Groton School Quarterly, Spring 2015

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Christopher Temerson

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Groton School • The Quarterly

Groton School

Spring 2015 • Volume LXXVII , No. 2

THIS BASEBALL shirt, a relic from Groton’s archives, bears the red dirt of a well-played baseball season and the name tag of all-around athlete and shortstop extraordinaire Mark Blood ’50. Mr. Blood, an integral member of the 1949 championship baseball team, later taught English and coached winning baseball and soccer teams at Groton.

Following his death in 1984, Independent School League soccer coaches created the Mark H. Blood Trophy. He was inducted this year into Groton’s Athletic Hall of Fame.

REEL TO REAL GROTON DOCUMENTARY FILMMAKERS GEORGE BUTLER ’62 • TR ACY DROZ TR AGOS ’87 • LIZ CANNER ’86 • PETER KUNHARDT ’71

FOLLOW GROTON:

Gratitude Beyond Words

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amela Wamala grew up just 25 miles from Groton but had no exposure as a child to Groton School—or to any other boarding school, for that matter. She never gave the topic any thought until her own son Yowana ’14 was in middle school.

“Yowana’s dad and I were separated and things for Yowana were, let’s say, turbulent,” she says. “He was always very smart but his attitude about school had started to deteriorate. I knew I needed to get him into a different setting, one with strong, supportive role models and the right values.”

Groton proved to be, in Pamela’s words, “the answer to my dreams.”

Yowana thrived at Groton, graduating last May. He is now a freshman at Columbia University.

As a professional artist and single mom, Pamela could not afford Groton; her gratitude for the financial aid Yowana received is, she says, “beyond words.” She makes a point of supporting the Groton Fund each year, out of the conviction that although her gifts are modest, when blended with so many others, they add up to something powerful.

And she realized there was another powerful way to express her gratitude: by naming Groton as a beneficiary in her will. “We’re not talking about vast sums here,” she says, “but that’s not the point. The point is that I’ll be doing my part for Groton’s future, just as long-ago donors’ gifts put Groton School in the position to offer a scholarship to my son. This is about paying it forward.”

She had put Groton into her will during Yowana’s time here, but it was the recent publicity about the Circle Society’s 20th anniversary membership drive that prompted her to disclose her plans to the School. “I’m happy to tell everyone what I’ve done if it plants the idea for someone else,” she says.

“So many parents feel grateful beyond measure to the School. We look at our children and we see Groton’s fingerprints all over: in their work habits, in their ability to relate to teachers, in their friendships, in their values, in their self-assurance. It’s huge, what Groton has done for my son Yowana and me. Let me do what I can to give back.”

The Circle Society turns 20 this year, and we seek to mark the anniversary by growing its ranks. To join, simply include Groton in your will or make the School a beneficiary of your retirement account or life insurance policy. Then tell us you’ve done so, by contacting Elizabeth Z. (Betsy) Ginsberg P’16 in the Office of Alumni and Development, 978-448-7584, eginsberg@groton.org.

Groton School Spring 2015 • Volume LXXVII, No. 2

The Quarterly

Farewell Craig and Nancy Reflections on a couple who brought out the best in students, colleagues, and Groton page 1425

Reel to Real Groton’s documentary filmmakers — their films are breathtaking, and so are their stories. page 2425 George Butler ’62 page 24 Tracy Droz Tragos ’87 page 30 Liz Canner ’86 page 32 Peter Kunhardt ’71 page 34

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Message from the Headmaster

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Personae / Profiles

36 Voces / Chapel Talks 47 De Libris / Books 50 Grotoniana / Arts & Athletics 62 In Memoriam 65 Form Notes

A light installation in the de Menil Gallery, captured by Abby Power ’17 (see page 56)

Annie Card

Message from the Headmaster

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here’s a John Lennon CD sitting on my desk. Its title, “Imagine,” has always been an inspiration. But over the past year, that CD has been a particularly appropriate companion.

Everyone on campus has watched the Schoolhouse renovation and expansion move forward, from blueprints to excavation to construction. We watched the shell of a new STEM facility creep upward, and we have all imagined: What will it look like inside? Will it alter how we live and work? How will it change Groton?

I have imagined … opening the window in Gammons Recital Hall and peering through to see the Forum and its beautiful (and functional) trusses, which support our Schoolhouse’s rebirth. The Forum will seamlessly connect the STEM subjects and the humanities, a literal symbol of interdisciplinary work.

I have imagined … the Forum filled with music— the orchestra playing, the jazz band in an impromptu performance, the choir standing on the grand staircase and sending their voices aloft. I have imagined debate practices filling one corner of the Forum and study groups tucked into another.

I have imagined … teaching my organic chemistry class—explaining the synthesis of Agent Orange and the herbicide’s harmful history, or discussing the debate over nuclear energy and nuclear proliferation—in a new, state-of-the-art lab that will inspire me as much as it does my students.

Editor Gail Friedman Design Irene Chu

Contributing Editors Kimberly A. Gerighty Elizabeth Z. Ginsberg P’16 Elizabeth Wray Lawrence ‘82 Allison S. MacBride John D. MacEachern P’10, ‘14, ’16 Melissa J. Ribaudo Amy Sim Photography/Editorial Assistant Christopher Temerson

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I have imagined … our beloved and traditional 19th-century Schoolhouse working in tandem with a 21st-century version of itself. All of us here on the Circle are delicately poised between anticipation and excitement on one hand, and re-orientation and nostalgia on the other.

I frequently have imagined something else as well: how much others must admire the commitment of the trustees, parents, alumni, and friends who have made this gift possible for future Groton generations. And I’ve imagined how hard the New Facilities Committee, composed of trustees, faculty, and staff, worked to bring this project to life—most of which happened before I stepped onto the Circle.

It was last fall when I first put on a hard hat, stepped through the doors that once led to the Hall, and looked around the somewhat mysterious construction site that would transform Groton’s beloved Schoolhouse.

This spring, when we toured prospective students on Revisit Days and alumni during Reunion Weekend, the Schoolhouse addition was no longer a puzzling unknown.

It already was clear that new life—for the Schoolhouse and the School—would emerge at the start of the 201516 school year. The Fall Quarterly will introduce the improved Schoolhouse through photographs, but to appreciate it fully, I hope you’ll stop by next fall, or attend a performance or Lessons and Carols or your reunion, and take a look in person.

I am grateful to all those who gave their time, talent, and treasure to make this project, the pride of our Groton Circle, a reality—steeped in tradition and progress, just like Groton School.

Very soon, we won’t have to imagine.

Temba Maqubela Headmaster

Editorial Offices The Schoolhouse Groton School Groton, MA 01450 978 - 448 -7506 quarterly@groton.org Other School Offices Alumni Office: 978 - 448 -7520 Admission Office: 978 - 448 -7510

Groton School publishes the Groton School Quarterly three times a year, in late summer, winter, and spring, and the Annual Report once a year, in the fall.

Speakers Enlighten, Spark Discussion on MLK Day

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I MAY be the wife who attended the Groton reception with the bracelet! (“Circling Back,” Fall 2014 Groton School Quarterly) I have a bracelet [above] with a collection of Groton charms ranging over several years and several sports. I treasure these keepsakes.

Joann Gray P’05, ’08 JOHN HIGGINSON’S recollections about

Correction In the Fall Quarterly, Alexandra Conner ‘16 should have been named as a captain of the girls track team.

because he understood virtually nothing. For example, following visual cues carefully but not understanding the assignment, he unwittingly made himself a birthday card, eliciting laughter from his classmates.

Shim also told his Groton audience that, at a previous job, he was assigned to every Asian student who needed counseling. His superior told him, “You’re Asian, he’s Asian; go to your office and be Asian together.” The professor worked in a mini psychology lesson, explaining that humans are hard-wired to notice differences and even to categorize them, but that trouble begins when humans attach value, or lack thereof, to those differences.

“Be careful when you deal with ignorant, closed-off people because they’re like vampires,” he warned. “They can make you like them.”

Earlier in the day, students had the option to view the movie Fruitvale Station, and faculty attended a workshop intended to broaden understanding about diversity, inclusion, and privilege and to heighten awareness about power differentials that exist within a community.

Photos by Christopher Temerson

receiving gold oar charms after the interscholastic rowing seasons shakes memories.

I, too, received an oar the evening before Prize Day, 1956. It was silver with, I think, a red enamel G. I haven’t seen it for a while.

I had spent the season stroking the first Monadnock eight, and I was awarded a silver and blue enamel M for our success in beating the first Wachusett eight.

Charlie Rimmer, who coached the first eights, assembled a four with me as bow to take on the then C boat (the makeup of C boat changed every week that year). We beat them and went on to beat Nobles on the Nashua. I still have Timothy Leland’s shirt to show for it. I can tell you the charm was silver and not gold. Whether that reflects the lowly status of C boat, or the brevity of our place in it, I do not know. This is just one of several memorable moments at Groton for which I have to give C.P. Rimmer so much credit and thanks!

Alec Goriansky ’56

roton School celebrated Martin Luther King, Jr. Day with two speakers, Dr. Michael Fowlin and Dr. David Shim.

A day before the official holiday, Fowlin performed “You Don’t Know Me Until You Know Me,” a one-man show that uses powerful character sketches to burst stereotypes — about certain ethnic groups, athletes, gay people, the disabled, and others — and to make the hurt of discrimination, bullying, homophobia, and insensitivity palpable.

Fowlin discussed the pretense of the “mask” that we wear and had his audience imagine what life would be like without it. He argued that we create an environment conducive to prejudice by laughing at hateful jokes and celebrating violence. The presentation touched on difficult topics, such as eating disorders and suicide; throughout, he quoted from Langston Hughes’ poem, “I’m Still Here.”

On MLK Day, Shim, who teaches psychology at Boston University, shared his own journey as an immigrant from South Korea with the Groton community. He arrived in the U.S. at age 7, and at first bumbled through school

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LETTERS

Michael Fowlin and David Shim

www.groton.org

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Headmaster Maqubela leading announcements at Lawrence Academy

Headmaster Switcheroo! eadmaster Maqubela wasn’t in his usual seat in Chapel on February 23.

He wasn’t presiding in the Schoolroom during Roll Call announcements either.

In his place was a face that few people recognized.

It was a headmaster switcheroo — concocted in good spirit by the headmasters of Groton and nearby Lawrence Academy.

Mr. Maqubela was just down the road, presiding over LA’s announcements, while LA Head Dan Scheibe led the daily reading in St. John’s Chapel and promised some eye-opening changes at morning Roll Call. With a healthy dose of sarcasm and practiced comedic timing, he first scoffed at how few snow days Groton School has called since 1884, and went on to promise a snow day any time the Snow Day Calculator app predicts more than a 50 percent likelihood of snow.

Students roared.

He then took on Groton’s treasured tradition of handshaking each night.

“This handshaking tradition is both compulsive and unsanitary,” Mr. Scheibe said, then went on to change the tradition to “winking.”

Mr. Scheibe’s final change was to right a perceived injustice dating to the 1800s. At stake: Groton School’s very name. Lawrence Academy, when founded in 1793, was first known as Groton Academy, changing its name to Lawrence Academy in the mid-1800s. “I want our name back,” Mr. Scheibe charged.

“From now on, we’ll be Groton Lawrence Academy.” With a spirit of generosity and consolation, he offered to let Groton keep the rest of its name. “You can be School,” he said.

This headmaster switcheroo stemmed from both heads’ desire to build a stronger connection, but took root after Groton Sixth Former Cam Cullen gave a “Speech of Conviction” for his Public Speaking class last spring, in which he lamented the puzzling distance between the two geographically close schools.

CASE Award for Quarterly Story

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Singular Path to Groton,” an article from the Fall 2013 Groton School Quarterly, received a Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE) District I Excellence Award.

The article, written by Quarterly editor Gail Friedman, won gold in the “Article of the Year” category for independent schools. It chronicles the life story of Headmaster Temba Maqubela, from his days as an anti-apartheid activist in South Africa, through his persecution and exile, his modest life as an immigrant in New York City, and the careerbuilding years that turned him into the educational leader that he is today.

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Appomattox Courthouse, 1865

Ringing In the Civil War’s End

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t precisely 3:15 p.m. on April 9, the Chapel Bells at Groton School rang for four minutes in honor of the end of the American Civil War. At the same time 150 years ago at Appomattox courthouse in Virginia, Ulysses S. Grant, then Union commander of the Army of the Potomac, accepted the surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia from Confederate commander Robert E. Lee, effectively ending the Civil War. Pealing the Chapel bells were Abby Power ‘17, Cherian Yit ‘17, Abby Kong ‘17, Nick Barry ‘16, Zhamoyani McMillan ‘16, history teacher Tom Lamont, and Groton School’s chaplain, the Reverend Beth Humphrey.

In addition to ringing the bells, just before the morning prayer in Chapel, Ms. Humphrey spoke eloquently about the significance of the day, concluding her remarks by quoting the closing section of Lincoln’s second inaugural address.

Groton alumnus Tom Moser ‘64, a self-professed Civil War buff, alerted the School that the National Park Service was sponsoring the nationwide event, called “Bells Across the Land: A Nation Remembers Appomattox.”

—Tom Lamont

National Park Service

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n April Chapel postlude — a performance on the School’s Aeolian Skinnert organ — had a special tie to Groton history.

Playing the organ was Louise Burr, the granddaughter of J. Henry Eames, an architect who designed St. John’s Chapel while working under celebrated architect Henry Vaughan.

Mrs. Burr said Groton’s Chapel, built in 1900, is typical of her grandfather’s work, which includes the Founder’s Tomb in the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City.

Her son, Elias Nyberg, had visited Groton while photographing buildings Eames had

designed around Boston. He was helping his mother, president of the Oxford, Connecticut historical society, gather information about Eames.

Nyberg wrote to Headmaster Temba Maqubela and asked if his mother might “play the organ in the church that her grandfather designed, as I think that would give her a tremendous sense of enjoyment.” The result: a morning postlude that brought an accomplished organist into a building reflecting her grandfather’s legacy.

Mrs. Burr has played organ since age 13 and plays regularly in a church in Oxford, Connecticut, where she lives.

Christopher Temerson

Organist Brings Living Tie to Chapel History

She said she remembers her grandfather, but didn’t ask him about his architecture. “When you’re a teenager, that’s not what you’re interested in,” said the 84-year-old.

Student Chosen to Adapt Tom Sawyer he Mark Twain House & Museum in Hartford, Connecticut, has chosen Noah Altshuler ‘15 to adapt one of the greatest American classics, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, for the stage.

As the Mark Twain House’s summer playwright-in-residence, Noah will create a play from the time-tested novel, first published in 1876. He says he hopes to make the adaptation “modern and relevant.”

Noah already has proven himself as a playwright. His first play, Making the Move, premiered last summer at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and has since been licensed for production by more than 50 high schools in 21 states.

Noah will immerse himself in Twain not only through his residency in the Hartford home where Twain wrote Tom Sawyer, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, The Prince and The Pauper, and A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, but also through visits to the writer’s homes in Hannibal, Missouri, and Elmira, New York.

“At the age of 17, a young Samuel Clemens, later known as Mark Twain, set out from Hannibal, Missouri to find his destiny.

It is with great excitement and anticipation that we support another 17-year-old writer

Ellen Harasimowicz

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Noah Altshuler ‘15 on a similar journey,” said Mark Twain House Executive Director Cindy Lovell. “I look forward to hearing about his adventures as he develops his play of this American classic.”

Noah believes Twain’s work is more important now than ever. “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer is timeless, ageless, and universal,” Noah said. “Tom Sawyer is the

quintessential American boy whose life and lessons are just as relevant to our time as they were to Twain’s.” As for his adaptation, Noah said, “I want to separate the story’s deep truths from the surface facts, creating a piece that speaks not to Twain’s world, but to his heart.”

The unexpected success of Making the Move, originally written as a final exam for Noah’s Playwriting course at Groton, generated publicity for the up-and-coming playwright, which caught the attention of the Mark Twain House. Making the Move navigates the world of teenage romance through two sets of best friends; Noah has likened its dialogue to “Groton dorm room conversations.”

Last summer, Noah sent Making the Move to several directors until it landed in the hands of Brooklyn-based Gabriel Weissman, who directed it for the Fringe Festival.

Another work by Noah, Last Call for Providence, a spin-off of Making the Move, was accepted for the 2015 Edinburgh Festival Fringe, where it will premiere this summer.

Making the Move premiered on the Groton campus May 16 during a showcase of student-written and -directed short plays.

www.groton.org

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Schoolhouse Update: Sustainability his winter, Groton physics and engineering teacher Bert Hall brought three groups of speakers to campus to educate students and faculty about the design and engineering of the Schoolhouse expansion project.

After learning about the design process and the use of 3D Modeling in the first two lectures, the final lecture, in mid-February, focused on the project’s geothermal wells and ground-source heat pumps.

The Schoolhouse’s new chilled-beam geothermal system represents the most current geothermal technology. It will be used for the entire Schoolhouse building complex, including the new Forum and science and math addition, and it will go a long way toward helping the School achieve its energyreduction goals.

Three engineers who worked on the project, David Lamothe, Steve Sundius, and Rush Schmitt, spoke. Lamothe gave an overview of the closed-water system and explained that water is nine times more efficient than air in moving heat. In effect, the new system will provide air conditioning and heating to a building complex that is 50 percent larger with no increase in energy cost. The cost per square foot per year will be less than half the average for buildings of its size.

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ineteen student musicians traveled to Ryles Jazz Club in Cambridge on a Sunday in January for Groton’s eighth annual performance at the storied jazz venue, where greats including Pat Metheny, Arturo Sandoval, and Maynard

“chilled beam” cooling and heating ducts.

Sundius and Schmitt described the engineering of the super-efficient groundsource heat pumps, which take advantage of the fact that the earth maintains a relatively constant temperature of 55 degrees year round. With the earth providing energy to heat up to 55 degrees, the temperature change needed to achieve Installation of geothermal wells under the Circle a comfortable 70-degree environment is reduced to a mere Lamothe showed pictures of the drilling of 15 degrees, significantly less than a system the wells, each 500 feet deep, under Groton’s faces if it must start from the outside temperaCircle. Each well supports a different circuit ture. Groton’s system is hybridized; additional for heat exchange. Each circuit can be used to steam energy complements the system if tempump heat out of the building and into the peratures are extreme.

Besides saving money, use of geothermal earth for air conditioning, he explained, or to energy reduces the School’s carbon footprint pump heat into the building from the earth for heating. The system connects to the buildby reducing consumption of fossil fuels. After ing with plastic heat-fused pipes filled with a the Schoolhouse expansion is complete in the water/antifreeze mixture. The wells plus the fall, teachers and students will access and heat exchange circuits cover half the area analyze the information about energy use, underneath the Circle, but there is no outward turning the building itself a learning tool for sign of their existence. Inside the Schoolhouse renewable energy.

— Bobbie Lamont complex, the water-filled pipes become the GZA GeoEnvironmental

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Ferguson have played.

Four Groton groups performed — a small student jazz combo, Purple Haze; a slightly larger combo, Riverside; the Charisma Sax Quartet; and, finally, Groton’s big band, Soul Sauce.

Below left, Joe Collins ’18, Kenji Kikuchi, Angus Warren ’16, Michael You ’16, and Matt Ko ’15. Below, at the spring concert on campus, Michael You, Malik Jabati ’15, Michael Ma ’15, and Randeep Grewal ’18.

Kenji Kikuchi Christopher Temerson

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5 Students, 21 Scholastic Awards

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ophie Baker ’16, Yanni Cho ’16, Gina Kim ’15, Ethan Woo ’16, and Derek Xiao ’15 earned a total of 21 Scholastic Art & Writing Awards this winter, receiving regional recognition for their creative work. The juried panelists, according to the award website, “look for works that best exemplify originality, technical skill, and the emergence of a personal voice or vision.”

Two Groton students won writing awards. Ethan Woo won a gold key in the “Flash Fiction” category with an essay entitled, “Here is the Boy Who Didn’t Know,” and Sophie Baker earned gold for a poem, “The Last Light.” Ethan also won two silver keys in the Short Story category, as well as two honorable mentions in Flash Fiction.

In the visual arts, Derek Xiao won five gold keys for his charcoal drawings; he also won two silver keys and one honorable mention. Gina Kim earned three gold keys and two silver keys for her multimedia creations, and Yanni Cho won two silver keys for her paintings.

