ALUMNI MAGAZINE
FRIENDS IN SPORTS Articles by or about SFS alumni: Steven Stark ’69 Neville Waters ’75 Peter MacDonald ’78 Hans Tresolini ’86 Eric Singletary ‘93 Thomas Kail ’95 Candace McNamee ’98 Natalie Randolph ’98 Ben Van Heuvelen ’98 PLUS: SFS celebrates opening of new Athletic Center
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On the Kenworthy Courts of the new Athletic Center, varsity boys warm up for basketball practice as the varsity girls finish for the day. Photo by Charlie Archambault.
Editor Martha M. Membrino
McGiffert Slover ’86, Philip Terzian ’68
Editorial Board Anne Applebaum ’82, Rachel Brown ’11, Katie Burke ’11, Alan Dessoff ’53, John Dickerson ’87, Margaret Wilner Hut ’64, Peggy Luthringer ’55, Peter MacDonald ’78, Elizabeth Matory ’98, Joan Reinthaler, Laura
Design Mari Foret, Foret Design & Marketing LLC CONTRIBUTING ALUMNI AUTHORS Barbara Morgan Meade ’53, Steven Stark ’69, Neville Waters ’75, Peter MacDonald ’78,
Hans Tresolini ’86, Candace McNamee ’98, Ben Van Heuvelen ’98 Photography Lauren Pauer, Editor; Charlie Archambault, Caroline Ardery ’11, Alexander Barrymore, Lely Constantinople, Steve Spartana, Linda Swan, SFS alumni,
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FEATURES: FRIENDS IN SPORTS 36 . . .Ahead of the Game: SFS Before Title IX
Former Girls Athletic Director Evelyn Fine changed the game for girls athletics.
38 . . The Woman. The Teacher. The Coach.
Neville Waters ’75 looks at the remarkable career of Natalie Randolph ’98, Coolidge High School’s new varsity football coach.
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40 . . France’s Best Setter
Candace McNamee ’98 plays professional volleyball in Europe.
42 . . For the Game . . . For the World
FIFA is more than a soccer organization, writes Hans Tresolini ’86.
44 . . Fostering a Quiet Spirit of Achievement
Peter MacDonald ’78 played varsity soccer at SFS. Thirty years later, it’s a different game under Coach Jorgen Kjaer.
46 . . And With These Feet
Steven Stark ’69 reflects on the power of soccer throughout the world.
47 . . Achieving Disney
Ben Van Heuvelen ’98 shares his thoughts on the challenge of forming an ultimate Frisbee championship team.
49 . . Coaching “Lombardi”
Thomas Kail ’95 is directing—or in his words, coaching— Lombardi, a new play on Broadway.
SPECIAL 24 . . .A Quarter Century of Chinese Exchanges
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and Japanese Study
DEPARTMENTS 2 . . .From the Head of School 23 . . .Remembering Friends 5 . . .From the Alumni
Association 8 . . .Headlines 19 . . .Alumni News 20 . . .Friends Faculty and Staff
28 . . .About Alumni 31 . . .Alumni Bookshelf 51 . . .Class Notes 74 . . .Life Cycles 76 . . .From the Archives
Contact Sidwell Friends Alumni Magazine at: faculty, staff, and friends prepress & printing HBP Inc. Office of Institutional Advancement Patricia E. Carocci, Assistant Head of School for Institutional Advancement; Leigh Bauman, Assistant
Director of Special Events; Leslie Hutchens, Director of Annual Funds; Yvette King, Director of Advancement Services; Kelly Kirk, Assistant Director of Alumni Relations; Martha M. Membrino, Director of Publications; Lauren Mossman, Director of Donor Relations and Campaign Planning;
Lauren Mulcahy, Director of Special Events; Tiffany Parry, Assistant Director of Donor Relations; Lauren Pauer, Assistant Director of Publications; Elizabeth Scott, Advancement Services Assistant; Maria Taylor, Director of Alumni Relations; Jancy S. Tonken, Gift Coordinator
202-537-8137 AlumniMagazine@sidwell.edu www.sidwell.edu/magazine Editor, SFS Alumni Magazine 3825 Wisconsin Ave. NW Washington, DC 20016
› HEAD OF SCHOOL
COMING
HOME In Thomas Wolfe’s last novel, You Can’t Go Home Again, his protagonist claims, “You can’t go back home . . . to the old forms and systems of things which once seemed everlasting but which are changing all the time—back home to the escapes of time and memory.” Written more than 60 years ago, Wolfe’s critique of tradition and nostalgia resonate today; we see the pace of change always accelerating, and we know the future will be radically different from the past. For me, however, this summer was a counterweight to the restless drive of modernism for the new. I am returning to Sidwell Friends after 21 years away at two other schools, and the two greetings I have heard most often from members of the SFS community have been, “Welcome back,” and “Welcome home.” Physically, Sidwell has changed dramatically during my absence. A strategic plan developed and approved by the Board of Trustees 10 years ago outlined a bold plan for improved campus facilities and called for increases in faculty and staff compensation and professional development. With our new Athletic Center recently opened, with our new Meetinghouse and arts facilities scheduled for completion by April, and with major improvement and expansion of facilities completed for Lower and Middle schools, the objectives of that plan are met. I join with current parents, students, and
PHOTO BY STEVE SPARTANA
“...great teaching, talented students, and the meeting for worship where they meet in reflective silence...these are where, as a school, we make our home.” 2
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teachers in celebrating the courage and perseverance of those who led and supported these ambitious plans, so marvelously executed. Now the Board is launching a new round of strategic planning, calling upon all constituents of our School to imagine the educational developments needed to prepare the next generation of students for lives of innovation and service in the heart of the 21st century. The Board has named this process “The 2024 Challenge,” choosing the year of graduation of this year’s prekindergarten class as the target date for envisioning the new educational imperatives for a changing world of work and service. Faculty and staff, parents, and the Alumni Association Executive Board and a number of young alumni have been invited to sit down for discussions with trustees—discussions that we call “roundtables”—to think and talk together about the shape of education in the future. The Board expects to approve the completed plan in June. One thing we know at the outset: in the future, as in the past and present, the hallmarks of Sidwell Friends School will be great teaching, talented students, and the meeting for worship where they meet in reflective silence. These are everlasting. These are where, as a school, we make our home.
› COMING HOME
Welcome Receptions in Washington, D.C....
When Andrew Aurbach ’86, Alumni Association president, welcomed Tom Farquhar at a community-wide reception on September 12 at the Wisconsin Avenue campus, he remembered Tom as his MS physics teacher and as US dean of students. Others present remembered him as their US science teacher and as their cross-country and track coach. In his remarks that followed, Tom noted that, “The return [to Sidwell Friends] is a dramatic contrast to the adjustment I had to make at other schools. I feel that I’ve come home.”
Current parent Charmaine Ramdin, Woods Academy Head of School Mary Worch, and Tom Farqhuar
Recently, Tom has traveled to visit with alumni in New York City on September 30, Los Angeles on November 1, and San Francisco on November 3. He will travel to Boston to meet with alumni in the area on March 15, 2011.
Ted Peyser Jr. ’46 and Lois Hechinger England ’43 Tom’s wife, Mary Grady
Parents Association Co-President Polly Bomstein
Former MS teacher Jeanette Levin and Tom Farquhar
Tom is widely recognized as a talented and experienced Quaker educator, administrator, and teacher. He served as head of Bullis School from 2002 to 2010 and as head of Westtown School from 1989 to 2002. His Quaker roots are deep; his family has been part of the Sandy Spring Friends Meeting for generations. A graduate of Earlham College, Tom earned his master's degree in education at the University of Pennsylvania. A talented musician and vocalist, Tom also completed graduatelevel applied music training at the Boston Conservatory.
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NYC PHOTOS BY ALEXANDER BARRYMORE
› COMING HOME
Tova Ferro ’82, Elizabeth Norment ’70, and Mark Stern ’82
Dahomey Coleman ’91, Ché Chisholm ’91, and Jocelyn Arsht Spielberger ’92
Michael Krafft ’00 and Margot Lowenstein Simmons ’00
...New York City, Los Angeles, and San Francisco Katie Shulman ’06, Margaret Brown ’04, Stacey Asman, Juliet Izon ’03, and Anna Thompson ’04
At the highly acclaimed Columbus Circle restaurant Per Se in New York City, more than 70 alumni from the area gathered in late September for innovative food and a chance to meet Head of School Tom Farquhar and his wife Mary Grady. Tom joked in his speech that he recognized several people to whom he gave detention as a teacher. Alumni from 1948 to 2004 were present, including NYC Club co-presidents, Mai Abe ’88 and Margot Lowenstein Simmons ’00. In early November, Tom traveled to California and was greeted in Los Angeles by close to 30 alumni and guests at the home of Anne Strasburg ’65 and husband Richard (Dick) Lanham '53. In San Francisco, another 30 alumni and guests with San Francisco Club President Olivia Ma '01, greeted Tom at The Cheese School on Powell Street.
Dale Rogers Marshall ’55, Hank Holmes ’53 and spouse Suchada Tangtonta Holmes in San Francisco.
Tom Farquhar talks with the SFS San Francisco Club President, Olivia Ma ’01. Marc Conte ’96 and Paul Urbanczyk ’96 chat in the background.
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Jeremy Gordon ’71, Chris Tufty ’70, and spouse Margot Tufty in Los Angeles
In Los Angeles, Anne Strasburg ’65, hostess, introduces Tom Farquhar to alumni and guests.
› ALUMNI ASSOCIATION
NEW HEAD OF SCHOOL, NEW FACILITIES, and a NEW STRATEGIC PLAN Tom Farquhar has returned to Sidwell Friends and is fully immersed in his new duties as head of school. Alumni here at home and in cities across the country have had the opportunity to get together to welcome him. We’ve gathered at an early reception here in D.C. in September, at a reception attended by about 70 alumni and guests in New York City in October, and at receptions in San Francisco and Los Angeles in November. Boston alumni will greet Tom in the spring. Right from the beginning, one of Tom’s primary tasks has been to help guide the newly undertaken, year-long strategic planning process. Ten years ago, a similar process led us to a master facility improvement plan that is just about complete.
The Athletic Center was officially opened with a ribbon-cutting ceremony at Homecoming. The renovated arts center and Quaker Meetinghouse will be finished in the spring. We look forward to giving you a tour of the new facilities when you next visit the Wisconsin Avenue campus! Now we ask ourselves some new questions: What do we want today’s youngest students to know when they graduate in 2024? What tools will they need? What do we need to do now to plan for the future? On September 25, two of our alumni, Philip Auerswald ’83 and Stephen Chanock ’74,with graduated parent Gail Paster (Emily ’92 and Tim ’96), spoke at a large gathering of trustees, faculty, and staff and shared perspectives on the changing intellectual landscape at the outset of the 21st century and the implications they see for Sidwell Friends School as we prepare our students for the future. (See the box below for their brief bios.)
including Clerk Katie Smith Sloan ’73. Finally, we were pleased with the large response—more than 925 alumni—to the Alumni Online Census and Survey! The survey yielded a wealth of useful information; summaries of some of the results are featured on the next two pages. Among the comments was a wish for more alumni writers in the Alumni Magazine. I hope you’ll enjoy the six articles written by alumni in this issue, which focuses on alumni in sports. Their stories are truly interesting—we thank them for their contributions! I hope we’ll see as many of you as possible at the annual Holiday Party here in Washington on Thursday evening, December 16!
Andrew Aurbach ’86 Alumni Association President alumniboard@sidwell.edu
Alumni were also brought into the focus group process; we gathered for an evening conversation and took the opportunity to share our views with Tom and members of the Board of Trustees,
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Philip Auerswald ’83 is an associate professor at the School of Public Policy, George Mason University, an associate at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University, and the co-founder and co-editor of Innovations: Technology | Governance | Globalization, a quarterly journal from MIT Press about entrepreneurial solutions to global challenges. He recently was a topic leader for the 2010 annual meeting of the Clinton Global Initiative. Stephen Chanock ’74 is chief of the Laboratory of Translational Genomics in the National Cancer Institute at NIH. He is a pediatric oncologist; his professional interest has been
focused on understanding the genetic basis of cancer and related life style choices (smoking, obesity) using the knowledge of the human genome. He is currently investigating how to translate the new findings into novel biological insights and risk prediction for diseases. Gail Kern Paster has served as director of the Folger Shakespeare Library since 2002. She has served as the editor of Shakespeare Quarterly, was a professor of English at GW, and is the author of a number of scholarly articles and three books. Professor Paster has been a trustee of the Shakespeare Association of America and served as president of that organization in 2003.
Alumni Magazine
With science articles by: William Brent ’83 Baratunde Thurston ’95 Brenna Mahoney ’05 Hannah Bristol ’10 and Marisa Repka ’10
FRIENDS IN SPORTS about SFS alumni: Articles by or Steven Stark ’69 ’75 Neville Waters ’78 Peter MacDonald ’86 Hans Tresolini ‘93 Eric Singletary Thomas Kail ’95 ’98 Candace McNamee ’98 Natalie Randolph ’98 Ben Van Heuvelen Athletic Center opening of new PLUS: SFS celebrates
Current and past editions of the Sidwell Friends Alumni Magazine are available as a download through the Alumni portal on the SFS Web site: www.sidwell.edu/magazine. The Alumni Magazine welcomes letters from alumni and friends on any subject of interest relevant to the School. Letters must be signed and include the writer’s class, home address, phone number, and e-mail address. Letters may be edited for length and clarity. Send letters to: alumnimagazine@sidwell.edu or to Editor, SFS Alumni Magazine 3825 Wisconsin Ave. NW Washington, DC 20016 ALUMNI MAGAZINE
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› ALUMNI ASSOCIATION
What kind of programming do alumni want?
August 2010
Alumni Census and Survey How many responded? The online survey was sent in
4,010 alumni. 935 (23%) responded. August to
We heard from all around the world! England Spain New Zealand Ireland Japan
France Vietnam Hong Kong India Netherlands
Norway Italy Australia Romania
Thank you to all those who took the time to respond. We especially appreciate hearing about what you do, where you work, and how you volunteer your time. While this was in no way a scientific survey, the information we gained will help us plan programs and publications for the next five years. 6
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• More events for Jubilees! (Classes beyond their 50th reunion) • Majority of alumni preferred social gatherings over other types of events • Second in popularity were educational events, e.g., guest speakers and lecturers
What have been the most successful events in regional clubs? Chicago . . . . . . . Tour of the Chicago Art Institute Los Angeles . . . . . Community Service Day San Francisco . . . . Community Service Day New York City . . . The Rooftop Reception at Elizabeth Wyatt’s ’89 Washington, D.C. . Alumni Holiday Party Alumni in Atlanta, Georgia, and Ann Arbor, Michigan, would like an alumni reception.
How well are we communicating? 91% of alumni respondents are satisfied with the amount of information received from Sidwell Friends.
66% like to receive information via a combination of e-mail and the USPS, as opposed to just one or the other.
› ALUMNI ASSOCIATION
How do alumni regard the Alumni Magazine? OF RESPONDENTS...
90% thought the balance between alumni and school news was satisfactory.
80% were satisfied with the content. Suggestions for future issues included: • More essays and articles written by alumni (See the six feature articles written by alumni in this issue!) • More profiles on lives of alumni • Stories on alumni in military (Watch for the Spring 2011 issue!) • School’s Quaker aspects and activities • School’s curriculum now and then • Faculty and student perspectives on the curriculum
68% rated the Alumni Magazine as either very good or excellent in its design, readability, photography, and quality of writing. Another 28% rated it as good. Some compared it in quality to university level magazines. The most-read departments or articles, in order, are class notes, about alumni (mini-profiles), life cycles, alumni news, headlines (school news), and feature stories, with more than 90% reporting that they sometimes or always read them.
