Becoming Magazine by Lisa Lange

The Harley School. Commited to our motto, “Become what thou art.”

Boys Basketball

Boys Basketball Record

xx-xx league; xx-xx overall record: more

Record

record: more

CoacHES

Kevin Gibbs/ Claude Williams, Asst.

CoacHES

Kevin Gibbs/ Claude Williams, Asst.

CaptaiNS

Jon Benjamin ’09, Peter Sahasrabudhe

CaptaiNS

Jon Benjamin ’09, Peter Sahasrabudhe ’10

’10

100 words Kids volunteer in local Rochester hospices and learn about end-of-life care. At the end of the academic year, students who have provided more than 100 hours of bedside care may elect to travel to Calcutta, India, to work at Mother Teresa’s facilities for the dying/destitute, orphaned, abused, and physically and mentally challenged. While there, students provide bedside care and comfort, and feeding and laundry assistance, while teaching and playing with children. This program has expanded to include a trip to Belize where Harley helped set up the first hospice in that country. Students use teleconfe

Boys Basketball

Record

xx-xx league; xx-xx overall record: more

{

xx-xx league; xx-xx overall

Record

xx-xx league; xx-xx overall record: more

CoacHES

Kevin Gibbs/ Claude Williams, Asst.

CoacHES

Kevin Gibbs/ Claude Williams, Asst.

CaptaiNS

Jon Benjamin ’09, Peter Sahasrabudhe

CaptaiNS

Jon Benjamin ’09, Peter Sahasrabudhe ’10

’10

Southampton to South Africa

2009 Fall

Wo l v e s | Fa l l 2 0 0 9 | 1 The Harley School grows | Rochester at the forefrontGofo infectious disease research | Beyond expectations: Students experience new birth by caring for the dying

Feature Stories 12 Being Present: Students learn to care for others in Hospice elective

18 Flu virus research: Leading flu experts in our own community

26 Southampton to South Africa: One alumnus does an about-face

26 cover

Dangriga, Belize

Bob Kane and Harley students on a palliative visit, Hopkins, Belize

Two Harley parents are at the forefront of flu research at the University of Rochester. Rob Ross â&#x20AC;&#x2122;74 and young orphan bonobos, Lola Ya Bonobo Sanctuary, Democratic Republic of Congo

On the cover The cover photo is of a bonobo, an endangered great ape found in the Democratic Republic of Congo. This photo was taken by Rob Ross ’74 while on expedition for National Geographic Adventure Magazine. See story on pg. 26.

Contents 4

letter from the Editor

letter from the Head of School

Archives

New at Harley

8-10 Sports

THE HARLEY CIRCLE

24-25

1000 words

32-33

Commencement ’09 and college matriculation

34-42

Class Notes BecominG MAGAZINE corrections from the previous issue: We apologize for the misspelling of the names Walter Bruehs ’88 and Jahayra Marrero ’02 on page 17. The correct identity of the man and woman in the box on page 29 is Milan and Barbara Kutner. We sincerely apologize for inadvertently identifying Phyllis Bentley ’45 as Harriet Bentley on page 16. Of course we know Phyllis! For years, she has been coming to Harley on a monthly basis to help organize and preserve our archives. As a faithful member of the archives group, Phyllis has sorted and identified hundreds of photos and has put together scrapbooks of over three decades of Harley life. For several years she has been available on Reunion Weekend to share her Harley memories and to answer any questions about early Harley life. Phyllis, we could not do this without you!

Former Faculty and Staff; IN MEMORIAM

Making an Impact

What I’ve Learned

Become What Thou Art

Becoming is an evolution

Fall 2009

Head of School

Timothy R. Cottrell, Ph.D., PMP

No, you don’t need to check the cover; this is your latest issue of Becoming Magazine. As you can see, Becoming is, well, becoming. Our new look isn’t the only change—you’ll also find more stories about our alumni and about issues in the world and the frequency with which Harley parents, alumni, faculty, and friends are at the center of global and contemporary issues. Take, for example, the story on page 18 about the H1N1 virus (swine flu) outbreak; it features two Harley parents, leading experts in infectious disease, who are conducting important research with far-reaching consequences. Then there are our many alumni who epitomize Become what thou art, as they grow and change and move forward through their passions and professions. We’ve shared a few of their stories here. The Harley School itself continues to evolve and progress, just as our graduates do. We’ve developed in remarkable and long-lasting ways over our nine decades. Recent growth has included new building projects, a commitment to becoming stronger stewards of the environment, and expanded opportunities for student leadership. These are good changes, and all very much in keeping with Harley tradition. We’ve also experienced the bittersweet progression of those who make us who we are, including farewells to and retirements of beloved faculty members and promising students who will go on to make their mark on the world. As you read these pages, I hope you will share your thoughts and story ideas for future issues. I’d love to hear more about what you, our graduates, and families are doing and I welcome your feedback on the new design and content. Letters to the editor will be published in the next issue.

EDITOR and Publisher

Aimee J. Lewis Art Director and Designer

Lisa Osborne Lange ’74

Development and ALUMNI RELATIONS staff

Julie Bell, Karen Saludo, Anne Townsend COPY EDITOR

Ceil Goldman Contributing writers

Selena Cochran, Becky Jones, Betsey Osborne, Anne Townsend Contributing Photographers

Denise Batiste, David Cleary, Walter Colley, Tim Conkling, Ted Gough, Ken Huth, Lisa Osborne Lange ’74, April Lenhard ’09, Aimee Lewis, Tim Malone, Sean Sullivan ’09 The Harley School

1981 Clover Street Rochester, NY 14618 585.442.1770 x 3033 Becoming Magazine welcomes letters from readers. Please send correspondence to the above address care of Becoming Magazine editor. Letters may be edited for publication. Becoming Magazine is published twice a year by The Harley School. E-MAIL QUESTIONS AND STORY IDEAS

becoming@harleyschool.org

Aimee J. Lewis Editor

ONLINE

www.harleyschool.org POSTMASTER

Send address changes to: Becoming Magazine The Harley School 1981 Clover Street Rochester, NY 14618

4 | B e c o m i ng M a ga z i n e

Printed in U.S.A. by Monroe Litho in Rochester, NY, a certified FSC supplier. Only operations that have been independently verified for FSC chain-of-custody certification can label their products with the FSC logo. © 2009

The Harley School 1981 Clover Street, Rochester, NY 14618

Since last fall, with the downturn in the economy, the question members of the alumni/ae community have asked more than any other is, How is The Harley School doing? The answer: Very well. In a time when many independent schools are coping with 15-20 percent decreases in enrollment, we begin the academic year with more than 500 students—the same level as the past five years and the highest enrollment period in the history of the School. We could not ask for more, and are gratified that our community continues to recognize the value of a Harley education. One of Harley’s strengths has always been to do more with less, and we continue to operate with this ethos. We are fortunate to be able to continue to deliver all the unique aspects of a Harley education while stemming the rise of operational costs. Our greatest asset, the faculty, continue to pour heart, soul, and boundless talent into what they do—and they do so with great generosity in all aspects of School life. This past year, 100% of the faculty participated in annual giving—a remarkable testament to what makes The Harley School such a magical place. The reputation and perception of the The Harley School continues to build on our storied past, and it is our highest priority to position the School for another century of success. Achieving this goal, however, will not be without legitimate and non-trivial challenges, and to accomplish it will take the full support of the entire Harley community. Over the next three years, as we set the stage for our centennial celebration, there are two strategic initiatives essential for the future of the School. The first is to build annual giving to a level that supports the financial sustainability of the School. To this end, we have launched The Harley Circle, to engage members of our community in five-year commitments to annual giving. You will hear much about The Harley Circle in this, its charter year, and I encourage you to consider joining to support our future. The second project is to further connect Harley’s past to its future: We are “re-raising the Barn.” For many of you, the Barn stands at the center of your memories of Harley. We are bringing it back—and in a way that expands the dimensions of the perception and reputation of a Harley education. We’ve deconstructed a century-old western New York barn for basic materials, and are in the process of designing a 21st-century educational space. The focus is on providing three programmatic areas: Middle School science, social entrepreneurship, and project-based learning. Each of these areas is a current strength of the School— results of our belief in teaching the creative process. As I wrote at the beginning of this letter, The Harley School is healthy and doing well. The strengths and value of a Harley education map remarkably well on a world that demands self-actualized and creative idea generators. To become what thou art — to discover and follow one’s passion — is both the greatest and most applicable outcome of a 21st-century education. Please join me in celebrating the passion we all share for a school that has shaped our lives in so many positive ways as we create a foundation for our next century.

Timothy R. Cottrell, Ph.D., PMP Head of School Fa l l 2 0 0 9

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Harley

Archives Thank you

to those of you who sent in graduation programs (1947, 1952, and 1963) and graduation photos (1949). We are still in need of many more (see p. 30 of Fall 2008 Becoming), so if you are cleaning out, please keep The Harley School in mind. In addition to the graduation programs, we would also love to have copies of programs from any School drama productions. Please send materials to: Anne Townsend 1981 Clover Street Rochester, NY 14618 585.442.1770 x 3006 atownsend@harleyschool.org Originals can be returned if requested.

Now for the fun. We recently came across this unidentified photo in the 1979 yearbook. Do you know the names of the students and the story behind this photo? If you know (and can tell!) e-mail Anne Townsend.

what is

New at Harley

Expansion updates

The locker room renovation is just the beginning of green projects at The Harley School. Plans are underway for a redesign of Beckerman Center and the re-raising of the Barn— (including a living laboratory and service-learning projects area). Students will be involved in each step of both projects, contributing their ideas about design and functionality.

Green Construction Project Reduces Carbon Footprint Materials used in construction, water, and energy save in daily operation This year, The Harley School opened its first green building project—a new and enlarged locker room facility and entrance. The project consisted of a 2,000-square-foot renovation of the existing first-floor locker room and laundry facility housed in the athletic field house. The renovations accommodate two new locker rooms, a laundry room, reception area, and public restrooms. Natural, recycled, and environmentally friendly materials containing low volatile organic compounds (VOCs) were used for the interior architectural details. Unique design elements include custom vanities, a reception desk, and a recycling area at the field house entrance. High-efficiency mechanical and electrical equipment was installed, projected to result in a 39% cost savings in lighting power, 42% savings in hot water, and an annual reduction of water use of 95,000 gallons.

Designed by Rochester-based Edge Architecture, renovation highlights include: • Long-term durability of materials and reduced maintenance • Use of durable materials to reduce maintenance and replacement • 20% of overall project material costs were dedicated to recycled content • Low-flow plumbing and sensor fixtures provide a minimum 20% water savings over standard fixtures; 40% water reduction (65,000 gallons per year) • Energy-efficient HVAC appliances and light fixtures reduce power consumption by more than 30% from previous and standard fixtures; 10% reduction in energy use • Walls painted with low VOC paint • Ceramic tile is SCS (Scientific Certification Systems) certified and contains 55% recycled glass • Custom millwork constructed using a formaldehyde-free substrate with laminate and solid-surface finishes, both containing recycled content • Demolished metal from the project was recycled • Use of regional materials manufactured within a radius of 500 miles from The Harley School Fa l l 2 0 0 9

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Go go HAC Wolves Boys’ Basketball Record CoacHES CaptaiNS

Girls’ Basketball

12-4, tied for 2nd in Finger Lakes West; 13-7 overall Class C2 Sectionals Champions Kevin Gibbs/Claude Williams, Asst. Jon Benjamin ’09, Peter Sahasrabudhe ’10

Record CoacHES CaptaiNS

4-12, 8th in Finger Lakes West; 7-13 overall Lost in first round of Class C sectionals Terri Leonard/Jason Hermance, Asst. Jasmine Simmons ’10 and Caitlin Broman ’11

Sportsmanship Richard Lange ’09

Sportsmanship Aedin Brennan ’12

Coach’s Award Peter Sahasrabudhe ’10

Best Offensive Player Jahna Humphrey ’11

Most Improved Colin Van Bortel Buckley ’09

Heart Jasmine Simmons ’10 Hustle Cricket Cleary ’11

Most Valuable Jon Benjamin ’09 The boys’ varsity basketball team came into the season with some redemption on their mind. They made the sectional finals the previous year but fell to fellow Finger Lakes West foe Dundee in the championship game. The Wolves were determined not to have history repeat itself. After a very solid league season and some great sectional tournament prep games against tough opponents, HAC was ready to claim the title. Led by All-Greater Rochester All-Star and Class C2 Sectional MVP Jon Benjamin, the Wolves went on a great run in the season-ending tournament, culminating with the Section Five Class C2 title and a win over Dundee in the championship game at Blue Cross Arena. What a sweet victory!

Girls’ Bowling

Boys’ Bowling Record CoacHES

Record CoacHES CaptaiN

13-43, 7th in Finger Lakes West 10th place in Class D sectionals Brian Michalski/Mimi Hartney, Asst.

22-34, 5th in Finger Lakes West 7th place in Class D sectionals Dan DeYoung/Mimi Hartney, Asst. Allison Shulman ’10

Sportsmanship Andrew Newman ’10

Sportsmanship April Efron ’11

Coach’s Award James Ciaccia ’11

Coach’s Award Allison Shulman ’10

Most Improved Rolf Lehman ’10

Most Improved Tiara Jackson ’12

Most Valuable George Berking ’10

Most Valuable Maegwin Struble Albrecht ’11

The team improved their overall win-loss record this year and continually raised their high team game and high team series totals throughout the season. Led by George Berking, who has emerged as one of the top upcoming bowlers in Finger Lakes West, the boys plan to pick up where they left off this year and add more wins to their league record.

8 | B e c o m i ng M a ga z i n e | G o Wo l v e s !