Gina Kim ’15 Box of Treasures

Yanni Cho ’16 Prayer Derek Xiao ’15 A Discernment of Self

www.groton.org

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The panel of judges: Sixth Formers Gates McGavick, Frank Bruni, Fraser Wright, Britton Pyne, Noah Altshuler, and Turner Banwell

20th Anniversary for Student Mock Court

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his winter, for the 20th year running, students in Groton’s Constitutional history class conducted their annual mock court.

It’s not unusual for the class, The Court and the Constitution: Individual Liberty and the Law, to tangle with thorny issues during its mock court session.

Students usually end the term with a public simulation of timely cases that have reached the U.S. Supreme Court. This winter, however, they simulated a federal Court of Appeals case, hearing a challenge to a 2013

Texas law requiring regulatory changes for abortion providers.

The case, which was before the federal Court of Appeals in New Orleans, “fit neatly into our examination of the 14th Amendment and individual privacy,” said teacher John Lyons. By coincidence, Stephen Higginson ‘79, last year’s Prize Day speaker and father of Chris ‘14, is a judge on the New Orleans court (but did not hear this case).

The annual mock court can be an exercise in openmindedness, sometimes forcing

students to represent a side of an issue they might not normally support. Student advocates wrote legal briefs representing each side of the case and then presented oral arguments before a student court. The trial has long been a popular end-of-winter-term event, and the Webb-Marshall “courtroom” was packed with spectators.

Sixth Formers Evan Haas, Michael Ma, and Liam Tuveson represented the State of Texas, defending a law that placed various restrictions and new

requirements on abortion providers. Their formmates Daraja Foster, Max Gomez, and Charlotte Mellgard represented the appellants, a group of women’s health care providers in Texas. The bench consisted of six judges: Noah Altshuler, Turner Banwell, Frank Bruni, Gates McGavick, Britton Pyne, and Fraser Wright, all Sixth Formers.

In the end, the mock court deadlocked 3-3.

Survivors of Cambodian Genocide Visit Class

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Speaker Thel Sar P'15, co-teacher Rudy Kallock, and speaker Roger Samkhon Pin

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hree visitors shared unique insights into the Cambodian genocide during a February visit to Groton’s America in Vietnam class.

The class welcomed Thel Sar, Sivkheng Sar, and Roger Samkhon Pin, who discussed the impact of the Second Indochinese War (the American war in Vietnam) on the people and history of Cambodia.

Thel Sar, parent of Tyler Sar ‘15, survived the 1975-79 Cambodian genocide. Mr. Sar described being driven out of Phnom Penh by the Khmer Rouge, a Maoist party that attempted to create an agrarian utopia. As a 9-year-old, he was forced to resort to eating roaches, rats, and leaves — anything to survive the famine, which was a result of the group’s failed political and economic policies (and possibly a deliberate punishment to the people). An estimated 2 million people died during this period.

Both Thel and Sivkheng Sar eventually fled to Thailand and the Philippines before being resettled in the United States. They now live and work in Lowell, Massachusetts.

The third visitor, Mr. Pin, was a journalist for Radio Free Asia; though he did not remain in Cambodia during the genocide, he is one of the few living journalists to have interviewed Pol Pot when he was being held for trial in the 1990s. Pol Pot was the leader of the Khmer Rouge, the communist party responsible for the genocide. Mr. Pin is currently the editor of KhmerPost USA; he also resides in Lowell.

The class, co-taught with Vietnam veterans Jim Lockney, Groton’s athletic equipment manager, and Rudy Kallock, appreciated this first-hand perspective on one of the most excruciating events in 20th-century history.

— Jennifer Wallace, teacher, America in Vietnam

Sarah Eaton Stuart ’83

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hat kind of person could best teach a workshop about mindfulness? Who could help others push aside the whir of life and recognize the power and beauty of each moment?

A meditative yogi? A person blessed with an innate sense of calm?

Maybe it’s just the opposite.

A self-described type-A personality, an ultracompetitive go-getter who demands excellence of herself and generally achieves it, is starting a business based around slowing down and living in the moment.

personae

Mind Over Matter Sarah Eaton Stuart ’83 understands the internal tug-of-war created by our fast-paced world, the inner push to achieve, achieve, achieve, and the inner pull to breathe, to think, to balance. Sarah has become a serious student of mindfulness, studying the work of Jon KabatZinn, a leader of the movement, and she has completed a Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction course at the Center for Mindfulness, founded by Kabat-Zinn at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. Just this winter, she launched her own business to spread the mindful message that has dramatically improved her own life.

“This journey is not new to me,” says Sarah. “I’ve been on a spiritual journey for quite a number of years.” Her quest for mindfulness dates back to the late ’80s, when she was in Harvard Law School. “I remember seeing all these stressed-out people at orientation, and I remember a powerful feeling that I wanted to escape that stress,” she says.

Law students had access to undergraduate classes, so Sarah signed up for yoga. Something clicked immediately.

“I got there and I felt: This is my place,” she recalls. “I was so happy in that class.” At the same time, she was determined to be at the top of her law school class. The yin pulled constantly at the yang.

After law school, Sarah clerked for Judge Kimba Wood, worked at the law firm Davis Polk, was staff counsel for Simon & Schuster then European counsel for the National Basketball Association in Paris, and finally settled in for 11 years at Reebok, where she was European counsel and associate general counsel. As an attorney dedicated to exercise and sports, it was a natural match.

So it surprised her when Reebok restructured and she found herself out of a job in late 2014. But news that started out as devastating quickly became a welcome, fateful opportunity. “It was the catapult I needed to take the golden handcuffs off,” she says. “The path just lit up to me.”

So far, her young business has held seminars at www.groton.org

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Harvard Law School, in Chicago, and in her hometown of Dover, Massachusetts. Sarah defines mindfulness as “nonjudgmental, compassionate, and intentional awareness of the present moment and of your thoughts, emotions, and sensations in that moment—having your senses awakened to the moment.”

For example, she says, “instead of talking on your phone in Central Park, listen to the sounds, even the sounds of people’s feet. If eating mindfully, you’re truly noticing tastes and textures.”

Mindfulness involves many techniques, including but not limited to meditation. An important component, Sarah says, is changing the kneejerk critique that people often have of themselves and others into a kind acceptance of thoughts and actions. Or, more simply, accepting what we cannot control and focusing instead on what we can—our reactions to people and events.

“We have about 60,000 thoughts a day, and most of them involve thoughts about the past or the future, which prevents us from being in the present,” she says. “Mindfulness practice helps us learn to let some of those thoughts go so we can enjoy the present moment, which is the only moment we ever really have.”

Lizzy, Sarah, Nico, James, Liam, and Charlie Stuart

to ground people, to help make people happier and more productive.” Mindfulness is not about standing still; in fact, in her case, she often thinks of it as “mindfulness for strivers.”

When Sarah left Reebok, mindfulness already was growing in popularity; she realized she could channel her entrepreneurial spirit, drive, and know-how into a mission that would help others change their lives. Changing lives is not a modest aspiration, but Sarah is not prone to small ambitions.

Sarah’s company will focus first on corporate clients. After years at

have about 60,000 thoughts a day, and » “We most of them involve thoughts about the past or the future, which prevents us from being in the present.”

Sarah is mindful enough to acknowledge that she has not always achieved her own ideal, largely because she and her husband were juggling four children and demanding jobs. But she knows how much yoga and mindfulness—even the quest for it—had improved her life, and she had long wanted to share the powerful lessons that she had learned. “This to me is so compelling,” she says. “It’s a natural way, without medicine, a simple way 10

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Reebok, Sarah is comfortable in that world and plans to persuade companies to offer her mindfulness seminars to their employees. Once she makes inroads into that market, she plans to expand to athletes and high school students.

Such training is more important than ever because of technology, the insidious thief of the little mindfulness we once had. “We are constantly interrupted by text messages, and many of

Spring 2015

us never experience the down time that we used to have waiting on lines and elsewhere because we fill that time by continually checking our phones,” she says. “I want to give people techniques to use throughout the day to ensure that they have some reliable unplugged time each day, as well as some time to focus on one thing at a time, which will make them less stressed and more productive.”

Back in the corporate world, Sarah loved negotiating deals, but her new venture has brought her something unexpected—joy. “I feel like I’m playing,” she says. “I love teaching people and helping them improve the quality of their lives, which makes me feel fulfilled.”

Mindfulness also helps Sarah put her own busy life in perspective. “Most important is not that I went to Harvard Law School or that I am a board member at Groton. Those are part of who I am,” she says. “I want to nourish the most important side of me by being truly present in the moment with the people whom I love.”

Follow “Army of Joyful People” on LinkedIn, where Sarah posts regularly about using mindfulness to create a joyful life.

In November, Sarah Eaton Stuart ’83 gave a Chapel Talk about her journey toward mindfulness.

Some excerpts:

I was like a tiger child, but without the tiger parents. In fact, my parents used to beg me not to work so hard, to relax and have some fun! = I have a memory from when I was about 12 years old and my father told us we were going to hear Handel’s Messiah in Lincoln Center. I was so upset that I couldn’t study for my Latin test that I quickly prepared flash cards and snuck them into the theater so I could test myself during the performance. I aced the test, but in the process, I missed out on an amazing evening of music. = This work ethic and inner drive continued during the three years that I spent at Groton. I was so busy working on my studies, playing squash and other sports, practicing piano, and doing art, and I accomplished many things—like AP classes, victories on the athletic fields, and musical performances—but in the process, I rarely took the opportunity to appreciate all of the incredible people and amazing things happening around me each and every day.

= My father took us hiking in the White Mountains starting when I was 4 years old. By the time I was about 12, we had checked off and summited all 50 peaks in the White Mountains that are over 4,000 feet, so we joined the AMC’s 4,000-footer club. My father used hiking as a metaphor for life and, on our hikes, he taught us to ascend the mountain at a “slow and steady” pace so that we always had the stamina to make the summit and we NEVER considered turning around short of attaining our goal. … What I have learned is to take baby steps toward any major goal that I want to accomplish. Rather than trying to get there in one big leap, I just start small and build my confidence with each success that leads to a bigger challenge and then more confidence as I move closer and closer to my goal. = Unlike some people I know and love, whom I refer to affectionately as “natural Buddhas” because they always see the glass as half full, I was not blessed with that naturally positive DNA. I was raised to focus on what I don’t have in a particular situation, to overanalyze everything, to worry a lot and spend way too much time in my head, which prevents me from being present in the moment.

Just as I work out because it helps me with stress and it makes my body feel strong, I have started “training” my mind with daily reading, meditation, and practice, and while I am still at the beginning of this new journey, the results have been amazing.

instant—examples might include petting your dog or cat, walking on the beach or in nature, hearing your favorite songs. For me, closing my eyes and imagining my children smiling works in a flash by releasing stress and unhappiness and making me feel good.

= This new “mind training” has allowed me to push my boundaries in ways I wouldn’t have thought possible when I started about five years ago, simply by choosing what I focus on.

Through daily “practice,” I am learning to train my thoughts and my mind to work differently than they have in the past. = Some of the tools that have helped me along the way: I start and end each day with gratitude and joy. I start the day with a gratitude journal, where I write a few things that I am grateful for, and I explain why I am grateful for them. ­ • Our children and I end our days with gratitude as well. I tuck each of them into their beds, and we share what we are grateful for in our day just before going to sleep.

•

Sarah closed her Chapel Talk with a favorite Native American story:

One evening, an old Cherokee told his grandson about a battle that goes on inside people. He said, “My son, the battle is between two wolves inside us all. One wolf is Evil. It is anger, envy, jealousy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.

The other wolf is Good. It is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith.”

The grandson thought about it for a minute and asked: “Grandpa, which wolf wins?”

And the old Cherokee simply replied, “The one you feed.”

I have also found it really useful to have a stash of images that I can put into my head at any moment that can change my mood in an

•

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John S. Gates, Jr. ’72

personae

Part of the Solution I

magine that you’ve built a successful company. You’ve tended it carefully for 23 years and sold it for a handsome sum.

So what’s next? If you’re John Gates ’72, you’re not thinking about a vacation.

In 2006, after John sold CenterPoint Properties Trust, he channeled the cui servire ethos he’d learned at Groton and looked for ways to serve his community.

John was not destined to land at a humble neighborhood nonprofit. Right after selling CenterPoint, he accepted an enormous challenge: to restructure the Metropolitan Pier and Exhibition Authority, which handles Chicago’s convention and tourism. For three years, he helped turn around McCormick Place, the city’s huge convention center, and rejuvenated the landmark Navy Pier complex.

The price of John’s success? An even thornier trial.

Between 2009 and 2014, he chaired Chicago’s Regional Transportation Authority (RTA), overseeing the entire transportation system for the Chicago area.

Commuter trains, buses, elevated subway lines.

More than 2 million rides a day.

A $4 billion budget.

A staff of 22,000.

“We had turned around something that was very difficult at Navy Pier and McCormick Place,” he says.

“They thought I might be able to help a little bit on the mass transit side.”

John focused sharply on strategic investment in new infrastructure and technology. During his tenure, the RTA increased fares, more aggressively collected tax revenue, and cut “redundant, bureaucratic, white-collar jobs.” When John began, the agency was operating about $500 million in the red. When he left his post four years later, the RTA budget was balanced.

Among the most important initiatives, John says, was more intense marketing to increase ridership. John helped 12

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coordinate the subway, bus, and railroad “silos,” leading to a universal fare card and an online trip-finder tool, among other innovations. “We got them to think about selling an integrated system,” he says.

Improvements did not come easily. The bureaucracy was entrenched, and John faced difficult collective bargaining negotiations and stubbornly ingrained mismanagement. Worst of all, he was staring down a transit infrastructure that had deteriorated from years of deferred maintenance. “If you make small regular investments in maintenance, you save billions down the road,” he says. “If we can repair a bridge, we don’t have to build a new one.” John made progress changing the mentality, but the deferred maintenance was so severe that he says, even today, the city needs $32 billion of capital improvements over the next ten years to keep the transit system running efficiently.

Running the RTA was nothing like running his own company, CenterPoint, the first publicly traded industrial real estate investment trust in the U.S. “Unlike running a public company, with a government agency, nothing is predictable,” he says.

But the chance to improve something that has massive impact brings John great satisfaction, and the RTA provided plenty of room for improvement. “I’m much more interested in making something work better than in being a passive overseer,” he says.

Though John is no longer with the RTA, he’s involved in a number of ventures, including PortaeCo LLC, a private investment company he founded in 2006. He says he spends about a third of his time working on for-profit companies’ boards and PortaeCo, and two-thirds of his time on government work and not-for-profit boards. In particular, he puts substantial effort into his work with the boards of Trinity College and Lurie Children’s Hospital, where his three sons often landed in the emergency room after one athletic mishap or another. “When you walk

Weezie Gates

» “You have to approach government with that private-sector point of view.” through the NICU [neonatal intensive care unit] at any children’s hospital, if tears don’t start to well up, you’re not a human being,” he says. “I can’t say no.

I love being part of the solution.” He describes the hospital work as having “emotional leverage,” compared to government work, which he says has “policy leverage.”

John’s government involvement is substantial. He actively supported the campaign of new Illinois Governor Bruce Rauner and co-chaired his transition team. In a sense, that brought him full circle. John’s first job after graduating from Trinity was as an aide to then Illinois Governor James Thompson, a fourterm progressive Republican. John served as liaison to the criminal justice agencies, including state police, prisons, and drug enforcement authorities, and then, perhaps presciently, became liaison to the

state’s transportation agencies.

John was inexperienced and thrown into situations that demanded expertise that he did not always have. But he worked closely with the governor and grew in his role, gaining early insights into government and public service. It was a heady position for a 20-something.

“You have so many resources to make a difference—a direct ability to make things happen,” he says. “That leverage, if employed well, can really be transformational for millions of people.”

Now, with both public and private experience, he realizes what one can bring to the other. “You have to approach government with that private-sector point of view,” he says. “You’re not going to put up with a lot of waste; you’re not going to put up with a lot of indecision.

Whatever we do, we’re going to do better, faster, cheaper.”

John believes his interest in public service stems directly from his Groton experience. “All we talked about was the Vietnam War or the environment. Even Watergate was brewing,” he says. “Everything we did spontaneously was in some way aimed at public policy. Our skits were all about whatever the issues of the day were.” John remembers writing a skit, performed by his form, about the 1971 Attica, New York prison riot. “Although we were physically isolated, we were ideologically immersed in this stuff,” he says.

As a member of the School’s last First Form, John was fully immersed for six years at Groton. He came of age on the Circle. “I had service deeply instilled in me in at a very impressionable time,” he says. The School motto, cui servire est regnare, sunk in early and, as John’s “retirement” demonstrates, it developed deep, enduring roots.

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Farewell Craig and Nancy The Gemmell-Hughes Legacy

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Assistant Head Craig Gemmell is the 33rd faculty member to leave Groton to head another school — in his case, Brewster Academy. Craig and his wife, English teacher and former dean Nancy Hughes, had an outsized impact on students and colleagues during two decades on the Circle. On the following pages are some of their reflections.

I

Nancy, Craig, Jobe, and Teddy at Machu Picchu. They led Groton’s global education trip to Peru for many years.

t was about 15 years ago. My wife and I were among the newer parents gathered in the back room of the Headmaster’s House to hear an informal after-dinner talk. Our son hadn’t yet had the evening’s featured speaker as either a teacher or advisor, so there had been no revealing Parents Weekend conferences to give us a direct sense of the man. All I really knew about him I had gleaned from the backseat chatter of the shifting group of youthful formmates squeezed into our car for dinner trips to the favored restaurant of the moment. That, however, was enough to spur a healthy dose of anticipation. The collective assessment was distinctly uniform and offered no room for doubt: Mr. Gemmell was one of Groton’s “cool teachers!”

When Bill Polk called our evening to order, he introduced Craig as the speaker by saying: “If you want students to learn how to think in an interdisciplinary way, don’t create an interdisciplinary course; hire a teacher with an interdisciplinary mind.” Looking back on it now, it seems that my early backseat opinion poll, if a little short on the insightful perspective that Bill provided, was nevertheless in complete alignment with the headmaster!

Since that long-ago evening, what

began as just an overheard reputation burgeoned into one of those special relationships that can only happen around the Circle. Some invisible hand seemed to lead me with increasing frequency to Craig’s office, or his Dining Hall table, or just to the other end of his phone line. It even took me to his home, where the relationship expanded to include Nancy, his children, and his dogs, as well.

To be absorbed into Craig and Nancy’s life is to be brought along on a joyful journey searching for dynamic hypotheses, delving relentlessly for facts, and warmly engaging anyone and everyone who might have an interesting point of view to offer. The topics could be anything from the meaning of service learning, to the optimal size of a teaching lab, how to help adolescents handle inevitable personal stress, or the challenge of defining and measuring institutional success. But there was always a common thread throughout: the interdisciplinary mind at work, drawing insight from one area and connecting it with an opportunity for application in another.