How many respondents look for SFS online? More than
HALF use the SFS Web site
More than 1/3 read On the Horizon, the alumni quarterly electronic newsletter About 1/3 use the SFS Alumni Facebook page and about 1 in 10 use the SFS Alumni LinkedIn page
Correcting Misperceptions Reading comments and noting responses to questions on the Alumni Survey gives us a chance to correct some misimpressions. For example: • Several who responded to the survey suggested that Sidwell Friends School have an online directory. We do! Simply go to www.sidwell.edu and click on alumni to get to the alumni homepage. After you log in with your user name and password, you will have access to the password-protected online directory. E-mail alumni@sidwell.edu if you have questions or need help logging in. • Others suggested that we hold networking events. Again, we do! One program in D.C. is called Net@Night. The program features guest speakers on topics related to career interests and offers opportunities to network with other alumni over wine and
cheese. The program will be moving up to the New York City Club soon! Check the SFS alumni homepage for more information and watch for the quarterly On the Horizon e-newsletter’s calendar listings. • Many alumni were unaware that they can network with other alumni by joining the SFS alumni community on the LinkedIn page. • Finally, several respondents thought that the Alumni Magazine should be published on recycled paper. In fact, we go way beyond recycled paper! The magazine uses an FSC-certified print house (the highest level of “greenness”), uses only FSC-certified paper, and prints with Eco-Smart inks, which contain the least amount of VOCs on the market today—even better than soy inks!
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ATHLETIC CENTER PHOTOS BY STEVE SPARTANA UNLESS OTHERWISE NOTED
H E A D L I N E S The east-facing exterior wall of the new Athletic Center is lined with glass windows that illuminate the interior gym, just as it beautifully reflects the outside environment.
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› HEADLINES
NEW ATHLETIC CENTER OPENS ITS DOORS From the beginning, Thomas Sidwell institutionalized a strong focus on physical activity for all his students, boys and girls. In 1895 he built the first school gym in Washington, D.C., hired a woman to be the school’s athletic director, and was an early proponent of girls’ athletics. In 1910 Sidwell bought property at 3901 Wisconsin Avenue so that his students could have space to play, and quickly developed a running track, a baseball diamond, a football gridiron, three clay tennis courts, and a playground. Fast forward 100 years. Physical activity is widely recognized by educators around the world as essential to a student’s overall health and development, and the athletic facilities at Sidwell Friends School that were built 50 years ago stood the test of time. To meet the needs of today’s students, however, the School’s strategic plan called for a new facility that would be modern enough to function for the next 50 years, and “green” enough to meet the requirements of the toughest environmental standards. The Athletic Center is now finished. It is deceptively simple in design, beautiful, filled with light, environmentally smart, and ready for the next half century of fun and fitness within its walls.
The Athletic Center’s ribbon-cutting ceremony took place on Homecoming Saturday, October 23. Doing the honors, from left to right, are Head of School Tom Farquhar, Board of Trustees Clerk Katie Smith Sloan ’73, former Board Clerk Josh Bernstein ’81, and Athletic Director Anne Renninger. Behind the group is the newly christened Evelyn Fine Athletic Director’s Office.
The entrance stairway above leads from the campus to the lobby and indoor track level. One level below the track are the entrance to the Kenworthy Courts, the locker rooms, and staff offices.
Randall Goldsborough, PE teacher and girls soccer coach, uses one of the divided courts to teach basic soccer skills during a 5th/6th grade PE period.
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PHOTOS BY LAUREN PAUER
› HEADLINES
The new outdoor turf field above the Athletic Center is marked for football, lacrosse, and soccer. The track that surrounds it will see much action when the track and field team gets underway in the spring.
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inset PHOTOs BY LELY CONSTANTINOPLE
› HEADLINES
The Athletic Performance Center serves many functions: older students, under the supervision of strength and conditioning specialist Chan Cho, use the fitness equipment including weights, treadmills, rowing machines, and stationary bikes. Students use the floor mats for general exercise and conditioning.
Dance teacher Margot Greenlee is delighted with the expanded dance studio, which has room for more students and allows a broader repertoire of dance performances. On either side of the dance studio are the wrestling room, home of wrestling coach Lou Heberer, and the athletic trainer’s office, where Shannon Fooks has the space and equipment to work with students’ minor injuries.
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› HEADLINES
How Green is the Athletic Center?
so green we hope it's
Sidwell Friends is seeking LEED Gold certification from the U.S. Green Building Council for the new Athletic Center.
The indoor track circles above the Kenworthy Courts, passing the windows looking out on to 37th Street.
• The Athletic Center is the first building (other than the Middle School) to have its heating and cooling run out of the central utility plant in the Middle School basement. No extra chillers or boilers were needed for the Athletic Center, and none will be needed for the newly renovated Arts Center and Quaker Meetinghouse. • The fact that much of the Athletic Center is underground helps with energy efficiency. These walls are well insulated, and underground temperatures remain steady at around 55 degrees—perfect to counter the heat generated by solar heat gain, lighting, and the physical activity of the students. • The east (along 37th Street) and north walls of the building are made of tall glass windows, allowing substantial natural lighting. The interior glass walls bring the exterior light even deeper into the building, which cuts the need for artificial lighting. • Almost every room in the AC has occupancy light sensors that automatically turn lights on and off as people enter and depart rooms. The main gym area has many light switches so that courts can be lighted separately. • The lobby flooring is polished concrete, some of which has recycled content, so no additional flooring was placed on top. The wood flooring on the courts and dance studio is made from wood that is FSC*certified—harvested only from sustainable forests. The carpets are made of recycled materials. • Paints low in volatile organic compounds (VOCs) were used throughout the building. No vinyl material was used.
Emily Zinger ’13 practices her piece for the Open House performances in late October.
• The bathrooms have dual-flush toilets and low-flow urinals. • The artificial turf field that makes up the roof of the building needs no mowing, uses no chemicals, uses recycled rubber as an in-fill material, and weighs less than a natural grass system, so it required less steel in the structure below. * FSC—Forest Stewardship Council—an independent, non-governmental, not-for-profit organization established to promote the responsible management of the world’s forests.
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› HEADLINES
Kenworthy Gym Time Capsule Opened! In early November, Whiting-Turner construction workers retrieved the Kenworthy Gym time capsule, placed in 1958, in a brick wall behind the building’s cornerstone. (The building is being renovated as an Arts Center and Quaker Meetinghouse.) The documents were in a copper box that was soldered shut; it took several tools to open the box, including a power saw. Twenty items were inside the time capsule—now stored in the School’s Archives—including a yearbook, directory, Alumni Bulletin, and athletic letters corresponding to each of the three divisions. Also included were the minutes from the Class of 1955 meeting in December 1956 shortly after David Kenworthy ’55 died in a car accident. The class decided at that meeting to memorialize their classmate by raising money and naming the gym after him. Kenworthy was well-liked and served as class president all four years of high school. To view photos from the 1958 cornerstone-laying ceremony, go to www.sidwell.edu/cornerstone.
Construction Update An architect inspects the mock-up that was built in front of Zartman House to demonstrate and test the construction and waterproofing details around the windows, sun shades, wood cladding, and brick wall that will all be elements of the renovated Arts Center and Quaker Meetinghouse. The renovation project is expected to be completed in the spring of 2011.
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› HEADLINES
It’s Bond....Solar Bond!
PHOTO COURTESY OF GROSOLAR
Sidwell Friends School has installed 120 solar panels on the Lower School Gym roof with the help of Common Cents Solar of Chevy Chase, Maryland. Instead of having to come up with the substantial sum needed to purchase the system, the School is piloting a creative financing project which will be a model for non-profits across the country. The SFS community is supporting the project by purchasing “solar bonds” in increments of $5,000. They earn a modest rate of return while also being reimbursed through solar grants, and tax incentives typically unavailable to non-profits. The School will purchase the solar-generated electricity at fixed rates that protect it against inflated energy costs. After the investors are repaid, and the system is donated to the school, Sidwell Friends will continue to enjoy free solar energy for the rest of the expected 30-year life of the system. The solar panels will offset approximately one million tons of greenhouse gases, reinforcing the School’s commitment to a reduced carbon footprint. Lower School students will be able to monitor energy production from computers linked to the system. To learn more about purchasing solar bonds, contact Michael Saxenian, Assistant Head and CFO, at saxenianm@ sidwell.edu or 202-537-8122.
Next-to-New Sale
PHOTO BY STEVE SPARTANA
The SFS community and the general public found terrific bargains at this year’s Next-to-New Sale, held October 21 to 23. This popular sale of quality used items grossed $64,418—just a few thousand dollars shy of last year’s total—an impressive accomplishment given that the lack of space due to construction eliminated the sale of books and electronics. All proceeds directly benefit student financial aid, and community organizations benefited as well: More than 100 bags of clothing were given to Martha’s Table, three truck loads were taken to textile recycling, and leftover items went to area nonprofits, including Noah’s Ark, The National Children’s Center, A Wider Circle, and the Salvation Army. The sale was co-chaired by Anne Honn, Libby Graves, Karen Moran, Jackie Senior, and Lisa Westfall, who were among 150 volunteers who sorted, priced, and sold items for the sale.
The Fun Run PHOTO BY STEVE SPARTANA
Lower School students enjoyed their own competition at Homecoming on October 23. Elliot Woodwell ’20, pictured above, outran more than 25 other students during the morning Fun Run— two laps around the new track.
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› HEADLINES
PHOTO BY STEVE SPARTANA
New Offerings in the Upper School Curriculum The strategic planning process is underway to examine how best to prepare our youngest students for graduation in 2024. In the meantime, faculty members continue to develop new courses, often with the help of faculty venture grants, to meet the needs of current students. Here are the new Upper School courses for the 2010-11 academic year. AP Studio Art for grades 11 and 12, taught by Anna Tsouhlarakis Sculpture, for all US students, taught by Anna Tsouhlarakis
PHOTO BY LINDA SWAN
Tommie Hata demonstrates a procedure for his molecular biology class.
Playing…With an Audience, for all US students, taught by John Elko Discrete Math with Computer Science, for grades 10, 11, and 12, taught by Jon Mormino Multivariable Calculus, for grade 12, taught by Olga Voronkova History of Language, for grade 12, taught by Leigh Gilman Introduction to Molecular Biology Research, for grades 11 and 12, taught by Tommie Hata
The Fall One Acts—2010 The Fall One Acts, directed by Theater Arts teacher John Elko and performed October 15–18, signaled the start of the 2010–11 play season in the Mary Ellen Caplin Theater. The One Acts included three plays by David Ives: Roll Over Beethoven, Captive Audience, and Moby-Dude, or: The Three-Minute Whale; and Christopher Durang’s For Whom the Southern Belle Tolls. Matthew Malone ’11 and Eleanor Clerc ’13 in Roll Over Beethoven
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› HEADLINES
PHOTO BY CAROLINE ARDERY ’11
Once an SFS Parent, Always an SFS Parent!
Golf (5-4) The Quakers scored a fourth place finish in the MAC golf championships at Montgomery Village Golf Club ahead of GDS, Maret, and St. James. Jeff Slade ’12 made the All-League team with an 81 and a tie for fifth place.
If you no longer have children at Sidwell Friends but would like to stay in touch with other parents and the rest of the school community, GRADUATED PARENTS is for you! The organization was formed to encourage and enable former Sidwell Friends parents to stay connected. On November 9, Graduated Parents hosted its third annual Reception with the Head of School, this year welcoming Tom Farquhar. The gathering of more than 130 graduated parents was held in the lobby of the Bruce B. Stewart and Andra B. Jurist Middle School. Next, watch for news of a welcome reception for the newest Graduated Parents from the Class of 2010! And in early March 2011, we’ll hold the annual Winter Speaker program (TBA). Last year’s speakers were Pulitzer Prizewinning journalist, author, and historian Roger Wilkins, himself an SFS Graduated Parent, and his daughter Elizabeth ’01. From the perspectives of two generations, father and daughter discussed their involvement in the ongoing struggle for civil rights and in politics. Previous speakers in the series have included Judy Woodruff and Al Hunt, Bob Woodward, Ron Suskind, and Susan Shreve. We hope you’ll join us!
The golf team is coached by Jeff Ransom, a full-time SFS faculty member and junior golf instructor at Troy Beck Golf Academy at Glendale Golf club. Coach Ransom was the 2008 D.C. All-Extra Coach of the Year.
Sports Roundup Jeff Slade ’12 attempts a putt.
Natalie Vicas ’12 (center) looks on as Toria Rose ’14 moves in to swipe the ball away from Episcopal High School.
Visit the Graduated Parents page on the SFS Web site (Home page>Alumni> Graduated Parents). Questions or offers to help? Contact Shelley Robinson, shelleygr@comcast.net, or Helen Pearson, pearson.helena@gmail.com. SPORTS PHOTOS BY STEVE SPARTANA UNLESS OTHERWISE NOTED
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Field Hockey (4-10) The ISL field hockey teams have become more competitive in recent years; Sidwell’s team lost five of its games this season by only one goal. The field hockey program is led by longtime staff member Anne Monahan, who has been coaching at Sidwell Friends for 32 years. Anne graduated from American University as one of its field hockey team's leading scorers. She played on the U.S. Field Hockey team (1968-1970), which toured Africa in 1970; she played on sectional and club teams for 15 years in the Washington Metro area; and has coached at many field hockey camps.
PHOTO BY GABY GREBSKY
› HEADLINES
Lara Mitra ’11 serves the ball.
Tennis (7-3-1) The girls varsity tennis team had a good season, posting a 7-3-1 record with key wins over Maret and Bullis and a 3-3 tie with Churchill. The team finished second in the ISL A division with a record of 5-1. The only loss came against a strong Potomac team, 3-4. Coach Bill Budke, the tennis director at Sidwell Friends School since 1985 and tennis coach at SFS since 1974, played varsity tennis for Wilson High School in the 1960s and varsity tennis at George Washington University in 1966 and 1967. He played on the W.A.T.C.H. Pro circuit in 1974, 1975 and 1976, and played in China in 1978.
John McGowan ’11 finished the year with a winning season.
Taylor Riley ’11 watches as Kira Ullman ’11 (foreground) bumps the ball.
Boys Cross Country (15-0)
Volleyball (5-11) With injuries to several key players early in the season, the varsity volleyball team worked hard to bring its younger players into the game. The team was pleased to host the opposition at 10 home games on the new courts in the Athletic Center.
John McGowan ’11 had a phenomenal running season. On November 13 he won the D.C./Maryland Private Schools Championship, running the 5K race in 15:19, the fastest time in course history. He won the MAC X-C Championship for the third straight year, won the Georgetown Classic, beat several other course records, and won his race at the Manhattan College XC Invitational in New York, clocking the third fastest time out of close to 10,000 runners. On November 11 John was featured as the “High School Athlete of the Week” on ABC Channel 7 News. Coach Bill Wooden returned to Sidwell Friends in the fall of 2003, having coached from 1988 to 1995. He had prior coaching experience at the University of Wisconsin, and coached for seven years at Georgetown Prep. He is a level 1 and 2 certified USA Track and Field coach specializing in endurance events. Wooden, a lifelong runner, was a nationally ranked runner at 10 miles for several years.
Amber Coleman-Mortley (Coach C) is in her seventh year of coaching at Sidwell Friends School. She graduated from Oberlin College in 2004 where she was a three-year, tri-varsity athlete in volleyball, basketball, and track.
Girls Cross Country At the ISL championships, Sydney Cogswell ’12 finished fifth to make the ISL All League team, and the team placed fifth out of 15 teams. In high school, Coach Gaby Grebski was a two-time Junior All-American in track and earned All-League, All-Section, and All-State honors in both track and cross country. She was a four-year varsity runner at Yale University where she earned All-East and All-Ivy honors in track. In 2008, she earned a world ranking on the Masters circuit in the 800m. ALUMNI MAGAZINE
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› HEADLINES
Boys Soccer (14-2-1) The boys varsity soccer team captured the MAC championship banner, their sixth in seven seasons, and won the MAC league tournament with a 4-2 win over GDS. Nick Roman ’11, Ben Citrin ’12, David Geschwind ’12, and Curtis Oberg ’12 scored goals. Congratulations on a championship season! Read about Coach Jorgen Kjaer in an article on page 44 by Peter MacDonald ’78, who played soccer for Sidwell in Upper School.
Senior Co-Captain Nick Roman ’11 scored the second goal in the team’s 5-1 win over Georgetown Day on Homecoming. Nick was last year’s leading goal scorer and Washington Post All-District selection.
The defense lines up against Frederick County on Homecoming, one of the team’s five home games on the new football field.
Football (0-9) Surviving a winless season, some negative press, and numerous injuries among senior players, the young varsity football team showed grit, determination, and strong team spirit as they pushed for two touchdowns against Maret in their last game of the year. Head Coach John Simon has been with the football program since 1989. His teams won six consecutive conference championships from 2000-2005. Prior to 2010, the varsity football team had compiled a 62-54 record against teams from the public and private schools leagues in the area and a 27-13 conference record since joining the MAC in 1999.