The Lady Wolves enjoyed a very good season as they improved their overall play in and out of the Finger Lakes. Despite a small number of players on the team, the girls showed a lot of heart in battling perennial section powers in league play, preparing them for a strong showing in non-league play, where they were able to post a strong 3-1 record. With a core of players who have been together at the varsity level for a number of years, the team is looking forward to continued improvement during the upcoming season, with their sights set on more league wins and a sectional victory.

The team made vast improvements this season and fell just a few wins short of a .500 record. A very balanced team allowed for multiple bowlers to get involved and help the Wolves’ overall performance. Come sectionals time, the girls were ready to roll and set a new high team game score four times during sectional play.

Harley Allendale Columbia Athletics exists to enhance the interscholastic athletic programs of both schools by combining student bodies, resources, and facilities, as well as faculty for coaching purposes. The schools believe that a dynamic program of student activities is vital to the educational development of the student.

Boys’ Swimming Record CoacHES CaptaiNS

Girls’ Swimming

4-1-1, 2nd in Genesee Region Division II; 9-3-1 overall 4th place in Class D sectionals Peter Mancuso/Lindsay Worner ’02 and Lorie Rick, Asst. Henry Weaver ’09, Max Bent ’09, and Tom Conkling ’10/ Stephen Mann ’09 and Hayden Ford ’09, Asst.

6-0, 1st in Genesee Region Division II; 12-1 overall 3rd place in GR/NO Championships Peter Mancuso/Lindsay Worner ’02 and Lorie Rick, Asst. Katelin Schutz ’10, Jocie Kopfman ’09, Asst.

Sportsmanship Stephen Mann ’09

Sportsmanship Sarah Andrews ’12

Coach’s Award Ken Carlson ’12

Rising Star Colette McConnell ’12

Rising Star Griffin Anderson ’12

Most Improved Maggie Lloyd ’11

Most Improved Connor Dance ’11

Most Improved Jocelyn Giambrone ’12

This year was a great mix of veteran swimmers and young newcomers. The seniors did their share of winning, helping lead the team to nine meet wins and a solid third-place finish in the Genesee Region League Meet Championship. The newcomers added great depth and gained valuable experience and will be counted on in years to come. They finished 2nd in Class D sectionals the past two years and nearly did so again for the third year in a row, falling just 9 points short. They won 5 of 11 swimming events at Class D sectionals and were led by Tom Conkling (Class D Sectional Champion in 50 and 100 Free), Henry Weaver (Class D Sectional Champion in 200 and 500 Free), and the 200 Free Relay team of Tom Conkling, Max Bent, Connor Dance, and Henry Weaver, who also were crowned champions (Class D Sectional Champions in 200 Free Relay). Tom set a new School record in the 50 Free and qualified for the New York State Swim Meet.

Boys’ Baseball Record CoacHES CaptaiN

Record CoacHES CaptaiNS

2-14, tied for 8th in Finger Lakes West; 7-16 overall Lost in first round of Class C sectionals Peter Mancuso/Dave Shortino, Asst. Archie Durfee ’09 Sportsmanship Will Zupan ’10 Coach’s Award Archie Durfee ’09 Coach’s Award Nick Myers ’10 Most Improved Mike Jarrell ’10

With the graduation of many key players, this year’s varsity baseball team was looking for many new players to step things up. The Wolves fared well in non-league play, going 5-2, but struggled to play a complete game in the Finger Lakes League. Next season, they will be relying heavily on a lineup that will be filled with experienced seniors.

This is a squad on the rise and proved much this season. Having previously earned the Genesee Region Division II title the last three years, the girls were bound and determined not to break the streak, and they succeeded. The team posted a 6-0 league record and won 12 meets overall, making a statement that they are a team to be reckoned with. To finish up a great season, the girls won the School’s first ever Genesee Region League Meet Championship. Three school records were set. Alexis Williams, Kelsey O’Brien, Colette McConnell, and Lily Frye set a new School record in the 200 Medley Relay; O’Brien, McConnell, Meghan Dens, and Frye set a School record in the 200 Free Relay, and Frye, Dens, McConnell, and Williams set a new School mark in the 400-Free Relay.

Girls’ Softball Record CoacHES CaptaiNS

2-14, 9th in Finger Lakes West; 5-14 overall Lost in first round of Class C sectionals Craig West/Brett Gillen, Asst. Alex West, Paige Clark, and Marissa Malone ’11 Sportsmanship Samantha Bruehl ’09 Coach’s Award Allie Waxman ’12 Most Improved Katelin Schutz ’10 Most Valuable Alex West ’10

The season began in fine fashion, but the team ran into a rash of injuries that forced many players to play out of position most of the season. Alex West led the team on the mound and Lydia Hill contributed mightily with her bat. The team hopes to begin the season healthy next year and build on the momentum they created while finishing up the 2009 campaign.

G o Wo l v e s | Fa l l 2 0 0 9

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Go HAC Wolves Boys’ Track and Field Record CoacHES

Boys’ Tennis

0-5, 6th in Finger Lakes West 12th place in Class D sectionals Seth O’Bryan/Brandon Wheeler, Scott Hertrick, Jamie Gundy, Marques Williams, Brandi Sek; Asst.

Record CoacHES CaptaiN

12-0, 1st in Finger Lakes East; 17-0 overall Won Class BB sectionals John Dolan/Raj Singeravelu, Asst. Sebastien Fauchet ’09

Sportsmanship Kieran Healey ’12

Sportsmanship Sebastien Fauchet ’09

Coach’s Award Austin Czubara ’10

Most Improved Louis D’Amanda ’09

Most Improved Jonathan Hunn ’11 Most Valuable John Gamble ’10

The boys’ track and field squad found a number of potential shining stars this season and plans to build on the newfound excitement into next season. The emergence of Kieran Healey in the distance events and the sprinting of John Gamble has allowed the squad to become competitive in a number of areas. Depth is what the team is looking for, and with the planned return of the underclassmen, the Wolves look set to continue improving.

Girls’ Track and Field Record 3-2, tied for 2nd place in Finger Lakes West 5th place in Class D sectionals CoacHES Seth O’Bryan/Brandon Wheeler, Scott Hertrick,

Jamie Gundy, Marques Williams, Brandi Sek; Asst. CaptaiNS Rose Gooding ’09 and Jordyn Larkins ’09

The team began the year with many goals, both team and individual. They were looking forward to improving on their finish last year in a national tournament in California and were also gearing up for a new regional tournament in Baltimore. Back home, there was the four-peat they were serving for, having won team sectional titles in ’06, ’07, and ’08. The Wolves took their 4th consecutive Class BB team sectional title in convincing fashion over rival Pittsford Sutherland— and produced fine showings around the country at the invitational tournaments. In addition, Jason Tahir won the Class B Individual Sectional Championship in singles and teammates Jonathan Benjamin and Andrew Guzick did so in doubles. Sebastien Fauchet qualified for the NYS Tennis Championships and finished 3rd in singles. Jason Tahir also qualified for the NYS Tennis Championships and won the singles consolation bracket. Fauchet and Tahir were named co-All Greater Rochester Players of the Year by the Democrat and Chronicle, the second time both received this honor. Tahir was named Player of the Year by the Messenger Post.

Sportsmanship Isabel Hirtelen-Booker ’13 Most Improved Alexa Jamieson ’12 Most Valuable Rose Gooding ’09 Jordyn Larkins ’09

Despite having one of the smaller teams in the league and class, the girls’ track and field team could run and jump with the best of them. The combination of veteran team members and talented rookies proved to be a great combination this season. The girls were very competitive all year and peaked at the right time—during the Finger Lakes League meet and sectionals. Rose Gooding won the Class D Sectional Championships in both the 100 and 200 meters, while teammate Isabel Hirtelen-Booker earned the Class D Sectional Championship in the 100-meter hurdles. The team of Gooding, Hirtelen-Booker, Marisa Palacio, and Jordyn Larkins garnered the top spot in Class D Sectionals in the 4 x 100 meter relay. Isabel’s top performances this year gained her a new School record in the 100-meter hurdles and qualified her for the New York State Track and Field Championships, where she finished 4th. 10 | B e c o m i ng M a ga z i n e | G o Wo l v e s !

HAC Athletics

RECAP

This past year, 17 of 18 HAC varsity sports teams earned New York State Scholar Athlete status, and two teams claimed team sectional championships (boys’ basketball and boys’ tennis), pushing the HAC total to 49 overall titles. Jon Benjamin ’09 and Jocie Kopfman ’09 are this year’s recipients of the Ralph S. McKee Trophy, presented to a Harley student-athlete who has displayed the greatest dedication, leadership, and ability in athletics. Honorees are also expected to be positive role models and academically successful students. Jon Benjamin ’09 and Jocie Kopfman ’09 Benjamin and Kopfman are also two of the student-athletes who helped HAC Athletics earn the Finger Lakes High School Athletic Excellence award for small schools in 2008-09, the third time in five years HAC has garnered the award, which combines success in academics, athletic competition, and good sportsmanship.

OIN THE HARLEY CIRCLE The Harley School invites you to become a charter member of The Harley Circle, a giving society that supports the longstanding belief in Harley’s vision and core values. As a member of The Harley Circle, your support honors the leadership of the School’s founders and helps our students become passionate, civic-minded lifelong learners.

Your financial support can help the school realize its vision for the future. A five-year commitment of $1,000 or greater annually to The Harley Fund provides membership into The Harley Circle. Charter membership is open until December 2010.

Your support has a direct impact on: • Financial aid • Faculty support • Strength of Programs To learn more about The Harley Circle, contact Karen Saludo Director of Development The Harley School 1981 Clover Street Rochester, NY 14618 (585) 442-1770 x 3030 ksaludo@harleyschool.org

The Harley School Fa l l 2 0 0 9

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Harley Hospice program teacher Bob Kane visits with a teacher from a school in Richard’s Bay, South Africa. Kane took Harley students to visit local schools as they explored future peer-topeer connections.

Beyond expectations:

The hospice quilt: Each square is a small representation of a person’s “life review”. Students assembled the pieces as a memorial to the people they have comforted in hospices and homes. Squares are adorned with photos, fabric from favorite clothing, or other mementos, which are then stitched together to make a quilt.

Students experience new birth by caring for the dying by Be tse y Osborne

This past spring, several Harley seniors climbed off a plane in Richard’s Bay, South Africa, carrying boxes of supplies for distribution to, among others, sibling-headed households where the parents have both died of AIDS. The boxes included medicine and wound-care dressings as well as soccer balls and Beanie Babies, but without a doubt the greatest gift was the students’ own presence. And

being present for another human being, particularly in a time of stress, is the bedrock of an elective course called the Harley Hospice program. 12 | B e c o m i ng M a ga z i n e

Two-thirds of the most recent senior class enrolled. The program, likely the only course in the United States designed to train teenagers to sit at the bedsides of the dying, was recently awarded a $50,000 Ford Foundation grant. In the Hospice program the students meet for 50 minutes every school day, and begin slowly by reading books, such as Tolstoy’s The Death of Ivan Ilyich, and watching movies, such as Wit, about the death of a woman from ovarian cancer. They also share their own experiences of death. “We kind of get into the nitty-gritty of how you ‘get dead,’ ” says English teacher Bob Kane, who developed the program at the Norman Howard School in Rochester and brought it to Harley in 2003. The students learn how to execute practical duties: change a bed with a person in it; dispense medicines; recognize bedsores; wash their hands thoroughly after cleaning a colostomy bag; and clean a catheter. They gather around a mannequin that can be equipped with either female or male genitalia, and are instructed in how to clean those areas. (“We get over the giggles pretty quickly,” says Kane, who is a certified hospice nursing assistant with Lifetime Care.)

Students also discuss what it means to be thoroughly present. To deepen their concentration, they work with a yoga teacher and begin to meditate in order, Kane says, “to keep the mind from wandering.”

Robert’s harmonica is now stitched into an evergrowing quilt being sewn by the students. The quilt, made up of nine-by-nineThe students put what they learn to work at local Rochester inch squares, typically comfort-care homes, where they shadow seasoned volunteers includes a photograph or before becoming full-fledged volunteers themselves. a scrap from a piece of Duties range from the practical—helping another volunteer clothing, perhaps given by turn a resident in bed—to the equally important but less the person’s family, a result measurable “just sitting there.” Most important, they learn that of a student being present their presence in a resident’s room may give that person for a dying person’s “life “permission to sleep.” review.” Kane says that “all of a sudden, residents are telling what’s most important in their Kane remembers a student who fell to talking about music with a own lives and what they want their listeners to know: a passed-on man named Robert, who had played the harmonica. The student memory or a legacy. Often this will motivate the student to ask for brought one in and Robert started to cry, and then he started to something from the dying person—a piece of clothing; a photoplay. Someone from one of the other rooms yelled, “Hey, what’s graph, to remember the dying person in our quilt.” that music out there?” Robert asked to be wheeled out, where he played, room by room, for the other dying people on the floor. Fa l l 2 0 0 9

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Above: Luisa Barbano ’11 takes a break from a food security gardening project to hold an infant. Barbano and other Harley students volunteered with Zululand Hospice in South Africa.

Carolyn Ruffing, a volunteer at Advent House, who has worked for several years with Harley students, says that they are

Right: Maddie DiPaola ’09 and Sean Sullivan ’09 provide palliative care on a home visit with Zululand Hospice. During home visits, students helped provide skin care as Zululand nurses discussed patient medications, nutrition, and overall health and hygiene.

Ruffing also remembers the initial doubt the husband of a resident had when he saw that the hospice volunteer was an 18-year-old boy. The man had been the sole caregiver for his wife for months at home and wanted to make sure she got the same kind of care at Advent House. After only a short time, the man said, “That boy knows what he’s doing.”

