also wished she could have made it to Reunion and wrote, “For anyone who remembers drawing on the walls at my 16th birthday party, my dad just sold the house in Bolton Hill. One of the chalk murals is still behind a mantel piece for someone to find in the years to come. We are well in Ann Arbor. If anyone is taking their kids on college tours and Michigan is on the short list, please say ‘Hi.’”

Meghan P. Cochran meghan@stern.net

Classmates, please send your news!

Jahan C. Sagafi jahan@post.harvard.edu

Seth Wright, M.D., assistant professor of medicine at Tufts University, was recently honored by the 2018 graduating medical students for his outstanding teaching in their clerkship years. This award commends one faculty member who has demonstrated an outstanding dedication to teaching, a commitment to academic scholarship, and a concern for the general well-being of Tufts medical students.

Jeffrey J. Dinger jeff.dinger@gmail.com

Classmates, please send your news!

Seth Wright ’90’s award for his outstanding teaching at Tufts University

David Knowles knowlesdavid@gmail.com

After 26 years living in Durango, Colo., San Francisco, and Columbus, Drew Curlett is back in town living in Fells Point with his Pomeranian named Penny. He teaches in the culinary arts program at Stratford University. Welcome back, Drew! Jamie Skeen Schumann-Dahlberg reports that her youngest daughter is almost 5-years-old and her oldest daughter just finished nursing school. Jamie is hoping to start graduate school this fall in a psychiatric nurse practitioner program. Shana Ketron-Yacht says that she was crazy enough to have babies past 40. Her twin boys are 17-months-old and she loves being a mom. She and her family are preparing to leave Canton for Howard County to enjoy a little more space. Sarah Taylor and her family are moving from Georgia to Colorado Springs. She got out of the army two years ago, but her husband is still in, and they are relocating them there. Their kids are ages 4, 7, and 10. Carla Perry Paisley’s kids have quite a lot going on. Her 19 and 17-year-old toured Europe last summer together,

visiting Paris, Le Mans, London, Madrid and Segovia. This summer, her son Ezra, 14, joined Colorado Ballet for a five-week intensive under instructors from American Ballet Theater. Xavier, 17, will spend five weeks in Connecticut studying ballet at the Nutmeg Conservatory in preparation for an audition season that will include Alvin Ailey next year. Daughter Seraphine will study for five weeks at Maryland Youth Ballet in Silver Spring, Md., and her youngest will audition for the pre-professional company that her siblings have been a part of. Her oldest, Aaron, transfers to University of Maryland at College Park as a junior this fall, and Carla starts nursing school in August. Arsh Mirmiran and his wife and young daughters have just moved into a house they had built on Blythewood Road in Roland Park. I’m guessing that he now lives closest to campus, but someone can correct me if I’m wrong. Elizabeth Shaum Delfosse finished her first year of nursing at University of Maryland on the Surgical Acute Unit. There’s never a dull moment and she’s generally “nurse tired” at the end of the day, but she loves it. Her son Aidan is 15

FRI ENDSBALT.ORG | FR IEND S S C HOOL

classnotes

Members of the Class of 1993 gather at Johanna Shear Swanson’s house for their class party over Alumni Weekend 2018.

and finished his first year at Poly, and daughter Gwyn (11) will be starting middle school at Hamilton in the city in the Ingenuity Program. I’ve been running into David Melnick a lot lately. He commutes from Sparks to his job at Marriner Marketing Communications in Columbia where he’s vice president of strategic partnerships. He specializes in the food industry, and so we cross paths as I continue to build Lord of the Pies, my pie wholesale company. Angela Schwanky Smith suffered a terrible tragedy recently. Her 11week-old baby boy Silas passed away from sudden infant death syndrome while taking a nap one Sunday afternoon in early March. Our hearts go out to Angela and her husband, Joshua. They live in Carroll County where she teaches English at South Carroll High School. Gage Monk’s sister Christine Monk Huxtable ’87 passed away in February after battling cancer. A moving remembrance was attended by several hundred people at Wilmington Friends School where she previously taught. I’m also sad to report that Luke Stone died in a car accident in Oregon in September of 2017. I first knew Luke when we were in 7th grade at Gilman together. He was a very good guy and we will miss him very much. As for my family, our daughters Kaitlyn and Emmy are in 4th and 1st grades at Oak Hill Elementary School in Severna Park. There are around 50 of us in our class Facebook

group, but I haven’t heard from the non-Facebookers for quite a while. Please reach out to me directly with any news, or just to let me know you’re out there.

Caroline Mallonee Huebner

carolinemallonee@gmail.com The Class of 1993 celebrated our 25th Reunion this year. Twenty-one of our classmates came to the events at the School and we all agreed it didn’t seem like two and a half decades had gone by since we were students at Friends. It was fun to see old friends and find out what people are up to. Carmina Valle, Heather Bohanan Luca, Damon Brown and John E. Miles were inducted into the Athletic Hall of Fame, and it was exciting to hear about their accomplishments. Some of our classmates traveled quite a ways to get to Baltimore. Sarah Standiford came down from Maine, and Elise Pittenger Rocha flew all the way from Brazil! We also found out that Nick Bentley and Damon Brown make Bmore t-shirts. They sold a whole bunch (out of the trunk of Nick’s car!) during the party at Friends. You should get one! I wear mine all the time. Johanna Shear Swanson hosted a lovely class dinner at her house, and we all had fun looking through old yearbooks and catching up. I hope to see even more

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classmates at the next one!

Rich C. Santos richie1124@gmail.com

Classmates, please send your news!

Cory A. Brown coryamirbrown@gmail.com

Andrew Gohn married Naomi Abelson in December 2016. He writes, “We live in Takoma Park. I enjoy growing fruits and vegetables in the garden. She likes to knit. We’ve been doing a lot of marching lately. I now work for the American Wind Energy Association as eastern region state affairs director. I love getting to work on clean energy policy, and working to save the planet.” Sara Pfaff continues to live in Italy with her husband Francesco and two boys Filippo (5), and Federico (2). She is the director of the English program in a bilingual kindergarten in the city where she lives, Alba. Heather Mied Clark says, “Dan and I are living our best life in Springfield, Mo. with our three kids, Meghann, 15, Daniel III, 13, and Zachary, 10. We continue to home school our kids at a part-time school. It is truly the best of both worlds. Dan continues to serve at Convoy of Hope, a nonprofit that serves millions annually through disaster relief and international development. Through children’s feeding, women’s

empowerment and agriculture initiatives, Convoy is empowering families and communities to lift themselves out of poverty and hunger. Based on the recent progress, global leaders believe that by 2030 we can eradicate hunger as we know it. Find out more at convoyofhope.org!” Sujay Pathak has come “full-circle” and has just moved into a house on Greenleaf Road a few hundred feet from Friends. Sujay says, “The dulcet tones of the nearby cathedral bells were a compelling, nostalgic draw. I live here with my wonderful wife Rachel and my son Forest, 2. He’s a handful, but we are delighting in his daily discoveries. I’m working as a general internist for the Johns Hopkins Community Physicians, and every now, and then finding opportunities to do a little music. My dad recently moved into Roland Park Place where he is neighbors with Annie’s mom and takes poetry classes from Mr. Blauvelt…one truly never leaves Friends!” Chelsea Stalling Pinnix is the associate residency director of the radiation oncology residency program at MD Anderson and was recently promoted to associate professor on the tenure track. She has an “awesome” husband, Jason, who is an energy trader, and three kids: Madison, 7, Mason, 5, and Merritt, 3. They live Houston.

classnotes

From Quakers to Camels and back again. Quaker lax alums who are/were also Connecticut College Camels take the field for the 2018 Alumni Lacrosse Game. From left, Nick Rodricks ’08, Ted Kasper ’15, Tucker Glotzbach ’13, Patrick Linehan ’18 and Rob Travieso ’97 Bobby Michel ’97 with Kristin Patzkowsky, their baby Maggie, and dogs Benny and Cammie

Andrew T. Dale atdale@gmail.com

Stephanie Hanes Wilson returned to Friends as the commencement speaker for the graduation of the Class of 2018. Stephanie delivered a wonderful, inspiring speech. A luncheon was held in Stephanie’s honor, where Cindy Daignault surprised her with a visit. They both enjoyed a campus tour led by Senior Associate Director of Admission, Amy D’Aiutolo Mortimer ’87, and Director of Alumni Relations & Engagement Christine Pappas ’01.

Claire C. Kosloff clairekosloff@yahoo.com

Congratulations to Rob Travieso and Sammy Williamson ’00 who welcomed a baby boy, Homer, to their family in June. Just days after Homer’s arrival, Rob joined 30 fellow Quakers for the alumni lacrosse game on Deering Field. Five alums who took the field also played or will play for Connecticut College; Rob, Nick Rodrick ’08, Tucker Glotzbach ’13, Ted Kasper ’15, and Patrick Linehan ’18. Bobby Michel and Kristin Patzkowsky also had some exciting news; they welcomed a baby girl, Maggie, on January 16, 2018.