In pursuing that powerful Groton ideal, Craig and Nancy have not only enriched me, they have touched many hundreds of students’ lives and made them better. They have stirred exciting

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LEADERSHIP TRAINING

H former position H current position H future position

Faculty who became heads of school— what they did at Groton and the schools they went on to lead

H MATHER A. ABBOTT

H CRAIG GEMMELL

H EDWARD PULLING

Greek, English, and printing teacher, 1896-1916 Lawrenceville School Lawrenceville, NJ

Assistant head, director of college counseling, science teacher, 1994-2015 Brewster Academy Wolfeboro, NH

History teacher, 1920-22, 1924-28 Millbrook School (founder) Millbrook, NY

H AUGUSTE BANNARD

H KATHY GILES

Classics teacher, college counselor, 1977-89 St. Catherine’s School Richmond, VA

English, academic dean, 1984-85, 1990-2003 Middlesex School Concord, MA

H RONALD BEASLEY

H JOHN HALLOWELL

History teacher, 1928-49 Mary Institute St. Louis, MO

H JANET HARTWELL

H AMOS BOOTH

H JOAN OGILVY HOLDEN

French and German teacher, 1954-57, 1973-79 St. Bernard’s School New York, NY

Dean of students/history teacher, 1974-84 St. Stephen’s,St. Agnes School Alexandria, VA

H TRAVIS BROWNLEY

H STUART JOHNSON III

English teacher, 1980-86 Marin Academy San Rafael, CA

Classics teacher, 1982-85 St. Bernard’s School New York, NY

H THOMAS H. CARPENTER

H ADRIENNE MILLER

English teacher, 1971-76 St. Stephen’s School Rome, Italy

Sacred Studies teacher, 2004-11 Karuna School (founder) Lincoln, MA

H PAM CLARKE

H ROBERT MOSS

English teacher, Admissions, 1972-90 Doane Stuart School Rensselaer, NY

Sacred Studies teacher, 1938-58 St. Andrew’s School Middletown, DE

H KEVIN R. CONKLIN

H PETER O’CONNELL

Math teacher, 1981-84 Montgomery School Chester Springs, PA St. Mark’s Episcopal Day School Jacksonville, FL

English teacher, 1951-55 School of English Studies Folkestone, England

Assistant head, English teacher, 1996-2003 Greens Farms Academy Westport, CT

Assistant head, Classics teacher, 2004-09 Bishop’s School La Jolla, CA

H CHARLES W. SHEERIN, JR. Chaplain, English/history teacher 1950-52, 1961-70 Woodberry Forest School Woodberry Forest, VA

H THE REV. WILLIAM G. THAYER French and English teacher, 1886-87, 1889-94 St. Mark’s School Southborough, MA

H THE RIGHT REV. ANN TOTTENHAM Dean of students, religion/ethics teacher, 1974-81 Bishop Strachan School Toronto, ON

H WILL WEBB Alumni Affairs, Admissions, 2005-11 Fountain Valley School Colorado Springs, CO

H LUCRETIA WELLS Admissions, 1989-93 Buckingham Friends School Lahaska, PA

H THE REV. JOHN P. WILLIAMS

H THE REV. REMSEN B. OGILBY

Admissions, 1979-89 Peddie School Hightstown, NJ

English teacher, 1902-04 Baguio (now Brent) School (founder) The Philippines (also president Trinity College, Hartford, CT)

H BURCH FORD

H ROBERT CURTIS PARKER

Counselor, psychology/ethics teacher, 1978-88 Miss Porter’s School Farmington, CT

H CHARLES RIMMER

H AIMECLAIRE ROCHE

Science teacher, 1942-44 Rivers Country Day School for Boys (now Rivers) Weston, MA

H THOMAS DEGRAY

French intern, 1985-86 Pomfret School Pomfret, Connecticut Math teacher, college counselor, 1950-74 Pingree School South Hamilton, MA

German teacher, 1935-42 Western Reserve Academy Hudson, OH

H GEORGE H. BLACKWELL

H TIMOTHY RICHARDS

History teacher, 1931-32, 1935-40 Christopher’s School Richmond, VA

H PAUL WRIGHT Math teacher, assistant head, 1928-74 Groton School Groton, MA

English teacher, 1964-79 Emma Willard School Troy, NY Some worked at other schools between Groton and the school they headed.

Many thanks to the Alumni Office for help compiling this list, and especially to archivist and shop teacher Doug Brown ‘57.

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debate among the faculty about the possibilities of the future, and they have fostered the thinking behind reshaping Groton’s physical campus to meet its coming demands. It is an admirable legacy.

This summer, Craig will be taking up the reins of leadership of Brewster Academy. As far as our research (and Doug Brown) can tell, that will mark the 33rd time that a member of the faculty has been drawn from the Circle to lead another school. I know that I will deeply miss seeing the GemmellHughes family on my trips to Farmers Row, but I also know it is very fitting and right that when a school would like to teach it students how to think in an interdisciplinary way, it comes to Groton to find a leader with an interdisciplinary mind!

—James H. Higgins III P’02, ’06, Trustee

N Living in a boarding school is, in many ways, an odd sort of life. We live where we work, and the workforce has a habit of shifting over time. People leave not only their jobs, but their neighborhoods. These changes always have an impact, and Craig, Nancy, Teddy, and Jobe’s departure marks the end of an era. It leaves the Lyons family with very conflicting emotions. On the one hand, we are thrilled they have an opportunity to run a school together; on the other hand, we will miss them dearly.

Craig and Nancy arrived from Pomfret in 1994, a fresh-faced, supercouple who quickly became pied pipers among countless Groton students.

The Lyonses arrived from Delaware 12 months later, with a 5- and a 2-year-old in tow. We lived in an upstairs apartment in Hundred House with Craig and Nancy a floor below. We moved to Pest House; Nancy and Craig lived across the courtyard. We moved into 3 Campbell Drive a few years later; they arrived as neighbors shortly thereafter.

They helped shepherd Rachel and Molly about as little tykes; Molly and Rachel babysat Teddy and Jobe. Craig expertly coached both of our girls during their

“

Craig and Nancy arrived from Pomfret in 1994, a fresh-faced super-couple who quickly became pied pipers among countless Groton students.” high school running careers and spent hours guiding them through their college applications. Molly had a once-ina-lifetime Peruvian adventure on one of Craig and Nancy’s legendary service trips. In short, our lives have been joyfully intertwined for the past 20 years.

The Gemmell-Hughes home on Campbell Drive was a flurry of restless activity. Pumpkin fields and potato patches were tilled and planted, homemade skateboard ramps appeared, Craig’s “thinking shed” (now the Fry family’s convalescent home for elderly chickens) emerged from spare lumber scrounged from around campus, and Craig mowed a cross country running loop around the field that connected our homes. Sunday afternoons in the

spring were reserved for long runs, conversations on the lawn, and burgers on the grill. And laughter … there was always lots of happy laughter. We were at different stages in our lives and Hannah worked far from campus, but as child-rearing became less all-consuming, we became great friends. We are grateful our lives have been linked for two decades.

Funny how little snapshots of memory stay with us, and always make us smile. For example, knowing that I [John] am a lawn maintenance freak, Teddy and Jobe once, under the cover of darkness, placed dozens of dandelions on the grass below our bathroom window. I almost choked while brushing my teeth the next morning. For

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“

Nancy is a superb English teacher, helping students of all abilities become close readers and powerful writers.”

some reason, another memory that sticks was seeing sitter Rachel and sittee Jobe on a rainy spring afternoon gleefully jumping up and down in puddles on Joy Lane, sporting matching kneehigh rubber boots and umbrellas, giggling away—a scene from Norman Rockwell. There was the day Nancy nervously approached to inform us that she had spied Rachel and a young man locked in an embrace from her kitchen window. And we can never forget Craig’s collapsing into the fetal position on a golf outing, convulsed with laughter when I [John] somehow managed to ricochet a shot off a rock into his well … uh … Had it been broadcast on America’s Funniest Home Videos, it would have taken the prize. From sunny ski slopes to backyard BBQs, we have cherished our time with the Gemmell-Hughes family. They are exceptionally talented, caring, and committed teachers, coaches, and advisors who have fundamentally impacted the lives of countless Groton students.

They are also dear friends who have provided this little village with 20 years of enthusiasm, great humor, and friendship.

It’s hard to believe two decades have passed so swiftly. Bon voyage, GemmellHughes; you will be greatly missed.

— Hannah and John Lyons P’12

N Craig first impressed me during my first

impression of him. Looking the same as he does now, which is to say that he looks the same now as he did 16 years ago, Craig bounced into the common room in what was (formerly Sackett’s, now Leroy’s) then Chung’s dormitory for 10 o’clock check-in to report the results of the Groton Road Race to a few runners. He wasn’t on duty. He wasn’t even affiliated with the dorm.

He just went out of his way to add the personal touch. He’s been running around like this, even late at night, as long as I’ve known him, and certainly long before.

Top, Craig and Nancy with Groton students in Peru; left, Craig (center) with Hannah and John Lyons

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Craig and Nancy’s departure is bittersweet. One might have thought they were lifers at Groton, but their leaving to run a school speaks well for the experiences that Groton can offer its faculty who may look for leadership opportunities beyond the Circle.

Craig and Nancy have taken advantage of so many of those possibilities here: they have taught, coached, run dorms, advised, been a dean of students, and worked on curriculum and program development.

Our STEM program is where it is because of Craig’s initial vision and instigation. Rick Commons gave him the go-ahead to pursue the interdisciplinary work that he thinks is so valuable, and he pushed, prodded, cajoled, and empowered so many colleagues, in STEM areas and beyond, as we first explored the STEM possibilities.

Nancy is a superb English teacher, helping students of all abilities become close readers and powerful writers.

When she moved into the Deans Office, she brought with her an attention to student issues and a very good set of fresh eyes that can be so important in the day-to-day life of the school. She re-thought, re-wrote, and enacted policy and protocol in ways that were consistent and made sense and made for very smooth operation in the Deans Office.

— Kathy Leggat, Academic Dean

N Craig and Nancy are among the most selfless and caring colleagues that I have worked with in almost 30 years of teaching. On the day that my family and I moved into our new home in Brooks House in August 1997, we were greeted by Nancy’s bright, warm smile, her arms holding a plate of home-baked cookies. Later that first year, Craig was quick to offer me sensible advice and much forgiveness as I made one mistake after another while working as his assistant on JV girls crew. Their extraordinary energy and work ethic, their wicked sense of humor, and their unmatched generosity have touched the

lives of all of us on the Circle.

— Tom Lamont P’09, ’12, ’15, history teacher

N Craig and Nancy are consummate school people who have always kept their focus on the adolescents under their care. Countless Groton students and adults have benefitted from work that Craig and Nancy have done in their significant leadership roles, from Craig’s positions in the college office and as assistant head to Nancy’s service as head of the English Department and dean of students, in addition to the many other committees both have served on and led.

Those schoolwide contributions notwithstanding, I think their greatest impact has been on the students who have been lucky enough to be mentored by either or both of these remarkable educators. Although Craig and Nancy have taught in different departments, coached different sports, and otherwise overseen different groups of students, they have taken remarkably similar approaches to their charges. Both of them see and guide not just English students or cross country runners, but whole people. My own daughters, their peers, and two decades worth of their predecessors have come away from time spent with Craig and Nancy feeling known, understood, encouraged, and cared for. Such close mentor-mentee relationships form the foundation on which a Groton education is built, and it is in this arena that I believe we will most miss Craig and Nancy’s leadership.

— Dave Prockop P’15, ’17, science teacher

N Craig still looks like the fleet-footed runner he was in high school and college, but when he came to Groton, he could really fly. We invited him to come out to Martha’s Vineyard to run in the Chilmark Road Race shortly after he arrived at Groton. He won the race and was awarded the traditional four-pound lobster as a prize. Craig announced that he would be setting this fine crustacean

free so that it could return to the sea and breed. We drove to Menemsha and Craig released him back into the wild.

His generous act made the front page of the local newspaper and confirmed what I had suspected—that he was an extraordinarily kind and selfless man.

Nancy was a neighbor of ours on Joy Lane. She was exactly what you hope to have as a neighbor—warm, responsible, and willing to watch our kids for an hour or so in a pinch. We may still owe her a few cups of milk and sugar. Our kids loved riding in our carpool with Nancy and Craig, Teddy, and Jobe.

— Andy Anderson P’15, ’17, ’20, Spanish teacher, Director of Financial Aid

N I think that I would not be here if it were not for Nancy. Back in the winter of 2000 I had interviewed all day at Groton, but I was not yet sure it was the place for me because I had not yet seen the true life of the school. The assistant headmaster at the time had me sit in on Nancy’s dorm check-in, and it was so inspiring. She and the 14 girls in that dorm seemed like a boisterous, close family, and it totally won me over. As proper reward, in my first year at Groton I must have phoned Nancy a dozen times a month with random dorm-related questions. She never lost patience!

I’m not sure that many folks know that Craig rebuilds old engines, cars, and tractors for stress relief. We bought his 1953 Ford Jubilee NAA tractor— which is not only beautiful but in terrific working order. It has been irreplaceable on our farm for three years.

Craig also rebuilt a Willy’s Jeep.

— Jennifer Wallace, history teacher

N I had the true pleasure of most closely getting to know Craig and Nancy after I graduated from Groton. Over the course of two summers, during college, my good friend Davis Vigneault ’07 and I recorded two of our albums in

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Allison MacBride

Anita Xu ‘13, Colby Mattheson ‘08, Nancy Hughes, Elizabeth Small ‘10, Jane Bang ‘10, and Craig Gemmell, at a recent farewell party for Craig and Nancy

the Gemmell-Hughes barn. Craig and Nancy, these kindest of souls, not only let us create our studio in their barn, but enthusiastically offered us their beautiful home to live in while we worked. Their pure generosity is remarkable. Craig and Nancy so kindly enabled me to pursue my passion, not only with the gift of an inspiring location, but through their uplifting support and spirit. I cannot thank them enough for their kindness. They are some of the most welcoming people I have ever met, and I feel lucky to call them friends. I wish them absolutely all of the best!

— Henry Bloomfield ’07

N I will be forever grateful to Craig for all that he did to make my involvement in the evolving STEM program such a wonderful experience. Thanks to his leadership, we are developing STEM experiences from which many Grotonians will benefit. Craig and Nancy, during their time here, have contributed so much as administrators, as coaches, and as teachers. Their home on Farmers Row was always open to students and graduates and was the site of many important school functions.

Craig and Nancy, we will miss you.

— Jonathan Choate ’60, math teacher

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From my arrival at their home for dinner on my first night of Second Form, Ms. Hughes and Mr. Gemmell formed a uniquely personal teaching team. In Second Form, Ms. Hughes served as a caring advisor and English teacher, developing my appreciation for classics like Dickens’ Great Expectations. Through his Sixth Form Natural History course, Mr. Gemmell helped me apply the literary and analytical skills that Ms. Hughes had taught me across the boundaries of different disciplines. Both were always among the loudest voices cheering for me on the cross country course and encouraging me through the college process. I have “great expectations” for what they will accomplish at Brewster Academy!

— Ted Leonhardt ’11

N It’s easy to list some of the ways Craig and Nancy have had an impact on my life: Craig helped me get started running, and Nancy taught me how to read and write in a more natural, enjoyable, and precise way. But more fundamentally, they’ve filled in as older siblings, young parents, and guides through the uncertain high school, college, and post-college years. Thank you, Craig and Nancy, for the past 20 years, and here’s to the next 20! Good luck at Brewster!

— John Roberts ’98

Spring 2015

N We were on sabbatical in Ann Arbor when Craig and Nancy first arrived at Groton. Upon our return to campus, we were struck by their full engagement in all aspects of campus life. Smart, empathetic, and energetic, their myriad contributions to the community as individuals and as a couple generated an enduring following among both students and adults. We count ourselves and our offspring in that still-growing population, and are particularly grateful for the kind and thoughtful attention that Molly, David, and Jared continue to receive from Nancy and Craig.

—Stephen Belsky science teacher, and Kate Dennison, Latin teacher and Director of Academic Support P’12, ’12, ’15

N One can’t overestimate the extent to which Craig and Nancy have extended themselves to and for our community.

They have opened their house and themselves up to so many of us. When they moved into the farmhouse on top of the Sabine fields, Nancy helped organize a barn sale of items we collected in dorm scrounges to purge us

Nancy: passionate teacher and advisor

all of extra stuff and to raise funds for I will miss the long bus rides to Groton Community Service in a way cross country meets and the opportunithat engaged not only our own school ties to speak with Craig about coaching, community but also the greater Groton music, golf, politics, and a host of other community. topics. The Gemmell-Hughes family They have hosted countless will be missed, and I wish Craig, Nancy, reunions and celebrations. The most Teddy, and Jobe all the best as they memorable commemorative occamove on to a new challenge at Brewster sion for me was the gathering of Sixth Academy.

Formers and faculty under the tree —Bill Maguire, math teacher standing alone in the field of fireflies below their backyard, where we all N roasted marshmallows by a fire as the stars came out in late spring a few eveWhat strikes me most about Nancynings before Prize Day. As Craig, Nancy, and-Craig (and they are that, NancyTeddy, and Jobe move on, we will always and-Craig, hyphenated) is how little think of them lighting and enlightening they’ve changed. I started teaching with our way.

Craig at Pomfret, and Nancy arrived — John Capen P’17, English teacher not long after. Since that time, their enthusiasm for teaching has never N diminished. Just as importantly, they’re both willing to season their work with Nancy and Craig leave a deep and a dash of joyful insanity. It was Craig, abiding legacy at Groton. Superb teach- after all, who really came up with the ers, high-advocacy advisors, inspired idea for winter running. It struck him coaches ... the list goes on. Having as a great way to spend winter aftertaught and coached with both over their noons, and he was spot on. I doubt I two decades of service, I have seen the ever would have undertaken such long effectiveness of their work and will treks through the winter landscape if miss in innumerable ways how they he hadn’t assured me with a smile that motivate students and serve as models it was idiotic, and therefore worthof professionalism and commitment while. Nancy, with whom I worked to young people. most closely in the classroom, brings

the same approach to teaching, reveling in those moments when the classroom reaches fever pitch. One really can’t last in boarding schools without colleagues who infuse such joy into the proceedings. For teaching me this lesson, I always have been and will be indebted to them.

—Ted Goodrich, English teacher

N Like all great teachers, Nancy cares deeply about her students, which is obvious in her frequent reminiscences about past students. As her advisee, I was the beneficiary of her wise and patient counsel over four anxious high school years. Her belief in her students is inspiring: I treasure her graduation note exhorting me to follow a long line of Grotonians into a life of service.

I requested Nancy as an advisor based on my father’s recommendation. He trusted her as a mentor to his son because he knew, as did all her colleagues and students, that Nancy’s judgment is as solid as the Chapel walls. As a faculty member and dean, Nancy earned a universal reputation for fairness, no small feat at a small school like Groton.

Most important, Nancy and her family are a load of fun. Over teas and

Photos by Annie Card

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Bob Krist

Craig with Hannah Conner ‘14 and Lucy Brainard ‘14

“

One can’t overestimate the extent to which Craig and Nancy have extended themselves to and for our community.” drinks, next to barbecues and basketball games, with students and faculty alike, Nancy, Craig, Teddy, and Jobe have inspired and shared countless smiles and laughs with their many friends and fans around the Circle. I loved babysitting for Jobe and Teddy— perennial winners of the most energetic faculty children award—even though I always had the sense that they were cooler than me because of their skateboarding.

Few have impacted Groton School more positively than Nancy and Craig in recent years, and they deserve to be very proud of the legacy they leave behind.

— Ben Lamont ’09

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Ms. Hughes is the best advisor I could have ever asked for. She is kind, caring, and always gives me the most

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down-to-earth advice. Thank you Ms. Hughes!

— Elyssa Wolf ’17

N Ms. Hughes was my Fifth Form English teacher, advisor, and unwavering mentor. Throughout my time at Groton, she gave me the confidence to achieve more and do more. In the classroom, Ms. Hughes provided me with the tools I needed to delve into the Heart of Darkness and produce a semicoherent paper. Ultimately, she enabled me to feel like an accomplished writer.

Outside of the classroom, Ms. Hughes was one of the many faces on the Circle who drew me to adore Groton. She never walked by without checking in, she frequently popped into the dorm for advisee visits, and she constantly doled out encouragement.

Spring 2015

The summer following Third Form, I attended the Peru service trip, for which Ms. Hughes was a leader and on which I gained my favorite memory of her. At some point in the trip we visited a Quechua community in the Patachanca Valley. At the end of our day, Ms. Hughes convinced me to join her in the adventure of running back to our home base, Ollantaytambo, rather than taking the bus. Ms. Hughes, another group leader named Lilah Hume, and I embarked on an entirely downhill 11-mile route. Never before had I come close to running a comparable distance.

For 11 miles, we discussed any- and everything, including a disconcerting debate about our safety regarding a few wandering bulls in our path. When I made it back to Ollantaytambo, I felt an overwhelming sense of accomplishment. Ms. Hughes had encouraged me to push past what I thought I was

capable of. She also provided me with the kind of experience uniquely found at Groton: teachers engaging in full with their students. I wish her the best, knowing whomever she mentors next will be just as lucky as me.

— Chloe Fross ’12

N Others I hope and am sure will tell of the transformative conversations they’ve had with Craig while running back and forth between opposite ends of the earth. I find I am guided still by the principles Craig led me toward on those runs. To know Craig, I think you would need to run with him for maybe 100,000 miles. But I think, also, you would need to listen to Nebraska, and to Tom Waits, until you know by heart not only the words, but also the harp lines and the reverb. It might also be a good idea to read Silent Spring, and Origin of Species, and Desert Solitaire, and perhaps spend a few decades recreating the experiences they describe. I have to say, I’m glad Craig isn’t going very far— because there’s still quite a lot I’d like to know about him.