“exceptionally well trained” and that “they are open to continuing to learn.” The year-long program She also notes that “they are 18 years old, and to walk into the culminates in a trip to room and apply what they’ve learned—and to see someone in bed—can be quite an emotional experience.” She remembers a another country student who was faced with a woman who had had a sudden diagnosis of a terminal disease. The woman was “struggling mightily with anxiety,” and the student sat by the bed for the entire four-hour shift and held the woman’s hand, speaking to her and calming her, so that by the time her family saw her she was “in a settled, peaceful state.” The woman died later that evening, but the family was able to spend some supportive time with her, says Ruffing, and she was receptive to her family’s being there because of the compassion the student had shown.

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—this year South Africa and Belize, other years Calcutta, and next year possibly Mongolia—for the handful of students who have completed their 100 hours volunteering in comfort-care homes in Rochester. At this stage, students have moved from worrying: What if I mess up and there’s no chance to fix it? to training peers in end-of-life care. Students last year traveled to Belize to begin the first hospice the country has had. In Calcutta, at a house for the destitute and dying, Mirel Oese-Siegel ’08 remembers letting

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a screaming girl with a brain disability lay her head on Oese-Siegel’s shoulder. “She just wanted someone to sit with her,” said Oese-Siegel, who now continues to volunteer at a hospice that’s located close enough to both her college, Hobart and William Smith, and hometown that she can visit there year round. At Hobart-William Smith, Oese-Siegal is studying French and international relations, which she hopes will lead to a career as a diplomat, a move she says is related to the things she learned in the hospice program at Harley. “Caring and paying attention has led to a greater awareness of everything,” she says. “It makes all the stupid problems that we’re having in the world seem small when we can’t even support the people who are dying.” Bob Kane believes that Left: Bob Kane shares a laugh with a mother and her children during a family wellness visit in Hopkins, southern Belize. Above: Students traveled to Belize on Spring Break ’09 to care for the elderly and terminally ill. Pictured with Belizian students are Colin Van Bortel Buckley ’09, Hayden Ford ’09, Stephen Mann ’09, Sean Sullivan ’09, April Lenhard ’09, and Max Bent ’09, who convened at Southern Regional Hospital to complete a mock patient diagnosis and teach end-of-life care to local high school students in Dangriga. Below: Breaking ground in Richard’s Bay, S.A. are Nate August ’11 and Ulrik Soderstrom ’11.

bringing young people into the process of death “plants the seed in fertile soil.” Oese-Siegal is just one example of graduates affected. Meaghan Malone ’06, who also participated in the program, is studying industrial systems engineering at SUNY Binghamton, and hopes to implement water purification systems in places where clean water isn’t readily available. Another graduate, Kara Pennino ’09, was awarded a full-tuition scholarship to Drew University on the strength of her hospice work. At the end of the term, students work on their “ethical wills,” which Kane has adopted from Jewish tradition. “It’s a collection of intangibles—values, life lessons—you feel you’ve learned that you want to bequeath,” he says. Students write these up and give the will to family members or friends or mentors “while they’re both alive.” In a final ceremony at the end of the year, each student is given a scarf—green to symbolize Harley, and emblazoned with a butterfly—the symbol of hospice—at one end. Written on the scarf are the words that sum up what students give and what they get: “Infinite gratitude. Infinite service. Infinite responsibility.”

Left: Bob Kane and present and past Harley students Nate August ’11, Ashley Sands ’07, Maddie DiPaola ’09, Sean Sullivan ’09, Jocie Kopfman ’09, Maggie Lloyd ’11, Luisa Barbano ’11, Chris Hartman ’93, and Ulrik Soderstrom ’11 overlook the Indian Ocean.

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Guessing the flu’s next disguise W

by Becky jones

hen Harriet Bentley huddled with a group of Rochester moms back in 1917, hatching a plan for a school that would let children bloom at their own pace, no one could have imagined that her visionary spirit soon would be snuffed out. But that’s what happened. Bentley and more than a thousand other Rochesterians died from the virulent Spanish flu during the winter months of 1918-19. Fortunately, though her life ended, the passion Bentley poured into her school lived on. Five years later, it was incorporated by New York State and renamed The Harley School—a nod to its founder, splicing the first and final three letters of her full name.

Harley Parents do

Flu Research

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It’s poetic justice, some might say, that as the planet is reeling from the springtime scare of H1N1 swine flu, another Harley mom— infectious disease researcher Christine Mhorag Hay, M.D.—is part of a team of local scientists in hot pursuit of clues that could help quash the next worldwide pandemic.

Harriet Bentley and more than a thousand other Rochesterians died from the virulent Spanish flu during the winter months of 1918-19.

Biology’s trick hand

“There’s a tendency to think that the media, scientists, and public health authorities cried wolf,” says Hay, whose research at the University of Rochester centers on HIV and flu. “Considering that flu normally kills 36,000 Americans annually, H1N1 hasn’t panned out to be nearly as dangerous as first feared,” she notes.

“In fact, H1N1’s actual virulence is on par with garden-variety seasonal flu, killing less than 1 percent of those it infects,” Hay notes. Nevertheless, she says, public fear continues to be justified. “There’s some chance that H1N1 could return this fall, possibly mutating into something with more bite,” Hay says. “That’s actually what happened in 1918, with the virus that killed Ms. Bentley. The first wave in the spring was but a shadow of what followed the next winter—a formidable bug that wiped out as many as 20 percent of those it infected, killing more than 20 million people worldwide.” In spite of the myriad medical advances of the past century, we still know very little about flu. Even our frontline defense—the annual vaccine—is a hopeful guess at best. “The proof is that, though my family gets the shot every year, in two recent seasons, we were still unlucky

virus photo courtesy www.cdc.gov

What weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re researching in Rochester:

Fa l l Illustration 2 0 0 9 | by 19Phil Bliss

20 | B e c o m i ng M a ga z i n e

Harley Parents do

Dr. Christine Hay (left) discusses research with Carrie Nolan (center), nurse practitioner, and Theresa Fitzgerald (right), lab technician, at the University of Rochester Medical Center.

Flu Research

enough to get sick,” says Hay, whose children, Andrew Alexis ’21, and Catherine Alexis ’24, attend Harley. “The vaccine didn’t match [protect against] the circulating strains well.” Luckily, we do know a bit about how the pernicious virus attacks. Once flu sneaks into the body—cloaked under its latest evolutionary disguise—it hijacks cells, retrofitting them into tiny virus factories. Each factory can spool out thousands of viral clones in mere hours. At this blistering pace, copying errors are bound to occur, sometimes creating mutant viruses that can be more dangerous than the original. “Worse,” Hay says, “if the virus is infecting an animal, like a pig—and pigs are sometimes simultaneously infected by human, swine, and avian viruses—it can swap whole chunks of genetic code with viruses from other species. That’s what we saw with H1N1—a virus so mutated that it jumped from swine to human, and then from human to human.” Thankfully, the flu virus rarely changes dramatically in a given year. “A lot of variables must line up to stir a real global disaster, like the Spanish flu, which killed more soldiers than died in battle in the First World War,” Hay says. “The bug needs to be highly contagious, possess ‘deadly genes,’ and be so unrecognizable that our body is taken off-guard while it takes over.” Usually, all three factors don’t align (e.g., H1N1 lacks a lethal gene), making flu somewhat predictable. Infectious disease experts in the United States work like meteorologists, analyzing virus activity in the Southern Hemisphere (since their winters are opposite ours) to forecast the three strains most likely to rear their heads

in the coming season. Based on these estimates, manufacturers begin the months-long process of producing vaccine. “With H1N1, though, biology dealt us a trick hand,” Hay says. “We were looking across the Atlantic, waiting for a potent strain of avian flu, thinking we’d have a few weeks of warning before it came to our soil. What actually happened was unforeseen—a fairly wimpy virus from pigs, from next door in Mexico, leaving us zero time to prepare.”

Bracing for the worst while preparing for the unknown As Hay and scientists around the world try to anticipate how H1N1 might resurge in coming months, history offers further clues. “There’s another striking similarity shared by the 1918 virus and its most recent cousin,” Hay says. “Both deviated from targeting the classic victims.” Flu typically sickens young children, the elderly, or people with fragile immune systems. “Ironically, both of these viruses have disproportionately targeted young people,” Hay says. “While most of those who got ill this summer had only slight illness—a trend we hope continues—a few did get severely sick. The theory is that, in those cases, the foreign bug may have kicked their immune systems into overdrive. With so much Fa l l 2 0 0 9

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inflammation, their cells could have literally started leaking. And since flu attacks the lungs, that could have caused their bodies to drown in their own fluids.”

In addition to being a leading expert, clinician, and researcher on infectious disease, Dr. Christine Hay is also a teacher influencing the next generation of researchers. For the past three years, she has directed the University of Rochester Medical Center’s Infectious Diseases Fellowship Program, which has produced more than 90 new infectious disease specialists since 1970, outfitting them with the advanced clinical and research training needed to become leaders in the fields of virology and clinical infectious diseases.

That’s a fearsome picture, but it’s a hallmark of a budding pandemic, and all the more reason to take H1N1 seriously. “We have a lot of work to do before the fall,” Hay says. “If the virus simply became slightly more transmissible, we’d see more sickness, like we did during the Asian flu pandemic of ’57, which killed twice as many Americans as flu typically does in a given year.” Hay says that local and national public health officials have done a good job of producing enough antiviral medicines (like Tamiflu) to protect 25 percent of the population (enough to offer hope back in the much grimmer 1918 outbreak). Even so, local hospitals, like those nationwide, are strained and lack the flexibility needed to accommodate a surge of sick people. “From the perspective of public health planning, there are still glitches that need to be worked out, but we’ve come a long way in pandemic preparedness in recent years,” Hay says. “Still, I’m a bit worried that the media coverage and public conversation has stopped too soon. Both actually play pivotal roles in setting the government agenda, coaxing Washington to release the funds necessary for preparation and research.” To be perfectly ready, prevention offers the only sure hope. “We need to develop a universal vaccine that would cross-protect against multiple strains, no matter how the virus morphed,” Hay says. “That’s the holy grail. With it, we could bypass the labor of annual reformulation.” 22 | B e c o m i ng M a ga z i n e

A slippery venture Scientists would have to train the body’s immune system to recognize the part of the virus that seldom mutates—a part that also happens to be invisible, since it’s tucked deep beneath the virus’s surface. “There’s so much to be done, it can be overwhelming,” Hay says. “But the mystery pushes us on. Wouldn’t it be rather dull to invest your life’s work in something that’s too easily solved?” As for next fall, Hay wagers that the chances of another devastating pandemic—on par with the one in 1918—are pretty slim. “We have better health care and nutrition than we did a century ago. Plus, the fall flu season could wind up being very similar to what we’ve already seen this summer—lots of sick people, mostly with mild illness. It’s also in our favor that we expect to have a novel H1N1 vaccine approved this October,” Hay says. “And aside from all this, I’m also comforted by the truth that it’s not to the virus’ evolutionary advantage to destroy its host, any more than it’s beneficial for a person to set fire to his own home,” she notes.

Harley Parents do

Flu Research

Research sheds light on how body fights flu An associate professor of microbiology and immunology, David Topham, Ph.D., studies how the body fights flu. He is a co-director of the University of Rochester Medical Center’s New York Influenza Center of Excellence, one of six such centers in the nation.

ith global health authorities predicting that 2009 H1N1 flu (originally called “swine flu”) could resurge in the fall with greater vengeance, another Harley parent, David Topham, Ph.D., is also keeping close watch on the virus.

“There’s the equal possibility that it could mutate into a weaker or more lethal form,” said Topham, a scientist and co-director at the University of Rochester Medical Center’s New York Influenza Center of Excellence, who is working to engineer long-lived immunity that protects across a spectrum of flu strains. “To be frank,” he says, “we cannot predict which.” While our knowledge of the immune system has grown dramatically, design and study of current vaccines simply haven’t kept pace, Topham says. “We have yet to tap a crucial part of our body’s immune response in the fight against flu.” Topham’s research focuses on T-cells, which are located in the lungs and serve as the body’s immediate line of defense against the virus, attacking it in the first few days while other parts of the immune system rev up. He’s also been involved in testing new computer simulator technology: a virtual immune system that mimics how that body marshals a response against flu infection (the findings could inform future treatment designs and pandemic preparations). Because this new H1N1 virus has demonstrated a penchant for infecting young people (older folks seem to have some residual protective immunity), Topham says that idea is really shaking up traditional thinking about how “permanent” some types of immunity can be. Specifically, one of his focal projects is a family surveillance study, looking at how parents and their children fight flu differently. The data could provide important insights into how to develop a more durable vaccine—one that confers added protection against more strains for more years. Topham is the father of 10-year-old Nathaniel Topham ’17, who will be entering Harley’s Grade 5 this fall.

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May Day may come as a surprise each spring, but the camaraderie generated by good-hearted competition is always familiar.