Bobby Michel ’97’s daughter Maggie

Justine Alger Forrester

jalger1@yahoo.com Hello, friends! It was wonderful to see so many members of the Class of 1998 at our 20th Reunion in May! Everyone seemed to enjoy themselves as we reconnected at the Friends School reception, a special Meeting for Worship in Mike Malin’s honor, and the after-party at the Five and Dime Ale House in Hampden. I was glad to get to catch up with so many of you in person, but for those who were not able to attend, you have come to the right place to learn some of what you

missed hearing from your fellow classmates! This year, Friends School welcomed another second-generation Friends student with a parent in the Class of 1998. Jennie Ray’s daughter, Annabelle Schneider ’31, graduated from pre-K at Timonium Children’s Center in May, and began kindergarten at Friends in the fall. One of her classmates is Maeli Poor Zacchetti’s son, Kieran Zacchetti ’31! In other exciting news, on May 18, 2018, Maeli and her husband, Jason, welcomed their daughter Lyra Jane Zacchetti to their family. Their son, Kieran, just finished his first year of pre-K at Friends and was excited to move up a floor in the pre-primary building this year. Over the summer Maeli reported, “It’s been a bit of a challenge shifting from the school year schedule into a mostly unscheduled summertime mode while also accommodating the needs of a newborn, but we’re doing well with it so far! Just to make things more complicated, I’m transferring to a new job (still working as an Army civilian technical writer) in a few weeks.” Hopefully things have settled down for the Zacchettis by the time of publication! Avi Kempler and his wife Adria were also happy to celebrate their oldest daughter Lilly’s graduation from pre-school this past June, and are thrilled for her to have started

kindergarten this August. While she is not attending Friends, they are excited to be sending her to a great elementary school a short walk from their home in Virginia. Avi also wanted to let everyone know that he is disappointed he was unable to attend our 20th Reunion in May, but he looks forward to seeing everyone at our 25th Reunion in 2023! In June 2017, Joe Johnston returned to Maryland with his family after living in Durham, N.C. for three years. He acknowledges, “We enjoyed the Raleigh-Durham area (including occasional visits with Carmina Valle ’93 who lives in Chapel Hill), but our roots are in Maryland.” As it turned out, Joe’s brother Jamie Johnston ’94 decided to return to Maryland with his family at right around the same time after living in Hallowell, Maine for five years. So the past year has been a wonderful homecoming for the Johnstons, and Joe says his son Eli, 3, is spending lots of quality time with his grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins on both sides of the family. Joe says, “It was great seeing such a wonderful turnout by our class at our 20th Reunion in May! It’s nice to know the bonds we formed at Friends still endure.” Alicia Atkinson also enjoyed seeing former classmates at the Reunion. She is still living in Whittier, Calif., but she switched careers from

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Members of the Class of 1998 pose outside of Five and Dime Ale House in Hampden during Alumni Weekend 2018. From left, Leslie Deutschendorf Coleman, Maggie Beetz, Lisa Viscidi, Savithri Nair, Justine Alger Forrester, Elena Johnson

being a teacher/school director to working as a CSM (“you might have to Google it, but basically customer success”) for an educational technology company. She also married Ryan Hinojos in April 2017. She tells us, “Other than that, life is chill. Just enjoying the beautiful California weather and traveling regularly.” Janine D’Adamo and Alec Heuisler ‘99 had a great time catching up with everyone at the Reunion. Janine said, “It was super fun to have a night out without the kid (referring to their son, Nico)! We are enjoying living down the street from Erin Hall, Nick Oster, and their new baby boy! Also we are gearing up for baby number two arriving in November. Also can’t wait to see Lauren Johnson’s wedding photos and hope she comes back to visit all the time!” Lauren and her husband, Patrick Walker, were married on May 17, 2018, in Anna Maria Island, Fla. in a beach ceremony surrounded by family and close friends. In addition to celebrating the wedding, at the time of class notes submissions Lauren was in the midst of planning her July trip to South Africa to conduct research on education policy,

school desegregation, and social justice pedagogy in the country. Along with a colleague in the teacher education department, Lauren recently received a UNG Presidential Incentive Award for their project titled, “Teaching Social Justice in Racially Divided Contexts: Exploring Strategies for the Decolonization of Schooling in South Africa.” She continues her work teaching and coordinating diversity and recruitment initiatives in the College of Education at the University of North Georgia. It is wonderful to hear of Lauren’s success, and even more so to be able to catch up with her in person in May! Erin Hall was in attendance at the Reunion with her baby boy, Obi (short for Lyle Obadiah Hall Oster), who was born on January 11, 2018. Congratulations, Erin! In the fall, Erin will return to Friends and resume teaching Upper School art. Work is going well for Rob Copeland. This October makes three years for Rob working at the JHU Homewood campus in the Kreiger AV department. He is currently managing, designing and installing the half-million dollar AV renovation for Shriver Hall, which is part of the hall’s multimillion-dollar

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renovation at Hopkins. It is very cool to see Rob continuing to thrive professionally with the skills I remember him developing back at Friends for the Upper School plays! Speaking of plays, Maggie Beetz is still working as the publications manager at Center Stage theater in Mt. Vernon. She lives in Hampden with her husband, Jesse Whyte, and their two cats. Maggie had a great time at our Reunion and reports, “We’re excited to be planning a trip to Northern Italy in 2019. I still spend as much time as I can with Elena Johnson and Sarah Brager.” Elena has big news of her own, “I’m opening L’Eau de Vie Organic Brasserie later in 2018 and look forward to having classmates come visit us in Fells Point!” Future Reunion after-party spot? Sarah Wehner this spring also opened her own business, Maryland Community Acupuncture in Patterson Park, Baltimore. After 10 years of practice she’s excited to have her own shop, offering affordable acupuncture in her hometown. Go check her out! It was great to see Leslie Deutschendorf Coleman at our Reunion, too. Leslie and her husband Hank have three boys: Jake, 7, Sammy,

Justine Alger Forrester ’98 in front of the Taj Mahal in Agra, India in July 2017

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Justine Alger Forrester ’98’s three sons, Silas, 7, Abel, 1 month, Gideon, 5

5, and Charlie, 2. She lives in Severna Park, Md. Since Leslie last updated us, she graduated from San Jose State University in 2009 with a M.A. in special education, works for Anne Arundel County Public Schools as an early intervention specialist, and is now a postgraduate student at Johns Hopkins pursuing the ABA program to obtain her BCBA (Board Certified Behavior Analyst). Emily Baum is on her way out of Baltimore! She and her husband, Josh, are relocating to Park City, Utah, where Josh took a job as the CFO of Backcountry, an online outdoor retailer. Emily writes, “We will likely be there for two to three years, and our plan is to return to Baltimore. I’m hoping to get licensed and continue practicing psychology in Park City. We’re looking forward to getting the little ones, Alex, 4, and Charlotte, 2, on skis and enjoying all the outdoor activities Park City has to offer!” As for

me, since the last issue of Friends Magazine, my family has grown by one. My husband, Bill, and I were thrilled to welcome our third son, Abel Staubus Forrester, on May 26, 2018. Abel joins big brothers Gideon, 5, and Silas, 7, who have been absolutely smitten with him since the day he arrived. This summer we were able to enjoy lots of family time together and stayed local to the area, quite a difference from the previous summer during which I spent 15 days traveling across northern India with a group of six strangers hailing from Europe, Asia, Africa, and Australia, after receiving my second travel grant from Calvert School. I took an extended leave from work this year following Abel’s birth and I am returning to teach second grade at Calvert in November. This is an exciting year for our family at Calvert, since Silas is a student in my grade level, and Gideon has just

Erin Hall ’98’s son, Lyle Obadiah Hall Oster (Obi), 5 months

Maeli Poor Zacchetti ’98 and her son Kieran, 6 and new daughter Lyra Jane Zacchetti.

Lauren Johnson ’98 and husband Patrick Walker were married on May 17, 2018 in Anna Maria Island, Florida

entered kindergarten and the “big kid school” of classes and wearing a uniform! Until next time, take care everyone!

Chris Condlin Chriscondlin@gmail.com

Rosalie Parker rorosalice@gmail.com Hello, Class of 1999! It’s crazy to think

that our 20th Reunion less than a year away. Let’s plan to get a great turnout for the weekend. If you haven’t been getting emails from us or from the alumni team, please reach out so we can update your email address and add you to the list! Now on to the updates… Mike Kremen and his wife Jessica live in Pikesville with their two children, Olive, 5, and Gus, 2. Mike now works at DCS Advisory,

Sarah Wehner ’98 started her own acupuncture business, Maryland Community Acupuncture, in Patterson Park, Baltimore.

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classnotes an investment banking boutique in Baltimore. Drew Shelton and his wife Sarah live in Lutherville with daughters Annie, 6, and Molly, 2. After teaching 8th grade science in public schools for the past seven years, Drew will start teaching high school physics at Oldfields School this fall. Annie Shelton will be starting at Park School in the fall. Drew recognizes that this violates his loyalty to Friends, but because his wife teaches at Park, it was too good of a fit to pass up. Ben Bodnar moved back to Baltimore in 2016 and is working as an internist and pediatrician at Johns Hopkins Hospital, as well as assistant professor at Hopkins Medical School. Ben and wife Alia live with son James, 3, and Aletta, 1, in the Lauraville area of Baltimore. Brian Valle and his wife Laura have been living in D.C. since 2011. Brian is a vice president at The Bozzuto Group, which develops real estate projects, including several in Baltimore. He recently returned to Friends to attend the Athletic Hall of Fame induction of his sister, Carmina Valle ’93, and was heartened to discover that while the campus had changed dramatically, Charlie Achuff’s mom was still behind the counter at the Quaker Closet. He was sad to have missed the alumni lacrosse game this year; had he been in attendance, he would have tried to feed me and Rob Travieso ’97 on the crease multiple times, risking serious injury for both of us. Ryan Welch has been in Philadelphia at architecture firm KieranTimberlake since 2011. He lives in the Fishtown neighborhood of Philly with wife Lidiya Petrova. Maron Deering and wife Sandy Mayson were excited to welcome their second daughter, Willa Anthony Mayson-Deering, on December 29, 2017. Older daughter Sterrett, 3, is enjoying being a big sister. Maron and Sandy are moving from Philadelphia back to Athens, Ga., where Sandy is a law professor at University of Georgia. The most recent Philly transplant is Deana Carr-Davis Frank, who lives in the Mount Airy neighborhood of Philly with her husband and their children. Moving further up the I-95 corridor to NYC, I am excited to report that the Class of 1999 representation in New York City is still strong. Please reach out to me if you’re in the NYC area to connect with other FSBers. The most recent addition that we are aware of is Jeremy Barofsky, who

moved to Brooklyn in January 2017, and with partner Kate Finley recently welcomed daughter Ayla Barofsky, who was born in April. Jeremy works at behavioral economic consulting firm ideas42, doing research with a focus on the intersection of health and poverty. Will Terrin completed his emergency room residency at the Brooklyn Hospital Center and is now working at a hospital on Long Island. Will recently proposed to now-fiancé Viviane Dussek in an impressively well-coordinated and choreographed proposal in a ballroom overlooking the Washington Monument in D.C. Tim Sweeney, our class’s longest standing NYC resident, continues to call Brooklyn home, but is on the road most weekends touring as international DJ sensation “Tim Sweeney.” Fellow Brooklynite Reid Cherlin has been working at VICE Media for the last three years, where he works as the supervising writer for VICE’s new nightly show on HBO, VICE News Tonight. In November 2017, Reid married Annie Schachar at a ceremony in the beautiful upstate New York town of Hudson, N.Y. Reid and Annie later honeymooned in New Zealand. Also in Middle Earth tourism news, Robert Dietz and wife Julie took a road trip throughout New Zealand with their then-4-month-old son Bernard, aka Bernie. They wrote an article about their trip which was featured in the March issue of Travel & Leisure Magazine. Molly O’Connor is living in Somerville, Mass., was married two years ago and is the school counselor at a K-8 school in Cambridge. Molly reports that she thinks about Quaker values a lot in her work and is shocked at how hard it is for kids to sit quietly when they don’t have to practice weekly. Molly would love to connect with other FSBers in Boston! From the “Left Coast,” Dave Raphael lives in Portland, Ore. with wife Lesley Wojcik Raphael ’00 and their two children, Jack and Charlie. Dave reports that Jack and Charlie are growing rapidly and are voracious eaters of anything that includes cheese and carbs. I have been living in NYC and working at the same law firm since 2009. My wife Lisa and I are excited for my son Nikita to make the full-time/permanent move from St. Petersburg, Russia to NYC this summer and to start school in the Upper West Side area of NYC in the fall.