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Sisters Natalia Perina ’13 and Anna Perina ’11 help pace Sidwell’s offensive attack in the team’s 8-0 win over Pallotti High School.
Girls Soccer (16-2-2) The Sidwell Friends girls varsity soccer team had yet another strong season in the highly competitive ISL AA conference. They won the Independent Soccer League (ISL) banner in regular season play, losing only once to Potomac School. The team lost to National Cathedral School in the semifinals of the ISL tournament championship on November 5.
Coach Randall Goldsborough is in her fourth year at Sidwell Friends. She played defense for the University of Maryland under Coach April Heinrichs, who also coached the USA Women's National Team. Before her arrival at Sidwell, Randall coached soccer at the high school and college levels, most recently for three years as assistant coach at Franklin & Marshall College.
› ALUMNI NEWS
College Dinners The Alumni Office regularly visits colleges and universities where more than a few Sidwell Friends alumni attend. Kelly Kirk, the new assistant director of alumni relations, traveled in late October to the University of Pennsylvania and Haverford College. Alumni were treated to dinner and were invited to send greetings back to their favorite teachers. Earlier that month, Director of College Counseling Eric Monheim visited with students at Washington University in St. Louis. In November, staff members Lauren Mossman and Tiffany Parry visited with students at the Claremont Colleges in California. And in September, Tufts University student Sadie Lansdale ’08 hosted a dinner for SFS alumni at the university. Reported Amsie Hecht ’09: “It was really great to reconnect with some students I hadn’t seen in awhile and it gave everyone a chance to share advice with underclassmen, particularly new freshmen.”
Tufts University. From left to right: Iman Jawad ’08, Michael Marks ’10, Cody Hochheiser ’08, Lumay Wang ’07, Matthew Repka ’07, Amsie Hecht ’09, Catherine Heyward ’09, Jazmin Rodriguez ’09, Sadie Lansdale ’08, Manuela Rojas ’10. Also in attendance but not pictured: Cantwell Muckenfuss ’06, Hans Ege Wenger ’10, and William Lyoo ’09
University of Pennsylvania. From left to right: Sophie Feldman ’09, Chris Miller ’10, and Amrit Malothra ’09
The Claremont Colleges. Luke Mastalli-Kelly ’10 and Maggie Shafran ’10
Haverford College. Amalya Henderson ’07 and Andrew Ross ’07
Washington University in St. Louis. Clockwise from left: Daniel Duggal ’10, Director of College Counseling Eric Monheim, Eric Salzberg ’07, Elizabeth “Bitsy” Cayne ’07, Alex Akman ’07, David Hirsh ’08, and Stephen Johnson ’08
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› FRIENDS FACULTY
friends faculty & staff:
three who studied abroad Sidwell Friends encourages its faculty to regularly enhance their knowledge of the subjects they teach. To make that possible on a global scale, the Faculty Venture and Travel Grants Program offers summer opportunities for faculty professional development, offering financial assistance to faculty members who are interested in improving the curriculum, developing new courses, or exploring new teaching strategies and methodologies. The following excerpts are from the reports of the three faculty members, one from each division, who traveled abroad this summer. Lower School kindergarten teacher Liz Wilson traveled to Italy to study culinary traditions.
Lower School teacher Liz Wilson and friend Amy Vogt in the room where the cheese wheels age at the Coop Casearia Castelnovese, a parmigiano reggiano cheese factory in Modena, Italy.
Until I took this trip, I didn’t see myself as someone who is strongly influenced by American culture in terms of my diet. I have been vegetarian for decades, eat ethnic food regularly, and rarely set foot in a fast food restaurant. This focus on nutrition is also reflected in my classroom’s food study, as our most intensive unit of the school year is nutrition. But once I arrived in the land of pasta and cheese, the topic of nutrition rarely came up. Our talk centered around the quality of the food in front of us, the delicious flavors, the colors on our plates, the textures in our mouths . . . and where the food was grown. This approach stood in stark contrast to the American emphasis on nutritional science and marketing, as well as the prevalence of highly processed and fast foods in the United States. During my travels I saw ample evidence of the value placed on traditional cuisine. I learned that it takes a minimum of 12 years of aging vinegar in different types of wood to produce little bottles of traditional balsamic vinegar. I also visited a variety of food-producing sites, such as a parmigiano reggiano cheese factory, the olive groves of Tuscany, and two organic farms that make honey and Pecorino cheese. These site visits are part of what the Slow Food movement is about: linking consumers with producers and developing a greater appreciation of all that it takes to bring a food to the table. One of my greatest hopes as a teacher is to ignite a curiosity and love of learning in the children I teach, so that our food curriculum expands outside of the classroom and into the daily food choices they make. By showing our students that it’s fun
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› FRIENDS FACULTY
and worthwhile to take the time to get good, fresh ingredients and cook them, we can begin to counteract the influence of our culture’s fast food mentality.
Upper School science teacher Susan Wooden traveled to Germany, Austria, and Denmark to trace the historical beginnings of quantum mechanics.
Middle School drama teacher Tim Reagan traveled to Ireland to study Irish culture.
On August 16, I visited the Neils Bohr Institute at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark. Neils Bohr was a Danish physicist who held yearly meetings of a quantum mechanics group in Copenhagen. I stood at the podium in the classroom where these meetings occurred. I noticed a toy cannon and trumpet on a shelf in the back of the room. If one of the participants felt that a good idea was offered, he or she got up and blew the horn. If the idea fell flat, someone shot it down with the cannon.
From the pagan Celtic age, to the fifth century when Saint Patrick converted Ireland to Christianity, to Oliver Cromwell and the Great Famine, Ireland’s resilience is evident in its beautiful terrain, early and contemporary architecture, simple cuisine, and lively culture. An experience that stands a cut above the rest is a performance piece that I attended called 2 Dimensional Life of Her as part of the Cork Midsummer Festival of the Arts. This visual piece fooled the naked eye as everything thought to be still or flat became something else through animation, puppetry, projection, and paper. Drawings reproduced themselves, drifted between surfaces, and moved in and out of three dimensions. The typical rules of space, structure, change, and time were all broken in this piece, as my sense of reality was teased and blurred. I hope to draw upon the style of this piece for an original script for Middle School on Quakerism in the future. The Garden of Light at the Street Performance World Championship was a surreal, dreamlike experience in 7,500 square feet of room-sized bubbles that used only the light from the sun for illumination. Other memorable visual experiences included learning how to make fantastic hats out of sheets of paper from Paul Henri of the Ministry of Silly Hats and a visit to the National Gallery of Ireland. (Look for silly hats on our campus!)
US teacher Susan Wooden saw Lise Meitner’s and Otto Hahn’s lab bench from Berlin Technical University, where they investigated atomic fission.
Otto Hahn and the only woman in the group, Lise Meitner, accomplished the first splitting of an atom with a heavy nucleus into lighter elements. I visited the site of their laboratory, which is now part of the Berlin Technical University. The building is currently being renovated, and I had to climb a scaffold on the exterior of it in order to see the plaque commemorating their work. A few days later, in the Deutsches Museum in Munich, I saw both the actual lab bench where Meitner and Hahn did their experiments and Lise’s personal lab journal. In 1938, Meitner escaped Germany, but Hahn remained behind in Berlin and became a leading scientist in Germany’s quest for atomic weapons. He, along with their lab technician, was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for his and Meitner’s work on atomic fission. After the war, Meitner publically stated that she would never forgive him for collaborating with the Nazis and for helping them deny her what she called the “ultimate recognition” for her life’s work. MS teacher Tim Reagan visited Inisheer, the smallest and most eastern of the three Aran Islands in Galway Bay, Ireland.
My experiences on this trip made the physicists and chemists I
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have long read about come alive, and I will be sharing what I learned with my classes and the classes of a number of my colleagues in the Upper School science department.
Middle School Math Teacher Nina Koltnow is presenting a workshop at the 2011 National Association of Independent Schools (NAIS) Annual Conference in Baltimore at the end of February. Presenting with colleagues from Aboard Spaceship Earth Project in North Carolina, the workshop will explore a global curricula that “connects” hands-on tools with high-tech digital data. The interactive workshop will envision new classroom designs by showcasing a large, user-friendly global floor map, with kinesthetic graphing disks and geometric modeling tools that can be used in any classroom. Lower School Technology Director Jenni Swanson Voorhees is contributing her expertise as a technology educator on a panel at the NAIS Conference. She is a member of the NAIS 21st Century Curriculum/Technology Task Force, which is made up of 20 technology educators from NAIS schools who work together to consider the most vital issues and topics schools must face as they look to the future of education. Last year the Task Force was asked to create critical questions for independent schools as they consider participating in online learning as part of their school programs. Jenni and Lower School Librarian Angela Smith have developed a forward-thinking curriculum that blends the worlds of library and technology. In June, they presented their work at the International Society of Technology in Education (ISTE) conference in Denver, Colorado.
Middle School Librarian Cynthia Grady is serving on two national book award committees this year: NCSS—National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS) Notable Trade Books for Young People, and the Newton Marasco Foundation’s Green Earth Book Award (nonfiction category). Cynthia and Patt Moser, director of information services, each have published an essay in the new book, Independent School Libraries: Perspectives on Excellence, edited by Dorcas Hand and published by Libraries Unlimited, 2010. Cynthia’s essay is entitled “Don’t Lose It All: Disaster Planning” and Patt’s is “Faster Than a Speeding Bullet: Technology in Independent School Libraries.” The 21 essays in the book discuss myriad best practices for independent school libraries. Lower School Principal Richard Lodish, EdD, contributed several chapters to the recently published book, The Learning Tree: Overcoming Learning Disabilities from the Ground Up (Da Capo, 2010). The book is the fourth and final collaboration between clinical psychiatrist Stanley Greenspan and his wife, Nancy Thorndike Greenspan: Stanley Greenspan died shortly after finishing it. The Greenspans’ approach to improving the learning skills of learningdisabled children is laid out in the form of a tree: trunk, roots and branches, where the “trunk” is a child’s ability to think; the “roots” are the sensory systems; and the “branches” are specific academic skills. Lodish’s chapters demonstrate how Greenspan’s methods are used in the classroom at Sidwell Friends.
More than 150 Sidwell Friends faculty, staff, alumni, trustees, and their friends and spouses participated in a special SFS screening of Waiting for Superman at the Bethesda Row Cinema on Sunday evening, October 23. Following the viewing, Head of School Tom Farquhar wrote: “Filmmaker Davis Guggenheim ’82 has created another blockbuster [his first was An Inconvenient Truth, with Al Gore] that has the potential to be a game-changer in the national dialogue about urban public education. Eric Adler ’82 led the follow-up discussion that enriched our encounter with the challenging themes addressed in the film. Eric is the co-founder of the SEED Foundation and the SEED Schools, which played an important role in the film. To mark the occasion, Davis sent a brief animated celebration of teaching and teachers that Bethesda Row Cinema kindly projected for us immediately prior to the feature presentation. He singled out one particular individual, his SFS history teacher Harvey LeSure, who passed away in 1998. It’s only a couple of minutes long, but the sentiments are priceless!” To view, go to www.sidwell.edu/alumni. 22
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PHOTOS COURTESY OF SFS ARCHIVES
› REMEMBERING FRIENDS
H. HALL KATZENBACH JR., 100, died on May 22, 2010, in Bethesda, Maryland. Katzenbach came to Sidwell Friends in 1942 as an Upper School English teacher and spent 42 years at the School. He served as principal of the Upper School from 1965 to 1972 and also held stints as Dean of Boys, drama teacher, faculty adviser to the Quarterly, boys’ varsity soccer coach, and the School’s first cross country coach. But it was his role as English teacher that most endeared him to his students. Robert Morris ’80 wrote in 1997: “Everyone knew Hall Katzenbach. You’d watch him shuffling down the hall because he was a legend; an uncompromising, adamant genius who, the older students said, knew everything about literature. But he also knew when to wave his finger in the air upon reading Hamlet’s soliloquies; he knew how to rage as well as any American when reading Dylan Thomas; he knew how to care about workers when reading Carl Sandburg; and he knew when to pause, when to dab a tear from his eye when conveying the vision of a poet named Emily Dickinson who, he said, did nothing more than write a poem a day. His passion was contagious, his intellect invincible, his taste exquisite. Hall Katzenbach will live forever because we will always hear the lilt, the fire, and the compassion of his voice in ours.” He is preceded in death by his wife Helen; a daughter, Victoria Mahan Hill ’62; and a son, Hall Katzenbach III ’74. Survivors include a daughter, Ann Katzenbach ’58.
LILA GORDON, 78, died on August 5, 2010. She was principal of the Upper School from 1987 to 1992. Head of School Tom Farquhar attended her memorial service on August 8 at the Jewish Family Congregation in South Salem, New York. He writes: “In the eulogies for Lila Gordon, family members honored the memory—theirs and ours—of an exceptional person. Somehow, Lila made us all better, as teachers and as people. She and I only worked together for two years (1987-1989) after she began her service as Upper School principal here at Sidwell Friends, but our partnership developed quickly. She held herself to a high standard and she never took the easy shortcut to gain the approval of students and teachers. Instead, she expected much of us. She was unimpressed by mere cleverness, but responded warmly to the authentic voice of individuality in others. This quality lay at the core of her connection with Quaker education. Later, I was pleased to be occasionally reunited with Lila when she became head of Oakwood Friends School. But warm greetings twice a year at conferences were a thin substitute for the joy of daily problem-solving with a colleague in school leadership who was bright, principled, creative, energetic, fearless (at least outwardly), and funny. The service was a time of sorrow and remembrance, and in its warmth, honesty, humor, and family and community feeling, a perfect tribute for Lila.”
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A Quarter Century of Chinese Exchanges By Lauren Mossman
Yili Gu ’11 (2009-10 student)
. . . . At first I couldn’t really understand why people were always talking; even in class, teachers like to have some “distracting moments” hanging out with students. I enjoyed that just as I enjoyed every class, but it confused me for a while. The most interesting thing was living with my host family, because that was when I feel I’m so close to another culture. Every day we set the table and had dinner together. I felt it was very formal; at least, it was formal enough for a family dinner. But it was also warm enough for a home dinner, as we shared interesting things that happened during the day. I also learned how to play chess here, and we always played on weekends . . . . I really enjoyed living this kind of independent and challenging life.
Endowed in 1982, the John Fisher Zeidman ’79 Chinese Studies Fund honors the memory of John Zeidman ’79, whose passionate interest in China inspired his decision to learn Chinese at Duke University and to spend his junior year of college studying at Beijing Normal University. While in China, John contracted viral encephalitis. He went into a coma and, after a period in a Chinese hospital, was evacuated to the United States, where he died in January 1982. After his death, John’s family and friends established the fund, and Sidwell Friends’ Chinese Studies Program was formally inaugurated in the 1983–1984 academic year. As John’s father Philip wrote recently, “One of the reasons for our focus on an exchange program was the history of John’s own presence in China. His informal tutor in Chinese at Duke had come to America to become the first woman to obtain a PhD in the social sciences. Her husband remained in China with their two sons. As luck would have it, he was the Chinese government official in charge of foreign students. He was not only enormously helpful to us during our difficult times, but also befriended John. Through him we learned something about the value of, but limited opportunities for, exchanges of students.” Chinese Studies at SFS began with two courses: one class on Chinese language and one on the country’s history and culture. Philip Zeidman knew that establishing a student exchange was a logical next step. “It was clear from the outset that an exchange would be part of the program, which—after all—arose from a young man going to China,” says Philip. “From the absolute first minute, we thought that this program needed to extend to other schools.”