— Davis Vigneault ’07

N Dedicated, caring, and busy—very busy!—Craig Gemmell is one of the most productive people I know. As the saying goes, if you want something done, ask a busy person. Craig has been a part of my life and, more importantly, part of my children’s lives, all four children, since 2005. During that time I have been so grateful for the care, guidance, instruction, and devotion he has provided to all of us. Craig’s roles have included biology teacher, naturalist, coach, college counselor, running the college office, administrator, strategic planner, master planner and assistant head. What was so admirable was that he was so very good at all these different roles. As I said, if you wanted a job done well, you would ask Craig to do it.

Over the past four years I have had the marvelous opportunity to work

closely with Craig. He was the lead faculty member on the master planning work and then later had the same role on the Schoolhouse renovation and expansion. Coordinating and inspiring the work of these large groups of faculty members and trustees—and managing the expectations and aspirations for the Groton community—required such grace, diplomacy, and vision that I for one was ready to propose him as the next head of the United Nations!

Craig pursued these roles with intellectual élan, tremendous charm, and good humor.

While Craig’s leadership on the master planning and Schoolhouse projects will have an impact on the school for the coming decades, his work as a teacher, coach, and mentor will have an immeasurable impact on all the students and friends he reached during the past two decades at Groton.

— Franz Colloredo-Mansfeld ’81, P’13, ’15, ’18, trustee

N He opened the class by adapting a sentence of Thoreau to his own simple, sincere words: Craig wanted to make sure that we didn’t wake up at 40 to discover that we had not yet lived. We knew right away this course wasn’t about Natural History, the precursor to biology that exists today only in museums, but about our own development.

The stakes were high—the alternative was quiet desperation, after all—and the method, stunning.

We often find the best teachers are those who are passionate about the subject matter, but Craig was passionate about his students. It wasn’t that he transferred his love of naturalist literature—no, he wasn’t interested in the texts but in our responses. In his Natural History course, he opened the boundaries between the sciences and humanities and more importantly, between school, work, and lived experience.

Natural History provided a singular opportunity at Groton for direct pedagogy in self-knowledge. What

this meant for Craig was putting an immense amount of trust in his students, and it is this experience of trust that continually inspires me in my own life as a part-time Classics teacher in Providence and a yoga instructor.

When a teacher trusts her students, a space opens where mutual education occurs: education no longer consists in the transfer of knowledge in one direction but in the openhearted collaboration between teacher and student.

Craig was able to re-create this space year after year for a group of lucky Sixth Formers because he was deeply humble yet commanded the respect of his students. Craig transferred his passion for life, which (as I learned in Natural History) we find most fulfilled when we form such true human connections.

— Carly Margolis ’12

N You will never find anyone more dedicated or passionate about education and about students. Craig is truly a fountain of ideas! He’s always a joy in conversation. Even though I sometimes have trouble keeping up with his excited utterances, I never fail to feel inspired, respected, and listened to. I am always impressed by his tireless willingness to listen—to students, advisees, parents, and his colleagues.

— Melinda Stewart, Director of Counseling

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BY GAIL FRIEDMAN

REEL TO REAL

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’62

GEORGE BUTLER Groton’s documentary filmmakers — their films are breathtaking, and so are their stories.

DIRECTOR / PRODUCER / WRITER S E L E C T E D W O R K S : P U M P I N G I R O N ( 1 9 7 7 ), T H E E N D U R A N C E ( 2 0 0 0 ), G O I N G U P R I V E R : T H E L O N G WA R O F J O H N K E R R Y ( 2 0 0 4 ), R O V I N G M A R S ( 2 0 0 6 ), T I G E R T I G E R ( 2 0 1 5 )

THE EXPLORER

George Butler ’62, behind his most famous subject while directing Pumping Iron

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eorge Butler ’62 sits at a vintage wooden dining table in the house at True Farm that his grandfather, George Saltonstall West 1906, P’34, once owned. On the walls of the New Hampshire farmhouse, photographs hint at the stories that will spill out from this longtime filmmaker: images of a young Arnold Schwarzenegger with muscles oiled and rippling; of explorer Ernest Shackleton’s ship, The Endurance; of a young John Kerry, long before his presidential aspirations were dashed.

Since his childhood, George seemed destined to lead an extraordinary life. He grew up in Wales, Kenya, Jamaica, and Somalia (where he hunted lions at age 7 with his father, an officer in the British Army). George is best known for introducing Schwarzenegger to the world via the documentary Pumping Iron, but also has cemented a reputation for his intimate storytelling and lavish cinematography, and for venturing boldly into the world’s most remote, often risky, terrain. George has lived in crime-ridden, inner-city Detroit; has stalked the Bengal tiger; and calls an array of celebrities his friends. At this point in his life, George could very well be the subject of one of his own movies.

When he burst onto the scene with Pumping Iron, documentaries were what you watched in history class, rarely entertaining or discussed at cocktail parties. No one knew George Butler, or for that matter, Arnold Schwarzenegger. Today, almost four decades later, George helps judge documentaries for the Academy Awards, evaluating 150 films each year. Among the swelling ranks of documentarians, he is a wise and respected veteran.

It all started with the intimate look inside the world of competitive bodybuilding that led to Pumping Iron. Life magazine had asked George to cover a bodybuilding contest. He ended up traveling the world to tell the story, resulting first in a book, then in the documentary that launched Schwarzenegger and became an unexpected box office success.

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All of George’s films have had a theatrical release — a claim few documentarians can make.

Some people, including his Groton “I saw a lot of Andy Warhol,” George says. formmates, thought George was risking his “I could never get him to say a word.” reputation by focusing on the fringe world George introduced Schwarzenegger of bodybuilders. “You’re a good photogto Warhol and other celebrities he knew rapher,” a Groton friend told him. “You’re in New York. “I introduced him to Andy ruining your career.”

Warhol, Jamie Wyeth, to Vogue magazine It was hard to fund the project, and and Sports Illustrated,” George recalls.

George almost had to abandon it. When “You might even say that I all but invented he approached his friend John Mack, who Arnold.” George also says he made it would become the president of Morgan possible for Schwarzenegger to meet the Stanley, for support, the financier asked woman he would marry, Maria Shriver.

George to convince him that “anyone Today, Pumping Iron is a cult classic and would pay a dime to see a film about an early window into the man who would Arnold Schwarzenegger.” become California’s governor and, more George turned that challenge into a recently, fall from grace. George says the marketing feat that was impressive, even film sparked the workout boom we are still

by Manhattan standards. Using contacts, living today. “Within a decade, 100,000 cajoling, and charisma, he convinced the gyms had opened around the world,” he Whitney Museum of Art to hold a live exhisays. He calls that his biggest influence, but bition, “Articulate Muscle, the Body as Art,” then laments, “I’d rather be told, ‘You’re featuring Schwarzenegger and two other the guy who got John Kerry elected bodybuilders. They posed, they preened, president.’” they turned on revolving pedestals. “We Indeed, George had predicted that expected 300 people, and 5,000 showed Schwarzenegger would become governor up,” George says. of California, but his other prediction, and It was the talk of the town, attended great desire, has not panned out. George by reporters, art historians, and fans of believes John Kerry, currently the U.S. secbodybuilding. Candice Bergen took phoretary of state, should have been president. tographs. “It was a bit of everything,” And he is convinced the candidate would George says. “All of Brooklyn was there. have beaten George W. Bush in 2004 if The New York intelligentsia were there, more people had seen Going Upriver. The and all the Warhol people.” George was a documentary depicts Kerry as a Vietnam friend of Warhol’s, at least as much as one veteran and anti-war activist, as brave could befriend the enigmatic cultural icon. facing the wartime enemy as he was facing

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the U.S. Congress. The film “did everything John Kerry wasn’t doing,” George says. “It made him sympathetic. It made him charismatic. It made him look like a brave leader.”

George first met John Kerry during a college break; both were door-to-door salesmen, Kerry selling encyclopedias and George selling dictionaries. George was press secretary for Kerry’s very first Congressional campaign in 1972 and, more than 30 years later, was still telling his story.

George says he was in Ohio with actor Paul Newman and former U.S. Representative Pete McCloskey (California) ready to screen Going Upriver. But Kerry’s campaign decided against it, considering the idea “too new,” George says. Whenever the secretary of state sees the filmmaker, he just shakes his head. Ohio’s 20 Electoral College votes would have snatched the 2004 contest from Bush.

“My good friend did not screen my film in Ohio,” George says, still frustrated.

“It might have won the election for him.”

Despite Going Upriver’s potential to change an election, George does not consider it his best film. That distinction goes to The Endurance, a project that began when a book cover about Ernest Shackleton’s famed Antarctica adventure caught his eye in a bookstore on Madison Avenue. George couldn’t put it down, and neither could the screenwriter he lent it to.

George wanted to recreate the perilous, courageous, and ultimately unsuccessful trip of the British explorer. He pitched the idea to WGBH, but the Boston public radio station could only provide funding for a crew of three. George’s documentaries do not skim the surface: he wanted to follow the explorer’s path, through icebergs and across icy mountain paths. He eventually raised enough funding to take off from Rio de Janeiro with 100 Russian sailors. “I tend to go big on the films I make, to make them as beautiful, as real, and as interesting as possible,” he says. In all, George made six trips to Antarctica for The Endurance.

George traveled to Antarctica six times to capture the perilous journey of explorer Ernest Shackleton.

Peter Wordie

He was determined to film all of the locations where Shackleton traveled and the obstacles he endured. The result is a spectacular journey for the viewer, who tags along for the ride with one of the world’s inveterate explorers, riding the waves with his crew, experiencing the fear and hunger, glorying in the courage.

The Endurance won numerous awards; was selected for Sundance, Telluride, and other film festivals; and spawned an Imax version, Shackleton’s Antarctic Adventure, narrated by Kevin Spacey. Another of George’s Imax movies, Roving Mars, brought Butler the distinction of directing one of the nation’s top-grossing documentaries. It ranks at #62, according to IMDb (an industry database), and brought in $10.4 million, in addition to $5 million in backing from Lockheed Martin. Roving Mars signifies a coup of a different type for George: persuading Disney to release a documentary.

All of George’s films have had a theatrical release — a claim few documentarians can make. He expects the same for his latest, Tiger Tiger, which took George into the remote Sundarbans mangrove forest between India and Bangladesh, chasing the endangered Bengal tiger in an act of both breathtaking filmmaking and environmental activism.

The film premiered this winter and will open in theaters next year. Tiger Tiger is not his first film about an endangered species; in 2008, The Lord God Bird drew attention to a quest for the rarely seen ivory-billed woodpecker.

His longtime collaborator in film and life, Caroline Alexander, wrote Tiger Tiger; she also wrote The Endurance: Shackleton’s Legendary Antarctic Expedition, which inspired The Endurance. George’s next documentary, Blast Force, tackles the traumatic brain injuries caused by explosions among military veterans in active combat.

Alexander wrote a story on the topic for the February 2015 National Geographic.

George neither flinches nor dramatizes when relating his experience in the Sundarbans. Not when he says that he dove into waters inhabited by massive saltwater crocodiles, and not when he describes rolling over and discovering a skin underneath him that had recently been shed by a king cobra. The filmmaker’s determined lust for adventure is particularly stunning in light of his Parkinson’s Disease.

“I’ve made four films since I was diagnosed,” he says.

Tigers notwithstanding, George notes with some irony that his most dangerous assignment was in 1968, right after graduating from University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, where he studied writing.

George volunteered for VISTA (Volunteers in Service to America), and was sent to Detroit, then known not only as “Motor City” but also as “Murder City.”

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Willie Mathis

He founded a small neighborhood newspaper and courageously, or naively, wrote about the drug dealers. Seeking to avenge and intimidate, some dealers set George’s back porch stairs on fire, hoping to force him out and shoot him. He stayed in the burning building until firefighters, who wondered aloud why a white man was living there, rescued him.

“I don’t know how I survived that experience,” George muses. “People were being shot left and right.” Even his car, a Volkswagen, was a target in a city where American cars were manufactured.

“They’d throw bricks at a German car,” he says.

Though he literally has gone to the ends of the earth, George retains a fondness for Groton. He is a cousin of School founder, Endicott Peabody. In his New Hampshire farmhouse, amidst relics and photos from his travels, he pulls out a small silver engraved cup that he received for winning

the School chess championship in his Second Form year. He notes his fondness for the School, adding that he attended on a scholarship.

In general, his films could not touch on worlds farther from the Circle. But one, In the Blood, follows another Groton alumnus, Kermit Roosevelt 1909, on an African hunting trip with his father, Theodore. The film, which played Sundance and other festivals in 1990, was nominated as one of the year’s 10 best by the International Documentary Association. In the Blood was controversial: it argued that hunting benefits conservation by restricting poaching.

Whether controversial or simply enlightening, George has always believed in the power of his medium to effect change, perhaps even to change history.

“I’ve always felt that documentaries, or nonfiction films, have enormous power to change people’s lives,” he says. “That’s the real strength of documentaries.”

Dyanna Taylor

Top: George on the back porch of his Detroit apartment, which drug dealers burnt down in revenge for an article George wrote Right: George, far left, and his film crew for In the Blood, standing before Teddy Roosevelt’s famous gun and two Cape Buffalo skulls

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Humanus Documentary Films Foundation REGINALD G. COOMBE 1914

F. TRUBEE DAVISON 1914

HENRY P. DAVISON 1916

GEORGE F. LAWRENCE 1914

SAMUEL S. WALKER 1913

A Film that Took Flight from the Circle One documentary screening at film festivals this year has deep Groton connections.

T

he Millionaires’ Unit follows a group of Wortman’s book. He approached a friend, Yale students, several of them Groton Darroch Greer, who had researched hisgraduates, who created their own air torical documentaries and worked on the militia at the beginning of World War I Lincoln presidential library. The two were and became the first Naval Air Reserve convinced that this inspiring story merited flying squadron. After a summer driving a documentary. ambulances in Paris at the outset of the They approached Harry and his father war, they realized that America would for fundraising help, and both became be drawn into the conflict and had seen involved. But Harry became even more firsthand the potential advantage fighter commited after his father’s death in 2010. planes could provide.

“I took his seat,” Harry says. “Although I The documentary about these young am not a professional filmmaker, I wanted aviators—including their leader, F. Trubee to carry the project to its conclusion, to Davison 1914, his brother Harry Davison share Trubee’s vision, and to honor my 1916, Reg Coombe 1914, Oliver James 1914, own father’s service to his country in George Lawrence 1914, and Sam Walker World War II.” David Lawrence ’47, whose 1913—might never have made it to the big father was one of the aviators, consulted screen if not for the involvement of Harry with the team as well.

Davison ’80, one of Trubee Davison’s The producers formed the Humanus grandsons.

Documentary Films Foundation to create Marc Wortman, author of The Mileducational films, formed a partnership lionaires’ Unit: The Aristocratic Fly Boys Who with WNET in New York, and received Fought the Great War and Invented American corporate sponsorship from Federal Air Power, had interviewed Harry and his Express (whose founder learned to fly at father, Danny Davison ’43, after discoverYale and served in Vietnam). ing Trubee’s papers at Yale. When the When word of the documentary Davisons threw a book party for Wortman, reached Hobbit director Peter Jackson, descendants of the Millionaires Unit—so who has built 24 replicas of WWI fighter dubbed by the press because of the aviaplanes, he invited the producers to New tors’ families’ wealth—brought memoraZealand, where he lives. They all took to bilia for display: letters and diaries written the skies, following replica aircraft in simfrom the front, Harry’s great-uncle’s ulated combat maneuvers. “From the perNavy Cross and photos of him in uniform. spective of authenticity, it was important Harry recognized a treasure trove of prito be able to show how these airplanes mary source materials—and a foundation flew,” says Harry. “We used a lot of GoPro for the documentary that would follow. cameras on the fuselage to give the audi Around that time, one of the airmen’s ence the pilot’s point of view in a dogfight.” descendants, Ron King, a cinematographer The film, narrated by Bruce Dern, who was not at the book party, saw his premiered at EAA Airventure in Oshgrandfather’s photo on the dust jacket of Kosh, Wisconsin, the world’s largest air

show, in July 2014, followed by a Veterans Day showing at Yale. So far, it has been accepted into six film festivals, and Harry hopes for more. At its first competition, the Garden State Film Festival in March, The Millionaire’s Unit won the award for best feature-length documentary. Harry hopes to cement a nationwide PBS broadcast next year, in time for the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Naval Air Reserve.

While universal, The Millionaire’s Unit is a very Groton story. “Endicott Peabody’s influence is really a driving force behind these young men,” Harry says. “They upend the popular stereotype in contemporary society of privileged youth exercising their influence to avoid anything that looks like work, and instead are leading the charge into battle.”

Harry believes the film, at its essence, “is about how young people set their moral compass in life.” In letters to family members and sweethearts, the young aviators describe the qualities of character and leadership they admire most in their friends, and how they struggle to reflect those attributes themselves.

The cui servire theme that runs throughout, the belief that “to whom much is given much is expected,” has inspired Harry and his team to set a new goal: creating a module for American History curricula in high schools. “We wanted to do this project because of the personal connection we had to the story,” says Harry, “but what is really exciting is that we have created a digital archive of material that will be accessible online for students to research for decades to come.”

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© 2015 Dinky Pictures

THE CONFIDANTE

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ome writers and filmmakers fear emoscreening of Rich Hill at the Traverse City (MI) tional involvement with their subjects.

Film Festival, she explained that her master’s They even construct barriers to remain in screenwriting, and the USC student award detached. she won, alone could not propel her career.

Tracy Droz Tragos ’87 is perched deci“Going to film school doesn’t mean you have sively on the other end of the spectrum. “I the funds and the wherewithal to make definitely am emotionally involved,” she says. films,” she says. “I think the fire wasn’t in That intense connection to her subjects— me to do it independently until I had this and her sincere care for them—may explain really strong personal motivation.” this filmmaker’s success. Her first two fea She is referring to what seemed almost a ture-length documentary films won awards calling to make Be Good Smile Pretty, a film that veteran filmmakers sometimes chase for that unravels the long-mysterious story of decades: Be Good Smile Pretty won the Best Tracy’s father, Donald Droz, who died during Documentary Emmy in 2004, and Rich Hill a Swift Boat ambush in Vietnam (now won the Sundance Film Festival Grand Jury widely known because of its role in John Prize in 2014.

Kerry’s 2004 presidential campaign). “I was Tracy went to film school at University like, ‘Nobody’s going to stop me,” she says. of Southern California, but never really “Nobody else is going to make this film. I expected to make a career of it. In an interneed to make it.” view with director Michael Moore after a Tracy’s quest began when, at age 32,

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she simply typed her father’s name into an online search engine. Up popped an article about the Swift Boat ambush, written by an eyewitness.

After she told her mother about the article, they went through a mass of memorabilia together that was stashed in the garage.

Tracy saw film of herself with her father and heard his voice for the first time that she could remember. “The personal aspect can be a strong motivating factor,” she says. “At some point, it shifted from a personal project to something bigger.”

Her journey of discovery ultimately shed light on the experiences of many Vietnam veterans. In 2003, PBS showed Be Good Smile Pretty on Veterans Day, and many veterans’ groups have screened the film.

Tracy’s other award-winner, Rich Hill, also has ties to her father, who grew up in

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TRACY DROZ TRAGOS PRODUCER / DIRECTOR / WRITER SELECTED WORKS: BE GOOD SMILE PRETTY (2004), RICH HILL (2014)

Like the story of her father, theirs was a story that, once she became wrapped in it, she was compelled to tell. The poignancy and expert filmmaking of Rich Hill has touched audiences. After a screening at the DOC NYC festival last November, one of the audience members thanked Tracy during the Q&A: “It was very beautifully done, with a great deal of humility from the filmmakers,” she said. “I’m making a film vérité-style film, and I’m going to be watching it ten times.”

During that Q&A, Tracy provided updates on the boys. “Harley’s mom is still in prison, and he still misses her dearly,” she said. “Appachey was out of DYS [Division of Youth Services] and doing well, then cussed out a teacher and is back in DYS.” Updates on her website indicate that Harley recently was diagnosed with a brain tumor.