1000

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words

About-face:

Southampton to South Africa by Be tse y Osborne

Rob Ros Robert J. Ross ’74, has passed a lot of time in shopping malls. Nearly 15 years of his professional life were spent as an asset manager for a large com- Veterinarian with an ill lowland gorilla, mercial real estate who was born in a zoo in England. Bateke National Park, Gabon outfit. But about 10 years ago, all of that changed; he was able to combine his two greatest interests: Africa and photography. So where can we find Ross now? Playing with apes in Gabon or in a canoe in the Okavango Delta. These days, Ross splits his time between New York and Cape Town, South Africa, working as a freelance photographer for such magazines as National Geographic Adventure, Outside, and Town & Country Travel, a career 26 | B e c o m i ng M a ga z i n e

that Ross thinks would surprise his classmates “less than it surprises me.” If they remember him at all, he says, it’s “with a camera in my hand.” Ross enrolled at The Harley School in the middle of his freshman year, when his family moved to Rochester from the New York City area. His luggage included a Kodak Instamatic 100 camera that his grandfather had given him as a birthday present a few years earlier. At Harley, he wielded a 35-millimeter Nikkormat camera. The move from Westchester was not an easy uprooting for Ross and his brothers, but it did land him around the corner from the George Eastman House International Museum of Photography and Film, which he visited regularly. When he wasn’t taking pictures, he spent many hours developing them in the Harley darkroom, working on the yearbook, and taking pictures for the School. His junior year he sold copies of the senior class picture he had taken. It was the first time he made money as a photographer; the next time would be by chance two decades later.

Rob Ross 2 of 6

ss ’74

spent a week sitting on a 10’ x 10’ viewing platform 30 feet up in a tree, at the edge of Langoue Bai in Ivindo National Park, Gabon. The bai is a clearing deep in the tropical rain forest. Ross was watching lowland gorillas, forest elephants, forest buffalo, and sitatunga antelopes among other smaller animals and

birds who come into the clearing. The research camp is about a 90-minute walk from the clearing. To minimize disruption at the clearing, most researchers or photographers visit the clearing during the day. Rob spent two nights alone under just a mosquito net, to experience the bai at night (full moon) and at dawn. Ross stayed

Brighton to Botswana Ross spent the summer between junior and senior years at an Outward Bound school in East Africa, which began a lifelong fascination with the continent. On that first trip, Ross met Masaii people his own age. He saw how different their lives were from his own— but how similar they were too. After Harley, he attended Middlebury College, where he continued his photography hobby and majored in economics. Not long after graduating in 1978, he traveled around the world for nine months, spending most of his time in Africa visiting friends in the Peace Corps. Upon his return, he went to business school, graduating in 1983 from Columbia University with an M.B.A. in finance and international business, and then worked in real estate finance and development for a group called Corporate Property Investors.

there from dusk to dawn without descending. It was safest to remain on the platform because elephants are active at night and leopards roam through the area at night as well. This self-portrait was shot using a tripod and the camera self-release timer.

At a large shopping mall convention in Las Vegas, he made a friend who worked in Cape Town, who planted the idea of working there. On a visit, Ross contacted Old Mutual Properties, the largest landowner in the southern hemisphere, which offered him work as a consultant for a year, allowing him to make the leap in 1999 to living in South Africa. Were there any links between that job and his work as a photographer? “Fortunately not too many,” Ross says with a laugh, “other than that I had to take lots of pictures of shopping centers.”

New York to Ngabu While he was in Cape Town, he went on a trip with some journalist friends to Mozambique and took his camera along, as he always did. He showed his photos to the editor of Getaway magazine and ended up having a portfolio of work published. One of the photographs still hangs on his New York office wall, the equivalent of a small business’ framed first dollar. Fa l l 2 0 0 9

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Left to right: Young woman in popular hairstyle, Goma, Democratic Republic of Congo. Young girl, Sao Tome Island, Sao Tome and Principe. The Muslim quarter, Bo Kaap, Cape Town, South Africa. Young boy with cooking pot, Iyamba, Democratic Republic of Congo. Young Iyaelima woman in wale, Luapa, Democratic Republic of Congo. Iyaelima man with glasses, Luapa, Democratic Republic of Congo. Iyaelima woman with traditional scarring, Ila, Democratic Republic of Congo.

Ross speaks hesitatingly about making the leap. “It was something that I always sort of wanted to do. I didn’t quite know how to do it. I didn’t have the confidence to do it—the confidence in my artistic ability. It was easier in some ways to do something that was more quantitative, as opposed to qualitative: you’re not putting quite as much of your own personality on the line.” He adds that “it’s an incredibly challenging, competitive, low-paying field” and that “given the very late stage in my professional life that I have jumped into it—you know if I look at it objectively, I should be very pleased with the success that I’ve had. Of course, I’m not satisfied … and would like to have … gotten into more magazines …, but if I look at it objectively, having gone into this in my 40s and managed to get published where I have, and do some of the projects that I’ve gotten to do, I should be very pleased.”

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www.rjrossphoto.com

Ross has photographed, among other subjects, bonobo apes, gold mine workers, and Sao Tome, a small island country—and had a handful of one-man shows of his work. He has concentrated on Africa, but his Web site (www.rjrossphoto.com) also includes a gallery of photographs from the Hamptons. Ross has a wide range of subject matter, including wildlife, people, landscapes, and architecture. His travels in Africa have led him to “try to capture the nice elements, but not to paint an unreal picture.” It’s also taught him the appeal of “the simpler side of things,” evident in the market pictures of red chilies and fish being scaled. When he photographs, Ross says, he’s “trying to look at something from a different angle.” For example, a flotsam orange-and-yellow buoy becomes an element of contrast and vibrancy against the blue of the Atlantic Ocean. Sometimes the colors in the photographs echo each other—the white oxford shirt of a man fishing will resonate with the white foam of the sea and his khakis with the sand. Or the colors will provide three separate patches of near abstraction: a yellow taxi cab in a square, a pink building in back of it, and a green building all with the same tonal value. Fa l l 2 0 0 9

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Left to right: Golden monkey, Volcanoes National Park, Rwanda Female leopard, Vumbura Plains, Okavango Delta, Botswana Red river hog, Lekedi, Gabon Mandrill with baby, Lekedi, Gabon Leopard, Selinda Reserve, Okavango Delta, Botswana

Clover Street to Congo Ross sees the contrast in his own life as well: “It’s pretty amazing to go on what’s effectively a business trip walking in the forest in the Democratic Republic of Congo for two weeks,” he says, “as opposed to visiting 10 malls in Phoenix on a June afternoon when it’s 106 degrees. I’ve done both of those things, and it was more humid and more physically taxing in DRC, but a heck of a lot more fun.”

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Rob Ross’ senior picture in the 1974 Harley yearbook

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Commencement â&#x20AC;&#x2122;09: Seniors wore red sneakers in a student-led fundraiser for the treatment and care of AIDS patients in South Africa.

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The Harley School Class of â&#x20AC;&#x2122;09 College Matriculation Alfred University Barnard College Bennington College Bucknell University Case Western Reserve University Colgate University Columbia College in Chicago Connecticut College Cornell University Dartmouth College Drew University Georgetown University Guilford College Ithaca College Juniata College Monroe Community College Nazareth College of Rochester Occidental College

Parsons School of Design, New School University Rice University Rochester Institute of Technology Sarah Lawrence College Skidmore College St. Olaf College St. John Fisher College SUNY College at Geneseo SUNY University at Buffalo Union College University of Pennsylvania University of Pittsburgh University of Richmond University of Rochester Vassar College The College of Wooster Yale University

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Class Notes submit your class notes to:

ksaludo@harleyschool.org or your class agent. Class Notes are edited for length and style.

Internship connects students with alumni/ae The Paetec Internship was started two years ago under the tutelage of Harley Parent, Arunas Chesonis to create a program that gives our students the opportunity to get to know Harley Alumni. This year’s interns were Harley seniors

Ryan Benjamin ’09, Louis D’Amanda ’09, Rebekah Sherman-Myntti ’09, and Kiersten Thompson ’09. Highlights

include: Contacting more than 200 alumni, researching and finding almost 30 “lost” alumni, as well as discovering from some of our older alumni, that although Harley’s buildings and campus have expanded and changed, the spirit and the closeness of the Harley Community have remained the same. This coming year’s interns will focus on next year’s Reunion classes ending in 0’s and 5’s, so next time the phone rings, you’d better answer—it could be a Harley Student!

40s

Becky Kennedy Gilford ’43 has had many

exciting travels. A swim in Lake Baikal, a climb on China’s Great Wall, a minitaxi bus ride around Kuala Lumpur, being chased by a camel along a pyramid wall, a solo bus trip to Moscow museums with no maps or language skills, even a drive around Iceland! She now travels from Bainbridge Island, Wash., by super ferry to take in the theater, the symphony, and the ballet in Seattle, and is happy to be in touch with her family.

We were recently informed about the passing of Nancy Richmond Waggoner ’45. Her son, Brock, wanted to share some information about his mom for her classmates: After Harley, Nancy went off to Mount Holyoke College. She then married Norman Waggoner and together they had 5 kids. She worked as a freelance portrait painter, and later as an editor and writer. She enjoyed serving on committees in her community in San Jose and swimming with the Dippy Dolphins. She had a lifelong love for painting and in her retirement branched out and did landscapes, still lifes, paintings of America’s Cup races, and surfers.

Martha Frey Allen ’48 writes that it has

been 60 years since her Harley graduation, and she still has many fond memories. She and her husband, Don, are well and counting their blessings. Their children and grandchildren are all prospering, and Martha and Don are now great-grandparents.

Ginger Dreyfus Karren ’48 recently

attended her oldest granddaughter’s 8thgrade graduation in Dallas. Ginger enjoyed her seven wonderful years at Harley. All of the memories are very much alive—the small classes, the personal attention from dedicated teachers, and the friendships among the students, many lasting over 50 years.

60th Reunion Class Agents:

Pete Keller pdkeller@citlink.net Helen Snyder Krogh h.krogh@comcast.net

Ken Frankel ’49 will be “78 years young”

this year. He is a retired VP and department manager of a large bank. He and his wife have resided in Phoenix, Ariz., for 33 years, their four children also live in the Phoenix area. He would like to convey good wishes to his former classmates and any others who knew him when he lived in Rochester.

Harley alumni gathering

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I was not able to join you at our Reunion, so will send this on. Regretfully, I’ve missed Reunions past, but I think always about the wonderful years at Harley. Ours were the BEST, certainly. The memory of each of you is cherished, and forever will be in my heart. I credit excellent teachers Elsa Freed and Helene Strause, among all those other marvelous educators, for the inspiration they offered. I’ve painted ever since, and that has been my life’s center. Hope you had a great party! Can you believe we’re in our 80s—and still so young at heart?! Much love,

Suzy Juvenal Middleton ’43

To the Class of ’49 A doggerel by Pete Keller ’49, with minor editing from

Helen Snyder Krogh ’49 When memory keeps us company And brings us smiles or tears A weather-beaten school “barn” Looms through the mist of years. Beyond the subway terminus, The graceful buildings stood, An educational mecca That graced the neighborhood. Our classmates came from near and far And added to the mix Of students who attended That school out in the sticks. We made enduring friendships That lasted through the years And gave us joy and laughter Plus comfort through our tears. Graduation saw us parting As seniors always do We left good pals and teachers As life’s goals we did pursue. Now we are seniors once again— In age, not academics— With aches and pains and wrinkles, too, That have become systemic.

Ann Hartman ’43 is still working at Smith College part time. She took two years off to paint at a local community college and is now in a painting course at Smith; it is, she says, “lots of fun.” She is currently studying George Eliot and Yiddish literature, spends her summers on Great Pond in Maine, and went on a wonderful trip to England with her 13-year-old granddaughter.

Hello, Classmates!

Now it’s been more than sixty years Since most have seen each other. Helen and I both think it’s time For all to get together. Pete Keller ’49, Jane Jewett Stickler ’46, Helen Snyder Krogh ’49, Gene Anderson ’50, Anne Cross Frost ’50, Ruth Anderson Hecker ’44, Ted Keller ’53, and Gene’s wife, Helen, at lunch at Canandaigua Lake, May 2009.

Renew old friendships once again (it may be our last chance). So come and join us in October Our dotage to enhance!

50s

50th Reunion Class Agent:

Sally Small Worthing-Davies ’57,

writes this message to her classmates on the Harley Web site: “This is the first time I’ve looked at the site. First time I’ve ‘heard’ about you all in about 55 years! It will be good to catch up after ALL this time.” Sally’s e-mail is sally@familytherapy. uk.com if you want to get in touch with her.

John Mills ’57 is delighted to hear from

classmate Sally Small, who is living in the UK. “It’s part of the Class of ’57’s efforts to beat all others for geographic dispersion,” John says. “All is well down here in Australia. Letters and e-mails from Harley friends always welcome. John’s address: mills@portsea.net

Peter Davis pldavis@yahoo.com

Lana Tremsky Thompson ’59 is in Portugal, “Fallon Farm” Michael Fallon ’58 hosted everyone out at his farm on the Saturday morning of Reunion weekend in 2008.

working on an encyclopedia about death and dying. She is taking some wonderful pictures in Lisbon, she says, and cats turn up all the time.

Bob Gray ’58 submitted these family photos

One of Lana’s photos from Lisbon

Melbourne, Australia. John in Melbourne, Australia

After graduating from Harley, Bill Ely ’58 spent four years at Syracuse U niversity, and graduated in 1962 with a major in English. He returned to Rochester and was employed by Schlegel Manufacturing and RF Communications, and later purchased a small distribution company handling a large variety of products. With his wife, Kristen, he currently resides in Florida for eight or nine months, and spends the rest of the year in Rochester. Bill recently reviewed the 1958 Harley yearbook (The Comet), and many memories were reborn. He loved teachers and administrators like Mrs. Edey, Bud Ewell, Madam Windholz, and Dr. Litterick. The old barn, replaced by modern buildings, still retains warm feelings in his mind.

60s Bee Bee, Joshua, Nancy, and Katherine Gray

Sandy Kolyer Masih ’58 went to Harley

in Grades 5 and 6, and has fond memories of her time at Harley and her classmates. She writes that after leaving, she went off to Kent Place and Wells College, married in 1962, and had two kids, Tara in 1963 and Kevin in 1966. She now has three grandchildren.