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PHOTO COURTESY OF SFS ARCHIVES
Chinese Premier Zhao Ziyang provided the opening for that next step. On January 12, 1984, Premier Zhao’s visit to Sidwell Friends School’s fledgling Chinese Studies Program sparked the exchange initiative that has continued almost uninterrupted— through various incarnations and the vagaries of world politics—for more than a quarter century. Lucia Pierce, the first director of the Chinese Studies Program, wrote in the Spring 1984 Alumni Magazine that the premier “talked [to the Chinese Studies students] of John Zeidman and then he dropped the bombshell: ‘On behalf of the Chinese government, I would like to extend an invitation to all the students here in this class and to the headmaster of the school, and we will play host to you.’” When asked recently about Premier Zhao’s visit, Lucia recalled her reaction to his invitation: “I remember thinking, ‘That’s really nice. I bet he has to say that to everyone, though.’ And then the next day the Chinese Embassy called!” Sidwell Friends students and administrators did, indeed, visit China in the summer of 1984—only five years after the establishment of diplomatic relations between the People’s Republic of China and the United States in 1979. While there, they received a second bombshell: an offer of Ministry of Education scholarships for two SFS students each year to study at Beijing Normal University. Then-Head of School Earl Harrison reciprocated with an offer of two scholarships to Sidwell Friends for high school students from the High School No. 2 Attached to Beijing Normal University—and SFS’s exchange program was born. Since then, 30 Chinese Scholars—initially hailing from the High School No. 2 Attached to Beijing Normal University and, later, including students from the High School Affiliated to Fudan University—have joined the Sidwell Friends community. As the program has evolved, the ages and goals of the participating Chinese Scholars have changed; what remains a constant, though, is the opportunity the exchange gives high school students to connect with peers from across the globe.
Chinese Premier Zhao Ziyang visits a Chinese Studies class at Sidwell Friends on January 12, 1984.
Mengyuan (Laura) Liu ’10 (2008–09 student)
Academically, my Sidwell Friends year was the first time that I was able to choose the classes I wanted to take. At the beginning of the year, I missed the content of the class sometime, but the teachers and students were very willing to help me out. I was especially impressed by the discussions in my history and English classes compared to the more lecture-style classes in Chinese high schools. I learned about analyzing primary sources, structuring thoughts into essays, and writing research papers. Socially, I was exposed to a totally different lifestyle both at the School and with my host families. Since I was in Washington, D.C., during 2009, I had to talk about the presidential election. Politics had always been alien to me before I came to SFS, but watching the election debate with my host family, participating in campaigning for Obama, and witnessing Obama’s inauguration made me realize that democracy is rooted in the involvement of individuals, not simply in the casting of ballots. As a Chinese exchange student from a typical Shanghainese family, I think I brought to the School perspectives that were sometimes different from other students’. . . . Once I returned to China, I talked to my friends at home about . . . the changes of my concepts and the lessons I learned. By talking about my experiences at Sidwell Friends, I hoped I could be an agent of change.
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PHOTO BY ALEXANDER BARRYMORE
Manxi (Mancy) Cao ’09 (2007–08 student)
. . . . The year [at Sidwell] showed me much more than I expected. I knew that SFS had about 15 students in one class as opposed to 50 back in China, but I did not know there would be circumstances when students brought in cookies and cupcakes to share in class. I had heard about Meeting for Worship, but I did not understand its meaning until I sat there hearing someone I had not known before telling something that came out of his or her deep heart and started to feel that we had long shared something in common. I expected tough challenges and sincere friendships on sports teams, but I could not imagine the anxiety, excitement, and happiness in a game before I stood on the field shoulder by shoulder with my dear teammates. I was prepared for people’s questions and comments about China, but I had never pictured discussing a political issue with a friend until deep in the night only to find that although we understood better why each other would hold such different opinions, the so-called truth remained unclear. Gradually, I realized that I was exposed to what made my beloved friends American and started to be more aware of what made me Chinese. . . . I found that the most precious thing during the year was that despite our various backgrounds, we came together, started to achieve mutual understanding, and loved each other. . . .
Minhua Zhang ’01 (far right) with Joanna Wolfson and Can Baysan ’01 at the New York City reception in October to welcome new Head of School Tom Farquhar.
Minhua Zhang ’01 came to Sidwell Friends from the High School Affiliated to Fudan University in 2000. He had already been admitted to Fudan University, but he declined the university’s offer in order to study at SFS. Upon arriving in the United States, Minhua found that while “almost every detail of life was so shockingly different,” one difference that really stood out was Meeting for Worship. Discussing Meeting, Minghua says, “I was shocked that people could sit in silence for so long. At the end of the year, I actually stood up to talk about my own experiences. That’s something I never thought I’d do in China.” Minhua was an outstanding physics student; in fact, physics teacher George Lang says, “He was truly incredible—he knew so much more than I did, and I was the teacher.” He went on to study physics and mathematics at Harvard and now, when asked for words of advice to share with new exchange students, he says the most important thing to remember is to “keep an open mind, because a lot of things were strange and different from my past experience. If you’re willing to accept the differences as simply a way of life to other people, you’ll learn more.” The opportunity to learn more lies at the heart of the exchange program’s mission. The 1988 Zeidman Memorial Lecturer, Chinese Ambassador Han Xu, stated, “The importance of educational exchanges cannot be overstressed. When our young people grow up with a better understanding of each other, they will be better able to shoulder the heavy responsibility of ensuring the sound growth of U.S.-China relations.” More than two decades later, Director of Chinese Studies John Flower’s description of the exchange program sounds a similar note: “The student exchanges with our sister schools in Beijing and Shanghai have always been an essential part of the Chinese Studies program, and they continue to enrich the life of the School in both programmatic and informal ways. As those exchange relationships develop in an increasingly interconnected world, the Chinese students will become even more important points of contact for broader exchanges and collaborations among our schools. The future is clearly toward more and more creative collaborations like this.” Lauren Mossman is a staff member in the Office of Institutional Advancement
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Back by popular demand!
Reiko Kanda, Mikio Kanda, and Ellen Pierson after the Upper School assembly that featured student reports about their summer trips to Japan.
The Sidwell Friends Alumni Office, in conjunction with the alumni offices of Georgetown Day, Maret, and St. Stephen’s & St. Agnes Schools, welcomes the return of Ed Steinberg, Senior Relationship Manager at LinkedIn, as he talks to us about how to make the best use of the popular professional networking site. JOIN US!
Please join us for wine and cheese and a bit of professional networking!
. . . And 25 years of Study in Japan
The Japanese Language and Culture Summer Study Program For 25 years, Sidwell Friends School has sent four of its sophomores and juniors, three students from area schools, and one Sidwell Friends faculty or staff member to Japan for approximately three or four weeks during July and August. The program is sponsored by Mikio Kanda, president of the U.S.-Japan Culture Center, and funded by Tokugen Kimura, director of the Zenrinji Ryugekai Foundation. Its mission is to help students learn about the culture and history of Japan and to foster cross-cultural friendships. Activities vary each year but in previous years have included home-stays in Tokyo, a visit to Hiroshima, and some time in Kyoto. The group is accompanied by English-speaking Japanese university students who have been involved in the planning of the program. In preparation for the visit, the faculty chaperone and students study the Japanese language and attend several evening orientation sessions. On October 6, all Sidwell Friends participants of the 2010 Japanese Language and Culture Summer Study Program presented reports of their experience to the Upper School. Kanda and his wife Reiko, parents of SFS alumnae Yumi ’86 and Midori ’89, attended the assembly and were honored for their sponsorship with a tribute by Ellen Pierson, director of the School’s program. Pierson, who is executive assistant to the Upper School principal, has served as chaperone for two of the summer trips, coordinates logistics, and welcomes Japanese visitors. She is a strong supporter of the program and sees great value in the cross-cultural friendships that have developed over the years.
Stewart Middle School Building on the Wisconsin Avenue campus Tuesday, February 8, 2011 6:30 p.m.
Call For Alumni in the Peace Corps or U.S. Military Did you or do you now serve in the Peace Corps or the U.S. Military? Let us hear from you! See page 63 for details and send your news to Martha Membrino, editor, at membrinom@sidwell.edu by February 1. If possible, attach a high resolution photo of yourself at work.
The program will be offered again for the summer of 2011.
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› ABOUT ALUMNI
In the Arts
In Business
Christopher Tufty ’70 worked almost six years as a cinematog-
In 2004, the New Atlantic Independent Booksellers Association established a Legacy Award to recognize those individuals who have contributed significantly to the realm of American arts and letters. NAIBA has chosen Politics & Prose owners Barbara Meade ’53 and the late Carla Cohen to receive the 2010 NAIBA Legacy Award. The award was presented at the NAIBA Fall Conference’s annual Awards Banquet on Tuesday, September 21, at the Trump Marina Hotel in Atlantic City. Previous winners include Anne Tyler, Joyce Carol Oates, and Louis Auchincloss.
rapher on the documentary Not in God’s Name: In Search of Tolerance with the Dalai Lama, which aired in May on public TV stations across the country. The movie, produced and directed by Paula Fouce, follows the Dalai Lama on a journey to understand religious intolerance. In conversations with theologians and leaders of many faiths, Not in God’s Name examines the similar values of all faiths and their potential for drawing people together to share a common ground. In a message to the Alumni Office, Tufty wrote that he was “forever grateful” for the opportunity to meet the Dalai Lama in Darmsala, India.
Robin Weigert ’87 is starring in a revival of Tony Kushner’s twopart play, Angels in America, which debuted on Broadway at the Walter Kerr Theatre in 1993. Ellen McLaughlin ’76 played a starring role as the angel in the original cast, the role that Robin is now playing with the Signature Theater Company in New York. Both parts of the work, Millennium Approaches and Perestroika, were awarded Tony Awards for Best Play back to back in 1993 and 1994 respectively. Both also won back-toback Drama Desk Awards for Outstanding Play.
Greg Henry ’87, head of production for part2 pictures, a documentary production company, was nominated for Outstanding Individual Achievement in a Craft: Writing for Hard Times, a National Geographic documentary. The 31st Annual News and Documentary Emmy Awards, which honor programming distributed during the calendar year 2009, nominated Greg’s company for three Emmy Awards in the documentary/craft category. Winners were announced on September 27 in New York City. Shoma Kimura ’08, an economics and mathematics major at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland, with three of his classmates, is working on a project called We Care, which has just launched its Web site, whocares-doyou.com. Shoma interviewed CFO Mike Saxenian recently about the green Middle School building, and created a video that became the first of several that he has made for the Web site with professionals speaking about topics in the area of sustainability. The main objective of We Care is to send to the G20 Summit in Seoul in November 2010 and the World Economic Forum in January 2011 a letter with as many virtual signatures as possible to those capable of making policy changes, reminding them about the importance of sustainability on both a global and a local scale.
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Pleasant Lake House Bed and Breakfast, located in Casco, Maine, is run by Ellen Umbarger ’76 and her husband. The house is one of the oldest houses in Casco, built on the shore of Pleasant Lake on the north side of the lake’s outlet. The B&B has several guest rooms, a seasonal cottage, a private beach, and canoes, with trails for hiking and horseback riding. In the winter, guests can go ice skating, ice fishing, cross country skiing, or ride the snowmobile trails. In July 2010, Tom Sietsema, food critic for the Washington Post, reviewed Acqua al 2 on Capitol Hill, an Italian restaurant owned by Ralph Lee ’00 and his business partner and chef Ari Gejdenson. Launched in May, Acqua al 2 is the second branch of a restaurant that originated in Florence in 1978 and later spun off to San Diego. Sietsema noted, “The food at Acqua al 2 is straightforward and homey, completely unfussy.” He particularly enjoyed the house-made gnocchi and a tender filet mignon with a “not-too-sweet” blueberry sauce. Rather than signed photographs, the restaurant’s decor includes more than 110 signed white china plates, including two from VIPs Rahm Emmanuel and Nancy Pelosi, that are scattered in glass cases and on walls throughout the establishment.
PHOTO BY Martha Stewart
› ABOUT ALUMNI
In Education In February 2010, the students of George Washington University’s Law School elected Theresa Bowman ’04 as president of the Student Bar Association. One of her key planks was working with the career services office to help GW’s law students and new alumni succeed in a difficult job market. She was instrumental in establishing the Student Career Mentoring Program and student panels on networking.
Mark Neustadt ’75 is principal of Neustadt Creative Marketing and co-founder of Door No. 2, which develops marketing solutions for colleges, universities, and schools. He teaches marketing in the Klingenstein Center for Independent School Leadership at Columbia University and lives in Baltimore. Mark writes for his blog, “Marketing Education,” about his thoughts on the application of marketing theory to educational institutions.
Roger Ferguson signs the American Academy of Arts and Sciences Book of Members, a tradition dating back to 1780.
In Sports Steffi Renninger ’06 earned the Outstanding Female Athlete
In Politics & Public Affairs Jim Glassman ’65 is host of Ideas in Action, a Sunday public affairs show carried by PBS stations nationwide. Glassman is the founding executive director of the George W. Bush Institute, which co-produces the show. Previously he served as Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs, chairman of U.S. Broadcasting Board of Governors, and a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. He has written for the Washington Post, Reader's Digest, and the International Herald Tribune, and he currently writes a monthly column for Kiplinger's Personal Finance. Jim previously hosted TechnoPolitics for PBS, Capital Gang Sunday for CNN, and MoneyPolitics for local ABC affiliate WJLA.
Roger Ferguson ’69, president and CEO of TIAA-CREF, was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences on October 9 at a ceremony in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The program officially welcomed the Academy’s 230th class of 210 new Fellows, celebrating cutting-edge research and scholarship, artistic accomplishment, and exemplary service to society. Ferguson was one of five members of the new class to address his colleagues.
Award at Sewanee: The University of the South. Renninger earned two letters in basketball before devoting her time to lacrosse, in which she was a two-time All-Region selection and an IWLCA National Senior All-Star. She graduated from the University in May 2010. Worcester Polytechnic Institute field hockey student Celena Dopart ’08 was named to the ESPN The Magazine Academic All-District I At-Large first team by the College Sports Information Directors of America. Dopart was one of 12 at-large athletes selected to the first team in the College Division. The aerospace engineering major shared team-high honors last fall with nine assists and tied for second with 15 points. Bowdoin College student Katie Stewart ’08 was named a 2009–2010 Division III All-American by the Intercollegiate Women's Lacrosse Coaches Association. Stewart was recognized as a Second Team choice. The midfielder led the Polar Bears with 44 points last season and was tied for the team lead with 35 goals. Former tennis pro Paul Goldstein ’94 was a special guest at the 2010 annual meeting and awards luncheon of the U.S. Tennis Association—Maryland, held October 30 in Annapolis. Goldstein, a local legend who was known for his positive demeanor, was honored to have the Junior Sportsmanship Award named after him. He was a four-time Washington Post First Team All-Met selection between 1991 and 1994, and reached as high as No. 58 in the world in singles. ALUMNI MAGAZINE
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Louise Hawes ’61
Petra Dub Subin ’61 Mary-Helen Markley Rossi ’64 Neville Waters III ’75
Mark Wagner ’75
Eva Semple Davis ’80
Recently, the Alumni Office sent a Facebook call to alumni asking them to describe their Sidwell experience in 10 words or less. Here are the responses:
Persuaded by consensus, not pushed, into growth, fun, stretching ~Louise Hawes ’61
Classmates at my 30th reunion—same great people and friendships ~Eva Semple Davis ’80
Twelve years at Sidwell—a lifetime of confidence and friendships ~Petra Dub Subin ’61
I gained self-reliance, sense of community, great friends and memories ~Diana Dibble Kurcfeld ’82
SFS brought me Senor Supervia, who saved my life ~Mary-Helen Markley Rossi ’64
Thirteen years of striving and questioning, tumult and quiet ~Ethan Heard ’02
...a wonderful opportunity to learn, grow, and explore ~Neville Waters ’75
Elite, not elitist; the right place for my first treatise ~Zeeshan Aleem ’04
Lifer, alumnus, parent—50 years and counting ~Mark Wagner ’75
There’s no better place to grow academically, socially, and mentally ~Shoma Kimura ’08
Stories, character, events, word, ideas, engagement, structures, translation, English, Spanish ~Cal Hoffman ’76 (no photo available)
Sidwell brought me great awareness; of listening ...love...intellect...silence ~Naomi Rose Howell ’10
Diana Dibble Kurcfeld ’82
Ethan Heard ’02
Zeeshan Aleem ’04
Shoma Kimura ’08
Naomi Rose Howell ’10
YEARBOOK PHOTOS COURTESY OF SFS ARCHIVES
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› ALUMNI BOOKSHELF
What’s New on the Alumni BookShelf
Architects of Power: Roosevelt, Eisenhower, and the American Century Philip Terzian ’68 (Encounter Books, 2010) Reviewed by Steve Steinbach
Their personalities and achievements are firmly fixed in the American historical consciousness: Franklin Roosevelt, the gregarious patrician politician who expanded the role and powers of government to address the nation’s most severe economic crisis, then guided the country to victory in the world’s most deadly international conflict; Dwight Eisenhower, the dependable professional soldier who led troops from North Africa to Omaha Beach to the Elbe, then presided benignly over a decade of peace and prosperity. Yet each caricature is lacking something important, argues Philip Terzian in his study of these two “architects” of the postwar world order. FDR deserves praise not only for the New Deal and (shortly after his death) V-E Day, but also for his underappreciated efforts to drag a reluctant country into battle against Hitler in the first place. According to Terzian, Roosevelt understood—far more than most of his contemporaries—the grave threat posed to American values by the Nazis as well as the great possibilities that would emerge for the United States from the ashes of a European continent devastated by total war. In urging the nation to serve as an “arsenal of democracy” for the British despite the strictures of the Neutrality Acts, in proffering a Wilsonian vision for the future through the Atlantic Charter, and in deliberately permitting Stalin, his “ally of convenience,” to bear the brunt of the bloody battle, Roosevelt aimed at all times to “position the United States to exert its influence to the fullest extent.”