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Samantha L. Williamson slwillia@gmail.com

Hi Friends. First piece of news I have: we’re old. 2018 marks 18 years since we graduated, meaning we’re now twice as old as when we finished school! The upside is that people seem to be thriving despite our advanced age. Zach Wilcock wrote in, “Baby Wes just turned 1 and we are about to celebrate one year in Denver. I just sold my second startup and will be joining [wife] Lindsay at BP.” Ana Muñoz has been living in Boston for the last two years with her husband and daughter Alma. She is managing to make frequent trips to Baltimore where she says, “I’m thrilled to catch up with pals from 2000!” Geoff Graham let me know he and wife Cricket Arrison will be relocating to Los Angeles this coming August. He writes, “Any and all Friends alums should hit us up!” Kelly Swanston also left us for Los Angeles, where she accepted a primo job at the California Federal Public Defenders Office. Craig Hollander was recently in town to see the wonderful production of his family’s personal history, The Book of Joseph, at Everyman Theatre. David Greenwood is, “Starting an epic passion project of adapting the entirety of Yes’s Tales from Topographic Oceans to chiptune.” He promises to keep everyone up to date on his progress! Lesley Wojcik Raphael writes, “I am still living in Portland, Ore. with David Raphael ’99 and our two boys, Jack, 4, and Charlie, 3. We are eagerly awaiting the arrival of our au pair, Marine, from France. Hoping to brush up on my foreign language skills learned at Friends! Otherwise, we are enjoying summer in the Pacific Northwest -- lots of beach time, hiking, berry picking. We have a trip to Seattle coming up, and we’re planning to meet up with Chris Condlin ‘99 on his summer trip across America!” Rachel Zamoiski Soifer and her husband Jason welcomed a baby girl in March, Julia, named in memory of her dad James L. Zamoiski ’68. I have the good fortune of being neighbors with Priya Shashidharan, who had an adorable baby boy, Bodhi, earlier this year. Joe Fleury and wife Jenny added a baby girl, Emily, this summer to their brood of boys. Rob Travieso ’97 and I also welcomed a new addition, son Homer, born in June. ‘Til next time!

Carrie A. Runde carrie.runde@gmail.com

Last December Heather Dow and her family moved from Baltimore to Grand Rapids, Mich., where her husband has a new job building and installing conveyors. They’ve settled well in their new home and Heather is homeschooling her son, Aaron, 11, who is excelling heading into middle school. Sara Zager Chapper is excited to announce the birth of her son, Elior Jesse, on May 3rd. She’s also excited that her husband Mike Chapper ’00 graduated cum laude from Georgetown Law School in the spring. Jennifer Tufaro Nolley is busy being a mother to her two daughters, Elizabeth, 5, and Kathryn, 2. Both girls are at Bolton Hill Nursery and Jennifer hopes that one day they will go to Friends! Jennifer met her husband, Dawson Nolley, while working on films in Baltimore and they now both work in real estate. Jennifer nourishes her creative side developing and designing a new venue space inside Mill No. 1, called the Picker Room, for small weddings and events. Manu Sharma has been living in NYC for the last five years and just graduated from Yale with a doctor of nursing practice (DNP) degree. Kim Clark and her husband, Phil Krapchev, have settled with their two children, Ava, 4, and William, 1, in Newton, Mass. Kim’s brother, James Clark, an attorney, introduced Kim and Phil during their senior year of college at Hopkins and visits regularly. Kim is working in Jennifer Tufaro Nolley ’01’s two daughters, Elizabeth and Kathryn Nolley

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James Clark ’01 and his niece Ava Krapchev

Kim Clark ’01, husband Phil Krapchev, daughter Ava, and son William

Sara Zager Chapper ’01, Mike Chapper ’00, and their son Elior Chapper with their dog Juno

global marketing for a biotech startup company that hopes to launch a rare disease drug this year. Kim would love to meet up with any classmates who are living in the Boston area! You’ve probably all heard from Christine Pappas by now as she is finishing her first year as director of alumni relations & engagement back at Friends and loving it. She sees Warry Siebert and his wife Katie a few times a year whether it’s in Baltimore, Jersey or Bethany Beach. Warry and Katie are living in Westfield, N.J., and they welcomed a sweet baby girl, Annabelle Bair Siebert, in January 2018.

Camille E. Powe camille.powe@gmail.com

Christopher S. Wright cswright@gmail.com Although due last Christmas, Megan Richie and husband Tom Winner met their son Galen exactly one week late on New Year’s Day. So much for the tax break! Caki Zamoiski Halprin welcomed twins, Lila and James, on February 11. James is named in memory of her father James L. Zamoiski ’68. Katie MacLean is

living and working in Washington, D.C. She is excited to be opening her psychotherapy private practice, Dynamic Psychotherapy, in Dupont Circle in August 2018. Katie is also a scholar at the Washington Baltimore Center for Psychoanalysis. Becca Fogel Erwin and Carter Erwin ’03 celebrate their 10th wedding anniversary this October. They are living in Medfield, Mass. with their three boys, Auden, 8, Deegan, 6, and Granger, 2. Becca recently escaped New England to catch up with Anna Rubin in sunny San Francisco. In March 2017, Thomas Treasure moved into an intentional community in Washington, D.C. living alongside adults with intellectual/developmental disabilities and working to support them in their daily routines. The home is part of an international federation called L’Arche which is dedicated to creating communities where people with and without disabilities live together in mutual relationship. Lauren Smith has lived outside of Boston in Watertown, Mass. for 12 years. She is a clinical educator at Franciscan Children’s Hospital on the inpatient psychiatric unit. This job has fostered her love for and relationship

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Thomas Treasure ’02 and his friend William John Schofield

03 Rachel Zamoiski Soifer ’00’s daughter Julia (middle), with Caki Zamoiski Halprin ’02’s twins Lila (left) and James. Julia and James are named in memory of Rachel and Caki’s dad, James L. Zamoiski ’68.

with both teaching and medical care. Lauren’s family is no longer living in Baltimore, making it hard to get back there and visit. She remembers all of her years at Friends and misses everyone! Lauren is an auntie to two adorable nephews living in a different

area of New Hampshire – one, 12, from her brother, and the other, 2, from her sister. Lauren continues to pursue her belts in martial arts (Jiu Jitsu). Aside from work, martial arts, and family events, she is lucky if she has time to see all of her friends up here in

Camille Powe ’02’s son Julian Holliday Foster, 4 months old, showing some Quaker pride

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New England. Lauren looks forward to hopefully traveling more in the near future and wishes everyone the best! Jason Berman, who lives in Los Angeles and works as a producer, has three new films out on Netflix: Little Evil, Burning Sands, and Amateur. Two more are in post-production for Netflix: IO and Juanita, to be released early next year. One additional film is in production for Netflix called Otherhood, starring Angela Bassett, Patricia Arquette, and Felicity Huffman. Camille Powe lives in Boston, Mass. with her husband, Manny Foster, and their son, Julian Holliday Foster, who was born on August 3, 2017. Camille works as an endocrinologist at Massachusetts General Hospital. Her research and clinical work focuses on diabetes in pregnancy. As for me, Chris Wright, I am still living in Raleigh, N.C. and continue to consult in the life sciences industry. This year I was able to get together with Daniel Grayson, who is pursuing his master’s degree at the Fuqua School of Business in Durham, N.C. Additionally, Jason Berman and I continued our annual tradition of skiing in Steamboat Springs, Colo. The ski trip is a great excuse to get together and catch-up.

Emily Lamasa selamasa@gmail.com

Hi everyone - it was so nice to see some of you guys at the Reunion this year! I was fortunate enough to be able to see both Liz and Jeff Gilliams, Lisa Gabriel (and her adorable baby), Emily Weinman Thompson, Claire Maylor Logue, Danielle Waranch, Courtney Carlson, Carlo Olivi, Teddy Krolik, David Hecht, Sarah Knapp Castillo, Jordan Taler and his wife Christina Forsting Taler ’05, and a bunch of lovely non-Friends graduate significant others and spouses. Ben Pittman was on campus for the Mr. Nick Awards Lunch earlier in the day. It was really awesome to be able to catch up with so many people, especially since I hadn’t seen many of our Reunion attendees since they moved back to Baltimore (or since we graduated for some!). I hope to catch more of you at our 20th in five years! I also got a couple of responses to my email about class notes, though not as many as I’d like! Kelly Hendry Cotting reports that she is now working at the Chesterfield Commonwealth Attorney’s Office in the Richmond metropolitan area – and that she’s working with Julian Viscidi. Kelly had a baby, Marshall Cotting, on March 15. Kate Meyer Jakuta is still working for the Southeast Community Development Corporation doing case management with families in Southeast Baltimore. She’s also volunteering with a few immigrants legal or advocacy groups and is on the board of the Latino Providers Network. Jessie

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Julianne Grim Fiastro ’04 and husband Jon at their wedding in Little Italy

Vanderhoff was sorry to miss the Reunion, but had accidentally planned a trip to Tokyo for the same week. She’s living in San Diego, working as a tutor, growing zucchini plants with varying degrees of success, sewing on a 1920’s era sewing machine, and bragging about how nice her high school classmates were. She has a guest room and would love visitors! I also had a Friends get-together in New York in the spring. I spent the day and evening with Cari Whitney, Sarah Pitts, Danielle McCullough and Gant Powell. It was great to see them all, and I won’t report any of their awesome personal business since none of them shared for class notes, but Gant did report officially that his boyfriend, Daniel Pesick, has an internship at Oracle in San Francisco and is living there for the summer. They moved to Washington Heights since the last update, and he got a new nephew! Gant has also gotten involved with the Riders’ Alliance, which is a commuter advocacy group in New York working to make lasting legislative changes to the MTA (Gant and Teddy should connect on this issue – at the Reunion I got to hear all about Teddy’s new job working for the Maryland Transit Administration in Baltimore). As for me, I think everything is the same. I’m just enjoying living in Federal Hill with my

husband and cat, biking to work and sailing when it’s nice. Please contact me at any time of year with updates, photos, or just to chat! I’d love to hear from any of you.