Fran Curro Cary ’58 is off to Ukraine for the Peace Corps. [see story, page 46]

From Bill Ely ’58 about the late Tom Goldman ’58, his close friend and attorney: “After graduation from Harley, Tom graduated from Bucknell University in Pennsylvania, then from Syracuse University School of Law. He was hired by a Rochester law firm and was an active trial attorney for the rest of his life. Tom married Mary Ark, and they had two children, Margie and Mitch. The overwhelming trait that most of us remember about Tom was his sense of humor. It was with him until the end, and we were richer for it.”

Lisa Good Angle ’58 and her family

Two Harley couples. Left to right: Gretchen Kaiser Fallon ’60, Peter Davis ’59, Linda Rudd Davis ’60, and Martin Fallon ’60 celebrated their 45th wedding anniversaries in Kennebunkport, Maine.

Sarah Corwin Brady ’61 and her husband, Mike, resided in Keuka Park until June 2009 in order to help Sarah’s mom, Marj Corwin, celebrate her honorary doctorate from Keuka College and to play in the snow after living in California for 40 years. Marj worked at Harley from 1957-1961. Laura Grossman Fukunishi ’63 has been

living in Japan for the past 41 years, where she is currently teaching and writing. E-mail her at laura10101@softbank.ne.jp. She’s sorry, she says, that she didn’t make it back for Reunion 2008; she really wanted to!

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An e-mail from John Davidson ’67 to Karen Saludo at Harley:

Just wanted to let you know that I spent a wonderful afternoon with John Alsina ’67 (who attended the ’68 Alumni Reunion last year), who’s visiting Paris. We had so many topics to discuss where we shared a common interest, including international issues such as “the real victims/wounded” of World War II and the future of Europe and the world in space. It was for me amazing to find an ex-classmate (he went as a sophomore to Andover, from which he graduated) with whom I could share so many of my (and his) interests. I think the main reason he contacted me was because of the ’08 reunion of the ’68 class, where he met up with my sister, Eleanor “Nell” Davidson ’68. John and I had met in Paris in the 1980s, when he was working here.

Jean Rudd ’62 and Lesley Miller Bloch ’62, Tucson, Ariz., April 2009

Also, a few of your readers may remember this teacher: I am still in touch with Jeanne Opdycke, who taught what was then called “Central Studies” in 8th grade of 1962-63. Only last night, Jeanne and I spent an hour laughing and talking on the phone about poetry, life, and much more. She was one of many great teachers whom I had the privilege of meeting (and writing for, studying for, taking exams for) at Harley. I am so happy to be in touch with her still. I never had Bud Ewell ’40 as a teacher, but I’m sure that he’d be one of my great mentors if I’d had the pleasure of learning under his tutelage. I am also regularly in touch with ’67 classmates Peg Bennett Heminway (a Rochester resident), Dian Wolk Warnhoff, and Katherine Parran Moriarty. I have also been in touch with Deborah Dunthorn Bieber ’67. She came to visit me for a month in Cairo (when I had a fellowship there at the American University, 1978-80), and I went to visit her in several of her many overseas homes: Johor Bahru (just north of Singapore, in Malaysia—three times), Chennai (in India), and most recently in Muscat (Oman), where she lent me her home and also met with me—after her departure—for several nice visits over lunch. Harley, though a Rochester school, expanded my international friendships through classmates who, like me, have been up and about on the world map. I can only thank Harley for that. John L. Davidson 2 rue des Gravilliers, F-75003, Paris, France Landline: +33/1 4277-2912 • Cell: +33/6 0914-8337

Louise Merritt McAllister Mitchell ’63 and her husband, Julian

After Harley, Louise Merritt McAllister Mitchell ’63 attended Vassar, graduating in 1967. She then worked four years at the National Trust for Historic Preservation in Washington. She returned to New York State and worked briefly for the State Historic Resources Department before resigning to found and lead the Historic Albany Foundation, a charity to preserve the city of Albany’s architectural heritage. In 1981, on a Caribbean cruise, she met Julian, an Englishman who was the chief dental officer of St. Kitts and Nevis. They married and lived on Nevis until 1988, when they returned to England. If anyone from 1963 is visiting Britain, Louise would love to see you. Her e-mail is julianm05@aol.com.

P.S. I remain in touch—recently and over the years—with Judy Johnstone Smith ’65 and her family, especially in Paris, where Judy’s sister and husband live. Judy and I remain in touch with Harley faculty members Leo Opdycke (myself and Judy) and Frank Laimbeer (Judy). Judy and I chat regularly about these Harley contacts. We love them.

45th Reunion Class Agents:

Keely Costello KCostel2@rochester.rr.com Lee Sherwood Allen lallen@harleyschool.org

Marjorie Kaiser Badger ’64 reports

that she and her husband, Tom, moved to Bradenton, Fla., in 2003. He retired in 2006 and she retired this past September at the age of 62. They are very involved in volunteer work with their church, the Daughters of the King, and the Red Cross; Tom is also an avid golfer. Three of their five kids and their families are still up in the Finger Lakes region. Their son John and family are in Oregon and daughter Elizabeth and family are in Boston.

Michael Todd ’64 is working as a school administrator for the Marion (Ohio) City Schools.

36 | B e c o m i n g M a g a z i n e

Eugene Su ’67 has been in Ann Arbor

since 1981, and has a private practice in rheumatology. His wife, Chrisy, is a professor of physiology at the University of Michigan, and they have two daughters: Elizabeth will be a senior at Tufts, and Alison is going to be a freshman at Dartmouth this fall.

Deborah Hinrichs ’68 writes that she

was always in search of a name that fit her, and the day she entered Kirkland College, she introduced herself as “Ibi” (like E. B. White), and has been that ever since. “I still have Deborah as my proper name, but ‘Ibi’ is my everyday name,” she writes. After Harley, Deborah was passionate about community, so she went to Kirkland, a brandnew college to create a new community. It didn’t work out, so she joined community organizations and lived in a collective. Later, she married Booth Dyess, and they worked and traveled all over the United States. She now does freelance photography. Check out her Web site at www.ibiphotography.com.

40th Reunion Class Agents:

Cynthia Roth Pride cyndi.pride@gmail.com Elizabeth (Liza) Sibley lizathenag@aol.com

Sarah Alexander ’69 reports that after 31 years of getting kids out the door to school each morning, that part of her life has come to a close. Her youngest child, Austin Killien, graduated from high school in June, and his sister Annie graduated from Washington State University in May. William Boylin ’69 received news that his first novel, Bedlam, is being published. The novel, about a young psychologist working in an adolescent psychiatric hospital, can be found through amazon.com or barnes&noble.com. Currently, William is a supervising psychologist at Connecticut Valley Hospital in Middletown, and has a private practice in Middlefield.

David Smith ’69: Greetings from Boston (a coastal fishing village in the Northeast with an unrealistic loyalty to a baseball team that has been lucky a couple of times). For 30 years I have worked at Massachusetts General Hospital, providing care for patients with diseases of the blood and cancer. I do some clinical teaching and chair one of the Institutional Review Boards, which approves research studies that involve human beings to be sure the studies are ethical and scientifically sound, but most of my satisfaction has come from one-to-one interactions with patients facing the crisis of their life with grace. Tertiary-care medicine can be a crucible for building an academic career. I have not developed a personality any more forceful than it was when you all knew me, so I doubt I’ll become a professor unless a lot of the hierarchies above me are stricken by something lethal like the plague. I married Sandy Sweetnam, M.D. I surreptitiously admired her from afar for several years, while she was a resident at the hospital, before I asked her out. I didn’t want my slightly higher status to force her to say yes to my invitation to see a nine-hour Holocaust movie (Shoah). My idea of entertainment has been severely shaped by my witness to the narratives of my patients: the world is full of suffering, terminated abruptly. Sandy was wise enough not to take the name “Smith,” but has permitted the proliferation of two more Smiths, my sons, Tucker, 21, and Oliver, 19. Tucker is at Haverford and Oliver plans to go to Pitzer. He’s tired of New England weather and attitude, and looks forward to California. But my worry is that his 1979 Triumph Bonneville, which he is trying to restore to use out there (remember Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance?), could prove lethal if he has a moment of inattention. As most of you know by now, it is difficult to negotiate with teenagers once they regard you as an old fool. I think of all my classmates on a regular basis; it is the peer group by which (I imagine) I will always measure my own progress. It is important to know how everyone is changing, although I cannot be there now. I do promise to continue taking my meds, and keep my eyes open when I bike to work in the dark, because if I don’t, the next 50 feet will be obscured as well as my existential situation. I hope to see you in the future.

Robert Staehle ’73: “To my right is Henry Floyd, champion (with Jack Waite) of the Skylab Student Project, which put the first 19 high school experiments in space. To my left is Steve Hall, the Marshall Space Flight Center engineer (since retired) who made my experiment happen. They let a hippie-looking guy like me into that straight-laced Alabama bastion of rocket science!”

Cyndi Roth Pride ’69, Dee Miner ’70, and Betsy Fisher Miner ’71. Cyndi stopped by to see Dee and Betsy while traveling in North Carolina in March 2009.

Liza Sibley ’69: “Hey, classmates. Are any of you planning to trek to Rochester for our reunion? I am thinking I might and would love to see you all. I bet some of you are old!”

Gary Wolk ’69 and his wife just moved

into the suburbs. “Life is so strange!” he says. He left the ’burbs for the country right after graduation and swore he’d never come back. Well … he is back and near his newest grandkids, with lots more free time for family, friends, and fun. Windsurfing and cycling have taken over Gary’s life—he is working toward a forward loop before he’s 60. The pedaling is for the windless days. He says his real job title is Beach Therapist.

70s

Bill Baker ’70 writes that son Nick gradu-

ated from Harvard in June 2007 and daughter Caroline graduated from Cornell in December 2008. In 2009, Bill will celebrate 30 years as an administrator at Massachusetts General Hospital, where he sometimes bumps into Dr. David Smith ’69.

Charles F. Hosley ’70 is the owner of the Kealakekuan, a Victorian country inn in the heart of Kona coffee country (Hawaii). He is also the owner of Hosley Realty. Fa l l 2 0 0 9

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Randall States ’73 went to Rochester Institute of Technology, where he received a B.F.A. in 1976; then Pratt Institute, where he received an M.A. in 1979; then the University of Connecticut, where he received a B.S. in 1997; and is now enrolled in a master’s program in civil engineering at North Carolina State University. He married Laura Fawcett, director of science education, Yale Peabody Museum, on New Year’s Eve 1991. Their daughter, Campbell Anne Taylor States, just completed a B.A. at Smith College and is working in Philadelphia. Randall is currently employed at GeoDesign, Inc., as a geotechnical (foundations, soils, and rock mechanics) engineer. Randall and all his family have been enjoying 31 Mile Lake in Quebec pretty much every year; 2008 marks 40 years since they first went up there. Many 1973 classmates were up there for a long weekend toward the end of their Harley studies. One of Randall’s favorite memories is that of Ted McIrvine and his trumpet creating a round, with the echo over the lake.

35th Reunion Class Agents:

James Alsina jalsina@rochester.rr.com Shira Goldberg shiragoldberg18@gmail.com Lisa Osborne Lange llange@rochester.rr.com

James Alsina ’74 urges everyone to at-

tend Reunion. Saturday, October 10, is his busiest day of the year at work, but he is going to make the evening festivities. He’s looking forward to seeing everyone!

Vee-Vee Angle Scott ’74 and husband, Jon, live in Reading, Pa. They have two daughters. Their oldest, Genevieve, just graduated from law school and their younger daughter, Lily, will be a sophomore in college; they also have two Australian shepherds that run the family. Vee-Vee is looking forward to seeing everyone at the Reunion. Leigh Dingerson ’74 graduated from

Brown in ’78 with a B.A. and then went straight into community organizing and social justice work: five years as a community organizer in the South, 10 years working in the anti-death penalty movement, first in South Carolina, then in D.C. Then back to community organizing through the Center for Community Change. Leigh is the proud parent of a new book on charter schooling. Keeping the Promise: The Debate over Charter Schools was published

38 | B e c o m i n g M a g a z i n e

by Rethinking Schools in March ’08. A collection of writings on charter schools, and includes “Unlovely: How the Market Is Failing the Children of New Orleans,” a piece she did about the privatization of the New Orleans schools after Hurricane Katrina. She has focused on the issue of the privatization of public education for the last couple of years—how it affects low-income people and people of color.

Shira Goldberg ’74 just completed her thirtieth year of teaching for the Rochester City School District. She is married to Mark Lazeroff and they have a 12-year-old son— Scott, who will be entering the seventh grade at Brighton Middle School. He is a level 9 gymnast at Rochester Gymnastics Academy and also dives for upstate New York at RIT. Shira says she continues to have yearly reunions with Sara, Kate, and Vee-Vee! Marjorie Goldman ’74 has three chil-

dren and lives in the Washington, D.C., suburbs. Her son, Bryan, graduated from Sidwell Friends and is attending Franklin and Marshall in the fall; her daughters are in the 8th and 10th grades. Marjorie works as a fundraising consultant for small nonprofits in the D.C. area.

Sarah Duffus Massey ’74 enjoys her

job in Boston as a lactation consultant. Her sons, Jeff and Chris are on the rowing team at Cornell and her daughter Meg will begin working on a master’s degree at Georgetown in the fall.

Robert (Rob) Ross ’74 (he’s this issue’s cover story; see page XX) writes: “After getting an M.B.A. at Columbia in 1983, I worked in real estate, finance, and development for 15 years. For the past ten years I have split my time between homes in Southampton, N.Y., and Cape Town, South Africa, pursuing a second career as a wildlife photojournalist, which has allowed me to have my camera back in my hands full time.”