Through indirection and even deceit, FDR “took advantage of the war against Hitler to maneuver the United States into global primacy.” Terzian is also critical of Eisenhower’s subordinate place in popular memory. The genial, hands-off president is now remembered by the public, if much at all, for his valedictory warning against the “military-industrial complex.” But this is to ignore Eisenhower’s aggressive assertion of American interests abroad throughout his two terms in office, Terzian claims. Even during the Truman years, Eisenhower served as chief of staff of the nation’s first peacetime army and supreme commander of NATO, the nation’s first peacetime alliance. Upon becoming chief executive, Eisenhower sought to project “global responsibility” for the United States by entering into strategic alliances with other democracies, expanding and strengthening the intelligence services, and employing what Terzian calls “the essential power of propaganda” in defense of American security and values. By the time he left office, Eisenhower had “remapped the global landscape for the balance of the cold war.” Combining mini-biography with selective analysis, Terzian’s book is less “history” than a meditation on what he describes as “the historic responsibility of the United States in world affairs.” The author leaves little doubt—particularly in an extended epilogue— that he intends “the fundamental historical lessons” of the past to guide the foreign policy decisions of today. Whether Roosevelt and Eisenhower always foresaw what they achieved—or instead were more controlled by events—is of course subject to question. Whether their experiences, decisions, and mindsets are relevant, prescriptively, in today’s world is even more debatable. But in fleshing out the portraits of these two wartime leaders—and, especially, in according Eisenhower the equal standing he is too often denied—Terzian has performed a welcome service. Philip Terzian has been a political and cultural journalist for nearly 40 years. Since 2005, he has been literary editor of The Weekly Standard. Steve Steinbach teaches history in the Upper School and earned his JD at Yale Law School. ALUMNI MAGAZINE
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› ALUMNI BOOKSHELF
Hot Stuff: Disco and the Remaking of American Culture Alice Echols ’69 (W. W. Norton, 2010) Reviewed by Ellis Turner
In the interest of full disclosure, I must confess that I am among those who view the 1970s as the low point in American civilization: Watergate, pet rocks, mood rings, Love Boat, and most important of all, disco. Nothing symbolizes the ennui of the Me Decade more efficiently than the image of bell bottoms, platform shoes and Farrah Fawcett hairdos, butterflycollar polyester shirts and wide-lapel jackets, all gyrating to a pounding bass line beneath a rotating mirrored ball. Not so, says Alice Echols in her informative new book, Hot Stuff: Disco and the Remaking of American Culture. Echols, an associate professor of American Studies and History at Rutgers, ought to know. For one thing, she spent her grad student years deejaying at an Ann Arbor disco. Echols assails the traditional view that the banal, apolitical ’70s represented a repudiation of the activism of the previous decade. Instead she argues that disco provided new opportunities to continue the social revolution of the 1960s, especially in the areas of gay and women’s rights. Each chapter of Echols’ book could stand alone as an essay on a discrete aspect of disco culture. The first chapter traces the evolution of soul music into disco through pioneers such as James Brown and Sly and the Family Stone who helped lay the groundwork for the music revolution to come. Echols’ chapter on the role of gay men in disco revisits the context and significance of the Stonewall uprising and its impact on New York City’s gay community. Saturday evening dances organized by the Gay Activist Alliance followed and helped to establish a relationship between gay liberation and disco. An unfriendly atmosphere for women, heterosexuals, and African-Americans eventually emerged in gay clubs. Perhaps the most interesting chapter in the book debunks the notion that disco degraded and subordinated woman on the dance floor. Instead, Echols portrays disco as an agent promoting and mainstreaming the sexual freedom of woman. She offers case studies through the careers of Chaka Khan and Donna Summer. For those who are drawn to the subject of 32
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this book by the popularity of the mirror ball classic Saturday Night Fever, Echols devotes an entire chapter to the film. She concludes the book with a discussion of “discophobia” (from which I clearly suffered) and the decline of the genre. Hot Stuff is not for those looking to take a free, easy, and nostalgic ride back into a time when leisure suits roamed the earth. It is a sophisticated work of social history that belongs on the syllabus of a college seminar on gender and sexuality or gay and lesbian studies. Nevertheless, it is highly recommended for anyone interested in obtaining a deeper understanding of a misunderstood American institution. Alice Echols is the author of the acclaimed biography, Scars of Sweet Paradise: The Life and Times of Janis Joplin (1999), and of Shaky Ground: The Sixties and Its Aftershocks (2002). Ellis Turner is an associate head of school and teaches U.S. History.
Unbillable Hours: A True Story Ian Graham ’93 (Kaplan Publishing, 2010) Reviewed by Barbara Morgan Meade ’53
Fresh out of law school, Ian Graham enthusiastically accepted a highly paid position at a prestigious Los Angeles law firm as his carefully planned first step from associate to partner. In his new memoir of those six years at Latham & Watkins, Unbillable Hours, he recounts how his passion for the law began to evaporate in the unrelenting long and late hours spent on mind-numbing corporate filings. In a desperate attempt to find some relief from the tedium and some focal point for his deep sense of justice, Graham offered his services to the firm’s pro bono department and was assigned to a case involving a young barrio teenager, Mario Rocha, who had been wrongfully convicted of murder and sentenced to life without parole. For the next four years Graham worked tirelessly, and successfully, to overturn Mario’s conviction and gain his release. Graham’s story is so absorbing that Showtime made a movie of it, Mario’s Story, and Ian and Mario were invited to be the Sidwell Friends Peace Day speakers in 2008. Ian Graham is an adjunct professor at Loyola Law School’s Center for Juvenile Law and Policy. He worked as the associate producer of Kicking It, a documentary on the 2006 Homeless World Cup soccer tournament in Johannesburg, South Africa, that premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2007. Barbara Morgan Meade is the co-owner of Politics & Prose Bookstore and Coffeehouse.
› ALUMNI BOOKSHELF
Trial and Error in Criminal Justice Reform: Learning from Failure Greg Berman ’85 and Aubrey Fox (The Urban Institute Press, 2010) With the criminal justice field dominated by heated debates about “best practices,” “evidence-based programs,” and “what works,” Trial and Error in Criminal Justice Reform: Learning from Failure argues that public policies cannot be neatly divided into successes and failures. The reality, the authors say, is that good results are hard to sustain and even harder to replicate. The book examines well-intended programs that for one reason or another fell short of their objectives (e.g., D.A.R.E. and Operation Ceasefire) yet also had positive effects. Berman and Fox tell the stories of committed reformers—judges, cops, attorneys, parole officers, researchers, educators, and politicians—who, despite their knowledge and ambition, did not quite achieve their goals. “While our research has not unearthed a foolproof path to successful reform, we do know how to guarantee failure, and that is to continue with business as usual,” write Berman and Fox. Trial and Error encourages reformers to learn from their predecessors, analyze their own foibles, and keep innovating.
My Name is Memory Ann Brashares ’85 (Riverhead Books, 2010) The Buffalo River in northwest Ann Brashares’ second novel for adults taps into the growing appetite for romances thwarted by extraordinary tricks of time. Virginia high school student Lucy is inexplicably drawn to classmate Daniel, but when he claims to have known her before, a thoroughly unsettled Lucy flees. Gradually, Lucy learns the impossible truth: Daniel has been chasing her through ages and lives for 1,200 years. In chapters that alternate viewpoints between the two lovers, past and present, the couples’ unrequited desire builds, even as a murderous soul threatens their reunion. Readers tantalized by the possibilities of past lives and soulmate connections will devour this unabashed romance, which has the heart-pounding pace and tone of a beach novel, and hope for the sequel hinted at in the open ending. (Adapted from a review in the ALA Booklist magazine and published on amazon.com)
Ann Brashares lives in New York City with her husband and three children. She is the author of The Last Summer (of You and Me), 2007, and The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, published in 2001 and followed by three sequels and a related novel, 3 Willows: The Sisterhood Grows.
I’m With Fatty: Losing Fifty Pounds in Fifty Miserable Weeks Edward Ugel ’90 (Weinstein Books, 2010) For most people, weight loss is spurred by a pair of tight pants or a photo that shows one too many chins. Ed Ugel was forced to lose weight after his wife recorded him snoring—a sound so deafeningly horrible that his “turncoat” doctor made him wear a CPAP machine to sleep every night. I’m With Fatty is an honest and wickedly funny chronicle of a father, husband, and all-around-foodobsessed man as he attempts to lose 50 pounds in 50 weeks. For Ugel, losing 50 pounds isn’t about looking good at the beach. It’s about trying to save his life and figuring out how to live in a world without dim sum and smoked Italian meats. He merges this love of food with his all-male sensibility as he sets off on a year-long journey to answer the questions, “Where does one draw the line between being a lifelong foodie and a food addict?” and “Can I really live without bacon?” (Adapted from material from the publisher)
Ed Ugel is a freelance writer who has written for the New York Times, Huffington Post, and Washingtonian.
(Adapted from material from the publisher)
Greg Berman is the director of the Center for Court Innovation, a public-private partnership that seeks to reduce crime, aid victims, and improve public trust in justice.
Among the books featured in the Spring 2011 issue of the Alumni Magazine will be : Liespotting: Proven Techniques to Detect Deception Pamela Meyer ’76 (St. Martin’s Press, July 2010) Tatted Marianne Bernstein ’74 (GritCity Inc., 2010)
Bodies of Knowledge: Sexuality, Reproduction, and Women’s Health in the Second Wave Wendy Kline ’87 (University of Chicago Press, October 2010)
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› ALUMNI BOOKSHELF
Imperfect Endings: A Daughter’s Tale of Life and Death
Effortless Entrepreneur: Work Smart, Play Hard, Make Millions
Zoe FitzGerald Carter ’78 (Simon & Schuster, 2010)
Nick Friedman ’00 and Omar Soliman ’00 (Three Rivers Press, 2010)
Zoe Carter’s life with her husband and two daughters took an unexpected detour when her independent-minded mother, Margaret, decided she wants to “end things.” Tired of living with Parkinson’s disease, Margaret declared herself no longer willing to go where the illness is taking her, and while she is unsure how she will end her life, she wants her three daughters there when she does. Stunned by the prospect of losing her mother and concerned about the legal ramifications of participating in her suicide, Zoe finds herself increasingly drawn into her mother’s “exit plans.” As the three sisters negotiate over whether or not they should support Margaret’s choice and who should be there at the end, their discussions stir up old alliances and animosities. Imperfect Endings brings a provocative new perspective to the assisted suicide debate. It is an uplifting story of a woman determined to die on her own terms and the family who has to learn to let her go. (Adapted from material from the publisher)
Zoe FitzGerald Carter is a journalist and has written for numerous publications including The New York Observer, Premiere, Salon, and The San Francisco Chronicle. Zoe and her family live in Northern California where she is working on her next book, a novel.
Business owners Nick Friedman and Omar Soliman recently released their first book, Effortless Entrepreneur: Work Smart, Play Hard, Make Millions, which has earned critical acclaim within the business community. The SFS classmates started what is now a multi-million dollar franchise, College Hunks Hauling Junk, when they were just 22. In the book, the authors outline their “Ten Business Commandments for the 21st Century Entrepreneur,” and assure their readers that they too can build a straightforward, fun, and successful business. Their business commandments are: 1. Never sacrifice health, family, or friendships for business reasons. 2. Mistakes are problems only if you don’t learn from them. 3. Ideas mean nothing without actions. 4. Start with a vision, create a strategic plan, and live by it. 5. Create effective systems to keep your business on track and enable individuals to succeed. 6. Work ON the business from the outside, not IN it. 7. Develop staff, client, and community loyalty. 8. Image is everything. 9. Be the best at ONE thing. 10. There are always people smarter than you—hire them! Nick Friedman and Omar Soliman have been named among the Top 30 Under 30 Entrepreneurs in America by INC. They have been profiled in the New York Times and the Washington Post, and have made numerous television appearances.
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By Any Greens Necessary: A Revolutionary Guide for Black Women Who Want to Eat Great, Get Healthy, Lose Weight, and Look Phat Tracye Lynn McQuirter ’84 (Lawrence Hill Books, 2010) While a student at Amherst, Tracye McQuirter sat in on a lecture by humorist and civil rights activist Dick Gregory. To her surprise, Gregory, a vegetarian, spoke not about race relations but about the poor diets among many in the black community. After a trip to Kenya and her own research, she started her senior year committed to a vegetarian—and, not long after, a vegan—diet. Much of her book focuses on the dangers —nutritionally and ethically—of eating meat, poultry, seafood, and other animal products such as milk and cheese. Also included are tips on how to transition to a vegan diet and friendly advice on how to deal with skeptical family members. But it’s the nearly 40 recipes at the end of the book that give the best idea of just how McQuirter maintains her vegan lifestyle. Tracye McQuirter holds an MPH from New York University and is a nutritionist with the University of the District of Columbia Center for Nutrition, Diet, and Health. McQuirter also leads seminars on vegan nutrition and advocates solutions for reversing childhood obesity.
Friends in Sports Coinciding with the recent opening of the new Athletic Center on the Wisconsin Avenue campus, the eight stories that follow celebrate a few of the many paths that alumni have taken in the world of professional sports. First, and what better place to start, is a tribute to former Sidwell coach and Girls Athletic Director Evelyn Fine. Before Title IX was enacted into law, Miss Fine played a vital role in bringing girls sports to Sidwell and the D.C. area. Next, two stories about women who have made their mark in professional sports: local varsity football coach Natalie Randolph ’98 and pro volleyball player Candace McNamee ’98.
PHOTO BY Charlie Archambault
The World Cup generated substantial interest among our soccer-loving alumni, and thus three stories emerged: Hans Tresolini ’86 wrote about his work with FIFA; Peter MacDonald ’78 compared his soccer-playing days at Sidwell with the level of play and coaching he sees today, and Steven Stark ’69 shared an adaptation of a chapter from his recently published book on the World Cup.
Eric Singletary ’93 is in his third year as head coach of the SFS varsity boys basketball team. He played basketball at Sidwell from 1990–1993 and was named to the All-Met, ABCD All-American, Dave Krider All-American, and the Street & Smith All District Teams. Eric was a four-year letterman at Rice University and played professional basketball in Germany and Portugal.
Finally, Ben Van Heuvelen ’98 wrote about coaching and his ultimate Frisbee team’s recent gold medal win in international competition, and Mei Su Teng interviewed Tommy Kail ’95 about the play he’s directing (or coaching, as he says) on Broadway about the renowned football coach Vince Lombardi. Six of the stories were written by alumni; we thank them for contributing their time and talent to the Alumni Magazine! ALUMNI MAGAZINE
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Ahead of the Game:
SFS Before Title IX
PHOTO COURTESY OF SFS ARCHIVES
By Lauren Pauer
Coach Evelyn Fine (far right) stands with the 1967 Sidwell Friends girls varsity field hockey team, along with the new team mascot, a pink pig named Porker, presented to the girls by Miss Fine.
The varsity field hockey team, from left to right: Lisa Cannon ’67 (team manager), Cathy Ritzenberg ’68, Nonie England ’68, Ruth Yackee ’67, Jeanne Hatter ’67, Dotty Clift ’67, Kay Burgunder ’68, Ellen Burgunder ’67, Jane Nash ’67, Joby Zucker ’68, Gay McFall ’68, and Coach Evelyn Fine. The team lost only one game that season in an unusually heavy schedule of 12 schools and two universities.