Abigail M. Seiler aseiler8@gmail.com

members this year! Michael Levin and his wife Emily welcomed a baby boy named Benjamin William Levin this past May. Paul Greenfield and his wife Sarah were also joined by a baby boy in March, Hudson James Greenfield. Emma Bartlett Guzowski moved to the Cleveland area and gave birth to her son

Liam last summer. Gary Williams welcomed his second child, Charlotte Rose Williams, in July 2017. He also graduated recently from the University of Baltimore with a master’s of science in nonprofit management and social entrepreneurship. Nicholas Colvin and his wife Kate moved to Homeland and welcomed their second daughter,

Our class gained several new family Caitlin Garman ’04’s wedding celebration with, from left, Jon Garman ’75, Chele Garman ’75, Ann Shanks ’74, TJ Garman ’03, Gretchen Garman ’65, Caitlin Garman ’04, Jill Fritze ’04, Rachel Fitz ’04, Kendra Toner Barrett ’04, and Abigail Seiler ’04

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Paul Greenfield ’04, his wife Sarah, and their son Hudson

Nicholas Colvin ’04’s daughters: Caroline Winthrop Colvin and Madison Bly Colvin

Madison Bly Colvin (“Maddie”) in February, joining older sister Caroline Winthrop Colvin (“Winnie”). Kathleen Gorman has been working as a pediatrician in Lilongwe, Malawi through an appointment at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital since August 2017. While there, she has also been traveling throughout Africa, including South Africa, Zambia, and Morocco. She’s also furthering her education at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. Tess Russell moved back to Baltimore about a year ago and has loved running into Friends kids around town (even visiting her niece at Little Friends). She’s currently in the process of opening a deli/grocery in Hampden called Prime Corner. Located on Chestnut Ave — right near the 34th Street Christmas lights — she welcomes anyone who’s in Baltimore or back visiting to stop by! Julianne Grim Fiastro and her husband John Fiastro “surprised” her engagement party guests with a wedding ceremony on December 29th. Festivities began with a cocktail reception at Aldo’s Ristorante in Baltimore, followed by a ceremony at St. Leo’s Church in Little Italy, the same

church that Julianne’s grandparents were married in 70 years ago. The evening featured a traditional wedding procession through the streets of Little Italy with a brass band leading the way. Caitlin Garman married Michael Brown this past March in Bethany Beach, Del. Several of us from the class of ’04 attended the celebration, including Jill Fritze, Rachel Fitz, Kendra Toner Barrett, and myself. Alexandra Nelson graduated with her M.B.A. and now works for the University of Maryland School of Medicine doing marketing and recruitment. Alex’s daughter Zoe turned three in July 2017 and she recently saw Samantha Cusack Freeman and Lindsey Syropoulos Wedekind at Sammie’s “baby sprinkle” in Baltimore. Peter Weitzmann started a new job in July 2017 as database specialist at Blue Water Baltimore in the Remington neighborhood. He also plays in an electronic pop/rock band called Magic Item with Rob Summers and Lehn Robinson. Alex Broekhof and Alexei Pfeffer-Gillett met up in Morro Bay on the Central California Coast to catch waves into the New Year! Alanah Webb is finishing her

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last year of anesthesia residency at Tulane University in New Orleans, La., a city she says will forever have a place in her heart. Next year she will be moving to Los Angeles to complete a fellowship in critical care anesthesia at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. While nervous about the move, she’s excited for the next step and is looking forward to catching up with old friends/ fellow Friends alumni living in the L.A. area! Speaking of L.A., I recently made a trip out there and was lucky enough to catch up with Shruti Kumar, Colin Molloy and Daniel Robertson, who are all doing great pursuing their creative dreams in the music and entertainment industries.

Christina Forsting Taler

christina.forsting@ gmail.com Dan Benamor is currently working

as a screenwriter in Los Angeles, where he is happily married to Adriana Benamor and proud father to Mercedes Leigh Benamor. His most recent film, Stagecoach: The Texas Jack Story, was released in late 2016. Brittney Bogues is passionate about educating and informing young women of the importance of self. The former CEO of All in Public Relations, Brittney serves on the boards for the Wake Forest University Charlotte Executive Board and the nonprofit Always Believe, Inc. and is pursuing work as a lobbyist. Big congratulations are in order to David Fakunle, who earned his Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins University in October 2017, got married in December 2017, started a post-doctoral fellowship at Morgan State University in January 2018, and bought his first home in March 2018. Jesse Handler also shares big news – he received his

Surfers Alex Broekhof ’04 and Alexei Pfeffer-Gillett ’04

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Dan Benamor ’05, his wife Adriana and their baby Mercedes

fair warning, the conversation may not be brief. As for your class secretary, my husband, Jordan Taler ’03 and I recently moved back to Baltimore from New York and welcomed a baby boy, Luke Kjell Houghton Taler, on May 29. Jordan Taler ’03 and Christina Forsting Taler ’05 with their son Luke at the Friends School Alumni Lax Game

Ph.D. in cancer biology in 2016 and received his M.D. in May of this year, both from NYU School of Medicine. He plans to enter an internal medicine residency program at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston in June. He also tied the knot on June 9, 2018 to Stacy Bauerlein, a fundraiser for the arts originally from Miami, Fla. Dan Benamor officiated the ceremony, Neeraj Wahi was best man, Robert Terrin and John Ross were groomsmen, and his sister, Leah Nielsen ’10, was a bridesmaid. Jeremy King worked on a few more Broadway shows over the past year, including keyboard sounds for Pretty Woman and Head Over Heels (both coming to Broadway later this year) and subbing on guitar on Summer, the Jeremy King ’05 on adoption day with his dog Chloë.

Donna Summer Musical. Jeremy also shares that he’ll be starting Columbia Law School this fall and will specialize in copyright and entertainment law. He is happily living in Crown Heights with Jamie and his adopted dog, Chloë. Hannah McElgunn lives in Chicago with her husband and their big dog, Dray. She spent the last 18 months living on Hopi ancestral territory and working with the Hopi Cultural Preservation Office. She plans to finish up her Ph.D. in anthropology and linguistics in the next few years. Heather McDonagh Tamez finished an ophthalmology residency at Vanderbilt Eye Institute. She will be staying at Vanderbilt to begin her vitreoretinal surgery fellowship. She and her husband, Dan Tamez, just celebrated their fourth anniversary. Robert Terrin is living in New York and started Tail Risk, a cybersecurity company serving financial institutions in 2017 after graduating from Columbia Business School and the School of International and Public Affairs. He is sad that one of the dogs he adopted in college finally passed away, but excited for his brother, Will Terrin ’99, who is recently engaged! If you see Michael Terrin at Eddie’s of Charles Village, he would love to say “hi,” but

Nicole R. Runde nicole.runde@gmail.com

This has been a year of celebration, change, and remembrance for the Class of ’06. We’ve rejoiced over marriages and births. Josh Waranch married Ellen Laughlin on July 28, 2017 in Kennebunkport, Maine. And in June of this year, they welcomed a new baby, Isabel Rose Waranch! On August 26, Russell Williams married Caitlin McGuire at Turf Inn in Maryland. Adam Genn was a groomsman and David Ray was his best man. Tom

Adolph married Elizabeth Furlong on September 30, 2017 at the Engineers’ Club in Baltimore with classmates David Ray, Phil Bartolini, Joe Whitney, and Josh Waranch by his side as groomsmen. Congratulations Josh and Tom! Katie Minton finished law school at Columbia University in May 2017, passed the bar, and got married! I along with Kaitlin Boswell and Laurel Black celebrated as we watched Katie wed Dan Mesa at Mt. Washington Dye House on August 5. As if that year doesn’t sound productive enough, in September, Katie started a human rights fellowship helping represent Guantánamo detainees and civilian victims of drone strikes. In May Katie moved back to Baltimore, where she and Dan are settling into their newly purchased home in Federal Hill. I’m glad to

Kyla Minton ’08, Tom Minton, Katie Minton ’06, and Mary Jo Minton at Katie’s wedding

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Katie Minton ’06 and husband Dan Mesa

Rebecca Hesselbacher ’06 with fiancée Vincent Soetanto

David Ray ’06, Phil Bartolini ’06, Joe Whitney ’06, Tom Adolph ’06, Conor Furlong, Dylan Beaumont, and Josh Waranch ’06 stand as groomsmen at Tom’s wedding.

have her in town again, and we’ll be playing on a softball team together this summer with Katie Williams Coiner and Jake Stern. While we had much to celebrate, we also had moments to grieve. This spring brought along shock and sadness as we learned that classmate Rebecca Hesselbacher had passed away on April 13. Rebecca had just finished her master’s degree in speech-language pathology from the University of Virginia in May 2017. Rebecca got engaged to fiancé Vincent Soetanto in July, and moved back to Charlotte, N.C. to start her career as an SLP. They purchased and renovated a home together and were passionate world travelers. Like many classmates, I have so many wonderful memories of Rebecca from our days at Friends together -- school projects, band concerts with Rebecca on trumpet, endless softball games with the Hesselbachers cheering on the sidelines, sleepovers, “getting ready” all together before mixers and

dances ... Rebecca was such a smart, joyful, strong, and caring woman, and we are all feeling this huge loss. Many people from our class and the Friends School community gathered at Second Presbyterian Church in Baltimore on May 12 for a beautiful service in her memory. It felt appropriate that in celebrating the life of such a loving person, I was able to reconnect with and hug classmates and parents of classmates I hadn’t seen since our graduation in 2006. We’re holding Vincent and the Hesselbacher family in the Light and sending love. Please consider honoring Rebecca by donating to the Access2Success Foundation, a non-profit from Rebecca’s alma mater Davidson College that provides education and empowerment programs for Nigerian children and their communities: A2sfoundation.org.