(the tallest Harley student last year) is a freshman at Dartmouth, and daughter Catherine is a senior at Cornell. “It has been amazing to reconnect with this wonderful school, and in such an intimate way!” Lisa notes. “I am the first to say I lost touch with Harley for decades, but to have conversations with teachers whom I remember from the 70s and to wander through certain hallways that evoke a memory make this place feel like home all over again. Glad to say there are plans to reconstruct the old Barn out back. The current faculty and staff make this an energized and forwardthinking institution, where no two days are the same. Oh—and ‘Go Wolves!’ See you at Reunion.”

Rob Sands ’76 was named “Man of the

Year” in Wine Enthusiast magazine for his work at Constellation Brands. According to the magazine, he showed an “ability to adapt and evolve, reflecting current consumer tastes and trends.” Congratulations, Rob!

Elizabeth Green Eaton ’78 sends greet-

ings from Virginia! Her husband, Jim, has worked for 20 years for Lockheed Martin. They have three daughters. Jennifer is a senior at Hollins, where she is an English literature and biology major. She is currently interning with National Geographic. Sarah is a sophomore at Goucher College studying dance therapy. Laura is in seventh grade. After many years working in churches directing choirs and supervising education programs, Elizabeth will be returning to school, starting seminary in Richmond in September.

30th Reunion Class Agent:

Will Wadsworth will@bigtreefarm.com

Jeffrey Krist ’79 is in the Air Force in California and hopes to come back for Reunion.

Marti Mayne ’74 and her daughters

Marti Mayne ’74 is living on Cousins Island, near Yarmouth, Maine, with her husband and two daughters (10 and 8) both adopted from China. Her company, Maynely Marketing, specializes in marketing and public relations for B&Bs. The whole family enjoys sailing on Casco Bay in the summer and skiing at Sunday River resort in the winter. Lisa Osborne Lange ’74 started working part time at Harley two years ago in the Communications Office, which she found was a perfect complement to the freelance design business she has been running since 1991. She and her husband lived in Vermont, Grand Cayman, and California before returning to Pittsford. Son Richard Lange ’09

Susan Manning ’79 writes that it’s nice to be back in town again after nearly 30 years away. Susan, who moved back for family reasons, says it’s been great to be nearer to them and to have reconnected with some old friends. She and her partner are in Rush, with their three dogs, two cats, etc. “I am looking forward to seeing everyone at our 30th Reunion,” Susan says.

80s

Joanne Holiday Masterson ’80 is starting a Web design business called Blue J Projects in Alexandria, Va.

The Arts and Cultural Council of Rochester recently selected BOA Editions, Ltd.— where Thom Ward ’82 is an editor—as its Outstanding Arts Organization of the Year at the 25th Annual Arts Award. This award celebrates the accomplishments and impact of our region’s remarkable cultural industry.

25th Reunion Class Agents:

Kate Barnes kateameliabarnes@hotmail.com Sarah Scarbrough Wilner sjswilner@yahoo.com Thomas Witmer tbwitmer@frontiernet.net

Kate Barnes ’84 is living on Boston’s North

Shore with her 15-year-old Jack Russell terrier, Blackberry, who predates the device! Kate is an attorney practicing family law, criminal defense, and general civil litigation. She would love to reconnect with classmates and alumni. Contact her at kateameliabarnes@hotmail.com.

Although Daphrie Laimbeer ’84 did not graduate from Harley, she recently received an e-mail regarding the class of 1984 reunion from Kate Barnes. She is still in Virginia, living with her husband, Matt, and two girls, Eliza (10) and Lexi (3). They are very busy with horses, work, family, and friends. She would love to see everyone … maybe in October.

Rachel Zinman-Jeanes ’84

Rachel Zinman-Jeanes ’84 writes: “A big hello from Rachel Zinman. I so wish I could be there to see everyone at the Reunion, but I will be in Bali teaching yoga at a retreat for Japanese yogis. These days I travel the world teaching at yoga retreats, training yoga teachers, and sharing a form of yoga music called Kirtan with my husband, Nyck Jeanes. Our son, Jacob, is 16, and I still have to pinch myself to remind myself I am 43. It seems like yesterday we were hanging out in the halls and eating donuts in the café. Big love and hugs from Australia.” Thomas Witmer ’84 writes that he and his

wife, Elizabeth, moved to Brighton three years ago because they wanted to be closer to his parents for their children Paul (almost 7)

Dear Class of ’79: Being classmates does not make high school reunions mandatory. I admit that thoughts of going down that road can feel burdensome. I learned not to dwell on the “glory days” but to move on. I went to a few early reunions, then learned to ignore them. In truth, I went to them looking for encouragement and validation, but these were no longer there for me. Harley, like me, had moved on. Years later, I broke down when Laura Bales Barrows ’79 and Paul Barrows ’80 hosted a reunion. I was glad I did because it was a great experience. We laughed at life stories, looked at family pictures, and found out what it was like to look up at Sean March ’79 (he had gotten tall). Real changes had happened for people who, still friends, are willing to share honestly and openly about their life experiences. We laughed and joked. I learned much and left feeling charged up, encouraged, and validated. I had new faith in the connections we had formed as children. Everybody is living grown-up lives full of human truths, joys, pains, sorrows, and wonder. It was good to see that I wasn’t alone. Harley introduced us, we watched and participated as Harley helped forge us, and we left and took what we had into the world. I would love to see you and learn about your journey, to see what you have become. I encourage everyone to come to the 30th Reunion. I’d like to see you again before I become a grumpy old man. Till then I wish all of you all the best.

Will Wadsworth ’79

and Ruthie (almost 5). Thomas is a teacher in Livonia, half an hour south of Rochester. He crossed paths with Todd Hellman ’84 when Todd’s son Aidan and Paul were in the same class together at the JCC.

Gigi and Poet, daughters of Shira Young ’87.

Jamie Clark ’84 writes: “Hello everyone,

I know it’s been a while, a long while. So here is what I have been up to in the last twenty-five years. I went off to college for a year and a half. Then I started with Wegmans in 1986. I did a 4-month stint with the big W in 1985. I did some odd jobs till 1993 while still working at Wegmans, and then went full time with the company. Also in 1993, I met my wife, who is working for Wegmans. We married in 1995 and my first son was born in 1996. I also have a 26-year-old stepson. In 1998, two wonderful things happened, my twin sons were born and I started driving a tractor trailer for Wegmans. The other major event in my life is that in 1996 I was diagnosed with both Crohn’s disease and a liver disease called primary sclerosing cholangitis. The Crohn’s disease is very mild and doesn’t bother me as much as the PSC. I am awaiting a liver transplant, which will be done at the Cleveland Clinic. I am currently living in Scottsville, N.Y., just south of Rochester. It would be great to hear from anyone from our class or for that matter from Harley. You can either e-mail me (jim18wls@aol.com) or call me, 585.690.4308 anytime.”

Lee Goldman ’86 and his wife, JoAnne,

recently had a daughter, Rebekah Anne. Her big brother, Will, is 5 and so far likes having a sister.

Kevin Carter ’88 is a carpenter in San Diego. He stopped in at School for a visit this summer, and took a tour of the new building.

Mark Jacobstein ’88 is CEO of iSkoot in San Francisco. See story page 45. Ian Watson ’88 wasn’t able to make it to Reunion 2008 but sends warm wishes to all. If anyone is flying to Europe and has a yen to take Icelandair and stop over in Reykjavik, he would love to see you. To see his latest baby pictures, they’re at http://ianwatson.org/baby (username: baby, password: pictures). Simon Williams ’88 really wished he could

have been at Reunion 2008. He was only at Harley for a year, but it’s a time he thinks of often and with great fondness. Simon, who is currently living in Dubai, passes through the United States with some frequency, though, so if anyone is living in New York, Boston, D.C., Chicago, or Los Angeles and might have time for a beer, drop him a line. His e-mail is simon.williams@hsbc.com.

Fa l l 2 0 0 9

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Maury Wray ’88 lives in Belgrade, Serbia, with her husband, Andrew, and son, Roland. She works for a consulting firm doing economic growth work funded by the U.S. government, and her husband is a freelance writer. Roland is 20 months old and does the usual tricks.

20th Reunion Class Agents:

Jeanne Charlton Markman piglet@rochester.rr.com Shira Gabriel Klaiman shiraklaiman@gmail.com Paul Sisson psisson@brookfield.com Shea Wallon shea.z.wallon@bankofamerica.com

Hi, All— I apologize for sending a mass e-mail, but I just wanted to reach out and let everyone know that I have made it through my first week of ODS (Officer Development School)! It has been a great challenge with lots of new stuff to learn—how to make a rack, how to march, how to put together my uniform, and oodles of other stuff to memorize! But I have an amazing company; out of 35, 17 are prior enlisted who are now commissioned officers like myself. That has been awesome, because you always have someone who can “check” you and make sure you are squared away. We did get woken on Monday morning with some yelling in the halls by the class leader, who is an LT, but it was when our Chiefs came on Wednesday morning at 0430 that we really got a taste of what life could be like if we did not get in line quick. Nothing like getting your door kicked in and barked at by a mean-looking Chief! But we have done well and worked hard and passed our first uniform inspection yesterday, which resulted in on-base liberty! I now wear the khaki uniform and will try to download some pics to send out! The nicest uniform is the dress whites, but we won’t wear those now. Hopefully we will stay on task and secure on base liberty next weekend and I will get out to see some of Newport. It is beautiful here, although a bit chilly. I am reminded of why I left the Northeast for San Diego and Catania! Thank you all for your support in this amazing new life path! An e-mail from Kaarin Coe ’88

Karin Deutsch Karlekar ’89 was a panelist for a human rights symposium at Vassar in October, given on the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and to observe Eleanor Roosevelt’s birthday. The symposium was entitled “The Small Places Close to Home: Americans’ Struggle for Human Rights.”

Emily Gavin ’89 writes that she and Eliza bought a house in September, and they are really loving it! It’s a little mid-19th-century cottage in a lovely old neighborhood in Philadelphia. They have been in an apartment for the last four years, and this really feels like home in a way they haven’t had in a long time!

90s

Gabriel Racz ’90

writes that he and his wife, Melanie Walker, welcomed their first child, a “beautiful girl named Sonya Racz born November 19, 2008.” They are living in Denver, where he is a lawyer practicing natural resources law.

Kelly Fitzgerald ’91

writes that she and her husband, Dave, welcomed their first daughter, Isla Fitzgerald Caruso, this past February. 40 | B e c o m i n g M a g a z i n e

Jennifer Cyd Rubenstein ’92 and Peter Furia

were married on September 6, 2008, in the Shenandoah Mountains. Jen’s sister Heather Rubenstein ’95 was her maid of honor, and a number of Harley family and friends were there for Jen and Pete’s celebration. Jen graduated magna cum laude from Williams College ’95, majoring in political science. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Chicago, followed by a postdoctoral appointment to the Princeton University Society of Fellows. Jen is now an assistant professor of political science at the University of Virginia. Pete, also a political scientist, is a graduate of Haverford College ’93 and received his Ph.D. from Princeton University, followed by a postdoctoral appointment at Ohio State University. Pete has been teaching at Wake Forest University but will happily be joining Jennifer at the University of Virginia this fall.

Becca Horwitz ’92 reports that she is doing a year-long internship at SUNY Albany as one of the requirements to earn her doctorate. Her e-mail is bchoz@yahoo.com.

15th Reunion Class Agents:

Jonathan Gabel jonathan_gabel@urmc.rochester.edu Michael Turri krylli@mac.com

Harley folks from Jennifer Rubenstein’s ’92 wedding:

Left to right, front row: Darcy Kimmet Koreen ’92, Kim Bednarcyk, Heather Rubenstein ’95, Jennifer Rubenstein ’92, Laura Hirschberg ’92, Judy Hirschberg, Sally Mecher. Back: Diane Doniger In front: Max Bednarcyk ’16.

Shauna Meyer Hylenski ’94 writes that she and her family are currently living in South Korea. She is teaching English as a second language at a university there and is also a dance professor. Michael Turri ’94 married Jennifer Heinegg,

an emergency room physician in Montreal, in September 2008. This fall, they are moving to Palo Alto, where Michael will be pursuing dual engineering master’s degrees in design and renewable energy at Stanford. They are hoping to get to the Reunion . . .

Brian Eichelberger ’95 and his wife, Marilyn, had a son almost two years ago named Greyson Tate, and now have a daughter, Pepper Grace.

Becky Baltes ’97 has been all over the place

since 1997, care of the U.S. Navy. She finished outside of London, and separated from the Navy in December 2007. She did get to catch up with Timon Perry ’97 and his wife, Michelle, before she left, though. Becky is pursuing an M.S. in oceanography at the University of Hawaii. Please look her up if you make it out to Paradise in the next couple of years: beckybaltes@gmail.com.

Ted Townsend ’98 has finished his second

year at Syracuse Law School and was elected editor-in-chief of the Syracuse Law Review for 2009-2010.

Joshua Bruckel ’02 married Amanda Smith in August.

Rachel Present ’02 is working in Wash-

ington, D.C. After a great year working for Rep. Louise Slaughter, she is now working as a legislative associate for United Jewish Communities. Feel free to be in touch at rpresent@gmail.com.

Jillian Waldman ’02 graduated from Swarthmore College in 2006 and received her master’s degree in education and teaching certification from City College in New York City. She is teaching in La Scola Italia in New York City.

10th Reunion

Kathryn Babin ’03 recently took a

Morgan Maholick morganmaholick@aol.com

5th Reunion

Class Agent:

Erica Orange ’99 is engaged to Jared Weiner. They are getting married on November 7, 2009, at the New York Botanical Garden.

