Creative Solutions, Awards Spark Reunion 2021

from Academy Journal, Fall 2021

Alumni Events – Spring 2021

Creative Solutions, Awards Spark Reunion

By Angela Stefano

The elm tree-shaded hillside couldn’t be full of former Spartans this past June — but our computer screens could. Faced with the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic for a second year, the Lawrence Academy Alumni Advancement Team, reunion ambassadors, and class volunteers made the best of an unprecedented situation. Instead of canceling Reunion 2021, as happened in 2020, reunion-year classes from both 2020 (0’s and 5’s) and 2021 (1’s and 6’s) gathered virtually for a celebration of their graduating classes, their former teachers, and their accomplishments in the years since graduation.

While the Alumni Advancement Team opted to postpone the Lawrence Academy Athletic Hall of Fame inductions for the second year, they worked with the communications team and several volunteers, in collaboration with the inductees, to create a website full of on-demand Reunion programming. Also archived there is the live Reunion programming that took place the afternoon of June 12.

Opening remarks from longtime LA history teacher John Curran gave way to a slideshow narrated by former faculty member Joe Sheppard offering “a little history lesson” focused briefly on each Reunion class. “You’ve helped move the school forward,” Mr. Curran noted, “and you’ve also helped preserve a sense of community that has endured over all these years.”

Head of School Dan Scheibe P’23, ‘24 echoed that sentiment during his State of the School address. “We’re indebted to generations who have built a school and built a culture before us,” he told the dozens of Lawrence Academy alumni tuning in from home, some taking advantage of the LA-specific virtual backgrounds designed just for the occasion. Together with Board of Trustees President Jason Saghir P’19, Mr. Scheibe stressed that while a global pandemic is a new experience for Lawrence, the school has weathered metaphorical storms in the past and now is again.

“It’s a comfort to be in the presence of alums,” he said. “… A school that’s been around since 1793 has definitely seen its share of challenges to human vitality … We’ve experienced cultural tremors and turbulence before … and a need for a school to be able to reposition and reinvent itself, sometimes in the moment.”

Alumni Council President Carolyn Balas-Zaleski ’84, P’17 presided over the presentation of a variety of faculty and alumni-focused awards, beginning with 2020’s Alumni Faculty Appreciation Award, given posthumously to longtime faculty member Arleigh D. “Doc” Richardson, a fixture on the LA campus from 1977 through 1991.

“I had the depth and character of probably a shallow puddle at the time I came to LA as a 16-year-old,” admitted Steve Heinze ’88 during remarks in Dr. Richardson’s honor. “He certainly added to that water of my shallow puddle. Doc really is someone who has affected me and brought joy and understanding and respect for things I maybe would have not otherwise realized had I not met him.”

More than 200 former Spartans from the early 1970s voted for 2021’s Alumni Faculty Appreciation Award winner, the late Vin Skinner. Mr. Skinner was only on campus for four years, but, as one nominator noted, “He saw me, and he saw every student he had. He didn’t just teach — he showed us who we were and what we could achieve.”

“I am still learning from this extraordinary man,” reflected Joe Donahue ’72, calling Mr. Skinner “an existentialist Socrates, always asking the questions that counted.” Skinner’s daughter Leigh — “a blonde blur,” as Joe remembered her from her time living with her father, mother, and sister on campus —

2020 Faculty Appreciation Award

Arleigh (Doc) Richardson III P’78; GP’06, ’11

2021 Faculty Appreciation Award

Vincent “Vin” Skinner

and widow Gail joined the ceremony and were visibly moved by the kind words offered.

“It’s really gratifying to know he’s still remembered by so many people. Teaching was really his calling, his true love, his passion in life. It’s the work that gave shape and meaning to his life, and he took such joy in it and in his students,” Leigh shared, noting that her father would be “really, deeply moved” to see how his former students had turned out. “… He wanted to educate students not just to be successful people in their lives … but to have a real, aesthetic sense, in the truest meaning of the word — to be able to find beauty and meaning in both the human and natural worlds around them,” she added.

2020 Amos Lawrence Award Receipients

Witney Scheidman ’70 Sandy (Sweeney) Gallo ’75 Ben Lord ’75

Reunion 2020’s Amos Lawrence Awards, which honor alumni for their volunteerism at LA, went to Witney Schneidman ’70 and Class of 1975 Reunion Co-Chairs Sandy (Sweeney) Gallo ’75 and Ben Lord ’75. Sandy and Ben have been co-chairing their class’s reunions since 2010, after working to reconnect with each other and their former classmates via Facebook around the same time. Sandy, in particular, tries to engage her classmates with LA trivia and other online discussions about their time on campus.

“I think we’ve always been connected to the school from the very start. Even though we go through life and our life changes, LA has a powerful effect on so many students. We were children of the ’70s, and we went through a lot with LA, and that connection will always be there,” explains Sandy. Adds Ben, “LA was the best thing for me.”

The 2021 Amos Lawrence Award winners were: Brian Drolet ’01, Sam Pelham ’83, and Paige Beede ’16, the latter of whom helped solicit more than five dozen class notes from her classmates within the past year — enough to give the Class of 2016 the most class notes (62) submitted out of all 2021 reunion classes. It was one of five achievements measured for the inaugural Reunion Challenge, a newly established competition among the classes returning to campus to see

2021 Amos Lawrence Award Receipients

Brian Drolet ’01 Sam Pelham ’83 Paige Beede ’16

which class can submit the most class notes, achieve the highest percentage of new or lapsed LA Fund donors, get the most classmates to donate to the LA Fund, raise the most money for the LA Fund, and get the most classmates to show up to Reunion.

In addition to the Class of 2016, the Class of 1986 was recognized for the second-most class notes submitted among 2021 Reunion classes (four); in 2020, those honors went to the Class of 1975 (10) and the Class of 2010 (six). In 2020, the Classes of 1945 and 2000 achieved the highest percentage of new or lapsed LA Fund donors (33 percent and 15 percent, respectively), while in 2021, it was the Class of 1966 and the Class of 1951 (15 percent and 13 percent, respectively). The most LA Fund donors in 2020 came from the Class of 1970 (31) and the Class of 2015 (21), and the Classes of 1981 (first place, with 12), 1986, and 2016 (tied for second, each with 11) had the most in 2021.

Meanwhile, the classes that raised the most money for the LA Fund were honored with the Reunion Giving Cup. In 2020, it went to the Class of 1970 ($78,309), with the Class of 1975 ($7,712) in second place, and in 2021, the Class of 1966 ($81,300) won it, while the Class of 1976 ($56,550) came in second place. And, on Reunion day, the Classes of 1970 (19 attending), 1986 (18), 2001 (13), and 1960 (12) had the most classmates present.

“You continue to inspire the lives of others with everything you do, and that embodies who we are as a school, so I feel that there’s a little bit of LA in all of you, and I’m very, very grateful for that,” Director of Alumni Advancement Jo-Ann Lovejoy told the gathered alumni before the all-alumni call broke up. “I think it’s the LA spirit to push through, to create opportunities, and to always find the best outcome in the most challenging of times.”

Following the all-classes virtual program, each reunion class was encouraged to host their own Zoom call.