Guests at Tom Adolph ’06’s wedding; back row from left, Maxx Davis ’06, Adam Genn ’06, Joe Whitney ’06, Phil Bartolini ’06, David Ray ’06, Mairead Parade (David’s fiancée), Russell Williams ’06, Caitlin Williams; front row from left, Julie Stevener, Katie Fraas, Drew Black ’06, Danica Bartolini, Claire Coscia, Josh Waranch ’06, and Tori Black

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Lauren S. Marks lmarks617@gmail.com

Roz Kreizenbeck married Chris Robinson in Calvert Cliffs Maryland last September, and many Friends School classmates were in attendance for the beautiful affair! Ali Pappas is living in New York City and was recently promoted to a new position as senior manager, global brand & product marketing at Kate Spade. US Lacrosse named Brooke Matthews as an assistant coach for the 2019 U.S women’s U19 national team. As for me, I started working for Kennedy Krieger and am enjoying my work providing mental health services to infants and mothers in West Baltimore.

Jasmine L. Powe

jasmine.liana.powe@ gmail.com Hi Class of ’08! I had the pleasure of attending our 10th Reunion this year with many of our classmates. It was great to see everyone and catch up! I have great news from a couple of our Roz Kreizenbeck ’07 and Chris Robinson at their wedding in September 2017

classmates that I am excited to share. Annie Kruger Payne is traveling to Paris and London with her husband Josh. Their friend is getting married in London, which is the main reason for the trip, but they extended to celebrate many great things they have going on! Annie started a new job at the Baltimore Business Journal as an advertising sales manager, and Josh is officially a structural engineer as of earlier this year! Bradley Kolodner is hooked on playing the banjo, a hobby he picked up his senior year at Friends. He loves playing old-time and bluegrass music and performs regularly with his dad Ken Kolodner ’72 and with his other band Charm City Junction all around the country. Recent tours have taken him and his band to Maine, Arkansas, New York, North Carolina, Wisconsin, Vermont, and Canada. He’s also a radio DJ for WAMU’s Bluegrass Country in D.C.every Wednesday and Friday from 12-3 pm, you can listen online at bluegrasscountry.org. Outside of music, he recently took up rockclimbing and is in the midst of planning a backpacking trip for later this year. Go visit him for a drink under his freshly built pergola in the backyard of his Hampden row house! Sarah Gartner Oken got married in Atlanta last September in a beautiful wedding ceremony which I had the pleasure of attending, and got to hang out with good friends that I hadn’t seen in some time. As for me, I recently got engaged and will be getting married in Baltimore next year. I am very excited to share all the wonderful things about Baltimore with many friends who have never visited. It was so great to catch up with many of you at the Reunion and via notes, please continue to send in your news! I love hearing from you.

classnotes

2008 classmates, from left, Jenna Blewis, Ella Dayton, Sarah Gartner Oken, Jasmine Powe, and Jocelyn Worley at Sarah’s wedding.

Leah R. Koenig lkoenig14@gmail.com

Our Friends School ’09 sweethearts have tied the knot! Johari Frasier and Sarah Lewin got married in May in New York City, illustrious 2009 alumni in attendance included Teonna Woolford, Emily Keamy-Minor, Marcie Schwartz, best man Nick Lehn, Ben Jones, Max Walker, Brian Martin, and Wick Eisenberg. Ben Lewin ’12 was also in attendance to provide moral support and a resonant bass/baritone. Johari and Sarah look forward to many happy years together and finally getting just one copy of Friends Magazine. Congratulations Sarah and Johari!

Joseph L. Peyton jpey92@gmail.com

Upper School teacher Lucy Hand ’80 heard from Jordan Wright earlier this year and shared that Jordan, after graduating from Davidson College, is now teaching at an independent school in Georgia that posted a weekly “Faculty Feature” on Jordan on its website. When asked if he could have dinner with anyone from history, who it would be and why he said, “I shall preface this by saying that there is a reason why I majored in mathematics and not in history! However, for a historical dinner, Quakers would be an interesting choice. No, not the oatmeal company. Members of the Religious Society of Friends, or Quakers. Although I am not a Quaker, I graduated high school from a Quaker school. They are fascinating individuals, and a dinner with them would be stimulating and revealing to the type of people they are known to be.” Ouranitsa

Abbas ’06 and Chaz Walters spoke to students about service and the community at the fall 2017 Upper School Quaker Community Day. Billy Collins returned to campus this past spring to present to students about his film work in Antarctica. Billy is currently working for an NSF funded research project called SALSA (Subglacial Antarctic Lakes Scientific Access) where they will be drilling into an Antarctic subglacial lake, one of the least explored environments on Earth.

Ashley L. Geleta ageleta@fandm.edu

Most of the Class of 2011 will turn 25 this year – but more like twentythrive with all that’s in store for our classmates this year! Bealela Donnelly writes to us from Charlotte, N.C., where she just bought her first house! She recently celebrated her second year as an internal auditor with Bank of America after getting her master’s in 2016. Talk about adulting. Lou Brand is a doctoral student at Colorado School of Mines where he develops novel machine-learning algorithms to accurately diagnose diseases like Alzheimer’s based on genetic information and MRI brain scans. In May, he was awarded the highly competitive Science, Mathematics, and Research for Transformation (SMART) Scholarshipto-Service Program fellowship through the Department of Defense, which will allow him to apply these data-driven algorithms to components produced using additive manufacturing processes. As if that wasn’t impressive enough, he’s already slated to join the Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center (SCC) Atlantic in Charleston, S.C. after graduation. Alex Young

will close out 2018 with a master’s of science that focuses on nutrient cycling in northern hardwood forests. For me, I haven’t been able to keep up with 2011’s whereabouts or accomplishments lately as I have been traveling quite often as a contractor for the Department of Defense, working on biological defense efforts. I’ve gotten to support biodefense programs in several partner nations, including Turkey, Azerbaijan, Jordan, and Uzbekistan. In July, I head to Iraq where I get to fly in a helicopter. I’m pretty excited to say the least! Stay tuned for more 2011 excitement to come!

Lauren P. Riley laurenriley16@gmail.com

Classmates, please send your news!

Samantha R. Enokian

Amelia Merrill

samanthaenokian@ yahoo.com Colin Fowler is living in Boston and working towards a Ph.D. in biology at MIT. Sam Enokian spent 2017-18 learning and living in Khazakstan. Tori Long is starting law school at UMD in fall 2018. Anna Mortimer, who was kind enough to help with class notes this year, is living in Baltimore and starting a financial services practice. Molly Farrugia also lives in Baltimore and is working for a nonprofit that focuses on the well-being of children during early development.

merrilam@dickinson.edu

Congratulations are in order for the many members of the Class of 2014 who graduated from college last spring! Many of us are pursuing graduate degrees, entering the workforce, or embarking on volunteer opportunities worldwide. With our varied and unique skill sets, members of the Class of 2014 are using our talents to better our world. Julia Mann is pursuing a graduate certificate in documentary film studies at The New School in New York City. She recently graduated with a degree in digital culture and communications from Tel Aviv University. In Tel Aviv, Julia made films on various Israeli issues, such as the refugee crisis; she reports that a film she made for the African Refugee

Members of the Class of 2009 at Sarah Lewin and Johari Frasier’s wedding.

Development Center was screened at “an anti-deportation rally in Tel Aviv for over 15,000 people.” Zari Press is studying school psychology at Towson University. She is enrolled in a combined M.A. and certificate of advanced study program in which she will complete a 1,200-hour internship in her third year to become a licensed school psychologist. Zari graduated from Davidson College with a B.S. in psychology last May. Since graduating from University of Maryland Baltimore Country with a B.S. in psychology with a concentration in biopsychology, Iman Said has embarked on a Ph.D. program for counseling psychology at Georgia State University. Last spring, she presented her undergraduate thesis at the Black Psychology Conference at Virginia State University. Iman conducts research on minority mental health with a professor at Georgia State’s College of Education & Human Development. Upon her graduation from Cornell University with a B.S. in communications with a concentration in technology and business, Hannah Noyes was awarded the Academic All-Ivy Award for her contributions to the university’s women’s polo team. This award is presented to only five women athletes from each Ivy League school. Hannah now works for the consulting firm MediaLink in New York City. Ugochi Ihenatu also relocated to New York to work as a legal assistant at the firm Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy LLP. Ugochi graduated from Brown University last spring with a B.A. in international relations. Josh Leiner is currently a Venture for America fellow, working with startup companies in developing cities to bolster economies and learn how to build businesses. Josh graduated with a B.A. in history from Bates College, where he was awarded the Ernest P. Muller Prize in history for his thesis on Civil War general George McClellan. Lauren Eller is in the midst of a yearlong communications fellowship at

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classnotes Global Health Corps’ Center for Health and Gender Equity in Washington, D.C. Lauren graduated with a B.A. in English with a concentration in creative writing from Kenyon College, where she was the managing editor of its newspaper, The Kenyon Collegian. Zach Spawn has recently journeyed to The Gambia, where he will live and work for the next two years as a member of the Peace Corps. Zach will serve as an agriculture volunteer, which he calls “uncharted territory” for him as he studied chemical engineering at the University of Maryland College Park. After three months of training in the capital city of Banjul, Zach will be assigned to a smaller city or town for the following two years of service. Zach is carrying on the legacy of Friends School alumni and teachers who have worked with the Peace Corps, and it will be great to follow his adventures as he puts his Quaker values to work! We also received word from Mr. Spawn that A.J. Pruitt in his role as student government president at University of Maryland, had the privilege of introducing the commencement speaker Al Gore at graduation in May and that he did “a tremendous job.” Claudia Deitch graduated from Brown University with a B.A. in international relations and Slavic studies. Jordana Lachow, married her fiancé Toyam Cox on June

3rd in Maryland. Their engagement was in the notes a few years ago. Grace Hand got engaged to longtime boyfriend Nick Buly in April 2018. Grace graduated with a degree in psychology from Connecticut College, where she met her fiancé.