Philip Peters ’99 recently reported that he

has moved to France for six months to study French in Paris, and study art at the Pont-Aven School of Contemporary Art. Sadly, he won’t be able to make any Reunion events.

00s

Brian Marriott ’00 got married and had his first child, Landon Isaiah Marcus Marriott, in 2008.

One of our student interns spoke to Lesley Germanow ’01’s mother, who tells us that

Lesley just finished her first year of graduate studies at Syracuse University and is getting “busily involved” in the legal world.

Lindsay Agor ’02 recently left her position

as Motorsport coordinator at Volkswagen Group of America to become a marketing specialist at Nissan North America’s North Central Region office, where she will be involved in auto shows and other marketing activities. She is very excited to be returning to her college alma mater, Northwood University, as the Nissan rep for the 45th Northwood University International Auto Show. This year Lindsay will be organizing the auto shows in Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit, Grand Rapids, Minneapolis, and St. Paul. If you are at one of the shows, please stop by the Nissan booth to say hello. Lindsay is now living in Naperville, Ill. To stay in touch, please contact her via Facebook or e-mail her at lindsay.agor@ gmail.com. As always, if anyone is in the market for a new Nissan, please don’t hesitate to contact Lindsay for a friends and family discount.

new position at Lawrence Academy in Groton, Mass.

Class AgentS:

Katie Baldwin kbaldwin@geh.org Caitlin Forsyth cbforsyth@gmail.com

Katie Baldwin ’04 recently got a job in

development at George Eastman House. Katie, who recently joined the Board of Directors at the YWCA of Rochester, is excited to start her three-year term this fall. Her e-mail is kbaldwin@geh.org.

Brianna Giambrone ’04 is teaching French at Bay Farm Montessori Academy in Boston. Liz Marion ’04 writes: “I graduated with

a bachelor’s degree in neuroscience this past May, and recently wed in a very small private ceremony (officiated by my fiancé’s own mother, no less!). We are moving around early fall to Nova Scotia to join some family up there, so we won’t be able to make it to the reunion in October. We are happily expecting a little baby boy, and look forward to being parents!”

Matt Present ’04 is teaching English in rural Japan, about two hours outside Nagasaki. He can see the peak of an active volcano from his window, and the Sea of Japan is a 10-minute walk from his doorstep. “There is so much to learn and appreciate,” Matt says. Alex Schneider ’04 graduated from Hampshire College in May 2008 and started his job at the Rochester Police Department in June 2008, working as a crime analyst in the Monroe Crime Analysis Center. Alex

An e-mail from Meredith Ciaccia ’08 to:

Alex DeSantis, Kim McDowell, Bob Kane, Larry Frye, Denise Kuebel, James Aldrich-Moodie, John Dolan, and Tim Cottrell I just wanted to let you know how it is truly impossible to value a Harley education until you’ve left. You all have prepared me so well for college. While I knew this when I left, I was not able to truly appreciate it until I got to Hobart and William Smith. On one of the first days of school, some students from my seminar were talking about college professors versus high school teachers. They were saying how they already felt they would be so much closer to their professors than to their high school teachers. They were fascinated that a teacher would give out their phone number or go out of their way to help them after class. This wasn’t anything new to me. Everyone kept going on and on about how much better their professors would be than their high school teachers. I was the only person at the table who could not say that. The devotion of Harley teachers to their students is truly exceptional, and I don’t think teachers at any other school, high school or otherwise, can compare. I got my first college paper back this morning. My professor told me, very seriously, to look at the last sentence of her comments. I was worried, afraid I had forgotten to cite a source, written something insanely inaccurate, or, God forbid, unintentionally plagiarized. I nervously took the folder back to my seat and flipped to the last page of the paper. It read, “This is the best paper in the class. Congratulations.” There are nearly 40 students in this class, first years and sophomores, and the professor is a notoriously hard grader. When I read this, I immediately wanted to e-mail all of you and thank you for everything you taught me about writing during my years at Harley. Writing is such an essential element of college, and is more important than I predicted. Harley does such a phenomenal job of preparing their students for college-level writing, and I just thought you should know that firsthand. Any success I have here is a tribute to your wonderful teaching. I hope to see each of you at Harley homecoming! All the best, Meredith Ciaccia ’08 Fa l l 2 0 0 9

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creates nightly summaries of all violent crime for the city of Rochester. He is also the robbery analyst, which means he creates maps, finds patterns, and looks for suspects in city robberies. In addition, he maintains the shooting and homicide database.

Francesca Pennino ’05 is heading to Honduras for two years to work at an orphanage.

Messages from our newest alumni:

Lydia Waldman ’05 was on the Dean’s List

Paul McIntyre ’06 earned a B.A. with honors from Baptist Bible College this May. On June 6, he married Jennifer Baldwin, a junior majoring in Christian counseling. Paul will begin studies at Baptist Bible Seminary this fall.

Sean, Rebekah, and Kara

Class Agents:

Kara A. Pennino kpennino3@yahoo.com Rebekah Sherman-Myntti skyblue.earthgreen@gmail.com

Tammela Platt ’06 has recently been accepted into the English Honors program for her senior year at Oberlin. Starting in the fall she will pursue a project on musical setpiece scenes in nineteenth-century British novels.

Maxwell Bent ’09 says, “So long, and thanks for all the fish.”

James Greenebaum ’07 is currently major-

Stephen Mann ’09 will miss all his close

ing in evolution and ecology and double minoring in Spanish and human development and family science at Ohio State—all with the goal of entering medical school. He is an RA in a freshman residence hall, as well as a university telecounselor, aiding high school students across the country in choosing the right college for them and informing them of the opportunities at Ohio State. He volunteers at the Medical Center, and is a member of the oldest student service organization on campus, Ohio Staters, Inc. He is also involved in various research projects on campus with Ph.D. students.

Jane Merrill ’08 made the Dean’s List in the first and second terms of her freshman year at Northeastern University.

Sean Sullivan spsulli@gmail.com

friends, classmates, and teachers at Harley; they have become a part of his family. He will especially miss the Harley traditions, and moments of happiness with all the people he has met.

Nikolaus Murano ’09 will miss May Day, class camaraderie, fun field trips, good non-wheat lunches of the “old” days, Focus Week, Pageant with Jay, his trip to Spain, and all of his close, lasting friendships.

Tyler Puls ’09 will miss the welcoming and accepting community and how personable everyone is. He will also miss the chicken noodle soup (a lot!).

Chloe Weiner ’09 will miss most the

comfort she has found in her friends, the teachers, and the overall Harley atmosphere. She will miss seeing her pals at school every day, and wishes everyone the best of luck in the future and hopes that all will find happiness in whatever they do.

Jie Yuan ’09 says, “Thanks, everyone, for the memories. I’ll miss you!”

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Len Wilcox reflects on the retirmement of

Alex DeSantis Over the past few weeks, Alex has been stopping by to pass on certain objects, like posters, hangings, and things that used to decorate his classroom and office. It is a little like having the Metropolitan Museum say, “We’re giving you first shot at some things we are deaccessioning.” Well, at least a little like that. I am flattered Alex has passed these things on to me. These things were carefully chosen by Alex, with his impeccable sense of style and taste, and they symbolize, in some way, our friendship.

fall semester 2008 at Connecticut College, and will graduate from there in 2010.

Luke Lennox ’06 was featured in the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle in November 2008: He is the first player in St. John Fisher history to be named to the ESPN Magazine Academic All-America Men’s Soccer College Division first team. He has also been accepted at the University of Buffalo School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences. Congratulations, Luke!

This year, we watched as Alex DeSantis completed 38 years at The Harley School and moved into retirement. Through his brilliance, perspicacity, and compassion, Alex has encouraged, mentored, and inspired his students and colleagues. We hope he thoroughly enjoys and savors retirement, and we insist that he stops by often.

Alex came to Harley in the early 1970s, when the School was totally different physically from today. The library and theater were still new, and the Barn was not yet a memory. The Barn served as auditorium, theatre, dance hall, lunch room, gymnasium, and senior smoking lounge. Upstairs you found art rooms and offices, one of which was the English office. Even now I have this recurring image of Alex hunched over his desk, deep in conference with a student. It was a younger Alex, with a goatee and bushy head of black hair, but the intensity and engagement was the same then as it is now. Whether it was in that office or in class, the image persists—as indeed it should for Alex is and was nothing if not first and foremost a teacher and friend to his students and colleagues. The image persists because it shows all of us what we want to be as teachers: there can be no better example to follow. Before the formal deification takes place, however, consider some other aspects of Alex. He has worked tirelessly on any responsibility that he accepted over the years—from department head to commencement speaker to yearbook advisor. He has been a colleague whose insights about students always throw light on a discussion. And he has also been a colleague who would jump into the banter in the faculty room, whether it was a discussion of word meanings and origins or as a participant in our silly Karnak sessions. (And if, youngster, you do not know what a Karnak is, ask later and be enlightened.) It is hard to think of Harley without Alex. We all know that change can be a good thing; I mean, the Barn, for all our sentimentalizing about it, was a fire trap that needed to be replaced. But some changes are hard. Alex remains a vibrant and engaged teacher, one whose friendship and comments we value. And as a I look at the things he has passed on to me, (and I don’t just mean room decorations), I know how much he will be missed. But I also know we all hope that he will have an active, happy, and well-deserved retirement. We all wish him the very best.

Former Faculty and Staff Best wishes to our newest retirees—Alex DeSantis (1971 to 2009) and Cindy Richards (1998 to 2009).

Don Backe, head of the Lower School from 1969 to 1977, writes: “My years at Harley taught

Harley science teacher (1930 to 1933) Helen Besley Overington and Tim Cottrell at the home of Helen’s daughter Betty in Maryland, August 2008. Helen celebrated her 100th birthday on July 31, 2007!

Michael Brown, U.S. history teacher at Harley from 2004 to 2007, writes: “I’ve been work-

Alice B. Ritter, Harley librarian from 1967 to 1987, recently wrote that she and Frederick are settled into St. John’s Meadows on Elmwood Avenue and “would love to see any of my old Harley friends who are over this way. I miss the Harley pool, especially now that the ladies’ dressing room has moved downstairs—no cold hall to rush through in a wet bathing suit. I see Maggie Schneider and Pat March (Holbrook) regularly and talk to the Ewells [Bud ’40 and Ruth] and Mary Ann Henderson. Harley is still very dear to me and I read all the news about the School and the students there (even though I don’t know them anymore)!”

me more about learning and the value of depth in the collegial experience. Never have I worked with so many truly thoughtful colleagues or felt the willingness to reveal love of community and persons young and old. Self-expression, when allowed, can be shared for the best results in character and thinking.”

ing toward my Ph.D. in history at the University of Rochester. The campus feels a little more like home when I run into the many Harley parents and alumni there. Of all the many things I miss about Harley, each day, around noon, the good old Harley lunch is foremost in my mind. Compared to it, the U of R’s campus cuisine is something like a Yugo sputtering in the wake of a Cadillac. Some fond memories I have of Harley … hmmm … discussing Nietzsche with JAM [James Aldrich-Moodie] in the bows of a storm-tossed seal-watching boat on the angry seas off Cape Cod.”

Marjory Corwin, a member of the administrative staff from 1958 to 1962, recently received an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters from Keuka College. According to an article in the December 16 Chronicle Express, Penn Yan, N.Y., she started taking courses at Keuka in her 70s and has been a non-matriculated student since 1984.

Dexter Lewis, headmaster from 1977 to 1982, writes: Here’s what I’ve been up to since I left Harley: 20 years of running international schools in Vienna, Kuala Lumpur, and Washington, D.C. Then, joined a consulting group, Search Associates, in 1991 and remain part time with them. I moved to Charlottesville, Va., in 1995 and then in 2007 to D.C., where one set of grandchildren lives. I sit on the boards of schools in Charlottesville and a new bilingual charter school in D.C. We still travel a lot, especially to Austria, where we had a home in the mountains near Salzburg. My son Craig is a partner in a law firm in D.C. and his wife, Jenny, teaches English lit at George Washington University. My son Gordon also works in education, has published several ESL books, and is married to Katja, who is German. We have five grandchildren, and they are all “smart, attractive and athletic.” Our health is excellent. I just turned 74. Memories I have from Harley? My final evenings at Harley in the theater, where there were speeches, Viennese music, and a lot of nostalgia. Harley has a wonderful outpouring of good will and friendship. Oddest memory? Seeing my portrait on the rogues’ gallery of the School heads. Fondest memory? Tough, even tennis matches with Dick Chapman and the emergence of a lacrosse team (I was the coach)—no idea if it is still there. It’s been wonderful to catch up with so many people who stayed on, e.g., the Heweys (John and Bobby), Kelly Fallon, Mike Lasser, Len Wilcox, Ron Richardson, and so many others, especially the Ewells (Bud ’40 and Ruth)—the heart of Harley. Dave McDowell, Harley faculty from 1968 to 1978, recently wrote us about the passing of Bradford Perkins ’42. Dave is currently the executive director at McDonald House of Ann

Arbor. He mentioned that one of these years he’d like to attend the annual Harley Reunion. If you wish to encourage his attendance, or just want to say hello, his e-mail is mcdowell@ rmh-annarbor.org.

Barbara Stirrat, Nursery Yellow teacher from 1986 to 1994, writes: “My husband’s job took us to Louisville, Ky., in 1994. He was director of technology for Olen Corporation. I taught third grade at Christian Academy in Louisville. I received my master’s in elementary education from the University of Louisville and was the lead teacher for third grade for 12 years. Our older son, Mark, graduated from Purdue University as an electrical engineer. He went to law school at the University of San Diego and is a patent attorney in Orange County. He is married with two children, Ethan, born June 2007, and Owen, born December 2008. Our younger son, Brad, graduated from the University of Louisville with degrees in business and accounting. He is a senior associate for PricewaterhouseCoopers in Orange County is currently working on his CPA. My husband, Jay, passed away in September following cardiac arrest and a brain injury in June of 2005. Memories from Harley? I had a blast in Nursery Yellow with Heidi Knickerbocker. We were a great team. There are so many memories with all the Lower School teachers. My experience at Harley made me blossom as a teacher. My creative skills were unleashed and I became the teacher that I always wanted to be. I miss you all and hope to make the Reunion.”