She can’t help but keep in touch with the boys; their stories are deeply ingrained in her psyche. All three attended Sundance, even though Tracy offered them the money the trip would cost instead. Despite their families’ economic hardship, they valued the experience more than the cash.

Tracy did not plunge into this kind of documentary work right after film school. In fact, looking her up in IMDb, the industry’s online database, one might assume her first work, The Neverhood, was a horror flick.

Actually, The Neverhood and two other early works listed are video games — but they are not as far from feature films as one might think. The second video game she helped produce, Goosebumps: Escape from Horrorland, starred actors Jeff Goldblum and Isabella Rosselini. “It was a really good training ground,” Tracy says of her position back then, as one of the first employees in DreamWorks’ interactive division. “I’m not a gamer, but I learned.”

Before the video games, Groton School already had earned a place in Tracy’s film history: her master’s thesis script at USC was based on the two years she spent on the Circle. “In typical fashion of keeping it somewhat personal, it was indeed inspired

by my experiences at Groton,” she explains.

“It was about identity, friendship, and the journey of a girl from Missouri who tries to fit in.”

Today, Tracy is working on several projects, including an offshoot of Rich Hill. It focuses on a teen mother she met in the Missouri city. She started filming the girl when she was 14, two years before she had her child, and plans to follow her on film until the baby reaches kindergarten. Tracy describes her young subject as smart and good at math; the young woman has told Tracy she is determined not to be like her own mother, who has seven children and also was a teen mother. (For a glimpse of this project, search “Sarah’s Uncertain Path” on the New York Times website.)

Documentaries like these start with a great story, but they can’t succeed unless the filmmaker can make interviewees comfortable, willing to share their deepest emotions with a mass of theater-goers who will enter their lives. Tracy’s subjects don’t seem to hold back.

“People tell stories to make sense of the world, but also to be heard,” she says. She was referring to the people whose stories she shares. Indeed, she could have been describing herself. © 2004 Mark Bryan-Brown

Rich Hill, Missouri, a city where Tracy spent many summers with her grandparents. Rich Hill aired on PBS’ “Independent Lens” in January.

Co-produced and co-directed with Tracy’s cousin, Andrew Droz Palermo, Rich Hill follows three boys with unique stories and troubles, but who share the common bond of poverty. There’s Appachey, 13, who lives with his mother and siblings and takes medication for depression, ADD, and other disorders; the articulate and responsible Andrew, 14, whose mother appears to be ill or depressed and who has moved (and changed schools) constantly because of his peripatetic father; and Harley, 15, who lives with his grandmother because his mother is in prison for plotting to murder her ex-boyfriend, allegedly because he had raped Harley.

The access that the three families granted Tracy attests to her sincere, unpretentious nature and to her family’s deep roots in Rich Hill. Her grandmother was a beloved third grade teacher and her grandfather a mailman who served on the school board. “It’s a small town, people knew me,” she explains. Even though Tracy lived in California and had degrees from exclusive schools, she was one of them. “Ultimately, I think we were trustworthy,” she says.

She was deeply committed to the people and the project; her sources had reason to trust her. She found them by asking around and hanging around Rich Hill — and by keen observation. Given entrée to the local school, she first saw Appachey in his gym class and spoke with him. “He was so smart and soulful. His face was chapped; his clothes were ripped,” she recalls. “The things coming out of his mouth were poetic.”

She approached Andrew when she saw him practicing martial arts moves in a park, and Harley when she was talking with his grandmother. “He was asleep on the couch,” she says. “He has this kind of charm and wit to him. And he had a story.”

Tracy accepting her Emmy for Be Good Smile Pretty

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R E E L T O R E A L : G R O T O N D O C U M E N TA RY F I L M M A K E R S

THE ACTIVIST

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F

ilmmaker Liz Canner ’86 learned of her intern’s sexual assault in a text message. The young woman could not bring herself to come to work, and, in a few pointed words, explained why.

Liz did more than sympathize; she got busy. A passionate advocate for social justice, her instinct was to wonder: how can I help stop this — and how can I do it on film?

All of Liz Canner’s film projects are rooted in activism. Her current project, scheduled for a fall release, follows a group of students and professors for four years as they expose a legacy of violence on their campus. They not only attempt to change their school, but also higher education in America. The same could be said for the film, and for Liz. Liz began working on Silent U before it became a hot topic in mainstream media, before Rolling Stone published, then retracted, a story of a gang rape at University of Virginia. The intern at Liz’s nonprofit, Astrea Media, shared her story, and that was all the motivation Liz needed.

“I started investigating how poorly she was being treated and whether that was common,” she says. “When I began interviewing students, I was shocked by the number who had experienced some form of violence.”

Liz’s brand of documentary work is a form of investigative journalism. With the newspaper industry challenged and underresourced, films, she believes, can fill in the gap. “It’s takes a long time to do a really deep investigation of any kind of social issue. You need the time and resources to do it, and a lot of mainstream media outlets don’t have that anymore,” she says. “I think some of the best journalism is actually happening in documentary.”

Her first feature film, Orgasm Inc., was undeniably investigative journalism — an exposé of the pharmaceutical industry and its attempt to “medicalize” normal patterns of women’s sexual experiences. Originally

’86

LIZ CANNER D I R E C T O R / C I N E M AT O G R A P H E R / E D I T O R S E L E C T E D W O R K S : S T A T E O F E M E R G E N C Y ( 1 9 9 3 ) , D E A D LY E M B R A C E ( 1 9 9 9 ) , ORGASM, INC (2009), SILENT U (2015)

Some of the students Liz filmed for Silent U broke through the silencing culture on their campus by creating expressive art works, which helped them share their stories.

At right, a scene from Silent U showing a dance performance about campus violence.

engaged by a pharmaceutical company to edit video material for use in a clinical trial of a female version of Viagra, Liz ended up spending nine years exposing the lengths to which some women would go to fit a perceived image of sexuality, and the lengths to which Big Pharma would exaggerate (unsuccessfully) to get a drug approved by the Food and Drug Administration.

Orgasm Inc., a New York Times “Critics’ Pick,” was broadcast on TV in 11 countries and is on Netflix globally. The title, to say the least, was catchy. “Major papers around the world wrote about it — some even before they watched it — probably because of the topic,” she says. “My publicist estimates we reached well over 100 million people.”

Powerful pharmaceutical companies, prestigious colleges and universities — taking on large establishments can take a toll. One of Liz’s early documentaries, in 1999, Deadly Embrace: Nicaragua, the World Bank, and the International Monetary Fund, confronted some of the world’s most entrenched financial institutions. Her first major film, State of Emergency: Inside the Los Angeles Police Department, in 1993, and the related Hands on the Verdict: The 1992 Los Angeles Uprising, immersed her in violent footage of police brutality that gave

her nightmares even after the films were complete.

“I definitely have my restless nights; there’s no doubt about it,” Liz says. But her convictions keep her courageous. “If we want to live in a society that has fewer human rights violations, we have to fight for it,” she says. “If we want equality, we have to challenge the dominant paradigm.”

Liz says she feels obligated not to muffle important information, no matter how much it might confront the powers that be. “If we constantly are censoring ourselves and trying to hold back, if we keep the truth secret, then this will continue,” she says, referring to high rates of campus violence.

She believes that the very act of creating a documentary can help improve a situation. “When you direct your camera toward an issue, it can give people more courage,” she says. “When you point your lens in their direction, there’s documentation of what’s happening to them, and they’re more likely to come forward and take a stand.” Liz says it’s lucky that institutions and foundations recognize the power and impact these sorts of films can have. Her work has been supported by 38 such organizations, including the National Endowment for the Arts, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the Radcliffe

Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard.

A longtime artist and activist, Liz says her social justice work and artistic practice took root at Groton. She participated in community service and, more important, was nurtured by female teachers who realized the challenges faced by the girls in a school still adapting to coeducation. In particular, she says her advisor and English teacher, Travis Brownley (now head of school at Marin Academy in California), and her art teacher, Beth Van Gelder, opened her eyes to the power of combining art with social engagement.

At Groton, Liz created an installation about war that was displayed in the Brodigan Gallery and a large wooden sculpture, exhibited outside the Dining Hall, which explored societal stereotypes of women. “The school had been coed less than 10 years when I arrived, so there was still a struggle,” she says. “But these teachers used it as a consciousness-raising tool.”

What will lead Liz to her next project?

The criteria are clear. “If there’s actual information that the public needs to know about, if there’s some human rights component to it, that’s when I really start pursuing a project,” she says.

“I do this work to bring about a more just society.”

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R E E L T O R E A L : G R O T O N D O C U M E N TA RY F I L M M A K E R S

THE HISTORIAN

T

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spent ten years as a producer for ABC News, traversing the world in pursuit of breaking stories. “I’m not a fan of traveling,” he admits. “When you produce historical programming, it’s less travel and more thoughtful work. You’re not chasing an emerging story.” He left ABC in the late 1980s to form Kunhardt Productions (now Kunhardt Films).

As a filmmaker, he is drawn to history — an interest that may have been predestined. Since he was young, Peter lived with an acute awareness of the importance of his family’s collection of Abraham Lincoln memorabilia, which passed on to his generation more like a living relative than a treasured array of artifacts. The nearly 70,000 photos and items include the photos of Lincoln that were used for his portraits on the penny, the $5 bill, and Mount Rushmore.

Peter’s most recent documentary, Living with Lincoln, is an intimate portrait of his family and the pride and burden of that collection, which his grandfather, Frederick Meserve, began when he was seeking photographs to illustrate his own father’s diaries from the Civil War. The collection, now owned by Yale University, was expanded and organized by Peter’s mother, Dorothy Kunhardt, who is best known for her Pat the Bunny children’s classic, which saved the family from economic despair during the Depression.

Living with Lincoln is close to his heart, but Peter says he is most proud of his “In His Own Words” films, which essentially

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“It’s a matter of enveloping yourself in the story.

There is a great deal of reading and archival research.”

Photos by Suzy Kunhardt

here was a time back in 2011 when Peter Kunhardt ’71 wasn’t quite himself. He was a bit ornery. The normally well-mannered filmmaker was even spewing more expletives than usual.

It was no wonder: Peter says he tends to embody the subjects he is documenting on film, and he was in the midst of researching Nixon by Nixon: In His Own Words for HBO. Peter was immersed in Nixon’s own White House recordings, listening to hundreds of the 3,700 hours of audiotape from Nixon’s presidency and organizing the transcripts.

Peter and his team, including his sons George and Teddy, were researching Nixon, thinking about Nixon, dreaming about Nixon.

“My sons tell me I become each of the characters,” he says. “They all were complaining that when I did Nixon I was an asshole. I was much nicer doing Gloria Steinem.”

He is referring to Gloria: In Her Own Words, part of Peter’s “In His Own Words” body of work for HBO. The documentary series also includes JFK: In His Own Words and Teddy: In His Own Words, about Teddy Kennedy, for which Peter won two of his five Emmy awards. The others were for The African Americans: Many Rivers To Cross and, for 20/20, Moment of Crisis: Hyatt Disaster and Moment of Crisis: Vietnam Withdrawal.

He’s been nominated for an Emmy two additional times, for Gloria and In Memoriam: New York City, 9/11/01, which one reviewer called “the definitive time capsule” of September 11, 2001.

Before documenting lives on film, Peter

’71

PETER KUNHARDT

PRODUCER / DIRECTOR / WRITER SELECTED WORKS: ECHOES FROM THE WHITE HOUSE (2001), FREEDOM: A HISTORY OF US (2003), GLORIA: IN HER OWN WORDS (2011), NIXON BY NIXON: IN HIS OWN WORDS (2014), LIVING WITH LINCOLN (2015)

At left, Peter in his attic with Kunhardt Films’ Director of Photography, Clair Popkin, filming glass negatives for Living with Lincoln; above, reviewing Lincoln memorabilia

allow the subjects to tell their own stories.

“It’s a technique we started in 1987 with JFK: In his Own Words,” Peter says. “Unlike most production companies, we spend the largest proportion of our time on audio and getting the narrative down so it flows.”

These documentaries take about 18 months to complete. “It’s a matter of enveloping yourself in the story. There is a great deal of reading and archival research. We’re all looking for clues as to where material resides,” he says. “Once that material begins getting discovered, that’s when you know if you have something special to tell or not. It’s like finding the keys to the story.”

Peter says the documentary medium

appeals to him because he is interested in “entertaining, engaging, and educating.” But that’s on the surface. On a deeper level, he takes aim at the emotions — of both the subject and the viewer. Often, he learns about his subject’s motivation, even his soul, by asking about childhood experiences. “People review clues about themselves when they talk about their childhood,” he says.

Ultimately, Peter finds documentary filmmaking a welcome change from TV news. “I find it a very refreshing format,” he explains. “There’s no filter of a journalist putting his opinions in the middle of somebody and their story.”

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A C H A P E L TA L K

by Trevor Fry ’15 December 8, 2014

Growing Up Groton

I

love tractors. I always have, and I always will. My mom tells stories of how, when I was a toddler, she would set me in front of a field with a tractor plowing it. As soon as the machine came into my sight, I would be transfixed. I loved how large it was, and I adored the slow methodical loops its large wheels would do around the field. Naturally, there was nothing I wanted more in the world than a tractor. When I was very small, little toy tractors had to suffice, but for my third birthday I got the best present I have ever received. That special day, I walked into my living room and found a dark green John Deere pedal tractor sitting there. It had stickers for lights and engine parts, and it had a steering wheel with the jumping deer symbol embossed in its center. Sitting down in its seat, I felt powerful, as if I were really driving the tractors I had seen plowing and haying the fields near my house.

Trevor with his father, English teacher Peter Fry, and his favorite green tractor

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The tractor accompanied me when I moved to Ohio in 1999. My Dad took a job at Western Reserve Academy, a boarding school an hour outside of Cleveland, and my tractor and I found a new set of roads to explore. My family and I lived there for six years, and during that time I traversed the whole campus on my small green John Deere. I would pedal it on the pathways that cut across the campus lawns, and I would artfully steer it as I raced against my fellow faculty kids on their small bikes with training wheels. That campus was my home, and my little green tractor and I thought it was always going to stay that way.

However, in 2004 my parents told my sister and me that we were leaving Ohio. My dad had accepted a job at Groton, and announced that we would be moving to Massachusetts at the end of the school year.

In August of that year, I drove through Groton’s gates not knowing what I would find behind them. I had just spent the previous six years of my life living at another boarding school. I had grown accustomed to the rhythm of life on the campus that I had used to call home. I was thrown off by Groton’s new buildings, people, and ringing bells. But the biggest change for me was the fact that I had moved away from the school where I thought I was going to be a student. Like all the other faculty kids, I had grown up believing that one day I would attend Western Reserve Academy. It seemed the natural progression for us all to

When I arrived at Groton in the summer of 2004, I firmly believed that this place would be my temporary home for a few years.

From left, former French teacher Fred Cadeau and the Fry family: Peter, Phoebe ’17, Malcolm, Gretchen Hummon, and Trevor

of our car and looked at me for a second. We both stared, taking each other in. The boy I saw was tall, tan, and lanky. He had glasses that were slightly askew, and he was wearing an old Groton baseball shirt. My dad attempted to get a conversation going, and by the end of the next five minutes I made my first friend at Groton: Johnny Lamont.

Johnny’s story of meeting me for the first time is much more amusing than my own. The boy he describes seeing was the epitome of the word awkward. And he was right. Back in my glory days, I often sported at the same time a bowl cut, glasses, and braces. I tucked in my shirt no matter what the season or occasion, and my favorite articles of clothing were my collection of turtlenecks. My outfit of choice was elastic corduroy pants coupled with a dark turtleneck or polo shirt. Even today, I think that that pairing is the perfect mix of formal and convenient.

Looking back on that first meeting, I wouldn’t have been surprised if Johnny had just written me off as an awkward, uncoordinated new kid who wasn’t worth hanging around. But he didn’t, and I’m eternally grateful for his choice.

Meeting Johnny brought me into the world and family of Groton’s faculty children. He was my guide to this new and mysterious campus that I had moved to, and slowly I began to experience all that it had to offer. That first fall was a whirlwind of new adventures. I remember eating at the Dining Hall for the first time, going to Chapel, and sitting by the side of the bonfire after my first St. Mark’s Day. Day by day, Western Reserve Academy became less and less prevalent in my thoughts. Day by day, Groton became more like home.

Those first years were filled with meeting new people and seeing new places around campus. I remember Willy taking me into the boathouse for the first time during one of his birthday sleepovers. I remember Zahin beating me soundly in Risk again and again. And I remember

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voces

take. Our parents taught there, and we already knew the campus like the back of our hands.

Many days before school, I would sit on the patio of our house in Ohio and eat my cereal as I watched students go by. After their morning assembly, the whole student body would walk on the stone pathway in front of my house on their way to breakfast. I would sit at our outdoor table and watch closely as 400 kids passed in front of my eyes. To me, they all looked so old and intimidating, but I desperately wanted to be among them.

Sitting at my table, I always dreamt of the day when I would don the school blazer and tie and walk beside my fellow classmates. I never once thought that any other high school would lie in my future.

When I arrived at Groton in the summer of 2004, I firmly believed that this place would be my temporary home for a few years. I would bide my time until I was old enough to apply to Western Reserve Academy, and then I would leave. In my mind back then, Groton was going to be a place I would have to suffer at for a few years, before I could go back to the people and places I loved.

This being my mentality, I was somewhat reluctant to explore Groton’s campus early on in my time here. I spent most of my early days playing in our secluded part of Brooks House with my sister, Phoebe, and reading books to my baby brother, Malcolm. During those first weeks, I never ventured farther than the girls varsity soccer field. I was convinced that this place wasn’t going to be my home for that long.

One evening, a few weeks before I started third grade, I was helping my dad unload the car after a trip to the supermarket, when I heard the sound of a scooter lazily making its way down the road in front of my house. I looked up from the large bag of bread and milk I was carrying and saw another boy about my age rolling towards me on an old, red scooter. He stopped in front

Johnny Lamont ’15 with Phoebe and Trevor

On this campus, I have many people whom I consider to be my brothers, sisters, and parents, even if we aren’t related by blood.

But it is for this reason that I am scared to leave.

voces

Coby and Allie Goodrich showing me the best places to go sledding on campus.

The first moment that I truly felt like a member of the faculty kid family was when a few of us took over the Brooks House dorms during one Christmas break. After all the students left, I decided to call some other faculty kids and set up my speakers playing the James Bond theme in the mall. We then proceeded to have a massive Nerf gun fight in and around the Lower School dorms. I have a vivid memory of Zahin Das making brave attempts to attack a Third Form common room that was being held by a crack team of “fac bratz” that included Johnny Lamont, Willy Anderson, and the fearless Goodrich siblings.

As the months passed, I met more of the other kids on campus, and had more wonderful adventures that made me fall in love with Groton. However, making friends was not always easy. One person always seemed distant and a little cold. Though it might be hard for some of you to believe, Jared [Belsky] and I used to not get along. We both refused to talk to each other when we were little. I remember stepping into his car to go to a movie with his family when he suddenly turned around to his brother and said, “Uhhhh, why is he here???” Eventually, we broke the ice between us, and I’m so thankful we did.

One of my greatest memories happened during the fall of my fourth grade year, when Johnny and I decided to try our hand at longboarding. However, getting up and standing on the board proved to be too difficult and after some experimentation and falling, we found ourselves staring down the path to the Athletic Center with a beat-up longboard beside us and a plan forming in our minds.

Many of you have probably never noticed how steep this path truly is. It begins slowly by Mr. Maqubela’s office, but as you pass the bike rack in front of the gym, the path becomes a quite vicious slope. Without really thinking of the consequences, Johnny and I proceeded to take turns riding the longboard down the path. We laid our bodies headfirst on the board, skeleton style, and shot down the path with no helmets and only our shoes as brakes. We would start the journey up by the Circle, run next to the board, and then throw ourselves onto it once we picked 38

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up enough speed. When we began to near the gym, we would put the toes of our feet down on the ground behind us. This effectively slowed us down, but it ruined many perfectly good pairs of shoes. I remember Johnny showing up to play one day with a snazzy new pair of Sambas and the news that this activity could no longer continue.

It was moments like this that made me begin to forget about returning to Western Reserve as a student. After each time I foolishly rode down that path, I would pick up the board, turn around, and begin the trek back up.