Charles H. Blake blakecharlie99@gmail.com

Charlie Blake is now your class secretary! You will hear from him the in the future! For his update this year, Charlie writes that he is a film major with a commercial design and photography minor. “I started developing my photography and got a job as the sports photographer for Lycoming College as well as some work with Division I schools in Maryland. The last two summers I have been living in Los Angeles at UCLA taking part in their different film school programs. This summer I am working two internships in L.A. at production companies with their script development team.” Katrina Keegan writes, “I am finishing up my sophomore year at University of Chicago. I had a lot of fun this year working with a professor to develop a class on Russian media and interning with Fulbright Central Asia. Last summer I studied Turkish in Azerbaijan, and this summer I

interned at the Center for International Private Enterprise in D.C. I am very excited to be studying abroad in St. Petersburg all of next year.” Maddy Shay says, “I’m currently in summer classes at Northeastern University. I recently returned from working abroad at Boehringer Ingelheim, a pharma company in southern Germany. I am a chemistry major and I’m preparing to start a six-month co-op (internship) doing polymer discovery for Living Proof, a hair care company.” Helena Stevens sent in an update, “Last semester I was a student intern at Cromwell Valley Elementary School for the Early Childhood Education Program at Towson University. I was placed in a kindergarten classroom, in which I taught different lessons.”

Zoe Reck zoereck@icloud.com

Classmates, please send your news!

Remembrance

This class presently does not have a Class Secretary. If you are interested in volunteering for the post, please email alumni@ friendsbalt.org. Philip Harder writes, “Currently I’m doing well at Drexel University. I’m on my first co-op as a web developer for the summer here in Philadelphia and I’m getting some great job experience.”

Included in the Class of 2018 were nine legacies, graduates whose parents or grandparents attended Friends School. Pictured from left are Zeke Texter ’18, John Texter III ’83 (back), Brad Goldbloom ’84, AJ Goldbloom ’18 (front), Halle Shephard ’18 (middle), Michael Shephard ’79 (back), Alex Miceli ’18 (front), Trish Backer-Miceli ’83, Connie Shay ’82 (back), Cole Shay ’18 (back), Ben Sherbakov ’18 (front), Thora Johnson ’88, Carter Feiss ’18 (back), Chris Feiss ’80 (back), Susan Townsend ’63 (front), Skyler Kessenich ’18, Ben Lucas II ’59, and Keelty Wyatt ’18.

Stephen Robert Bogusky III ’18 Friends School mourned the tragic loss of Stephen Bogusky, a member of the Class of 2018, who died in a car accident on August 12, 2018. A lifer at Friends, Stephen joined the School in 2006 and was set to attend Sewanee: The University of the South this fall, where he had committed to play lacrosse. A standout athlete known for his speed and agility, Stephen was a capable student and a thoughtful and supportive community member. With his quiet humor and understated demeanor, he earned the respect and friendship of his classmates and teammates, who will carry him in their hearts forever. This fall, Stephen’s family established The Stephen Robert Bogusky III ’18 Scholarship to honor Stephen’s legacy of servant leadership, academic excellence, sportsmanship, and athleticism by supporting Friends School scholarathletes with financial need. For more information, visit friendsbalt.org Giving menu Special Memorial Funds.

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Milestones MARRIAGES 1983 Larry Smith and Connie L. Terry June 16, 2018 1995 Andrew Gohn and Naomi Abelson December 2016 1998 Alicia Atkinson and Ryan Hinojos April 22, 2017 Lauren Johnson and Patrick Walker May 17, 2018 1999 Reid Cherlin and Annie Schachar November 2017 2004 Julianne Grim and John Fiastro December 2017 Caitlin Garman and Michael Brown March 2018 2005 David Fakunle and Doralee Calderon December 2017 2006 Josh Waranch and Ellen Laughlin July 28, 2017 Katie Minton and Dan Mesa August 5, 2017 Russell Williams and Caitlin McGuire August 26, 2017 Tom Adolph and Elizabeth Furlong September 30, 2017 2007 Roz Kreizenbeck and Chris Robinson, September 2017 2009 Johari Frasier and Sarah Lewin May 2017 2014 Jordana Lachow and Toyam Cox June 2018

BIRTHS 1997 Bobby Michel and Kristin Patzkowsky, a girl, Maggie January 16, 2018

1997, 2000 Rob Travieso ’97 and Sammy Williamson ’00, a boy, Homer Ellis Travieso June 6, 2018 1998 Terry Levine Golaner and David Golaner, a girl, Charlotte Rose November 16, 2017 Erin Hall and Nick Oster, a boy, Lyle Obadiah Hall Oster January 11, 2018 Maeli Poor Zacchetti and Jason Zacchetti, a girl, Lyra Jane Zacchetti, May 18, 2018 Justine Alger Forrester and Bill Forrester, a boy, Abel Staubus Forrester May 26, 2018 1999 Ben Bodnar and Alia, a girl, Aletta, October 2017 Maron Deering and Sandy Mayson, a girl, Willa Anthony Mayson-Deering, December 29, 2017 Jeremy Barofsky and Kate Finley, a girl, Ayla Barofsky April 2018 2000 Priya Shashidharan and Joe Little, a boy, Bodhi, 2018 2000 Joe Fleury and Jenny, a girl, Emily Shehan Fleury June 2018 2000, 2001 Mike Chapper ’00 and Sara Zager Chapper ’01, a boy, Elior Jesse Chapper May 3, 2018 2001 Warry Siebert and Katie, a girl, Annabelle Bair Siebert January 2018 2002 Camille Powe and Manny Foster, a boy, Julian Holliday Foster August 3, 2017

Megan Richie and Tom Winner, a boy, Galen, New Year’s Day 2018 Caki Zamoiski Halprin and Peter, twins, Lila and James February 11, 2018 2003 Kelly Hendry Cotting and Dan, a boy, Marshall Cotting March 15, 2018 2003, 2005 Jordan Taler ’03 and Christina Forsting Taler ’05, a boy, Luke Kjell Houghton Taler May 29, 2018

1948 James Walter Holtzworth December 16, 2017 1949 Dales McCurdy Stallings January 12, 2018 Robert A. Wetzler July 13, 2018 1950 Suzanne Kegan Nuttle January 3, 2018 1951 William Capehart Walke, Jr. April 21, 2018

2004 Emma Bartlett Guzowski and Brian, a boy, Liam Guzowski July 8, 2017

1954 H. Robert Christopher, Jr. July 11, 2017

Gary Williams and Christina, a girl, Charlotte Rose Williams July 29, 2017

1955 Wynelle Hudson Seiler April 12, 2018

Nicholas Colvin and Kate, a girl, Madison Bly Colvin February 20, 2018

1956 Margaret “Penny” Nichols Watts December 18, 2017

Paul Greenfield and Sarah, a boy, Hudson James Greenfield March 8, 2018

1963 Ann Firminger Howard May 14, 2018

Michael Levin and Emily, a boy, Benjamin William Levin May 2, 2018

1964 Faris Lee Worthington February 1, 2018

2006 Josh Waranch and Ellen, a girl, Isabel Rose Waranch June 2018

1967 John Herbert Mears III July 9, 2017

IN MEMORIAM 1941 Marjorie Forbush Scott February 8, 2018 Dorothy Breeskin Brown February 2018

1987 Christine Monk Huxtable February 23, 2018 1991 Andrew Christopher Helms November 16, 2017

Carolyn Rudolph Nevitt July 18, 2018

1992 Luke Stone September 19, 2017

1942 Margaret Cutler Johnson October 27, 2017

2006 Rebecca Diane Hesselbacher April 13, 2018

1945 H. Chace Davis, Jr. March 1, 2018

2018 Stephen R. Bogusky III August 12, 2018

Please send all Milestones to alumni@friendsbalt.org.

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parents association Hello from the Friends School Parents Association! As the 2017–18 School year drew to a close, the Friends School Parents Association (FSPA) continued to work hard to fulfill our mission to build community and enrich the lives of our children. Last year we added something new to our FSPA monthly meetings. We served coffee and breakfast snacks prior to the start of each meeting, giving parents an opportunity to gather in fellowship with one another. Beginning in November, we also added a guest speaker to the beginning of each meeting. We hosted a range of Friends School faculty and staff and heard about the Wish List; the Healthy Relationships Task Force; diversity, equity, and social justice; development; and athletics. The year started off with a wonderful celebration of Friends School Athletics and our community at Scarlet and Gray Day in October. The FSPA organized the sideline events, such as the family carnival, field games, concessions, and live student music performances. There were 10 athletic games, an Alumni Office sponsored fun run, and lots of Quaker Pride! Based on our success from 2016–17, the FSPA expanded Friday Night Basketball concessions to Friday Night Athletic Concessions, offering concessions at Friday night games throughout the school year, including basketball, wrestling, volleyball, badminton, lacrosse, and baseball. In January, the 14th annual MLK, Jr. Day of Service drew nearly 400 participants in 16 different service activities on campus and at sites throughout the city. Attendees at the Welcome Breakfast heard opening remarks by keynote speaker, Jamal Jones, Co-Executive Director of Baltimore Algebra Project, about the impact that mastering math has on Baltimore City youth. On April 28, we had another successful and fun Night Out With Friends! With almost 300 in attendance, this annual signature fundraising event was a fabulous evening of music, dancing, and great auction items. The event was held at the historic Belvedere Hotel, where we honored Friends Through the Years with photographs from the Friends School archives and a 1920’s theme. In addition to being a wonderful community building event, we were able to raise enough to fulfill the $20,000 faculty and staff Wish List for this year! The list includes items such as new instruments for the 4th and 5th grade band program, and many science items for the classroom, such as circuit makers and robotics equipment. Thanks to successful fundraising efforts, such as Class Photos, Square One Art, and Friday Night Athletic Concessions, the FSPA was also able to contribute $1,500 in honor of retiring faculty and staff to the Mission Fund, which supports students in each division by furnishing items and services not covered by tuition, as well as over $5,000 to The Fund For Friends, which makes up the difference between tuition and the cost to educate our children. Our dedicated team of Board members, Grade Chairs and parent volunteers were in full force throughout the year, chaperoning field