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off the field. If a student expressed interest in a sport or activity, she included it in the PE curriculum and required all students to participate.
She was a pioneer in the field of women’s sports. An international name in field hockey. And she always had a piece of candy for the girls she lovingly called hers.
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“(They) let me realize that women could compete, women could win, women could lead.”
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She set up a program that “gave parity to girls in a time where there was nothing like that. We had nice uniforms; there were schedules to play other schools,” remembers Carol Sisco ’70. “She was introducing world-class events and athletes . . . all these amazing role models in terms of sports but also leadership models.
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But it wasn’t just growing numbers that endeared her to the community. In her 27 years at the School, Fine changed how hundreds of girls saw themselves.
SA R
Sidwell Friends had three varsity sports for girls at that time—basketball, softball, and tennis. By the time Fine retired in 1981, Sidwell Friends girls could participate in nine varsity sports and a wealth of activities through PE, including gymnastics, fencing, and ice skating.
PHOTO COU
When Evelyn Fine came to Sidwell Friends School in 1954 as the girls’ athletics director, girls sports were practically nonexistent in public schools and often a second thought in private ones.
“Unless she is introduced to the sport, no youngster can really know what she likes,” Fine told Horizon before she retired. “I tried to give every child the idea that she could play and do everything.”
It was an attitude not yet translated at—or mandated to—all schools.
“It was very depressing for a lot of us to go off to college. We got hit with the fact that there wasn’t that level of support and parity,” says Sisco, who played basketball and was on the crew team at the collegiate level but never lettered in the sports, as only men received letters at the time. Now 92, Fine still keeps in touch with many of her girls, and some of them attended an intimate reception in her honor on October 30, when the athletic director’s office in the new Athletic Center was named the Evelyn Fine Athletic Director’s Office. More than 120 (and still counting) of her former students sent contributions to fund the “naming” project. A fitting honor, her girls agreed, for a woman who did so much for girls’ athletics before a groundbreaking law was passed in 1972. As Cathy Ritzenberg McCullough ’68 wrote in a 2004 tribute: “Before there was Title IX, there was Evelyn Fine.”
What’s remarkable about Fine, say alumni, friends, and former colleagues, is the way she worked without fanfare to break down barriers and increase opportunities for all students. She wasn’t a national advocate, Sisco says, because there weren’t national advocates. But according to physical education teacher and SFS field hockey coach Anne Monahan, she was a “dynamite” leader. Fine introduced field hockey and lacrosse to the D.C. area. She arranged for the School to host the National Field Hockey tournament in 1959. (Then-Vice President Richard Nixon was on hand to present the awards, and Constance Appleby, credited with founding girls field hockey in the United States, attended the opening ceremony.) Fine ran a well-known field hockey camp in D.C., and in 1974 took the SFS girls varsity field hockey team to England and Scotland to play schools there. (The team tied each of their nine games.) She wanted her girls to remember that sports were supposed to be fun; she gave out candy regardless of wins or losses and arranged post-game teas so teams could get to know each other
Three of Miss Fine’s former “girls” lead her to the ribbon-cutting ceremony to dedicate the Athletic Director’s office in her name. From left to right: Carol Sisco ’70, Margaret Weaver Krull ’70, Miss Fine, Kay Burgunder Stevens ’68, and Tom Farquhar.
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NATALIE RANDOLPH ’98
The Woman, the Teacher, the Coach By Neville Waters ’75
October 1, 2010—It’s a crisp fall evening in Washington, D.C. It’s a Friday night under the lights. It’s the ideal setting for a high school football game. For Natalie Randolph ’98, the new Calvin Coolidge High School head football coach, the game will end with the joy of her team’s first win under her leadership, a 48-12 thumping of Anacostia High School. What followed, of course, was the chill of the traditional victory water barrel bath. Randolph used her speed to avoid the team’s initial attempt to douse her, but while receiving congratulations from the losing coach, she was held up just long enough to give her players their golden opportunity. It’s a moment Randolph will likely never forget. Natalie’s blazing speed has always been evident. She was a member of the Quaker’s track team and ran the 400 meter hurdles for the University of Virginia; she was a scoring threat almost every time she touched the ball for the D.C. Divas women’s pro football franchise. And she was always among the first selections at the annual Sidwell Friends Turkey Bowl touch football game. (Note: besides Jerome Nichols, Natalie was the only participant who could claim actual professional football experience). There is a level of respect that the title “coach” conjures. There is also a sense of responsibility that good coaches have about their jobs. Given her small stature, Coach Randolph almost disappears among her players while walking along the sideline assuming her duties. She appears calm, almost serene, as she adjusts her head sets, encourages her players and remains intent on watching the action on the field. It’s an indication of the respect Randolph has earned that the pre-season
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concern about what the coach or school would endure by losing to the “girl” coach was a complete non-issue. The gesture by the Anacostia coach to allow her to be drenched showed the collegial camaraderie that runs through the coaching profession of which she is now officially a member. When it comes to athletics the coach is the ultimate leader. Sidwell Friends School has a culture that cultivates certain leadership qualities that are beneficial to coaching: curiosity, consensus, consciousness. When Natalie interviewed for the head coaching job at Coolidge, her presentation focused on the students’ off-the-field success as well as wins and losses. Failure would not be an option. No excuses. She stood apart from the other candidates, demonstrating the vision that all great leaders must display. The composure she displays hides a fierce competitive drive that is within all successful coaches. The desire to have a positive impact was a passion of hers, and she found it fulfilled through teaching. The same qualities that make Coach Randolph meet with college recruiters interested in her players (Derrick Johnson of Towson comes to see her while I’m there) are the same qualities that motivate Randolph the environmental science teacher to challenge her students in the classroom. She cares and wants them to achieve their best. It’s hard to tell if she is referring to her classroom or her team when she says, “People say, Natalie, you can’t save the world. Well why not?” * Update: The Colts went on to win their next three games,then lost their final game of the regular season. They ended with a 4-6 record.
PHOTOS BY JONATHAN NEWTON, THE WASHINGTON POST/GETTY IMAGES/AUGUST 27, 2010 USED WITH PERMISSION
Natalie Randolph ’98, who earned her bachelor’s degree in science and a master’s in education from the University of Virginia, was a wide receiver for the D.C. Divas (Independent Women’s Football League) from 2004-2008. She taught environmental science at H.D. Woodson High School in 2006 and 2007 and was assistant football coach while she was there. She has been on the faculty at Coolidge since 2008. As the new head coach for the Coolidge Colts and one of only a handful of women varsity football head coaches in the country, Natalie has received enormous local and national media attention (Parade magazine, The Washington Post, The New York Times, and ESPN, to name a few) As Natalie told reporter Alan Goldenbach after her first victory, “All that hoopla was ridiculous. That’s the only benefit of losing . . . nobody [in the media] cares. Everyone’s gone away.” (Washington Post, 10/2/10, D12)
Neville Waters '75 played varsity basketball at Sidwell and won two intramural basketball championships at Springfield College. He is the president/founder of The Waters Group, a consulting firm specializing in communications, strategic marketing, content development, and career management. He serves on the Alumni Association Executive Board.
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For the Game ...for the world
By Hans Tresolini ’86
If you watched the 2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa™ this summer, you were in good company. A record 24.3 million people in the United States alone (700 million worldwide) tuned in to watch the final match in which European champions Spain managed a 1-0 victory over the Netherlands in extra time. Many viewers could tell you a bit about the organization behind the spectacle: that its full name is the Fédération Internationale de Football Association, that its objectives include controlling every type of ‘association football’ (or soccer), perhaps even that it has more members than the United Nations. In recent years I have worked for FIFA on projects related to host nations and for FIFA.com during the qualification stages of South Africa 2010, the FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup Dubai, and other tournaments. Soccer has been my favorite sport since that memorable day in first grade when I was invited to join a youth team named the “Brazilians.” While the squad lacked a single Brazilian player—and may have been better known for the odd habit of wearing our league-issued white shorts over blue jeans for cool-morning matches— we learned fast and did well. I have played ever since. My foray into sports business began a few years ago as I stood in Berlin’s Olympic Stadium and watched Italy slip past France to win the 2006 FIFA World Cup Germany™. Inspired by the atmosphere and enchanted by the possibility of working in the sport that I loved, I enrolled in the FIFA Master. The program provided instant 42
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immersion in the law, management, and humanities of sport, including exposure to leading sports executives and academics, the opportunity to conduct research for a top football club, and a whirlwind tour of legendary sports venues across Europe. Afterward I worked briefly for Major League Soccer (MLS) before leading marketing and brand management for the Washington Freedom of Women’s Professional Soccer (WPS). One highlight there was envisioning and launching the “Hall of Freedom” to honor alumnae, such as two-time FIFA World Player of the Year Mia Hamm. Another was developing a Senior Project with three energetic Sidwell students. Their efforts focused on supplying the club with information about its fan base. This involved interviewing and taking group photos of willing fans, who would later visit the club’s Web site to download their photo. By examining such things as the age groups of various fans, management was able to challenge its own assumptions about fan base demographics. Since becoming involved in the business of soccer, I have been interested to learn about another side of the sport. FIFA, for example, is much more than an organizer of events. In awarding South Africa the right to host the World Cup, FIFA made clear its interest in putting its top event to work in the name of development. “20 Centers for 2010” was the official campaign of the competition, and its aim was to create community centers to promote public health, education, and soccer in disadvantaged communities across Africa in order to leave
a positive, sustainable legacy for the entire continent. FIFA’s ubiquitous “Say No to Racism” campaign has helped the entire football family, including national associations, voice its collective opposition to racial discrimination. And FIFA has also provided assistance in the wake of natural disasters, such as the Indian Ocean tsunami that devastated parts of Africa and Asia in 2004. That FIFA is deeply concerned with social responsibility is evident in the way that it describes itself. FIFA’s slogan—“For the Game, for the World”—reflects the organization’s broad interests and impact. Much of FIFA’s development work is in keeping with Quaker values. In my view, its efforts in the areas of peace building, children’s rights, education, the environment, and anti-discrimination are admirable.
PHOTOS COURTESY OF HANS TRESOLINI
Want more soccer? • Kick a ball with alums at Sidwell—e-mail mcclellandk@ sidwell.edu for info on Sunday morning soccer or hans.tresolini@fifama.org for Monday night indoor soccer this winter • Volunteer in support of America SCORES (www.americascores.org) • Apply to the 12th edition of the FIFA Master (www.fifamaster.com)
FIFA President Joseph S. (Sepp) Blatter and Hans Tresolini ’86
• Read about the critical role of soccer on South Africa’s infamous Robben Island in More Than Just a Game— Soccer vs. Apartheid, Chuck Korr and Marvin Close (Thomas Dunne Books, April 2010) • See an example of how soccer is making a difference (www.kickoutpoverty.org)
Hans Tresolini ’86 graduated from the FIFA Master with Distinction and is helping the law firm Crowell & Moring LLP to secure new business in multiple areas, including the sports sector. Hans can be reached at hans. tresolini@fifama.org.
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Fostering
a Quiet Spirit of Achievement When I played soccer at Sidwell in the late 1970s, our coach was Assistant Headmaster Paul Dominkovich (“Mr. D” to us). We played our varsity games in the winter, most memorably on a windswept field along the Potomac near the Lincoln Memorial. Virtually no one played soccer outside of school. In fact, a few guys still wound up and kicked the ball straight-on with their toes like former Redskins kicker Curt Knight. We were good by Independent School League standards, but it was mostly about beating St. Albans and Landon. Sometimes we did. Sometimes we didn’t. Flash forward three decades to Fall 2009. Sidwell finishes with a 14-1-4 record for its fourth straight Mid-Atlantic Conference championship (fifth in six years)* and the Washington Post’s #1 ranking. The only loss is to McDonough, ranked #2 in the country at the time. The Quakers are ranked among the top 40 in the country. And recent grads, many All-Met performers, have gone on to play at NCAA Division I schools such as Brown, George Washington, Princeton, Stanford, and Yale. As tennis great John McEnroe likes to say, “You cannot be serious!” But it’s all true. At the center of all this soccer success is Head Coach Jorgen Kjaer (the g and the j are silent), a former Danish professional who signed on at Sidwell in 2003 as a physical education teacher and coach and added assistant athletic director duties in 2006. He came to the United States because his wife landed a job at the World Bank, where he also briefly worked. If Jorgen is reading this, he’s already miffed. “Don’t make this about me,” the four-time Washington Post Soccer Coach of the Year requested. “This should be about the fact that athletic success is possible at Sidwell without sacrificing who and what we are—a place where academics come first and things are kept in balance.” Jorgen appreciates another aspect of Sidwell, too: “I’m low key. So is Sidwell. Everyone is equal here. We don’t have class rankings. It’s a lot like Denmark.” But make no mistake, Coach Kjaer is competitive, he knows his soccer, and he sets high standards. When he arrived in 2003, there were several issues he had to resolve: ensuring
* The 2010 boys varsity soccer team ended its season by winning its fifth straight MAC league championship (sixth in seven years) and the MAC tournament championship. 44
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PHOTO BY STEVE SPARTANA
by Peter MacDonald ’78
Coach Jorgen Kjaer talks to his varsity boys soccer team at halftime.
that players prioritized school soccer over club soccer in the fall and demanding hard work and 100 percent commitment despite the busy schedules of his players. He also wanted to establish the fast-paced, pass-and-move possession style of soccer he had honed as a striker back home with Skovshoved IF. Happily for his players, their coach knows when to take his foot off the gas. Says Jorgen, “You have to be strong, yet find that balance. Sometimes you have to back off or you might lose them. Keep positive and try to be encouraging.” “Jorgen is really animated and intense on the soccer field, one of his strengths as a coach,” says Princeton goalie Seth MacMillan ’09, who came up huge in last year’s 3-1 MAC championship win over Potomac. “However, off the field he’s a really funny guy who knows how to make the team laugh . . . . “But the biggest thing I took away from him was how much work is necessary to continuously be the best. I learned that complacency has no place within a winning team, and that to take any game for granted is to invite trouble.” Amherst defender Ben Norton ’09, who patrolled the Quaker defense in front of MacMillan, agrees: “Jorgen brings
PHOTO BY STEVE SPARTANA
Mr. D (left), varsity boys soccer coach in the ’70s
PHOTO COURTESY OF THE AUTHOR
professionalism to the program. At every practice and game we held ourselves and our teammates to the highest standard. That is what Jorgen expects of us and the entire team internalizes those expectations.” For Kjaer, it really comes down to teaching. “Soccer is the vehicle through which I deal with students,” he says. “I start with unformed fifth graders. By eighth grade, the boys are on top of the world, too cool and all that. Then in ninth grade they try to be as invisible as possible. By senior year they are the team leaders, telling others what to do. That’s my biggest joy: seeing them grow up into young adults.” Ultimately, a successful team must be led from within and Jorgen is widely credited by his players for trusting them to take charge. Says Norton, “Throughout my four years on varsity, we were extremely tight knit and successful because Jorgen gave upperclassmen the responsibility to lead. Each team had a distinct personality because we were able to recognize and capitalize on our strengths. That’s because Jorgen respected our soccer IQ and listened to advice or concerns we had.” How sweet it is to do it right and win too!
PHOTO COURTESY OF SFS ARCHIVES
Coach Kjaer teaches basic soccer skills to 5th and 6th grade boys.