Walking up the slope, I took in the view. The large brick walls of the basketball court would eventually give way to the expanse of the football field looking out over the Triangle and the mountains in the distance. I marveled at the beauty and began to stop daydreaming about what it would be like to walk back in Ohio with the hundreds of other students wearing their school blazers on their way to classes and meals.

Elementary school gave way to middle school, and eventually the process of applying to high school came knocking on my door. By the time seventh grade rolled around, there was not a doubt in my mind of where I wanted to go. Groton was calling to me, and the last vestiges of my previous wants and desires vanished. So I made the step, and now I find myself here, five years later, incredibly glad of the decision I made.

I have spent nearly my whole life living in the boarding school “bubble.” Many of you only live here on campus for a few months out of the year, and I greatly admire your bravery in coming here and leaving your family behind. That is something I still would have difficulty with, and you cannot begin to understand the admiration I have for all of you. But I want you to imagine that you perpetually lived in a perfectly manicured and extremely close-knit community for your whole life. A utopian sort of place where everybody knows your name, your family, your dinner habits, your vacation plans, and where your dog likes to do its business. I have lived in places like this for almost my whole life, and I wouldn’t change that for the world. Growing up at a boarding school is one of the greatest ways to experience childhood. I have grown up at a place where my friends are never more than a five-minute walk away. I have grown up at a place where these friends became my family.

And I have grown up at a place that I am incredibly sad to leave behind this spring.

Up until this point, my life has played itself out in an incredibly predictable fashion. I completed elementary and middle school, and then found myself at the prep

Anne Colloredo-Mansfeld

Trevor, center, with Michael Ma ‘15 and Jack McLaughlin ‘17

school where my dad teaches. I never once strayed from this path (except for that time I broke my leg). I have never had to leap any hurdles or break down any walls standing in my way. While I’m thankful for this, I am also a little wary of what this lack of adversity may cause in my future.

But please don’t get me wrong—I wouldn’t trade my childhood for anything. Growing up in the safe, nurturing community that boarding schools are is absolutely amazing. On this campus, I have many people whom I consider to be my brothers, sisters, and parents, even if we aren’t related by blood. But it is for this reason that I am scared to leave. For the past 10 years, I have grown up surrounded by friends, family, and familiarity at a place that many of you found frightfully new when you arrived for the first time. Not once in my time here did I have to go through the process of arriving as a scared new student who had never been to Groton before. My predictable life has led me here, and I’m extremely grateful for that.

I have enjoyed my long walk on the straight road I’m on, but I feel as though I may be approaching a turn.

This past Saturday, I got rejected from the college that I had always dreamed of attending. I logged on to the admission office’s website, clicked on the link to show me their decision, and saw “we regret to inform you…” glaring at me from the top of the page. When I was little, I used to go up to this college’s campus and visit my cousin. I saw how incredibly happy he was there, and I immediately decided that I needed to be a part of that school’s community. I looked at a place from the outside in and made my decision to apply based solely on my own small glimpses into life on that college’s campus. At the beginning of this past term, I applied early decision,

without ever really taking other possible choices into account. And in the end, things didn’t go the way I planned.

That admission office’s decision has created a fork in my road. I stand here giving this talk without knowing where I will turn next, and that feeling excites me. Never before have I stood before a slate this blank. Last Friday, I thought that I would awake the next morning and have my next move spelled out for me. But here I am, 48 hours later, telling you about my failure to achieve that next move. However, I don’t view this as a failure. And I want to stress that point. I don’t think of that rejection as a failure. While I am disappointed, I know I have many other options that will make me very happy.

In the coming weeks my fellow formmates will start to hear from their respective colleges, and I would like to take this chance to say to all of them to not let one rejection put you down. You are all incredibly talented and kind people that I feel blessed to go to school with.

You have made these last five years the best years of my life, and I’d like to thank you all for the memories you have given me. They are more valuable than any acceptance letter to a college. Please don’t forget that. I also want to remind you that while one outright rejection may feel like the failure of all your hard work at Groton, I urge you to look upon it as an exciting new beginning.

This is your life we’re talking about. Take it into your control and see what happens.

It’s exciting to stand here about to enter my next phase of life without really knowing what my next move is going to be.

Trevor will attend Bates College in the fall.

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A C H A P E L TA L K

by Andrea Picott ’90, trustee January 23, 2015

From Exclusion to Inclusion “The art of life is not controlling what happens to us, but using what happens to us.” —Gloria Steinem

I

have often been asked what brought me to Groton and about my parents’ experience sending two daughters to elite boarding schools.

I grew up in the town of Harvard, just a ten-minute drive from Groton. My family moved to Massachusetts in the mid-’70s after my father was recruited by an international computer company that sought talented minorities. I was 3 years old at the time, so Harvard was really my hometown.

My parents were both raised in Virginia when the country was still very much in the grip of segregation.

These were the days of Emmett Till, Brown v. Board of Education, and Rosa Parks. However, my parents describe their city as quite progressive for the time. Their police chief was no Bull Connor; he simply would not tolerate any discord. Newport News [Virginia] honestly strove to follow the separate-but-equal mandate. My father recalls two identical recreational centers being built across the street from one another. The only injustice he recollects is that the black high school never received new textbooks, just used ones that had been discarded by the white high school.

Despite an environment that was seemingly peaceful on the surface, segregation was still segregation. Imagine what it would do to a person’s psyche to face the indignity of your value as a human being reduced by a series of signs dictating where you could and couldn’t go.

The Hampton Roads region of Virginia is mostly known for the Newport News shipyard, where many famous naval battle ships were built and where the majority of the men on both sides of my family worked as laborers. None of my grandparents were able to graduate from college. For most of the men on both sides of my family, these limited educational opportunities coupled

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with segregation meant that there were few career opportunities beyond the shipyard. My grandmothers were relegated to jobs as seamstresses, domestics, and secretaries.

My father’s uncle, Rupert Picott, was one of the few exceptions. Uncle Rupert has been described as an early civil rights leader, a pioneer, and a visionary in the field of education. He received his doctorate degree from Harvard University because the University of Virginia would not accept blacks at that time. Uncle Rupert began his career as the principal of a Newport News elementary school and was unceremoniously fired in the early 1940s when he fought for black teachers to receive higher, more equal pay. He later worked to desegregate schools in the state. It was Uncle Rupert who had encouraged my parents to continue with their education and get out of Virginia.

The great Maya Angelou recalled her own adolescence in the South, saying, “In so many ways, segregation shaped me, and education liberated me.”

Both of my parents attended traditionally black colleges. My mother graduated from Virginia Union University and was the recipient of generous scholarships that enabled her parents to afford the tuition. My father enrolled in the ROTC to finance his undergraduate studies at Virginia State University. Upon graduation, he was sent to Vietnam, where he served for two years.

My father eventually made the move over to corporate work, but remained in the Army Reserves until I was about 2 years old to have supplemental income. He also attended business school at night. This is the amount of sacrifice and toil it took for my father, together with tremendous support from my mother, to advance and provide for our family.

Looking back now, I see that I was raised with definite Southern and black traditions, with some New England sensibilities sprinkled in.

Much like my Uncle Rupert, my parents were pioneers of sorts, leaving the South to raise a young family in Massachusetts. “Do you know anyone up there?” my grandparents asked. They couldn’t imagine moving so far away and to a place with so few blacks.

Life in Harvard was idyllic and our family was quickly welcomed into the community. My parents were respected and admired, and my father’s career advanced quickly. There were only three or four other black families in our town of approximately 4,000 people. My parents worked hard to become an active and visible part of the town. My father even dressed up as Santa Claus one year for our church’s Christmas festival. He rode in on the town fire truck and then had kids sit on his lap to tell them what presents they wanted. Most kids were shocked that Santa could be black. “Mr. Picott, is that you?” several asked in disbelief.

Although my parents came from a predominantly black community, Massachusetts grew on them over time.

Friends and family from Virginia would ask when my family would return “home” to Virginia. “We are home,” my mother would proudly respond. Seeing how many more opportunities were available to us as a family in Massachusetts meant she would never leave.

I had a wonderful group of friends, so I never thought of myself as an outsider in Harvard. I knew that I was different and was raised to be proud to be black, even if I was one of the few in town.

Around the time we moved to Massachusetts, Uncle Rupert had just published another book titled A Quarter Century of the Black Experience in Elementary and Secondary Education, 1950-1975. I remember being in elementary school and toting Uncle Rupert’s book into class for MLK Day. I’m not sure how much I really could have articulated about my uncle and the work he had done, but I knew he was one of the more educated people in our family. And I was proud that the book had been dedicated to me and the other Picotts of my generation, who as Uncle Rupert wrote, were “destined to share in America’s future.”

Looking back now, I see that I was raised with definite Southern and black traditions, with some New England sensibilities sprinkled in. It was the yes/please/no, thank you/Good morning, Mrs. So-and-So/pull yourself up by your bootstraps/act-like-you’ve-got-some sense/ waste-not-want-not amalgamation.

As in any other family, school and the importance of good grades were always stressed. But much of what our parents taught us was related to comportment. As we got a little older, our parents repeatedly warned us, “Certain people are expecting that you won’t know how to handle yourselves because you are black. You need to be prepared for any social or professional situation.” This included being schooled in etiquette. My father would take us to the best restaurants in Boston and keep careful watch over us during the meal. He would tell us to close our menus to signal to the waiter that we were ready to order. We were not to refold our napkins at the end of the meal. We were expected to dress appropriately for the occasion. My mother focused on correcting our grammar, perfecting our diction, and ensuring that we didn’t pick up any regional accents. Looking back now, I believe that my parents were right to prepare us in this way, although it’s heartbreaking that this was necessary.

My family didn’t have any real knowledge of boarding schools before moving to Massachusetts. We were lucky enough to have so many top schools within a short distance of Harvard, and we had a vague familiarity with schools that our acquaintances had attended. When my sister’s best friend went off to Lawrence Academy for ninth grade, Allison asked my parents if she could go as well. My father insisted that if he were to pay for private school, it would only be for one of the most selective. The following year, Allison enrolled at Andover. Two years later, I came to Groton.

Our parents took pride in being able to pay to send us to boarding school and college. New England traditions had rub off on them; they had become great savers over the years and were in the fortunate situation of being able to pay for the tuition. Since financial considerations factored into their own college selections and experiences, they didn’t want us to worry about tuition so that we could focus on our studies. My mother often said that

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As crazy as it sounds, when I arrived at Groton, I had never been around so many other black people before.

Andrea at Prize Day, 1990, with then Headmaster Bill Polk

were it ever necessary, she would take on work, even at McDonald’s, to pay for our education. This freedom from concern about tuition is one of the greatest gifts I have ever received.

As crazy as it sounds, when I arrived at Groton, I had never been around so many other black people before.

I’m not sure that some other people knew what to make of me either. Initially, I received many innocent comments and questions: “I never realized any black people lived around here.”

“Do you play basketball?”

“Are you here on scholarship?”

“You’re the whitest black person I know.”

I had never considered that my family’s financial situation would be discussed or questioned. In the part of Massachusetts where I was raised, which was solidly upper middle class, speaking openly about money was considered taboo. And I didn’t know how to appropriately defend why I didn’t meet others’ expectations of black people.

I started to realize that perhaps I had become too comfortable being in the minority, to the point where I was almost subscribing to a color-blind theory. For example, during my orientation, I wondered to myself why I was assigned a black Sixth Form advisor, when being around white people was nothing new for me. But what a gift it was for me to have Ritta McLaughlin as a mentor, surrogate big sister, and role model. And I still recall admiring Lori Hill’s poise and maturity running Roll Call as Hundred House prefect. It’s an honor for me to now work together with her on Groton’s Board of Trustees, where she continues to inspire me.

My experience before coming to Groton was binary: everything was literally either black or white. Now I was being introduced to all kinds of other students: Jewish, 42

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Muslim, Asian, African, European, gay, lesbian. Although I’d experienced life as a minority, I didn’t have any true experience with a broader definition of diversity and inclusion. I had a lot to learn about different ways of thinking and how to open my mind to new people. I realized that although other students may have said things to me that I felt were insensitive, I was probably guilty of the same offense when it came to cultures that were unfamiliar to me. I became actively involved in the Alliance for Student Harmony, a group of students, both minority and otherwise, who all sought greater acceptance of differences.

It’s not surprising that I felt welcome and a part of the Groton community. Groton’s mission for diversity and inclusion has always been sincere and backed by action. Groton admitted its first black student in 1951, well before the Brown v. Board of Education decision brought about a gradual integration of schools. Nearly 52 years ago, the Reverend Crocker, then headmaster, invited Dr. King to speak at Groton and spend two days on campus with students and faculty. And in the spring of 1965, the Reverend Crocker and his wife, Mary, took between 75 to 100 Groton students to Boston to participate with Dr. King in a civil rights rally. I believe that Groton’s newly announced GRAIN initiative will also be considered groundbreaking when we look back on it in the future.

My father had casually mentioned to me in the past that Uncle Rupert had been part of establishing Black History Month. However, it wasn’t until I actually sat down to research and write this talk that I fully understood the extent of his involvement. In 1975, Uncle Rupert was instrumental in directly lobbying President Carter for the establishment of February as Black History Month. What I also didn’t know was that Uncle Rupert’s

efforts were carried over from earlier work done in the 1920s by Dr. Carter Woodson, who I learned only a few weeks ago is my relative on my father and Uncle Rupert’s side of the family. Even my father was unaware of this.

This gives Black History Month an even greater meaning to me.

A self-described “radical” and the author of more than a dozen books, Dr. Woodson was born in rural Virginia in 1875. The eldest son of nine children of former slaves, Dr. Woodson had to forego a formal education to work as a sharecropper to help support his family. Neither of his parents could read or write. Dr. Woodson was largely self taught in a full high school curriculum by age 17. He then moved with his brother to West Virginia with the intention of attending a high school that accepted black students. But Dr. Woodson first needed to work as a coal miner to support himself, meaning he could only attend school for a few months per year. At age 22, Dr. Woodson finally entered high school and earned his degree less than two years later. He began a career as a teacher and a few years later received his bachelor’s degree from Berea College in Kentucky. Dr. Woodson went on to work as a school administrator in the Philippines. He traveled extensively throughout Asia and Europe, and studied at the Sorbonne in Paris. He received a bachelor’s and master’s degree from the University of Chicago and ultimately a Ph.D. in history from Harvard University in 1912. Dr. Woodson was only the second black, behind W.E.B. Du Bois, to receive a doctorate from Harvard. He continued working as a teacher in public schools and then as a professor at Howard University in Washington, D.C., where he was eventually named dean of students for the College of Arts and Sciences.

Dr. Woodson became widely known as the “father of black history” to honor his efforts to make African American studies a legitimate and a critical part of American history. He wrote, “If a race has no history, if it has no worthwhile tradition, it becomes a negligible factor in the thought of the world, and it stands in danger of being exterminated.” In February 1926, Dr. Woodson founded Negro History Week, a precursor to Black History Month. The significance of the month of February was to honor the month in which both Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln were born.

When I think of recent events–Ferguson, Michael Garner, Trayvon Martin–I can understand why people argue that we haven’t made any progress as blacks in America. But change has occurred and continues to occur. In 1981 the University of Virginia, which had once denied acceptance to Uncle Rupert, named its Institute for African American and African Studies in honor of Dr. Carter Woodson. And if you told me in 1990, when I graduated from Groton, that we would eventually have a black headmaster, I never would have believed you. In the words of Coretta Scott King, “Struggle is a never-ending

process. Freedom is never really won; you earn it and win it in every generation.”

Uncle Rupert tried to imagine what the future of education might look like for blacks in the year 2000, writing, “The task ahead is magnitudinous.” I was also bemused to discover that Uncle Rupert devoted only one-and-a-half pages of his book to address the particular struggle of black women, whom he urged to “leave teaching as the ‘elite’ occupation and count managerial and professional employment in big business as the ‘new wave’ of the future.” Mission accomplished, Uncle Rupert.

Dr. Woodson wrote, “Those who have no record of what their forebears have accomplished lose the inspiration which comes from the teaching of biography and history.” Certainly through Uncle Rupert’s example and encouragement, my parents believed that a life beyond the one they knew in Virginia was possible through education and hard work. It took a visionary management team to not only recruit my father to Massachusetts, but also to support his career development through his nearly 30 years with the company. It was Groton’s admissions staff, Cindy Beams in particular, who took a chance and admitted me to Groton. It was then through the love of the friends I made and the acceptance of the Groton community that I truly embraced being black. It is now my responsibility to ensure that my daughter knows about all of the past sacrifices that have been made to provide her with the opportunities I’m hopeful she will have in the future.

What would Uncle Rupert and Dr. Woodson make of having two descendants who as black women attended Groton and Andover and now serve as trustees of those schools? It is more than I’m sure either of them ever would have ever dreamed.

I would like to conclude with this excerpt from a favorite Maya Angelou poem:

Out of the huts of history’s shame I rise Up from a past that’s rooted in pain I rise I’m a black ocean, leaping and wide, Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.

Leaving behind nights of terror and fear I rise Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear I rise Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave, I am the dream and the hope of the slave.

I rise I rise I rise.

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A C H A P E L TA L K

by Malik Jabati ’15 March 5, 2015

The Missing “L” voces

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e stood alone. It was just us, two boys surrounded by an ocean of green. With each breeze and every wave and shimmer in the grass, a chill went down my spine.

Ames Plantation was the site.

I visited this place at least once a year. Along with a trip to our cabin in the Smoky Mountains of Northern Tennessee and a drive down to Belzoni, the Catfish Capital of the World, in the heart of the Mississippi Delta, Ames Plantation was part of the Jabati family summer circuit.

On this particular day, my younger brother Jamal and I were on the McNeill plot of land in Ames Plantation. Acres away from the many shades of brown that comprised our family, we teased and taunted the slow and bucolic bumbling of our surroundings. My brother dared me to touch the electric fence beside us. I thought he was crazy, but it turned out I was crazier. I mustered up enough courage and haltingly placed my hand on the electrified wire.

Much to my surprise, nothing happened. I smiled and then—one, two, three—ZAP!!!

Word of advice: don’t play with electric fences.

As if my reaction wasn’t enough, my brother doubted that I had even been shocked. “I don’t believe you,” my little brother told me. “All right, you do it then,” I responded. He put his hand down, perfectly synchronized with the electric pulse, and was shocked immediately.

Redemption. Unfortunately for him, Uncle Woody happened to walk by too. “Ooooh weee! What’s up, Barbecue Hands?” Uncle Woody said.

Now, Uncle Woody is the husband of my Aunt Sis. Born right around the halfway point of the 20th century, he’s a tall, rambunctious man. The life of any party, he was the type of guy who always seemed to be good at everything. He went to college on a basketball scholarship, and worked for AT&T during its grand monopoly years.

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Somewhere along the way, he picked up tennis. And became quite good at it. After he retired, he occupied his time as head coach of North Carolina A&T University’s D1 tennis team despite having never played tennis in any official capacity. I loved talking with him and listening to his seemingly endless knowledge, whether it be about the best form for a backhand or his opinion on Prince’s best album.

Okay, back to the story. Uncle Woody called my brother “Electrifried” and let loose a few more taunts, which were way too clever for me to remember, before asking us to walk back with him.

During our walk back, he explained the brief electric pulses, high-voltage/low-amperage, and completable circuits that make non-lethal electric fences work. I think Uncle Woody realized that this might have been too much for two boys still less than 10 years old, and our conversation drifted to the cattle these electric fences were supposed to contain, then to the land we were on, and finally to the history of it and its owner, Alexander McNeill. Uncle Woody told me that McNeill (spelled with two Ls) was a wealthy slave owner, but he was so adamant on not giving his slaves any of his wealth that he even took the final “L” out of the “McNeill” name that he forced them to take. This is reflected in my name, Malik Savoy McNeil (with one L) Jabati. This story about the origin of one of my names intrigued me and opened me up to a lifetime of exploration, inquisitiveness, and love of learning.

It surprised me that Uncle Woody knew so much about a family that he had married into and a region so far from his own. He was from Knoxville, an Eastern Tennessee city situated in the midst of the Appalachian Mountains. Ames Plantation was on the opposite side of the state near the Mississippi-Tennessee border, an area historically known to be decidedly less liberal.