In Memoriam Alumni Elizabeth Gilman Essley ’36 Marcia Levinson Solomon ’39 Nancy Richmond Waggoner ’45 Barbara Ellis Frecker ’46 Frank Little ’49 Terry Mix ’57 Faculty/Staff Catherine Cuddihy Duffy (1946 to 1949) Karen Guthrie (1987 to 1991) Roberta Rugg (1963 to 1982)

Is this your dog, Hank? He has lost his owner! Write us to claim this photo.

Fa l l 2 0 0 9

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Impact Making an

Sarah Clowes ’97 earned a B.S. and M.S. from Stanford University. She worked as a marine biologist at Sea Education Association and World Wildlife Fund before becoming a high school science teacher. She currently teaches marine biology, genetics, chemistry and introductory biology at the Urban School of San Francisco.

laughed

at myself as I stepped into the Centrum to speak at Harley’s Lower School assembly … I was nervous! It had been nearly two decades since I sat in the Centrum as a student. I remembered listening to Jay Stetzer tell stories, watching my brother [Alexander Clowes ’00] perform as Paddington Bear in his class play, and witnessing the annual Halloween parade. I recalled how mature I felt on the first day of Grade 4 as my class took the coveted seats reserved for the oldest students in the Lower School. And I could still feel the dull ache of my legs falling asleep beneath me as I participated in a tea ceremony as part of the focus week on Japan. Now, I was back as a marine biologist for a focus week on oceans. I was nervous because I had no idea how to present to elementary students. I knew how to address professors, businesspeople, and policy makers, but how was I supposed to engage more than two hundred 4- to 10-yearolds? It was daunting, and many of my former, and beloved, teachers were watching. I took a deep breath and described living and working aboard an oceanographic vessel. I tried to make the oceans real and alive—I described catching inconceivable creatures in our nets and mapping the sea floor, and I shared my love for witnessing, chronicling, and trying to explain the teeming complexity of the ocean. The students

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made it easy because they already knew so much about the oceans—they asked thoughtful, probing questions, and our time together flew by. My excitement at sea is not so different from the first time I discovered invertebrates living in Allen’s Creek. We spent most of Grade 6 knee-deep in the creek, monitoring water quality and discovering critters in the mud. Mrs. [Robin Long] Mayshark made science come alive for me, igniting my curiosity and challenging me to ask questions about the natural world. In high school, Mr. [Al] Soanes cultivated my inquisitiveness with explosions and experiments while also emphasizing the meticulous discipline required of good scientific thinkers. Throughout my Harley education, my teachers demanded that I think—they developed my confidence and ability to take on hard questions and to find pleasure and satisfaction in the challenge. I also learned tolerance, teamwork, and trust. When I struggled, there were teachers and peers to guide and support me. Harley built the skills and confidence I’ve relied on in college, graduate school, and my professional life that allow me to take full advantage of opportunities presented to me. My passion for science drew me into the classroom, and I am a high school teacher now. With no formal training in education, I developed into a teacher intuitively. I rely on instinct and on imitating my Harley teachers—I try to make science accessible, challenge students’ assumptions, and push their limits, hoping that I too will inspire a passion for learning.

What I’ve

the random thoughts of Mark Jacobstein ’88

Learned

My first business was bringing fantasy sports to the Internet. Most men aren’t comfortable calling to check on a buddy’s psychic health, but expressing your joy at kicking some a** in Fantasy Football is a reasonable proxy.

Rooting for the underdog: I grew up rooting for the Red Sox, Orangemen, and the Bills, and hence with inexhaustible suffering. My stock joke as to why I’d “invented fantasy sports” (I didn’t, not any more than Al Gore “invented the Internet”) was that I needed fantasy sports to assuage the reality of rooting for the Sox. The truth is that there was great joy in the suffering. If there isn’t a word for self-schadenfreude, a masochistic joy at your own pain, there ought to be. I learned more about leadership on the HAC basketball team from Jack Rosati than anywhere else; when I started my own company I had no formal training but I did understand teamwork. Point guards sit at the middle of the maelstrom; so do entrepreneurs. The tremendous mobility available now in the world is liberating, but is its own kind of trap. My siblings live in Hawaii, Chicago, and Brooklyn, while I’m in California. My grandfather’s favorite word was “nachas” —a Yiddish term to describe the joy brought by one’s family. I’d agree that there’s no feeling more profound; for me it’s encapsulated in watching my nieces and nephews grow up. I’ve also learned to enjoy that my spell-checker thinks nachas should be nachos, which is a different kind of pleasure altogether (Or “all together”? Where’s Mr. Lasser when you need him? Google confirms “altogether”). The massive connectedness of the world brings its own perverse pressure. Clever pithy tweets don’t write themselves. I’ve given up.

status messages and

Spectating is too easy. In college I spent countless hours watching my roommates rehearse with their newly formed band. They had no drummer and I’d always wanted to learn, but I never made it happen. They went on to a record contract and a #1 hit on iTunes, not to mention a decade of living as near-rock stars: fighting off girls, playing packed arenas and sweaty dive bars, wearing chaps and eye liner (in a masculine sort of way, of course), and countless nights sleeping in a van outside of Pittsburgh and Poughkeepsie. Come to think of it, maybe spectating isn’t so bad.

Know your limits. I’ve discovered that my cultural flexibility has limits. Five years ago my firm bought a small

Finnish software company and I went to Helsinki to meet their team. In Finland they celebrate by drinking heavily in the sauna. They also mourn through sauna, heal and recuperate in the sauna, give birth in the sauna, and worship at the sauna. We went to the Finnish Sauna Society, where within minutes I found myself in a 110-degree Celsius room (yes, 110 degrees Celsius) surrounded by 30 naked colleagues. Ah, diversity! Later, having demonstrated that their new American boss wasn’t prudish, I felt able to demonstrate that he was, however, cowardly: while the Finns all jumped in the frozen Baltic Sea (they’d helpfully cut a hole and provided a lifeline,) I opted out. Not without a cardiologist on hand; not in this lifetime.

From Coach Rosati to Silicon Valley to the Finnish Sauna Society, Mark Jacobstein ’88 explores leadership, optimism and the unique diversity of life after Harley. Jacobstein is a serial entrepreneur and CEO of iSkoot, a San Franciscobased company that brings leading Internet services like Skype to mobile handsets around the world.

Sometimes the big ones get away. In 1995, I received a phone call from a likeably eccentric New Zealand-based toy inventor who wanted my company to build his Web site. He’d discovered us because our domain name (smallworld.com) was perfect for the idea he had: creating a database of every social connection between everyone alive. That is, of course, what we would now call a Social Network. “Great idea,” I told him; “Can you pay us to build it?” Unfortunately not, and so I’ve spent 14 years watching his idea unfold elsewhere. Silicon Valley is an eternally optimistic place, and this optimism, drives great innovation. Fifteen miles into a bike ride in the Marin Headlands (California), I was quietly celebrating my success with toe clips, which I’d just purchased and was learning to navigate. It wasn’t until I stopped to chat with friends, and already had one foot out of its clip, that I fell over like an idiot. There’s a lesson in there somewhere about always moving forward. Or perhaps it’s about willingness to fail (and fall). Or maybe just to learn to ride a bike.

Sometimes your vote does matter. My closest friend and first business partner recently ran for Congress. Before the recount and absentee ballots the race was 77,217 to 77,192. The good guy won.

Become what thou art

“Even in your 70s and 80s, you never stop learning or growing.”

Peace Corps volunteer, Fran Curro Cary ’58

To Francine (Fran) Curro Cary ’58, these words aren’t just answers to a question—they’re words she lives by. Cary embarked on one of the most daring undertakings of her teaching and administrative careers: a twoyear volunteer stint, in Ukraine, with the Peace Corps. “I remember thinking the Peace Corps were idealistic back in the ’60s,” she says. “Now, all these years later, I get to join as a senior!” photos submitted by Fran Cary

And Cary’s not alone. According to the Peace Corps, almost 5 percent of their volunteers are over the age of 50; the oldest volunteer recorded was 84 at the time. “President Jimmy Carter’s mother volunteered when she was 72 and said it was one of the most profound experiences of her life. So, it’ll be me and the spirit of Mrs. Carter going to Ukraine,” Cary says. Cary flew to Ukraine in March 2009 for a three-month pre-training period designed to acclimate her with the country’s cultural practices and customs. Upon completion of the training period, Cary was assigned her specific project and location in Ukraine for the next two years.

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“I believe it will be the adventure of a lifetime—opening up new worlds, new horizons, and new ways of being in the world,” Cary says. Cary, a former nonprofit administrator, hopes to put her management, administrative, and teaching talents to good use during her stay in Ukraine. With prospective assignments ranging from curriculum and community development to health awareness and education, Cary hopes she can assist Ukrainians in achieving their goals and making a better life for themselves and their families. “I’m hoping to instill something of value: a positive point of view, serving as a model for social change or just empowering others to do something. Above all, I want to leave behind the message that things can change for the better,” she says. “Americans are good, hardworking people who care about other cultures,” Cary notes. “This trip will bring a new level of awareness of life’s purpose, and it’s an experience that I look forward to sharing.”

A lifelong learner who

• is inquisitive, passionate, and tenacious • is creative, original, and a risk-taker • is a critical thinker and problem-solver • is a clear and forceful writer and speaker • is appreciative of and experienced in the arts • is self-aware and self-directed • is successful in a rigorous college-prep environment

A civic person who

• is a pluralist (globally aware, tolerant, appreciative of difference) • is able to dissent respectfully; is an active participant in the democratic process • is both collaborative and independent • is a respectful steward of community and environment • is aware of what it means to take care of another human being (a compassionate and empathic person)

An individual who

• savors and appreciates life • is healthy (physically, socially, and emotionally) • values fairness and honesty, who is ethical and courageous • is forward-thinking and adaptable • takes personal responsibility

The Characteristics of a Harley Graduate “I give a lot of stuff a chance,”

Jonathan Benjamin ’09 says. Benjamin attributes this to his Guyanese background—his parents both emigrated as preteens and met in Brooklyn years later—and says it has made him more open to different kinds of music and life experience. And indeed it has worked that way; when Benjamin gives something a chance, he does pretty well at it.

In Grade 2, his friend Andrew Guzick ’09 gave him a tennis racquet he was about to throw away. Benjamin had never played, but thought it looked like fun. Fast forward: 10 years later he and Guzick won the State Qualifier boys’ doubles championship match in 2009. In basketball, in his senior year, he scored 542 points—the culmination of four years as the team’s reigning point guard. He’s played the trumpet for six years—the last four in The Harley School Jazz Band. And he’s looking forward to attending one of the top-ranked colleges for business, the University of Richmond. Benjamin is a charismatic leader at Harley—the kind of person, says his advisor, Peter Mancuso, “people just flock to.” His trumpet teacher, Mike Kaupa, echoes that sentiment and says that Benjamin raises the level of enjoyment when he enters a room. For Benjamin, the feelings are mutual. He entered Harley in Grade 1 and told his mother, Harley board member Kay Benjamin, that it was “the best week” of his life. With a twinge of regret, he notes that he just missed being a “lifer” at Harley. So what’s Benjamin like when he’s not in the limelight? After Benjamin’s basketball team lost the sectional finals in his junior year, he found solace in Emily Dickinson’s “Success is counted sweetest/By those who ne’er succeed,” which is just one example of what his English teacher, Alex DeSantis, calls reading with “his heart and his mind.” Benjamin’s favorite course senior year was in philosophy and ethics, because he liked to discuss abstract issues in a relaxed setting. He may not have known that it was called ethics, but teachers have long noticed his sense of fairness: in Lower School, for example, if other classmates weren’t getting an opportunity to play in a game, Benjamin would give up his spot. It does seem as if Benjamin’s always looking to do something for or with someone else, whether it’s “directing traffic” on the basketball court or advising his 11-year-old twin siblings, Jordan ’15 and Kristina ’15, to “each try to be their own person because a lot of people will try and group them together.” In Grade 6, he teamed up with a friend and performed spontaneous improvisational duets instead of the expected solo riffs. His math teacher noticed that he stayed behind at the end of every calculus class (a subject he liked because he found it challenging) to rearrange the chairs in rows as a courtesy to the next class. And he keeps humble. Senior year, before basketball season began, Benjamin requested jersey number 4, a stark reminder of the number of points he had scored junior year in the sectional finals—a game the Wolves lost to underdogs Dundee. In 2009, HAC made a return visit to the sectional finals at Blue Cross Arena, and defeated Dundee. Benjamin was game MVP with 29 points, a worthy number for a jersey. Giving everything a chance—and keeping it all in perspective—are what have set Jonathan Benjamin apart throughout his Harley years.

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Permit No. 1830 Rochester, NY

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Join

Reunion & Homecoming Reunion9-10, & Homecoming October 2009 Register online: www.harleyschool.org October 9-10, 2009

classmates

and friends for an exciting Homecoming and Reunion weekend. Visit with our beloved faculty, attend sporting events, and celebrate with old friends. Enjoy an all-alumni cocktail reception and dinner with your class.

Honoring the classes:

1944 1949 1954 1959 1964 1969 1974 1979 1984 1989 1994 1999 2004