Peter MacDonald ’78 (center) with Skidmore soccer team members
Peter MacDonald ’78 played varsity soccer at Sidwell and at Pomona College. He is director of marketing communications at Skidmore College, where he is also an assistant men’s soccer coach. ALUMNI MAGAZINE
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By Steven Stark ’69
And With These Feet At bottom, what has given the game of soccer its astonishing social and cultural power throughout almost the entire world? You might be surprised. "Everyone is obsessed with soccer, and everyone loves it even if they don't play—like me, for example," Sheikh Ali Abdel Ba'i, one of Egypt's state-appointed Muslim clerics, once told Time Magazine. "Football captures people's hearts. It's a game for the people." Of course, many sports share some characteristics with soccer. Baseball and American football are team-oriented ball sports. Those games and others, such as basketball or even tennis, have a point system and give players a chance to navigate space within a boundary. But to really understand the essence of soccer, just look down. The unique thing about this sport is its use of the feet, or, more precisely, its rejection of the use of the hands. In David Goldblatt’s penetrating history of the sport, The Ball is Round, he tells the story of a Russian writer, Yuri Olesha, explaining the sport to his father in the early 1900s. The older man replies, “With their feet? How can that be?” Though we often don’t think about it, the modern world’s relationship with feet has been a complicated one. In his piece, “Culture on the Ground: The World Perceived Through the Feet,” Tim Ingold, a British anthropologist, traced a cross-cultural international bias against the foot, stemming from Charles Darwin. According to Ingold, Darwin’s theory of evolution entailed a division of labor between the hands and the feet. By walking on two legs, humanity freed its hands to create tools— the benchmark of human evolution. Darwin himself wrote that “man could not have attained his present dominant position in the world without the use of his hands.” Put another way, our use of the feet is similar to other animals; it is our hands that make us human. The more civilized we are, the more we use those hands—if not literally as we write, create art, build, or make tools, then figuratively. In contrast, activities centered on the feet—walking or climbing—bring to mind more unskilled labor. This makes the issue of hands vs. 46
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feet intertwined with questions of class and identity, and as the recent World Cup illustrated as always, nationality as well. An activity that so heavily revolves around the feet and rejects the hands also has an inherent counter-cultural feel to it—a rebellion against the increasingly over-civilized world in which we live. It is this almost spiritual rejection of the refined world that helps give soccer its status as something of a world religion. Ironically, it is this same rejection of the status quo that often gives it such a bad name in the United States—which tends to play only games its citizens invented (and thus dominate). In truth, we prefer games with frequent time outs and lapses in action—ADD sports for an ADD nation. Soccer is a novel; American sports are Twitter. There’s something else those frequent time-outs provide. I once heard about a foreign soccer coach who talked about the difficulty dealing with American players. “They’re used to receiving constant instructions,” he complained. “Soccer isn’t that way. We’d talk about what to do at halftime and then after five minutes of play, they’d turn to the sideline to ask what they should do next. And I had to tell them, `Soccer is not hierarchical; it’s collective and creative and organic. You have to figure out what to do next—I can’t tell you.’” Of course, this is not good news for anyone hoping for an international breakthrough for the American men’s team soon. (The women are another story; being collective comes easier for them.) And it means that to excel at soccer, a cultural shift will have to come first. This is the nation, after all, that relishes its constant reliance on fingers and hands to communicate via text and where few would be caught walking to town, work, or the mall, if they could possibly drive. Use our feet? How can that be?
Steven D. Stark ’69, a former world sports columnist for the Montreal Gazette and the author of three previous books and one e-book, has been a commentator for CNN, National Public Radio, and the Voice of America, where his role was to try to interpret American culture to the rest of the world. This article is an expanded version of a piece that appears in Stark’s book, World Cup 2010: The Indispensable Guide to Soccer and Geopolitics, co-authored with his son, Harrison Stark. (Blue River Press, February 2010)
Achieving
Disney
Right before our first match of the tournament, I knew we would win the ultimate Frisbee world championship. As the Belgians began their warmup, jogging by us with hard stares, Team USA spontaneously began to sing a chorus from “The Lion King.” For the bewildered Belgians, it was hardly intimidating. But for us coaches, it was proof of team chemistry. Along with Jody Avirgan ’98, I had coached the junior national team in 2008, and had been an assistant coach in ’06 and ’04. Each time, the challenge was to transform a group of individual all-stars into teammates. Each time, by coincidence, that transformation was marked by singing: as soon as the players dropped their egos and teenage pretensions, they broke into songs from animated musicals. Jody and I now refer to this feeling of true comfort among teammates as
Ben Van Heuvelen ’98 has won five world championships, one as a player, two as an assistant coach, and two as head coach of the U.S. Junior National Ultimate Frisbee Team, with co-coach Jody Avirgan ’98, pictured right. He continues to compete on the national level, playing for a club team called the Pride of New York (prideofny.net), along with Jody and Webster McBride ’95. In real life, Ben is a journalist based in Brooklyn, New York. More of his writing is online at benvanheuvelen.com.
“achieving Disney”—a feeling that has characterized each of the three world championships we’ve won together. I should step back and explain, for those who don’t know, that ultimate Frisbee is a field sport that combines the aerial passing and end-zone attack of football with the cutting and continuous play of soccer. Hundreds of thousands of people around the world play recreationally, in pickup games and local leagues. Sidwell has a team, which competes against two dozen high schools in the D.C. area. On the national and international level, hundreds of elite teams travel across countries and oceans to compete in youth, college, and adult club divisions. This past August, 18 countries sent national teams to compete at the junior world championships in Heilbronn, Germany.
Team USA was composed of 23 players from around the country, whom we coaches selected from a pool of 200 candidates in a competitive tryout process last spring. A week before the tournament, we all flew to Amherst, Massachusetts, for a training camp of two-a-day practices and scrimmages. Jody and I, along with another co-coach, Pauline Lauterbach, had seven days to turn these all-stars into a team. For us coaches, it was a familiar challenge. Back in 1998, we had been players on the junior national team. When Jody and I first arrived at that training camp, our new teammates were our biggest rivals—the top players from the country’s best ALUMNI MAGAZINE
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PHOTO BY SCOBEL WIGGINS
PHOTO BY LYNN STUART
Ben Van Heuvelen ’98
high school programs, whom we had marked and battled as captains of the Sidwell ultimate team. Everyone was an alpha dog.
HOW TO PLAY ULTIMATE (Adapted from “Ultimate in Ten Simple Rules,” by Steve Courlang and Neal Dambra)
Now, in 2010, Jody, Pauline, and I were the coaches. The major elements of our team-building would look familiar to anyone who has seen a training montage in a sports movie: we defined goals, taught schemes and tactics, and ran drills and scrimmages—and the players bonded over the challenge and exertion. Yet something more profound was happening, too. When coaches run a practice, what they’re really doing is training players to work the team’s machinery. Broken down piece by piece, the elaborate choreography of the engine comes to seem elementary. If he runs here, then you run there. If you do this, he does that. There’s both power and comfort in such simplicity. On the best teams, that sense of ease extends off the field, too. Where there’s good structure, people feel free. Beyond that, I cannot explain “team chemistry”—the strange alchemy by which individuals become teammates. But I’ve helped create the conditions for such a transformation a few times in my life, and each time, as the players begin to sing, I pause to remind myself that my job as coach has just changed. The team belongs to the players now. I’ll have a role to play, but the balance of my coaching is done. Mostly, I’ll just stand on the sidelines and cheer the unfolding wonders.
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Ben demonstrates a backhand throw.
• The field. A rectangular shape with endzones at each end. A regulation field is 40 yards wide by 70 yards long, with endzones another 25 yards deep. • The “pull.” Each point begins with both teams lining up on opposite endzone lines, 7 versus 7. The defense throws the disc (“pulls”) to the offense, like a kickoff. • Scoring. Each time the offense completes a pass into the defense’s endzone, the offense scores a point. After a score, play stops. The scoring team becomes the defense, and pulls to the offense. • Movement. Players may not run with the disc, but establish a pivot foot, as in basketball. The disc may be advanced in any direction by completing a pass to a teammate. The person with the disc has 10 seconds to throw. • Change of possession. When a pass is not completed (out of bounds, drop, block, interception), the defense immediately takes possession of the disc and becomes the offense, attacking the opposite endzone. • Substitutions. Teams may make substitutions between points. Most teams have about 20 players. • Fouls. When a player initiates contact on another player, a foul occurs. When a foul disrupts possession, play resumes as if the possession was retained. • Self-officiating. Even at the highest levels of the sport, players call their own fouls and resolve disputes. If players cannot agree on the proper outcome of a play, the disc returns to the most recent thrower. • “Spirit of the Game.” Because players are responsible for officiating the game, the sport cultivates a unique brand of sportsmanship and personal honor. When players compete as hard as they can while preserving the fairness of the match and the basic joy of play, they are said to embody the Spirit of the Game.
PHOTO BY TONY VU
Thankfully, we had coaches. If you picture a team’s collective competitiveness as a reservoir of gasoline, then a good coach makes the difference between injecting that fuel into an engine versus dropping a match into the tank. In 1998, we won the USA’s first-ever gold in the junior division.
PHOTO BY CHRIS (SULLY) SULLIVAN
Coaching Thomas Kail ’95
By Mei Su Teng
When Thomas Kail ’95 sits down
by Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington
to be part of a whole. This understand-
to read the paper in the morning, he
Post associate editor David Maraniss,
ing of collaboration is a hallmark of
turns to the sports section first, the
the play opened at the Circle in the
Kail’s career, from his participation in
arts second. This preference may draw
Square Theatre, New York, in October.
a classmate’s play at Wesleyan College
questioning looks from admirers of his
Eric Simonson, of the Steppenwolf
to his formation of a theater company
work—Kail is the director of the Tony
Theatre Company in Chicago, wrote
in New York with cast members from
Award-winning musical In the Heights—
the adaptation. Alongside traditional
that production to his involvement with
but it springs from a lifelong interest
Broadway producers, the NFL is an un-
and ultimate breakout direction of In the
in champions of the field and arena.
conventional partner in this venture; an
Heights.
To those who know him, it comes as
organization with significant marketing
no surprise that Kail’s current project
muscle and a vault full of treasures, the
on Broadway is Lombardi, about the
league has promoted the play through
legendary National Football League
its network and Web site, and provided
coach of the Green Bay Packers. As Kail
music, film clips, and still images for the
tells the story, he saw plans for the play
production.
announced in the sports pages of the New York Times and immediately threw his hat in the ring as a contender to direct it.
To absorb the importance of teamwork in youth athletics is one thing; to make the leap to head coach quite another. Kail likens his work as a director to that of a coach. In addition to his cast, or roster, there is his creative team of
Before and during Upper School, Kail
designers, or coaching staff, and the
played soccer and baseball. Though by
producers of the play, or owners. He
his own admission not an elite athlete,
extends the comparison: rehearsal is
he spent many hours participating on
like practice; pre- and post-production
Based upon the biography When Pride
teams and says that he understood
like pre- and post-season; the perfor-
Still Mattered: A Life of Vince Lombardi,
what it meant to have a specific role,
mance like the game. The director’s job,
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PHOTO BY CHRIS (SULLY) SULLIVAN PHOTO BY CHRIS (SULLY) SULLIVAN
Kail credits Upper School drama teacher John Elko with opening the door and “turning on the light” for him as far as theater is concerned. In Elko he found a mentor who encouraged and motivated him, someone with whom he made a lasting connection. To this day, when Kail comes to town and visits the SFS campus, it is Elko’s classroom where he alights. (Photo taken November 24, 2009)
Kail with lead actors Dan Lauria (Vince Lombardi) and Judith Light (Marie Lombardi).
as he told a group of SFS students in a
grappling with the challenge of the “Old
and passionate knowledge of their dis-
Q&A last year, is not about power but
Man’s” fiery ambition.
ciplines. He mentions Kail’s purposeful
about responsibility; he is the one who makes sure that everyone is moving in the same direction with the same goal in mind. As Kail sees it, the director is custodian of the play and all the people involved with it—its cast and audience of course, and, in the case of a work like Lombardi, its subjects.
Even observers who recall Coach Lombardi’s relentless drive above all else recognize that he was a gifted teacher and charismatic leader. Kail says that Lombardi had the ability to communicate with each of his players in a different way, specific to the person and the moment, delivering words of
Vince Lombardi led Green Bay to five
praise, exhortation or rebuke at the
championships. The trophy bestowed
most opportune instant. This skill made
on today’s Super Bowl winners bears
him the champion that he was, eliciting
his name. Revered by fans and play-
from his team a desire to perform at the
ers alike, he was a perfectionist driven
highest level they could achieve.
to pursue excellence. Lombardi the play explores the personal cost of this professional pursuit, Kail says, and ultimately addresses the theme of family, with the coach’s wife Marie and several Packer players as surrogate sons
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By all reports, Kail, too, is able to bring out the best in his actors, though without the fireworks of Lombardi. Bill Dawes, who plays “Golden Boy” Paul Hornung, says the director and coach are similar in their love for their players
sense of Lombardi as well as his ability to articulate its themes and his objective in mounting it—his game plan, as it were. This structure is like a safety net for the performers, says Judith Light, who plays Marie Lombardi. “We feel secure, loved and appreciated for what we are doing,” she explains, and that is the greatest boost for an actor’s creativity. She especially notes Kail’s generosity and humor in directing cast members, attributes that foster commitment—teamwork—among those in the company. The actors’ high praise for their leader culminates in Light’s recall of a line from one post-rehearsal gathering: “We all agreed we want to work only with Tommy Kail for the rest of our lives.”
PHOTO COURTESY OF SFS ARCHIVES
› CLASS NOTES
Who are they and when did they graduate? We asked School Archivist Loren Hardenbergh to find us a school photo that related to sports. She pulled the photo above from her files, which again has no identifications on the back. Who are the cheerleaders and what year was the photo taken? Sidwell Friends no longer has official cheerleaders, but today’s students make plenty of noise in the stands!
See page 53 for answers to the spring 2010 Class Notes photo trivia question.
1948
John Gerig writes, “Classmates visiting Tampa? Send us an e-mail at johng52113 @aol.com.” Marty McMurray writes, “Being a member of the class of 1948 meant keeping up with homework, beating St. Albans, Landon, BCC, and Georgetown Prep (21-0) in football, and getting to Ocean City the same day school ended. Then off to college in Texas, first in class and four years of baseball pitching. Marrying while in college worked out well, and we celebrate our 60th anniversary this year. A career mainly with GM, lots of community service, and putting three sons through medical schools consumed many years. Wife Carolyn became a college librarian. I really picked a winner!
Four of our eight grandchildren are marrying in a 10-month period. Three to go. I’ve saved the most important part for last. This is my 27th year of six-days-a-week tennis with seven months in Sarasota and five months in Linville, North Carolina. At 81, health and winning tennis are important life factors. It is amazing how important the little things have become now that I am passing through middle age.”
1950
Charles Brown writes, “We love living with a view of the Tetons.”
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› CLASS NOTES
1954
Lawrence Christmas writes, “Met Betsy Holmes Vilar ’57 in Malta—each visiting grandchildren. Betsy’s daughter is teaching at the nursery school where my grandson, Thomas, attends. And Betsy’s brother, Dal Holmes, and I were roommates at Haverford. Small world.”
1959
We are pleased to report that great progress has been made for holding a class reunion in South Beach next year. The proposed dates are from Thursday, May 12, to Sunday, May 15. After considerable investigation, we have selected the Shelborne Hotel and Beach Resort for the reunion. Contact Bob Skinker or Alan Bernstein to make arrangements for your attendance. See you there! ~Clark Griffith
Clark Griffith reports, “I work in Minneapolis and everywhere else. My wife is a venture capitalist, my son works in the catering business, daughter Natalie is a senior at Tulane and a psychology major (obviously due to living with me for 21 years), and daughter Caroline is senior class president and captain of hockey and lacrosse at her high school.” Marise Reynolds reports that her mother has died at 100. A sad moment for those of us who remember this wonderful woman. Kathleen (Keen) Stassen-Berger writes, “I am the author of the best-selling college textbooks in developmental psychology, used worldwide, in five languages; just finished the eighth edition. I am also a professor at Bronx Community College and the Democratic district leader of Greenwich Village, Manhattan.” David Woolpert writes, “I’ve just moved into a rural house that overlooks a delightfully noisy river and is surrounded by 15 acres of sugar maple trees and a barn. My work in Concord, 20 miles away, has been challenging these last two years, but things are picking up. I’ve been helping to build a new Quaker Meetinghouse for the Concord meeting that I’ve belonged to for almost 30 years. And my daughters are both abroad. 52
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My oldest is in France for a junior semester abroad to learn better French so she can teach it in public school when she graduates from Guilford College, a Quaker-related institution, in Greensboro, North Carolina. My youngest is traveling and working with her mother in India and Nepal for three months as part of a ‘gap’ year before she starts college at GW. I am very healthy, and life is full and good and special every day, even when I’m down and don’t see it!”
1959 Class Secretary Clark Griffith ccgpa@ccgpa.com
1962
On September 3, Ann Bissell and Jan Bernhard Phalen took Meme Lund Enemark to lunch at Bistro Provence in Bethesda, Maryland, to celebrate her 66th birthday. Later that evening, Meme’s husband Peter Enemark took her to an elegant dinner—featuring pizza and beer—at The Lost Dog Café in Arlington.