These two places are separated by a car ride that ranges

from six to eight hours, depending on the route.

It always pleased me to be at Ames Plantation, amongst the grass and the trees. In addition to the natural beauty of the place, there was always so much to do there, so much to love. I could run up to the soldiers who, during the summer, would reenact fighting from the Civil War. Looking back on it, I find it peculiar how, even as a 4-year-old, I knew to root for the men clad in the blue wool coats, fighters for the Union. When I wasn’t busy dodging blanks from those soldier’s rifles, I could fish in one of the lakes protected from fertilizer runoff or help a farmer milk her goats. While the sun was out, the many “No Trespassing” signs that littered Ames Plantation were inconsequential. A kid could wander the many acres undiscouraged. My most fond memories of Ames were when I was able to visit the house of my dad’s cousin. He owned a barn and several horses. For a city boy like me, there was nothing better than riding on the backs of those wiry beasts. Horse riding forced me to connect to another living being. In order to not fall off and break an arm—or two—I had to be cognizant of the horse’s motions and actions.

Centered in Grand Junction, Tennessee, Ames Plantation is actually a consolidation of several smaller

plantations. It encompasses 18,400 acres of land and is located approximately 60 miles east of Memphis and 10 miles north of the Tennessee-Mississippi line. Today, the plantation has about 12,000 acres of forest, 2,000 acres of commodity row-crops, and maintains hundreds of beef cattle and horses. The University of Tennessee uses Ames for agricultural research, and the plantation is host to many quail and the national championship for field trialing bird dogs.

My father can trace his lineage back to this site. His parents and grandparents were direct descendants of slaves and servants who spent their time, their lives, and their entire existence here. Even after slavery ended, his family spent nearly 100 years on the same site as sharecroppers and tenant farmers. My father’s brother and one of his sisters were born in the late 1940s and early 1950s on Ames Plantation in a small, unimpressive house that was torn down decades ago.

When my brother, my uncle, and I walked back to where we began, my family was gathered around the original location of that house for our biennial family reunion. There were houses all around us and, to the north, a small church where my great-grandparents were buried. The buildings faced in on each other. One

Jon Chase

Looking back on it, I find it peculiar how even as a 4-year-old I knew to root for the men clad in the blue wool coats, fighters for the Union.

Mike Sperling

Malik on the set of Twelve Angry Jurors, and with the basketball team

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It was an ugly history tainted with the legacy of slavery and brutality, but it concerned such beautiful people, my people.

voces

could step out onto his porch and see every member of the small community. Groton’s Circle reminded me of that place. This was one of the major reasons I chose to attend Groton. Here, I can see the entirety of the Circle from the Schoolroom, the steps leading out of the Chapel, rooms in Hundreds House and Brooks House, and the senior section in the Dining Hall. It’s comforting knowing that every student here walks out into a common area, where they must cross paths with and face their fellow classmates. I “know” every student, even the ones whom I’ve never spoken to or learned the names of.

That day at Ames Plantation, I separated myself from the mass of people that made up my father’s side of the family and sat near the edge of the ring of houses.

I thought.

I’m no stranger to having to think: needing to think of an idea for that next paper, thinking of the right formula for that really hard math problem on that really hard test, or thinking of a creative way to get out of practice to finish that next paper, but this time I wanted to think.

I wallowed in the history that filled the air of Ames Plantation. It was an ugly history tainted with the legacy of slavery and brutality, but it concerned such beautiful people, my people. I thought about how much of our lives can be attributed to circumstance. What if I were born in the 1800s or born to different parents in a different country? For all I know, I could’ve ended up as a membrane in an endoplasmic reticulum tasked with the sad job of passing proteins. Author Ali Binazir stated that the probability of your parents meeting and having a child is about 1 in 40 million. There is so much that we cannot control, even before the moment of our conceptions.

Chance plays a large role in our lives even while we’re here; it certainly has in mine. If it weren’t for the places I’ve been to and my wonderful parents, I would likely not be here speaking to you today. In 2012, our president said in a campaign speech that “if you’ve been successful, you didn’t get there on your own. ... If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive.” A few years ago, the School read Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers. In it, Gladwell 46

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supports his point that “people don’t rise from nothing.”

He writes, “Success is not a random act. It arises out of a predictable and powerful set of circumstances and opportunities.” Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.

The experiences and opportunities afforded to my ancestors could not be more different than those I’ve received in my lifetime. I’ve been blessed with the ability to travel all around our country. Growing up, I moved from one African American mecca to the next. Oakland, California; Jackson, Mississippi; Memphis, Tennessee; Washington, D.C. The black experience in America has been etched into my mind, something that I consider my greatest asset.

It’s been in places like Ames Plantation that I’ve realized the uniqueness of my life. How did I end up here?

My dad’s family was from Tennessee and my mom’s family was from California by way of Louisiana, and somehow I ended up at a small boarding school in New England with a name that happens to rhyme with “rotten.” I entered Groton at age 13, and if at age 11 you told me that I would wind up here, I would’ve laughed in your face. But it’s been at places like Groton School that I’ve realized how much we all share in common. Whether it be for my family in the South or my friends here, nature is calming.

Walking through the woods or simply being outside and hearing the birds chirp is a reminder of how similar a place like Massachusetts is to a place like Tennessee.

The Groton community has been amazing. Like at home, there is always something or someone here to help me realize my goals. The experiences of those around me have become mine, and they have improved me.

I have a love for history. History is what make us us. It allows us to learn so much about what led to the present and what might lead to the future. An all-encompassing subject, history cannot be pigeonholed or labeled as solely a matter of the humanities. Everything originated in the past, and the legacies of the past remain today.

I’ve always looked up to people like botanist and inventor George W. Carver, saxophonist John Coltrane, scholar W.E.B. DuBois, author and former professional basketball player Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and linguist Lorenzo Dow Turner. As a boy, reading about the great accomplishments of these men inspired me. It let me know that anything is possible.

At the same time, being at places like Ames Plantation or Groton School reminds me how much the world is shaped by those who came before us. The traditions and histories of our world, whether they be good or bad, reassure me of the impact each one of us can have on this world. Many factors have contributed to who I am today, and I am still searching and accounting for them. I urge you to do the same and find a way to answer the question: what has made you you?

book review

Olympic Odyssey

by Emory Clark ’56 Reviewed by John Higginson ’56

C

For more information, go to www.olympicodysseytokyo64.com.

than belligerence, may have been the glue that held this struggling oarsman together, just as it is a constant and welcome ingredient in his writing. From the two destructively crude boatmates to the seemingly endless parade of romantic relationships, he extracts a droll humor that has become a trademark of his writing. This alone makes his story worth reading.

In Olympic Odyssey, you will find that Emory’s writing skills are right up there with his rowing prowess. His story is constructed with great care, and his inside-the-boat perspective sets the book apart from Boys in the Boat. Emory confesses, for example, an irrational vindictiveness toward all Harvard crews because of the rough treatment that the Yale crew, of which he was captain, received his senior year in the four-miler on the Thames. At the start of that race, his oar was bent nearly double in his efforts to move the immovable Yale varsity crew. The failure of his crew scarred him deeply, and revenge seems to have motivated his rowing — and his writing — to a surprising degree. It appears from his story that it was necessary to hate something, be it the Harvard crew or the two impossibly insensitive brothers who occupied the four and bow seats in the Vesper Olympic eight.

Emory’s Odyssey is quite unlike Daniel Brown’s book: it is not a chronicle of increasingly exciting races that culminate in a climactic, come-from-behind victory. The Olympic finals in Tokyo were raced in the dark: Emory couldn’t see much from his #5 seat, and his family in the stands fared only slightly better.

Since he couldn’t see the opposition, Emory was not assailed by fear, nor was he overcome by joy at the end of the race. His description might disappoint; it is palpably anticlimactic, but as his story winds down in post-race activities, he makes us realize that the Olympics are not, indeed, all about winning, but rather about taking part.

Perhaps in the aftermath of the race does Emory best describe his Olympic experience. Going far deeper than the hatred of imaginary adversaries, or disgust at having to deal with the negative elements within the boat, he makes us feel most poignantly that the medal, bigger than life to Emory — then, now, and forever — meant less to him than the rejoicing, the coming together of athletes and fans alike, which constituted the real gold of his Olympic experience.

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de libris

urrently on the market are accounts of two separate efforts by eight-oared crews aspiring to represent the United States at two widely separated Olympics.

The first of these books, Boys in the Boat by Daniel Brown, is a well-researched account of the rise of the University of Washington crew through a variety of hardships to represent our country in the 1936 Olympics in Berlin.

The second story of a gold medal quest by an American eight is written from a totally different perspective. Emory Clark ’56 rowed #5 in the Vesper Club eight that represented the U.S. and won gold in the 1964 Tokyo Olympics. He has had 50 years to sort out his memories, and he had plenty of support from oarsmen who rowed with him at Groton, Yale, and for 25 years in a Masters four called the Compote Rowing Association. I rowed with him at Groton, against him at Yale, and with him for those 25 years in FISA (Fédération Internationale des Sociétés d’Aviron) races all around Europe.

In Olympic Odyssey, Emory takes every opportunity to write about all of his post-grad races, mostly with Compote, and all are short story masterpieces. We, his subject material, were delighted to find our names in print, particularly when the circumstances were generally happy.

With Emory in our boat, plus another gold medal winner from the ’56 Melbourne Yale crew, we won most of our races. Fun and gratifying as this later-life competition was, just beneath the surface of Emory’s rather large and still effective rowing exterior simmered a consuming need to pull together the most important races of his life. The result is Olympic Odyssey, in which he combines a ceaseless subtle humor to describe in great detail the events that led to these races with the conflicting emotions that must assail an oarsman who rather immodestly sets his personal bar very high. He discovers within himself a persona that glorifies ego, arrogance, and intolerance for others. Neither ashamed nor embarrassed by these traits, he finds he needs them to survive, for among the eight in his boat were two excruciatingly crude, insensitive characters who set the standard for belligerent behavior. To survive, Emory had naught to do but follow suit.

But it was not that simple. In addition to his ego-driven confidence, personal demons plagued him — often in sufficient numbers to darken the sky above and dull the glow of gold on the distant horizon. In addition to actual physical ailments, Emory suffered from periods of self-doubt, self-pity, and fear, which combined to undermine the very self-confidence that was so necessary to fuel his continuing efforts to prepare for the ultimate race.

To read his book, however, it might seem that humor, rather

new releases

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â–ş Please send information about your new releases to quarterly@groton.org.

Book summaries were provided by the authors and/or their publishers.

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1 Making Money Matter: Impact Investing to Change the World!

G. Benjamin Bingham ’68

The way we think about money has extraordinary impact. Dispensing practical advice and demonstrating how money is a social tool, Making Money Matter introduces the reader to common money mistakes and the dysfunctional nature of the current financial framework. It provides a philosophical basis for transforming our view of money from an end unto itself to a means for improving the world.

Bingham’s values-based approach covers all aspects of money, from everyday transactions to high-impact investment decisions. It describes a new investment paradigm that supports both reasonable returns and long-term societal and planetary health.

Ben Bingham, who says he “was notoriously Brooks House prefect without ringing a bell or giving a blackmark,” writes regularly for The Huffington Post.

2 The Ultimate Gift: Embracing the Joy of Eternal Love William Hammond ’66

The death of a loved one shatters the lives of those left behind. We need desperately to believe that our loved ones have not left us and that we will see them again. Despite what common sense might dictate, we pray for the peace, comfort, and serenity—and yes, the joy—that can come only from knowing that death is nothing more than a transition and that human consciousness lives on forever. William Hammond profiles a series of personal experiences that include three “soul-tosoul” communications with his beloved

wife, Victoria, who died in 2011. His experiences provide evidence that life is eternal and that love never dies.

3 Freshwater Passages: The Trade and Travels of Peter Pond David A. Chapin ’84

Peter Pond, a fur trader, explorer, and amateur mapmaker, spent his life ranging much farther afield than Milford, Connecticut, where he was born and died (1740–1807). He traded around the Great Lakes, on the Mississippi and the Minnesota Rivers, and in the Canadian Northwest. Knowing 18thcentury North America on a scale that few others did, Pond drew some of the earliest maps of western Canada.

In this biography, David Chapin presents Pond’s life as part of a generation of traders who came of age between the Seven Years’ War and the American Revolution. Pond’s encounters with a plethora of distinct Native cultures over the course of his career shaped his life and defined his reputation. Previous studies have caricatured Pond as quarrelsome and explosive, but Chapin presents him as intellectually curious, proud, talented, and ambitious.

4 Spare Parts Marshall Highet ’95

A work of science fiction, Spare Parts follows Tesla and Lynx, creatures from different worlds who never should have met. The A-ones and Underdwellers don’t mix in the Dome, but Tesla is no ordinary A-one. She isn’t afraid to question everything. Her entire life, she had been taught that the Underdwellers lacked the basic capacity to love or understand the high moral ground of loyalty. Quite by accident, she watches

Lynx, an Underdweller, defend a friend—shaking what she was taught about such “brutish” creatures. Tesla saves Lynx from certain death and, in a moment of inspiration and fear, asks him for a favor that puts them both in danger and could be the undoing of the Dome itself.

5 Joy of the Seasons John Train ’46 and Linda Kelly

This collection of memorable writings—from Horace and Shakespeare to Rilke and Robert Frost—highlights the happiness we can find in each of the year’s four seasons. Accompanying the texts are beautiful and evocative paintings—from Botticelli to Swedish artist Carl Larsson. These classic authors and artists share their visions of the beauty and poetry of every season.

6 The Descendants of Dr. Nathaniel Saltonstall of Haverhill, Massachusetts Scott Steward ’81

Scott Steward chronicles the Saltonstalls in the family’s first full account in more than a century. The book includes biographical treatments of many family members, including the most famous, the late Massachusetts Senator Leverett Saltonstall, and features new material on earlier generations of the Saltonstall family both in England and America. Though the Saltonstalls were famous in America for almost 400 years, few remember that members of three successive generations in the 17th century spent time in (or were threatened with) prison. More often than not, however, Sir Richard Saltonstall and his descendants—moved by piety but eager for gain—thrived in New England.

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Michael Brown ‘16 takes a shot.

Winter Sports Boys Ice Hockey 11-11-3

Sarah Casey Forbes ‘86, P’17, ‘18

The Groton boys varsity hockey team started strong by winning the first three of four games, including a 5-1 victory over Deerfield Academy. It was an early indication that we had a lot of grit and determination when competing against older and bigger teams.

Fifth Form goalie Matt Efros made 44 saves against Deerfield to solidify the win against the Founders League juggernaut. During the 41st Annual GrotonLawrence Tournament, the Zebras went 2-2, earning wins against Pomfret and

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Holderness, but came up short against two of the best teams in prep hockey, Dexter School and Culver Military Academy.

January proved to be a difficult stretch as the young Zebra team managed only two wins. Thankfully, with the help of Fifth Form goalie Ben McLean, the boys won three of the last four games to stay at .500. The Zebras were one game away from making the playoffs again this year, but came up short when they lost a thrilling overtime game against the St. Mark’s Lions.

The four graduating Sixth Formers will be missed next year —Jason Cahoon,

Spring 2015

Ace Cowans, Dorien Llewellyn, and Will Richardson— but we are already looking forward to the 2015-16 hockey season!

—Coach Bill Riley

Girls Ice Hockey 8-14-3 The girls varsity ice hockey program at Groton turned a corner this year: the growth in skill and confidence from our younger players, combined with the influential leadership of both our Sixth Form captains and their upper form counterparts, paid off.

grotoniana

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Sarah Casey Forbes ‘86, P’17, ‘18

Opposite page, clockwise from top left: Liza Greenhill ‘17, John Cecil ‘17, and Grace Liggett ‘15

Ian MacLellan

grotoniana

The theme last year was about building resilience to adversity, and that work paid dividends this winter. The result? Not just more W’s in the first column of our record.

Far more impressive was the team’s ability to play for one another, to buy into a common goal and represent a common identity. Team chemistry cannot occur unintentionally and without a commitment to the greater good.

All cylinders were firing in the last month of the season, with the team posting a 4-4-2 record, with two ties and a victory against ISL teams (Middlesex 2-1, St. George’s 2-2, St. Mark’s 0-0). One loss came in a nail-biting overtime (Brooks 4-3). Of the eight teams who qualified for the Division II (smaller school) tournament, Groton faced six of them, of which five were one-goal games and one a tie.

During the regular season, Groton lost in

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overtime to the 2015 Division II champions, our fellow ISL competitor, Rivers School. If the team is able to continue the upward trajectory they achieved this year, the Zebras will be tournament bound in 2015-16.

— Coach Randi Dumont

Boys Squash 10-3 Squash is growing rapidly as a youth sport, so the competition gets stiffer every year. But even in that context, the Groton boys had a terrific winter.

With a host of returning players and big expectations for new additions Terrence Wang ‘17 and Jason Montima ‘18, hopes were high coming into the season. The guiding hand of Captain Anthony Chu ‘15 helped set the tone early, and the team went right

Spring 2015

to work. Undaunted by an early loss to a very strong Deerfield squad, all the Groton players trained hard and competed even harder.

Terrence and Anthony led the charge from the top of the ladder, but the remarkable depth of the group was its greatest strength, not only ensuring wins towards the bottom of the lineup but also allowing all the players to push each other along in practice.

Most of the boys had an individual setback at some point this season, be it Fifth Former Luke Holey’s back injury, Zahin Das’ ’16 untimely illness, or any of a host of others. To those individuals’ credit, they remained energetically supportive of their teammates even when they could not be on the court. To the whole team’s credit, anyone who missed a number of practice days found himself well behind his teammates, as they improved week by week. As a result,

Photos by Jon Chase

Clockwise from left: Ace Cowans ‘15, Will Bienstock ‘16, and Kai Volcy ‘17

the lower half of the ladder changed often during the season, but the strength of the lineup was never in question.

At the end of it all, Groton went 10-3 in the regular season and 3-1 in Division II (of seven) at the High School Nationals. A third-place finish in the ISL resulted from losses to untouchable Belmont Hill and greatly improved St. George’s, but wins over all the others, including perennial powerhouse Milton and a thrilling 4-3 upset of Nobles, which came shortly after losing to them at the High School Nationals. Groton then got to wrap up the season by hosting the Division A New Englands and putting in a terrific effort to tie for seventh among the top 16 teams.

This winter’s successful campaign was a fitting capstone to the Groton squash careers of Sixth Formers Anthony Chu and Philippe

Heitzmann, but also a great year of building to even greater strength for the pack from the Form of 2016, who will again comprise the core of next year’s team. Will Bienstock, Michael You, Stefano Viacava, Luke, and Zahin all will be looking to step up their games in preparation for their terrific final season on the Groton courts next winter.

— Coach Dave Prockop

Girls Squash 8-7 The girls varsity squash team finished strong this winter. Our 8-7 record included 7-0 wins over St. Paul’s, Brooks, St. Mark’s, and Exeter.

We also participated in the High School Team Nationals and finished 16th in Division I. In the ISL, we finished fourth, losing narrowly to St. George’s. If we had won that

3-4 match, we would have finished third.

Particularly satisfying was our seventhplace finish in the New England Division A post-season tournament: our team was ranked ninth, so seventh means we outdid ourselves and exceeded expectations by two places. Another point of pride: peer teams voted to award Groton the sportsmanship trophy.

The future continues to look promising, as we have a number of sophomores and juniors occupying the middle and lower ladder positions. Ours is an especially athletic team, and the scope and potential for improvement are vast.

Best of luck to our departing seniors, including Co-captains Molly Prockop and Olivia Ladd-Luthringshauser, as well as Katherine McCreery and Emma Zetterberg.

— Coach Nishad Das

www.groton.org

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Sarah Casey Forbes ‘86, P’17, ‘18

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Girls Basketball 1-19 The 2014-15 girls basketball season was a challenging one for everyone involved as we failed to accomplish our main goal of improving on last year’s five-win season.

This year’s team was the youngest in the ISL, with three Third Formers and three Fourth Formers playing quality minutes throughout the season. The youth may have contributed to our team taking some lumps along the way, but the experience gained will be key to the program’s future success.