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trips, organizing class parties, monitoring Middle School lunches, working on the second edition of the Lower School yearbook, and planning Upper School exam Brain Boosters to help fund Prom After Party (which Grade Chairs planned). To show our appreciation for all that our teachers and administrators do for our children, we continued our Friendly Fridays program, which provided breakfast goodies and drinks to our faculty and staff every other month throughout the year, and we hosted a Faculty and Staff Appreciation Luncheon in March. Last but certainly not least, last spring we ramped up our Familyto-Family program for this year’s incoming new families. We helped to welcome more than 159 new students by partnering them with a current family and by offering welcome events over the summer for each division. Thank you to our parent volunteers for the time, talent, and generous spirit you bring to Friends School every day. Laurie Haas, Chair

Jen Smith, Vice Chair

MLK, JR. DAY OF SERVICE

Some 400 Friends parents, students, alumni, faculty, staff, and friends turned out on January 15 for the School’s 14th annual Martin Luther King, Jr. Day of Service. This year’s event featured keynote speaker Jamal Jones, co-executive director of the Baltimore Algebra Project, and offered participants a choice of 16 different service activities at locations including Baltimore Station, McKim Community Center, The Book Thing, and Our Daily Bread Employment Center. Preparations are under way the 15th annual MLK, Jr. Day of Service on Monday, January 21, 2019. Mark your calendar and look for further information this fall.

Volunteers engaged Baltimore City Public School students in games and activities to keep them safe and busy during the holiday. Here, Zach Smith ’19 (center) and team members prepare for a flag football game.

A large group of Friends volunteers packaged weekend food bags for the Baltimore Hunger Project.

parents association

NIGHT OUT WITH FRIENDS

The historic Belvedere Hotel was the perfect backdrop for Night Out With Friends on April 28. In keeping with this year’s theme, “Friends Through the Years,” guests decked out in festive attire (think flapper girls and top hats) and enjoyed delicious food, drinks, and dancing. The Parents Association’s biggest fundraiser of the year, the event featured a live and silent auction with opportunities to bid on items ranging from week-long stays in beautiful vacation homes and a behind-the-scenes tour of The Simpsons studio in Los Angeles to student artwork and a chance for one lucky Lower Schooler to be “Librarian for the Day.”

From left: Sarah Johnston Millspaugh ’88, Aaron Parker, Mark Millspaugh, Marla Shaivitz, and Jen Parker

From left, Trish Backer-Miceli ’83, Brigid Baroody, Robin Navarro, and Augie Miceli view framed photos of Friends athletes up for bid.

Lynnard Deans and Roslyn Pearson

Tanja George and Natalie White From left, Marshall Henslee, Kerry Zimmerman, Meredith van den Beemt, Jen Smith and Burck Smith ’88 FRI ENDSBALT.ORG | FR IEND S S C HOOL

development news Greetings from the Friends School of Baltimore Board of Trustees: As I look back on the 2017-18 school year, I am struck by the enthusiasm and commitment shown by our group of dedicated trustees. The Board spent the year in deep and thoughtful reflection, marked by both contemplative silence and energetic discussion about the purpose and nature of our work. This helped us realign our stated priorities with the work we do on a monthly basis and reaffirmed our commitment to diversity on campus and to stewarding the financial well-being of the School. As we delve into the 2018-19 academic year, we look to shape a school that will, as our strategic direction Friends Connects states, “prepare our students to thrive in a future that we ourselves cannot fully imagine.” Through our abiding belief in the Quaker philosophy that there is that of God in everyone, we seek to honor the unique gifts and perspectives of each and every member of our community. Together, we will strive to broaden and challenge our current perceptions about what it means to be “Friends,” “School,” “of Baltimore,” and help lead the School into a beautiful future. As always, I welcome the ideas and suggestions of the members of our large Friends community. Please reach out to me with your thoughts. All my best, Meredith van den Beemt P’19, ’20, ’22 meredithvdb@gmail.com

You spoke, we listened! Alumni can now network and engage with fellow Friends grads through the Friends School of Baltimore Career Insights platform on LinkedIn. Want a job in publishing in New York City? Looking for an IT job in San Francisco? Use this platform to filter alumni within your areas of interest and connect with them. • Simply add Friends School of Baltimore to the Education Section of your LinkedIn profile. (You may need to edit your existing Friends School connection if you do not see the red Friends School seal.) • Click on the seal • Then click on the “See Alumni” link. You are now part of the Career Insights platform. And that’s not all! Friends School grads now have their very own Alumni Facebook page! Follow us @FSBALUMNI1784 to find upcoming alumni events, campus happenings, and exciting stories about fellow classmates. We hope alumni will take advantage of these exciting opportunities to connect, engage, and discover all the possibilities a true alumni network can unfold.

A Legacy for Friends

Upon her arrival at Friends School, Linda van Reuth ’63 immediately made her mark as a woman of action, becoming president of the 10th grade class after only two weeks on campus. Throughout her time in the Upper School, she took on many other roles, including treasurer and news editor for The Quaker Quill. Upon her passing in October 2016, the School learned that she had included Friends in her will, providing a bequest of $100,000 to establish an endowed scholarship fund in her name.

Connecting Friends, Advancing Careers

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This fall a 7th grader with a similar “can do” spirit became the first recipient of the Linda van Reuth ’63 Scholarship. The School is grateful to Linda van Reuth for her generosity and thoughtful planning that will benefit Friends students today and long into the future. Join Linda and others like her who have included Friends School in their estate planning. For more information, contact Jocelyn Kehl, Director of Major and Planned Giving at 410.649.3316 or jkehl@friendsbalt.org.

development news

A Smarter Way to Start New gift endows student orientation program

Middle School math teacher John Watt, pictured with Middle Schoolers new to Friends, has been helping to lead Smart Start since the program’s inception.

Let’s face it: Entering a new school can be stressful for any student but the process is especially challenging during the middle school years, when rapid physical, social, and emotional changes can wreak havoc on a child’s confidence and coping skills. Why not provide these “new kids” with a little extra care and attention so they can begin the new year with a spring in their step and fewer “what if ” worries? That was the idea rising 9th grader Mark Reid ’10 shared back in 2006 when his father, Vernon, asked him what areas of improvement at Friends he thought their family could support with their annual gift to the School. Thus, the seeds of Smart Start were sown. The four-day orientation program is designed to help Friends School students who are new to grades 6 through 8 acclimate to their new environment, make new friends, and get a sense of the Middle School’s challenging academic program before returning students arrive on campus. In the 11 years since its inception, Smart Start has paved the way for hundreds of Middle Schoolers. Now Mark Reid, with his family, has endowed the program to ensure incoming students will reap the benefits of Smart Start far into the future. Last spring, Friends Magazine connected three new 6th grade students (and Smart Start fans) — Kayla Holly ’24, Ashlee Carpenter ’24, and Naima Cash ’24 — with Reid for a phone interview. An alumnus of University of Chicago, Reid now lives in New Hampshire and works for a private investment firm that focuses on renewable energies. He happily took

the call. Following are excerpts from that conversation: Hi Mr. Reid, What inspired the idea behind Smart Start? M.R. As I reflected on my own Friends experience and that of my friends, I realized that students who transferred in Middle School, particularly from public schools, needed more support to be successful. Friends is different from other places — it’s academically rigorous, which I’m very proud of, but there are cultural aspects that students have to get used to, like Meeting for Worship, Collection, and the idea of reflection. Combine this with the social aspects of a transition, and it can all snowball for new students. I loved my time at Friends and I wanted others to love it as well. So, when the opportunity arose to help students have a more positive experience, I jumped on it. Why have you and your family continued to support Smart Start even after you graduated? M.R. First, we genuinely believe in the principles that Friends School teaches — the notion that there is that of God in everyone, the SPICES … but the real reason we still support and believe in the School has to do with the people — those who graduate from Friends, teach here, and who support the School. Friends was definitive to my moral self-understanding and how I act in every aspect of my life. You could say my parents are somewhat appreciative of that! So are we (laughing)! Thank you again. Have a good day!

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development news

The Fund for Friends: A Successful First Year • The Board of Trustees in November 2017 The Friends School Annual Fund— announced that it would match all new long the mainstay of the School’s giving gifts and all increased gifts to The Fund programs — underwent a name change in for Friends up to $100,000. It didn’t take 2017-18 to The Fund for Friends. Response the School community long to answer the to the campaign was extraordinary: More call: By February 2018, 380 donors raised than 1,500 alumni, parents, grandparents, $120,000! parents of alumni, faculty, staff, and • Alumni Reunion classes stepped up. friends contributed $1.3 million to support Our graduating classes ending in 3’s and educational programs, financial assistance, 8’s made an incredible impact by raising and stewardship of the School’s 34.5-acre $133,718 for The Fund for Friends. campus and buildings. Friends School is delighted to have Kim Led by parent co-chairs Katherine and Joel Goldberg P ’24 leading the 2018-19 and Scott Crosby (P’21, ’24) The Fund for Fund for Friends effort. Kim and Joel are Friends 2017-18 committee of parents, knowledgeable fundraisers in the Friends alumni, and trustees spread the word about community having served as Middle School the importance of giving to Friends School. Chairs for The Fund for Friends in 2017-18. Thanks to these dedicated volunteers, we are Kim and Joel Goldberg P ’24 The Fund for Friends 2018-19 is fortunate to share the following highlights underway! Look for upcoming information from The Fund for Friends’ inaugural year. in the mail and on social media and show your support. Every gift • More than 100 donors participated in the Scarlet and Gray Giving Challenge: A week-long effort in the lead-up to Scarlet & Gray Day counts! featured daily fundraising goals and raised $46,000 as donors raced to “unlock” leadership gifts.