Despite the tough season, there were some bright spots. Sixth Former and Captain Marie Wesson had an incredible two-game stretch, sinking 10 three-pointers (five in each game), which earned her Athlete of the Week honors. Another highlight was the team avenging an early-season, 18-point loss to Middlesex by beating

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them two months later by five points. The emergence of Third Form point guard Alyna Baharozian was also a bright spot, as she held her own against some talented competition and earned All-ISL honors and a spot on the NEPSAC East All-Star team.

Although we will miss our four captains— Sixth Formers Marie Wesson, Monica Bousa, Lillian Harris, and Rachel Hardej — we look forward to a bright future for girls basketball at Groton.

— Coach Joe Crail

Boys Basketball 5-17 Though our final record for the 2014-15 basketball season only shows modest improvement from last year, if you look deeper into the numbers, you will see a team that has made great strides. Our

Spring 2015

Opposite page: Sixth Formers Turner Banwell and Rachel Hardej

overall team scoring average improved from 32 points per game to 51 points per game.

Last year, we only scored 50 points in a single game once; this year we hit that total numerous times and scored 70 points in one contest. We lost in the championship game of our holiday tournament and were within minutes of gaining a victory numerous times.

This year’s vastly improved team owes much of its progress to our seven Sixth Formers, who served as great role models for our underclassmen. The basketball program is moving in the right direction, and I am looking forward to next year.

— Coach Harold Francis

Photos by Jon Chase

Clockwise from left: Tyler Forbes ‘18, Sammy Johnson ‘16, and Caitlyn DiSarcina ‘17

Photos by Jon Chase

BOYS VARSITY HOCKEY

GIRLS VARSITY HOCKEY

BOYS VARSITY BASKETBALL

GIRLS VARSITY BASKETBALL

BOYS VARSITY SQUASH

GIRLS VARSITY SQUASH

Most Valuable Players Mike Brown ‘16 Ace Cowans ’15

Most Improved Player Zizi Kendall ‘17

Coaches’ Award Turner Banwell ’15 Hugh Cecil ’15

Most Improved Player Marie Wesson ‘15

Most Valuable Players Anthony Chu ’15 Terrence Wang ‘17

All-ISL Anna Nicholson ‘16 Molly Prockop ‘15

Coaches’ Award Luke Holey ‘16

Coaches’ Award Olivia Ladd-Luthringshauser ‘15 Molly Prockop ‘15

Most Improved Player Chris Brown ‘18

All-ISL Jenna Blouin ‘15

All-ISL Michael Brown ’16 Ace Cowans ’15

Captains-Elect Sammy Johnson ’16 Anna Thorndike ’16 Sophie Wilder ’16

All-ISL Honorable Mention Jason Cahoon ’15

ISL Sportsmanship Team Award

Captains-Elect Michael Brown ’16 Adam Hauke ’16 Matt Winter ’16

Most Improved Player Ben Osterholtz ‘15 All-ISL Honorable Mention John Cecil ‘17 Joe Collins ‘18 Ben Osterholtz ‘15 Captains-Elect Jack Fitzpatrick ‘16 John MacEachern ‘16

Coaches’ Award Monica Bousa ’15 All-ISL Honorable Mention, Class B All Star team Alyna Baharozian ‘18 Captains-Elect Alyna Baharozian ‘18 Sophie Baker ‘16 Allie Patenaude ‘16

All-ISL Anthony Chu ’15 Terrence Wang ‘17 ISL Sportmanship Award Anthony Chu ’15

Captains-Elect Maddy Forbess ‘16 Anna Nicholson ‘16

Captains-Elect Zahin Das ‘16 Michael You ‘16

ISL Sportsmanship Team Award

www.groton.org

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In the Brodigan Gallery until May 15: “was/is” Painting/multimedia by Kathleen Volp

de Menil Gallery SPRING EXHIBIT

“Less the Distance” Works with light by Laura Hughes April 5 – June 7, 2015

With her latest exhibition, “was/is,” Kathleen Volp reflects on the similarities between the consumer culture hundreds of years ago and contemporary conspicuous consumption. The works of Caravaggio, Juan Sanchez Cotan, and Flemish painters Frans Snyders and Jan Davidsz de Heem are the source of inspiration.

Volp at times uses reproductions of the paintings directly (all are in the public domain), combining them with other materials, such as zippers in her “Homage to Caravaggio’s Boy with Basket of Fruit.”

Abby Power ’17

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aking cues from light and space artists such as Robert Irwin and James Turrell, as well as photographer Barbara Kasten, Laura Hughes’ installations explore light, reflection, form, and our perception of space. For her first East Coast exhibition, the Portland, Oregon-based artist has created a site-specific installation using the nine skylights in the de Menil Gallery.

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Using materials including Dichroic film, mirrored Plexiglas, adhesive vinyl, and phosphorescent paint, Hughes works with both natural and LED light to create immersive environments that respond directly to the architecture of a given space.

A professor at the Pacific Northwest College of Art, Hughes has exhibited her work at various venues in Oregon and Washington state. She has an MFA in

Spring 2015

Visual Studies from the Pacific Northwest College of Art and a BFA in Drawing with Distinction from the Alberta College of Art & Design in Calgary.

The de Menil Gallery is open 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. on weekdays (except Wednesdays) and 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. on weekends (except School holidays). It is free and open to the public.

Groton Musicians Play NYC

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roton’s chamber orchestra and jazz ensemble traveled to New York City over Presidents Day Weekend to perform at the Church of St. Paul the Apostle near Lincoln Center and to enjoy a few days immersed in world-class art and music.

Parents, alumni, and friends attended the performance, which featured Groton’s jazz ensembles, chamber music groups, and chamber orchestra.

The big jazz band, Soul Sauce, and the smaller Riverside combo started things off with lively jazz, including music of Quincy Jones, Count Basie, and Paul Desmond. Then three trios — a piano trio; flute, violin, and cello trio; and a two-violin and cello trio — all from Groton’s Select Chamber Music Class, played music of Borodin, Bach, and Haydn.

Finally, the chamber orchestra closed the performance with music of Mozart, Fauré, and Bizet. Student bloggers Alaric Krapf and Peter Nam described the power of the venue in the music trip blog: “Pieces that we had practiced many times

took on an entirely different character,” they wrote.

“The incredible reverb of that space added a majestic quality to every note.”

When not performing, the students were inspired by others’ master performances. They attended two one-act operas, Iolanta and Bluebeard’s Castle, at the Metropolitan Opera, and they experienced Jazz at Lincoln Center, featuring Grammy-winning jazz vocalist Dianne Reeves.

Students also performed with the DwightEnglewood School in New Jersey; toured the National September 11 Memorial Museum and the Metropolitan Museum of Art; enjoyed a customized presentation at the Metropolitan Opera, including a question-and-answer session with the principal flutist of the Met Orchestra; and explored Little Italy, SoHo, and Chinatown. In addition, three Groton alumni, Yowana Wamala ‘14, Charlotte Davies ‘11, and Max Lindemann ‘11, gave the group an impromptu tour of Columbia University.

Clockwise from top left, Katie Chung ‘18, Andrea Del Bosque ‘18, Groton musicians seeing the sights in New York City, the orchestra performing in the Church of St. Paul the Apostle, Garvel Cassamajor ‘18, Michael Ma ‘15 and Michael You ‘16

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Paul Taylor Troupe: Dancers in Residence

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Tom Caravaglia

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aylor 2, the outreach troupe of Paul Taylor American Modern Dance, visited Groton in January — performing and teaching as dancers-in-residence.

The six members of Taylor 2 provided professionallevel guidance to about 60 students — members of the School’s afternoon dance program and the cast of the winter musical, as well as others interested in dance.

In addition, they shared their artistry with the entire School during an evening performance. “The residency provided a wonderful way for students to experience the power of a great dance performance and to have personal contact with the artists themselves,” said Arts Department Head Mary Ann Lanier.

Several Groton dancers said that the professional-level instruction motivated them to push themselves harder. “Our students gained a fuller appreciation for the expressive power and technical challenges of dance,” Ms. Lanier said.

“They were asked to use all of their physical, emotional, and intellectual energies as they learned snippets of Paul Taylor’s choreography in dance workshops.”

The dance residency had an impact on dancers at all levels, as well as non-dancers. “Those who danced were inspired to strive for greater accomplishment,” Ms. Lanier said. “Those who had not danced before were exposed to the beauty, power, and expressive possibilities of the art of dance.”

Photos by Christopher Temerson

Opposite page: Photos on left of Taylor 2; from top, Adia Fielder ‘17 (in red); Charlotte Pontifell ‘19, Melissa Lammons ‘17, and Alejandra Pablos ‘15; An Nguyen ‘18 and Alex Waxman ‘18 Above: Dancers pictured include Charlie Hawkings ‘17, Abby Kong ‘17, Candace Tong-Li ‘16, Marianne Lu ‘19, Yolanda Dong ‘17, Melissa Marquez ‘16, Kasumi Quinlan ‘15, Alejandra Pablos ‘15, Christian Carson ‘18, Libby Llanso ‘16, and Taylor 2 instructors

A FVNNY THING HAPPENED ON THE WAY TO THE FORVM

Nothing warms up the winter like a rollicking musical. Clockwise from top left: Trevor Fry ’15; (opposite page) the full cast; Candace Tong-Li ’16; Johnny Lamont ’15 and Annie McCreery ’15; Rand Hough ’17, Malik Gaye ’18, Christian Carson ’18, Johnny Lamont ’15, Alex Waxman ’18, and Matthew Higgins Iati ’17; Lily Edwards ’15 and Christian Carson ’18; Elizabeth Dickson ’15 and Trevor Fry ’15.

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Photos by Mike Sperling

www.groton.org

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Gordon A. Robbins ’60 January 14, 1942 - February 27, 2015

by Edward H. Robbins ’58

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ORDON ROBBINS ’60 will be remembered as a pioneer—on land and sea and even snow.

Gordon came to Groton as a First Former in fall 1954. His was a Groton family. Both of his grandfathers graduated in the Form of 1904, and his father, and later his stepfather, in the Form of 1931. His brother and uncles also attended Groton. Dyslexic, Gordon became one of Betsy Peabody’s pet projects and remained a voracious reader throughout his life.

At Groton, Gordon was the goaltender for the 195960 hockey team, coached by the Cleary brothers, and later played hockey at Cornell (with teammate Ken Dryden, who would become a legend among National Hockey League goalies). Gordon left Cornell to study art in Paris, at the Académie Julian. There he met and, in 1965, married artist and tapestry maker Claude Ohnenwald, daughter of Paul Ohnenwald, a well-respected cartoonist from before the Second World War, and, afterward, the architect in charge of the rebuilding of Reims.

During the early 1970s, Gordon was employed to help with the production, shipment, and installation of François Stahly’s teak walk-through sculpture, “Labyrinth,” one of the works featured in the Empire State Plaza in Albany.

Gordon chose material for his own sculpture as well.

Working in both France and the U.S., Gordon and Claude’s international experience would serve them well.

They became pioneers in the conversion of loft space in New York’s SoHo neighborhood, and for some years ran Nana of SoHo, a store selling items with the faded-bluejean look created by friends in France and popularized by Brigitte Bardot. In the late 1970s, Gordon and Claude moved to Oyster Bay on Long Island, and there shifted from clothing to sailing. They were members of the Seawanhaka Corinthian Yacht Club and became blue-water sailors. Gordon also crewed for Eric Ridder in the 6-meter internationals.

During these years, he also learned to sail a board, and joined with naval architect Diana Russell in creating

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Wing Systems, a maker of sailboards. Gordon competed at the top of the U.S. boardsailing community, though 20 years older than most competitors. He was a director of the U.S. Boardsailing Association, helping with the internationalization of U.S. boardsailing, and competed with and coached America’s first two Olympic medalists on the board, Scott Steele and Gebi Gebhardt.

Gordon and Claude moved to Vermont in 1988, at a time when Gordon was shifting his board-riding skills from the water to the snow. Already a proficient skier, he went about learning to snowboard, mostly in Val d’Isère, and reported that a child, also skiing on the bunny slope, asked if it were true that he really liked to hurt himself!

In 1993 he was hired by Marty Harrison to introduce snowboarding to the Okemo Mountain Resort. At Okemo both he and Claude, a member of the French National Water Ski Team and an active mountain climber in her youth, embraced this new take on skiing, helping to write the rules and set the criteria for competitions, both in and outside the half-pipe. Gordon became the first instructor and subsequently the first director of the Okemo snowboarding program, soon drawing on the skills and experience of Olympic gymnast Phoebe Mills to structure a process that led to gold medals and great success for the kids in the program.

Gordon competed and won in his own age group and was a founder of the U.S.A. Snowboard Association; he served as president of the International Snowboard Association and started the USASA Foundation to help athletes with competition expenses. He also wrote the coaching manual to help assure more consistent standards and was a strong supporter of adaptive snowboarding for people with disabilities. As a starter at national amateur and X Game events, he was known to all the top riders of the day.

Gordon died of heart failure in late February. The tributes on his Facebook page following his death were deeply moving. Gordon was a Grotonian who, though his classmates in the ’50s would not have guessed it, was the epitome of the School’s motto.

Henry N. Drewry, trustee, faculty February 8, 1924 - November 21, 2014

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in memoriam

ENRY N. DREWRY, Groton history teacher and member of Groton’s Board of Trustees from 1977 to 1992, was a pioneering black educator and a respected and beloved mentor and colleague.

Henry taught for two (nonconsecutive) years at Groton. “When he spoke in that gentle voice of his, everyone listened,” former Headmaster Bill Polk wrote in a condolence letter to Henry’s wife, Annette. “He had the gift of reframing issues and raising questions that deepened and sharpened the conversation.”

When Henry returned to campus for trustee meetings, a crowd of his former students would wait outside to greet him. “What a wonderful scene to observe: a crowd of enthusiastic students gathered around a smiling, humble man who had touched their lives,” Polk said.

After Groton, Henry taught history at Princeton (New Jersey) High School, breaking barriers as the school’s only teacher of color at the time. He then settled into Princeton University for 20 years, where he taught history and directed Princeton’s Teacher Preparation Program.

Warren Thaler ’80 met regularly with Henry after he headed to Princeton University. In a condolence letter, Warren told Henry’s wife: “He was always welcoming and never too busy to meet. He usually asked just enough questions to help me prove to myself that I was on the right track. He was amazing at listening.”

Former Groton Board of Trustees President Gordon Gund ’57, P’89, ’86 often drove with Henry to Groton from Princeton, where they both lived. “He was a tremendously helpful confidant for me on the board and became a good friend,” said Gordon. They served together on the board for 12 years.

After retiring from Princeton, Henry became a senior advisor at the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, where he co-founded the Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship program, which promoted diversity on U.S. college faculties. The Drewry Garden at the foundation’s New York headquarters honors his achievements.

He was active in the Princeton Association for Human Rights, chair of the College Entrance Exam Board’s U.S. History and Social Studies Test Committee, and chair of the New Jersey Historical Commission.

Henry also co-authored seven books, including America Is: A Modern History of the United States and Stand and Prosper: Private Black Colleges and their Students.

Stuart H. Clement ’39 January 20, 1920 - January 15, 2015

by David C. Acheson ’39

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in memoriam

TUART CLEMENT ’39 was one of those fortunate creatures who navigated life on a current of natural good cheer, easily making friends and turning a positive face to the world. When I came to Groton in 1935, the only boy to enter the Groton community in the Third Form for many years, I was the only member of my form to have no friends there, having missed the social blender of First and Second Form years.

Stu’s naturally friendly demeanor was a welcome contrast to his classmates’. He did not regard it as reprehensible that I should be the only new boy in the Brooks House Third Form dorm. I don’t think he went out of his way to be pleasant; it just came naturally.

It did not take long for me to see that Stu was marked for success at Groton. He was strong of physique, fast of foot, and well coordinated, soon to be a standout end in intramural football. He had an excellent voice and was a fine tenor in the choir and glee club. His extroversive personality was a passport to popularity among students and faculty alike. When the seasons shifted to baseball, he was a natural first baseman.

On one occasion, the Dramatic Society staged Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Yeomen of the Guard. Stu played the role of the captain of the guard. At one point a mysterious shot is heard offstage. Stu rushed onstage and attempted to summon an appearance of stern authority. In faultless tenor he demanded to know, “Who fired that shot? At once the truth declare!” This demand was so at odds with the friendly manner that Stu projected that the entire audience burst out laughing, faculty and students. It was the only time I can recall seeing Stu miffed.

At Yale, Stu’s social and athletic skills continued to blossom. He was a member of Scroll and Key, a distinguished senior society, and the Whiffenpoofs and other singing groups; he continued at first base, became an officer in the Naval Reserve after graduation, and served on mine sweepers during World War II in both the Atlantic and Pacific theaters. During the war, he courageously saved people who had been cast in the water

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after mines sunk their ship, and for his distinguished service and brave actions received the Navy and Marine Corps Medal.

He married Anne Campbell, lady of charm, intelligence, and practicality, and founded a numerous family of four generations. After the war he worked in the securities industry as an analyst specializing in aerospace, chiefly aircraft technology.

Over many years I formed the habit of socializing with Stu and Anne during my summer drive between my home in Washington, D.C., and Cape Cod, always stopping for a drink with them at my cousin’s house in Essex. This was a regular event for a good 25 years. On each occasion, I was impressed by the grace and good sense with which they managed their lives, and their continuing pursuit of their interests, of which singing and singing-travel loomed large.

I was always struck by their continuing positive take on the world, their seeming immunity from changes in temperament and personality that advancing years often bring. Theirs was a most enviable example. Stu always was—and always will be— universally regarded as a considerate gentleman of the first order.

Form notes

R Form Notes are now password-protected.

Members of the Groton community may read them online by signing in at www.groton.org/myGroton.

Gratitude Beyond Words

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amela Wamala grew up just 25 miles from Groton but had no exposure as a child to Groton School—or to any other boarding school, for that matter. She never gave the topic any thought until her own son Yowana ’14 was in middle school.

“Yowana’s dad and I were separated and things for Yowana were, let’s say, turbulent,” she says. “He was always very smart but his attitude about school had started to deteriorate. I knew I needed to get him into a different setting, one with strong, supportive role models and the right values.”

Groton proved to be, in Pamela’s words, “the answer to my dreams.”

Yowana thrived at Groton, graduating last May. He is now a freshman at Columbia University.

As a professional artist and single mom, Pamela could not afford Groton; her gratitude for the financial aid Yowana received is, she says, “beyond words.” She makes a point of supporting the Groton Fund each year, out of the conviction that although her gifts are modest, when blended with so many others, they add up to something powerful.

And she realized there was another powerful way to express her gratitude: by naming Groton as a beneficiary in her will. “We’re not talking about vast sums here,” she says, “but that’s not the point. The point is that I’ll be doing my part for Groton’s future, just as long-ago donors’ gifts put Groton School in the position to offer a scholarship to my son. This is about paying it forward.”

She had put Groton into her will during Yowana’s time here, but it was the recent publicity about the Circle Society’s 20th anniversary membership drive that prompted her to disclose her plans to the School. “I’m happy to tell everyone what I’ve done if it plants the idea for someone else,” she says.

“So many parents feel grateful beyond measure to the School. We look at our children and we see Groton’s fingerprints all over: in their work habits, in their ability to relate to teachers, in their friendships, in their values, in their self-assurance. It’s huge, what Groton has done for my son Yowana and me. Let me do what I can to give back.”

The Circle Society turns 20 this year, and we seek to mark the anniversary by growing its ranks. To join, simply include Groton in your will or make the School a beneficiary of your retirement account or life insurance policy. Then tell us you’ve done so, by contacting Elizabeth Z. (Betsy) Ginsberg P’16 in the Office of Alumni and Development, 978-448-7584, eginsberg@groton.org.

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Groton School • The Quarterly

Groton School

Spring 2015 • Volume LXXVII , No. 2

THIS BASEBALL shirt, a relic from Groton’s archives, bears the red dirt of a well-played baseball season and the name tag of all-around athlete and shortstop extraordinaire Mark Blood ’50. Mr. Blood, an integral member of the 1949 championship baseball team, later taught English and coached winning baseball and soccer teams at Groton.

Following his death in 1984, Independent School League soccer coaches created the Mark H. Blood Trophy. He was inducted this year into Groton’s Athletic Hall of Fame.

REEL TO REAL GROTON DOCUMENTARY FILMMAKERS GEORGE BUTLER ’62 • TR ACY DROZ TR AGOS ’87 • LIZ CANNER ’86 • PETER KUNHARDT ’71

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