Class of 2018 Senior Family Gift The 2017–18 Senior Family Gift Committee raised $200,080 in support of two projects, selected by the class to benefit our current and future students: • A gift of $125,000 toward renovations to 9th Grade Hall, which will have a significant impact on future students by providing an enhanced space to build community. • An unrestricted contribution to The Fund for Friends, which will support the School’s areas of greatest need, such as financial assistance. Some 88 percent of Class of 2018 families participated in the effort; additionally, the senior class raised nearly $3,000 from its fundraising efforts at Pepe’s and Nacho Mama’s and $2,008 from Quakerpalooza. Congratulations to the members of the Class of 2018, their families, and the 2017-18 Senior Family Gift Committee!

SENIOR FAMILY GIFT COMMITTEE 2017–18 Parent Co-Chairs: Trish Backer-Miceli ’83 and Augie Miceli, Raj and Suman Rao, and David and Betsey Todd Parent Committee Members: Kathleen Bogusky, Hadley and Chris Feiss ’80, Stanford and Vanessa Gann, Jenness Hall, Bob and Fritzi Hallock, Roslyn Pearson, Paul and Beulah Sabundayo, Matt Trudeau and Jocelyn Kehl, Jordan and Lauren Weinberg Student Committee Members: Andrew Ayers, Bridget Barry, Paul Benzer, Seamus Cook, Emma Galambos, Jocelyn Gann, Allison Goldbloom, Charlie Hallock, Sophia Hardesty-Meteyer, Lance Kevin, Michael Klausner, Edward Llinas, Cameron Matsui, Alex Raynes, Abby Reibman, Tyler Rifkin, Zeke Texter, Grace Todd, Caleb Trudeau

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development news

A Life of Purpose 23 years after his death, Hiram Holton ’95 still inspires generosity Like countless kids, Hiram Holton II ’95 dreamed of one day being in the NBA. A starting player on the Varsity Basketball team and a National Merit Scholarship commended student, he had set his sights on playing basketball at the University of North Carolina and seemed destined for greatness. “Hiram exuded confidence and was full of fearless determination,” recalls teammate Cory Brown ’95. “He knew he was going to win before he stepped on the court.” But fate had other plans. In his junior year at Friends, Hiram was diagnosed with stage 4 Rhabdomyosarcoma, a rare form of cancer. He died on February 6, 1995, just three months before graduation. Hiram’s death rocked the Friends community, particularly his classmates, who watched their friend bravely battle his illness with grace and good humor. “To face what he faced, when most of us at the time worried about such trivial things, like cars, girlfriends, and video games was unbelievable,” says Mike Fine ’95. As his mother, Yvonne Holton, will attest, “Hiram lived fully, fearlessly, and purposefully” throughout his illness. “He learned not to spend time lamenting or regretting what was not but to celebrate what was.” Humble by nature, Hiram in the final weeks of his life nevertheless had shared with family and close friends his wish to be remembered. “During one of our last car rides together on Interstate 795, Hiram told me ‘I do not want to be forgotten,’” recalls his cousin, Tiera York Jones. In the days and weeks following his passing, the Class of 1995, with the Black Student Union and Hiram’s family and friends, established The Hiram Holton II ’95 Scholarship Fund to provide financial assistance to an African-American Upper School student. Spearheaded by Upper School Latin teacher Lisa Countess and the Black Awareness Club, who led the stewardship effort within Friends School, the fund grew slowly and steadily over the years — until 2015, when the Class of 1995, at the urging of family and friends, embarked upon an ambitious 20th Reunion effort to grow the Scholarship, raising $17,550, a giant leap. Now they’re doing it again. In partnership with Holton family and friends, the class has

hope to honor Hiram’s legacy by fully supporting a Friends School student. “The Hiram Holton II Scholarship Fund is a tangible legacy of how my brother touched so many people more than 20 years ago and how he continues to impact lives today in a powerful and meaningful way. Growing the fund to a level of sustainable endowment to fully support a Friends student is the best way we can honor Hiram’s memory and his final wishes,” says Helen Holton, former Baltimore City Councilwoman and Hiram’s sister. On behalf of Hiram Holton’s classmates, his friends, and family, we invite you to join us as we together work toward our current goal of $25,000 for the Hiram Holton II Scholarship Fund. To learn more and to make a contribution visit friendsbalt.org Giving menu Special Memorial Funds.

“He learned not to spend time lamenting or regretting what was not, but to celebrate what was.” Yvonne Holton, Hiram's mother

established a goal of raising $25,000 for the Hiram Holton II ’95 Scholarship Fund by their 25th Reunion in 2020. Here’s where you come in: The fund currently provides $5,000 in annual financial assistance — a generous amount but still far from the cost of tuition. (This figure represents interest on the principal.) By substantially growing the fund, those leading this effort

STEERING COMMITTEE Cory Brown ’95 (Co-Chair) Ellis Young III ’95 (Co-Chair) Ryan Artis ’95 Ryan Bader ’94 Marc Broady ’98 Tristan Cloyd ’95 Trevor Coe ’95 Michael Fine ’95 Peter Gaines ’95 Ethan Goldberg ’95 Jane Latshaw Lancaster ’95 Dan Motz ’95 Daniel Muñoz ’96 Chelsea Stalling Pinnix ’95 Jennifer Lynne Simmons ’95 Taylor Smith ’95 Shawny Nellums Ungerer ’94 Jennifer G. Waldman ’95 COMMITTEE CONSULTANTS Stanley Fine P ’95, ’99 Helen Holton Yvonne Holton P ’95

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the faculty room Re-examining the Purpose of Grades BY TOD RUTSTEIN

As an educator, one of the most exciting things about Friends School’s new strategic direction is that it is challenging our community “to reimagine the very purpose of school.” It seems fitting then to leave nothing off the table — even the stuff that we have assumed is indispensable to how we “do school.” Chief among the seemingly untouchable subjects is grading. Why do we use a system that quantifies achievement that may or may not have much to do with actual learning? I’ve been asking this question every chance I get and usually the answer has something to do with the perception that we will never be able to do away with it. Of course, that’s not an answer; it is a critique of the question. Interestingly, most people I’ve spoken to agree that traditional grading does get in the way of learning. But there are so many other long-held assumptions about school success that make doing away with grades seem impossible. For one, doing well at independent schools like Friends, so the perception goes, will get you into a good college, which is the most important determinant of future success. Take away the competitive nature of academics and you invariably compromise the rigor, which is essential for deciding why some will get into the colleges of their choice and some will not. Another concern I’ve heard is that without grades, kids will have no incentive to work hard. But that is at best a prediction that deserves to be tested. It seems silly to maintain policy based on the fear of what could happen because of change. Evaluation before implementation seems like bad science. Needless to say, the societal forces (fueled more by emotion than science) responsible for such thinking are extremely powerful. We can’t defeat them overnight. But we can start to chip away at them with an honest examination of the true value of grades. It seems to me that the whole concept of grading springs from a hierarchical way of viewing the world. It reinforces the notion that some individuals have more value than others. An “A” has no meaning except in relation to a “B,” “C,” “D,” or an “F.” And as much as we would like to think that there is universal buy-in to the philosophy that it is wrong to measure students against each other, this kind of measurement is the very heart of the system. Here’s a pretty concrete example of the way traditional grading

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makes me fall short as an educator. Over the course of a trimester, it seems only fair that since I have to give grades, I better accumulate a decent number of scores on a variety of assessments in order to give a student every opportunity to achieve a respectable, final grade. The problem is that being driven by sheer quantity places all the emphasis on scores instead of feedback. If my job is to foster real learning and I get to do away with labeling, then all the focus is on feedback. I need not worry about a certain number of assessments being perceived as fair and, frankly, I can concentrate on the deeper kind of learning that comes when students have opportunities to rewrite an essay several times, or make multiple rounds of corrections on quizzes, in order to advance their understanding beyond what it was yesterday. An equally important illustration of the damage caused by grades is seen among student relationships. I hear stories over and over again about how Lower School kids, who don’t receive grades, have none of the same hang-ups about group work that Middle and Upper School students have. As soon as grades are introduced, kids who are supposed to be developing skills of cooperation and collaboration become consumed with worries about how their grades will be compromised by a less motivated or organized group member. Get rid of the grade and students become liberated to help each other more—and concentrate better on feedback. As a teacher, I could give even more attention to the process instead of just the product. Maybe the worst part of this mechanistic way of thinking about education is that human beings are unwittingly being trained to resist a growth mindset. Years of conditioning turn us into judges, addicted to ranking everything and everyone. An authentic growth mindset would have us searching for ways to foster the development of capacity in every student. The aim would be to encourage enduring understanding, with students motivated to measure themselves only against their former selves. I think this description resonates with us – but as long as we insist on assigning labels to measure achievement, this desired outcome remains a pipe dream. Tod Rutstein, coordinator of the Middle School history department, has taught at Friends since 1986.

looking back

The 1950-51 Quill staff, led by co-editors Eugene Heaton ’51 and Jean McClure ’51, covered a wide range of school activities, “from classroom to dance floor,” this despite an increase in printing costs, according to the 1951 yearbook. First row: Jean McClure ’51, Virginia McClain ’51, Mary Brown ’51, Doris Glazier ’51, Sarah Curlett ’51, Sara Boulden ’51, Eugene Heaton ’51. Second row: Mrs. Edna Legg, Jean Sheridan ’51, Carol Lee Fordyce ’51, Jerome Miles ’51. Third row: Wilmer Gallager ’51, Mary Parrish ’52, Janet Mules ’52, Renear Peacock ’52, Shirley Hanby ’52. Fourth row: Kenneth Hecht ’52, Jack Phillips ’51, Eleanor Kann ’51, Nancy Spicknall ’52. Fifth row: Peter Bryan ’51, James Kuethe ’51, Raymond Lenhard ’51, William Toland ’52, Daniel Klein ’52.

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fastforward As newspapers across the country adapt to declining print circulation through online publishing, so too does The Quaker Quill. Readers from all over the world may now access The Quill online at www.thequakerquill.org and on Instagram and Twitter @thequakerquill. Among those contributing to The Quaker Quill in 2017-18 were, from left, Caroline Kevin ’20, staff writer; Amee Rothman ’19 opinion editor; Jane Sartwell ’18, editorin-chief; Atlas Pyke ’18, news and features editor; and Ben Burgunder ’18, online editor.

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