Chett Breed writes, “I’m in the adventure of anticipation, anticipating retirement, the last few months of being harnessed to the wagon of career and university teaching, but every day wondering and astonished at the possibilities of what will come next.” Pat Harrell Burk writes, “After 31 years in the education field, I retired from Fairfax County Public Schools in 2007. For the past two years I have been a volunteer teacher in our church-based ESL program for adults. I just recently became employed by George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia, as a part-time supervisor of student teacher interns. I am really looking forward to this new venture. I definitely enjoy the benefits of retired life, but also seem to thrive by staying involved in education, so this part-time position might be the perfect fit. Bill and I now enjoy four grandchildren who are attending college and five grandchildren, ages 5, 4 and 4 (twins), 3, and 2. It sure does keep us on the road a lot, as we love visiting whenever we can. But what a range of ages! I am looking forward to an upcoming visit to Myrtle Beach where I will see my brother, Blaine Harrell ’69, and my sister, Susan Harrell Miller ’65. Around home, I
get to have lunch get-togethers with Marie Kline Heffilfinger ’65 about every two or three months, and I appreciate keeping that long-time connection.” Due to his near-mythic status in the class of 1962, it was a pleasure to hear recently from Roland Milton Chubbock of Lubbock, Texas. Now out of extended hibernation, Roland says he gets off his lily pad and hops back to D.C. to visit friends from time to time. Roland reports, “I am retired now, living in Lubbock, and doing a little travelling. My professional career began, and nearly ended, in 1967 after I graduated from Yale. (My fondness for barstools in college caused the dean of students to suggest that I take a year off to assess my priorities, so I graduated in 1967, not 1966 like many of our classmates.) When I returned to Lubbock in 1967, I often frequented the Plainview Country Club in a neighboring town, and I got into a serious argument there one night with a fellow from Wayland Baptist University about the merits of Ivy League football. When he called me “frog face,” I decked him, breaking his jaw. I was arrested and thought my plans to attend law school were over. Fortunately, a sympathetic judge—Judge Sam Bean III, a descendant of ‘hanging judge’ Roy Bean—gave me a light house arrest/probation sentence and also wrote letters of recommendation for me for law school. As a result, I was accepted at every Texas law school I applied to. My wife and I are enjoying our retirement and our children and grandchildren.”
Bud Davis writes, “Hola, this just in. Still standing after years of poor choices. Moved to Big Pine Key after 40 years in Key West. Living back in the woods with dozens of deer who seem to think my role in life is to feed and hang out with them. I have a new heart, two new eyes, and if I can continue to sidestep the grim reaper, will soon have two new hips. That is all for now. I have to go fishing or maybe catch a lobster or two. Tomorrow is not guaranteed for me. Hope all is well in the D.C. area, except for the politicians, of course.” Jeff Fletcher writes, “Tara and I had a great trip to Europe in the spring and thoroughly enjoyed our summer visit (our
› CLASS NOTES
22nd annual) to our timeshare in Key West. I’m on a couple of nonprofit boards and do volunteer work on planning, zoning, and historic preservation in our Capitol Hill neighborhood. Tara continues doing public affairs and public information work with the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority, and is enjoying her watercolor painting. We love the time we have with our granddaughter, Violet, and spend as many weekends as possible at our cottage in Deale, Maryland.”
WHO WAS WHO? Congratulations and special thanks to the Class of 1959, who rallied to identify their classmates (and themselves) in the archival photo on page 45 of the spring 2010 issue of the Alumni Magazine. By the time the e-mail traffic quieted, each person was named many times over! As Carolyn Murphy Ahern wrote, “You really don’t know who those people are on page 45? It’s such a strange feeling because they were so well known to me, and ’59 does stay in touch! . . . Thanks for asking! It was fun to know the answer!” Thanks also to Glenn Adams, Clark Griffith, Ronald Kane, Martin Myers, Bob Skinker, Ellen Flood Talbott, Jean Cole ’60, and Petra Dub Subin ’61, who called, e-mailed, or wrote to the Alumni Magazine with their identifications. The seniors from the Class of 1959 pictured in the photo are: Steve Schreiber (holding shovel); Bob Skinker (below Steve Schreiber’s chin); Tony Thompson (with checkered jacket); Dave Woolpert (face behind Tony Thompson’s shoulder wearing darkrimmed sunglasses); Phil Walters (wearing sunglasses immediately behind tree trunk; Carter Wilson (shoulder immediately behind Phil Walters’ left shoulder); Martin Myers (face partially hidden by Carter Wilson’s shoulder); Pat Basiliko (far right in front row); Nancy Park (face partially hidden behind Pat Basiliko’s right shoulder) Bob Skinker later wrote to add a bit of trivia. According to Alan Bernstein, who was the class treasurer and still has the Class Funds Record Book, the tree in the photo cost $12.50 at the time it was purchased in 1959.
Helen Hawes writes, “My three sisters and I just finished facilitating a weekend retreat here in Vermont. Louise ’61 came from North Carolina, Suzy ’69 from New Zealand, and Janie ’73 from Sweden. We combined our four different mediums [writing, drawing, singing, and film making] into a ‘playshop’….it was very powerful working and playing together in this way with my sisters. We plan to offer the event in Sweden next year and then in New Zealand.” To see the retreat brochure, which includes a cute photo of the four sisters at a young age, visit www.geryunant.com, go to “Workshops,” and click on “Let’s Play.” Helen also reports that she is now a grandma—Rowan James Carse was born in April.
Steve Woolpert reports, “Since 2004 I have been the dean of liberal arts at Saint Mary’s College of California. My wife Ginny and I live in nearby Berkeley. I have little time for scholarly pursuits these days, so I write occasional opinion pieces for the newspaper.” Steve hopes to visit D.C. in January.
1962 Class Secretary Jeff Fletcher jeff_tara@comcast.net
1963
John Bralove writes, “I am still working as a consultant for the Captiva Erosion Prevention District. CEPD is an independent special district tasked with beach and shoreline preservation on Captiva Island, Florida. Anna and I still live on Sanibel with our three Maine Coon cats. We both play a lot of tennis. I miss going to the Redskins games but don’t miss the Washington winter weather. Believe it or not, we don’t get
many requests to visit us, and classmates are always welcome . . . as long as you are not allergic to cats.”
Nancy Adams Fetterer writes, “Walt and I recently headed up to New Jersey for our son’s wedding. David lives in New Jersey and is working for Marriott. Brian is still out in Hollywood working for the TV industry, and Diana is still living in McLean working for the National Captioning Institute. Yes, Walt and I are still working. I’m not sure when we’ll retire.”
Sylvia Fubini writes, “I had dinner recently with Dan Moorhead, who was in town from Phoenix, Arizona, for a conference at the World Bank. My daughter, Lauren, after getting married to an Irish tenor and hotel manager in October 2009, had my first grandchild, Mairin, in July. They live in Bristol, England, so I spent the latter part of July helping her and watching the miracle of the National Health Service in action. No dragging the baby out to the doctor in Britain; the midwives visit you and the baby at home. What a concept! My other daughter just moved back from San Diego with her two dogs. Combined with my two dogs (I adopted my neighbor’s dog and already had a golden retriever), the house is very full at the moment. I continue my voice lessons and plan a recital later this fall. It has been the ultimate challenge to try to learn to sing correctly as an adult.” Lucy Hilmer writes, “My first photo book, My Valentines, is available for distribution. It makes a great gift any time of year. It’s a book of black and white photographic portraits of my daughter Annie in an everchanging relationship to her dad and a rose as she grows from a 3-day-old infant to a 21-year-old woman who’s come of age. The book is the first of a trilogy of book/ film companion pieces about my various photographic series-in-time. Support the arts! Buy my book from www.lucyhilmer.com.”
Sharon Smull Hinckley writes, “We are currently hosting a student from South Korea named DongJin Shin who is here studying English. Our
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son Bill (aka ‘Memo’) is now at Iowa State University pursuing a degree in engineering. I am still teaching yoga, working on my art, and attempting to become computer savvy.”
Margo Lee Hofeldt writes, “It’s been a whirlwind! This summer we drove up north with stops along the way (Washington and hard shell crabs outside of Annapolis) and spent five weeks in Connecticut and New York, including a week in Boston. Most of the time was focused on helping our daughter (she’s a fashion design student at Parsons School of Design) find a new apartment in New York City. This was not easy, but our search ended up with a great apartment for her two blocks from Union Square, which is such an exciting neighborhood. We drove back to Miami with her dog (Dash—the French bulldog) and were home for two weeks, then flew back to Connecticut for another three weeks to help her move and settle in. Now we’re back just in time for all the fun starting up again in Miami. One more trip at the end of October will be to Las Vegas for a week for the annual Wine Spectator Wine Experience. While there, we also have tickets for some great shows. Fortunately all is well with our family members, including my mother, who will be 102 on November 29!”
Jeanne Perkins Hofferkamp writes, “Just the typical retired couple’s summer! Went on our annual golf trip to Gull Lake, Michigan. Have been doing this since 1998! Can’t say that our golf has improved that much, but it is always fun. The summer is so nice in the Chicago area that we really just stick around here. The winter is a totally different story! It was great to see in the Alumni Magazine the picture of the Class of 1960 at their 50th Reunion. Recognized a lot of friends of my sister, Marsha Perkins Austin ‘60, who passed away of ovarian cancer in 1999.” David Ogilvy writes, “I am really enjoying retirement. Liz and I spent most of the summer in Flagstaff, about four hours from Tucson, which, at about 7,200 feet, means warm days and cool nights instead of very hot days and hot nights here in Tucson in the Sonoran Desert (but it is a ‘dry heat!’). We took several trips to San Diego to see the new grandson, and I bounced back and 54
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forth every few weeks to check in on my now 95-year-old dad, who moved to Tucson almost three years ago. He is still a big Redskins fan, plays poker and bridge, and is still following the stock market. I hope that Friends and St. Albans can collaborate on the weekend for our 50th reunions, so I can see my Friends classmates without having to make two trips across the country.”
Victor Smith writes, “Leading worship services at my church, president of the neighborhood’s board of directors, still pressing for historic preservation sense in town, and watching my daughter progress in her studies in The Hague in baroque and classical oboe performance. Her performances always lift me out of my chair! She has also had several performances of bird calls in concert. A unique skill coming from growing up in the midst of the wild birds attracted to our house. Greetings to all our classmates. I keep wondering about some of us, like John Lockwood, Lauren Rudd, David Stinchcombe, and others who have fallen off the radar.”
Robert Zweben writes, “My wife Elaine and I braved the Washington humidity and heat in late June and helped Phil Levy celebrate his 30th anniversary of Bridge Street Books. I enjoyed seeing John Luykx and his wife at the festivities. The other attendees were Phil’s family, friends (yes, he has friends who love him), and prized customers. I am unsuccessfully trying to retire from my elected city attorney position (held since 1978). I am unopposed for my upcoming election on November 2. I originally did not plan on running, but ‘blinked,’ decided to run, and will retire in the somewhat near future. I have seriously cut back my private practice. I have other business challenges that I hope don’t drown me or temper my outlook for the future. In December I plan on a three-week vacation to New Zealand. My daughter, Alena, is in her final year of naturopathy medical school. My son, Seth, returned from his third deployment in Afghanistan, to my great relief. He has two children, now ages 2 and 4. It is great to have him back. In case you are wondering, I am totally opposed to that war and our country’s addiction to war and mayhem across the globe. I continue to be amazed and not happy with our country. I try not to
Class notes We welcome your news! The Publications Office makes every effort to include all submitted text and photos to Class Notes. Submissions are subject to editing for clarity, length, style, and content. When submitting photographs, please make sure that they are large format or high resolution and sent as an attachment rather than embedded in a document. Pictures taken on phones, pulled from the Internet, or taken at small-size setting on digital cameras are not high enough quality for printing. For the Spring 2011 issue of the Alumni Magazine, please submit—by February 7—your class note in any of the following ways: Class Secretary: If your class has a class secretary, his or her name will appear at the end of your Class Notes. Send your news to the e-mail address listed. E-mail
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get too depressed over the idiocy, but truly am concerned over what I cannot describe as anything other than the undoing of democracy. With that I will say I hope all who read this have a good year, with happiness and health.”
1963 Class Secretary Margo Lee Hofeldt margo10022@aol.com
1964
George Bernstein writes, “After a wonderful and productive year’s sabbatical, I am now beginning a three-year term as chair of the history department at Tulane. We are all trying to get through the fifth anniversary of Katrina and all the memories that come with it. The balance certainly seems to have turned decisively in favor of optimism at all that has been achieved in New Orleans over the past five years, despite the Gulf oil spill disaster and all that remains to be done, and Tulane has shared in that positive momentum. On the personal side, the family
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is doing well, and my oldest grandson, now 14, will be starting at Lawrenceville this fall.”
Marika Moore Cutler welcomed a new grandson, Grayson Patrick Meyer (son of her daughter Mia Cutler Meyer ’94), on January 29. See a photo in the 1994 class notes. He joins her other grandchild, Luke Turner Cutter (son of her daughter Jillian Cutler ’95), born on July 14, 2009. Marika has a private psychotherapy practice and also teaches and supervises play therapy at Walter Reed. In her spare time, she is a master naturalist in Berkeley County, West Virginia, where her weekend house is located.
Virginia Fano Ghattas is living in Wellesley, Massachusetts. After receiving a BS from MIT and an MAT from Harvard, she taught for 34 years in high school. Now retired, she tutors adults for the GED, volunteers in a hospital, and takes care of stray animals. She is married with two children, one of whom is in law school in the Washington area.
Richard May continues to work in the financial services company he founded in 1980. Three years ago, in his spare time, he started a small micro private equity fund to invest in local business in his adopted community, West Chester, Pennsylvania. Retirement appears elusive.
Marilyn Hornbeck Mellowes has been working as the series producer of a major documentary series, God in America, six one-hour programs that explore the intersection of religion and politics in this country, beginning with the first European settlements and continuing to the presidential election of 2008. The series premiered nationally on PBS on October 11, 12, and 13, from 9:00 p.m. to 11:00 p.m. “The series has consumed four and a half years of my life,” writes Marilyn, “but I think it will be worth it.” You can visit the series Web site at www.pbs.org/godinamerica. Susan Morse writes, “I am now back teaching at California State University, Monterey Bay, after an exhausting but fun summer. Frank and I did two home exchanges, one in northern Portugal and one in northern Spain. The Spanish exchange
was in Cangas de Onis, on the edge of the Picos de Europa, sort of the Yosemite/ Sierras of northern Spain, really beautiful and not too hot! We loved the whole trip, especially the crazy mix of languages. It put our brains through Portuguese, Frank’s first language, to Gallego (in Galicia), to Spanish, and back to Portuguese. I got a glass of Port wine instead of a door key on one occasion, but c’est la vie! or asi es la vida! A little crazy, but lots of fun.”
Mary Helen Markley Rossi writes, “Bill and I are steaming toward retirement without a single thought of doing it . . . slowing down a little, perhaps, but we can’t imagine retirement. That’s true on two counts—first, our chosen profession to date (a nonprofit arts mentoring youth program) hasn’t really provided us with that option, and second, we really don’t want to yet. We have been developing a more commercial venture— merge-education.com—designed to offer Bill’s educational approach (with evaluation software, other materials, and consultation and trainings) to a national and then global audience. With our kids, Alex and Jen, well on their own now, I’m thankful to be so positively engaged in life and, I hope, to be making a contribution. Anyone interested in helping with some online marketing?”
Louise Berry Strait lives in Bethesda, Maryland. After a long career at the World and I magazine, which ended suddenly with its closure in 2004, she has been working for the American Psychological Association, where she is the manuscript editor responsible for PsycCritiques, an online book and movie review journal. She has two grandchildren; of her three children, one is living in upstate New York, one is in London, and one (just graduated from college) is still at home.
Barbara (Bobby) Seitz Turnbull has retired from the National Security Agency and has taken on major responsibilities in numerous local organizations. She is president of the Springfield Garden Club in Bethesda, Maryland; secretary of her local AARP chapter; treasurer of her sorority alumnae group; and active in many programs of Metropolitan Memorial Methodist Church and the Wesley Theological Seminary Women’s Guild.
Lea Jablonsky Uhre writes, “In March our family visited France for a brief vacation. I had not been back since the summer of 1963 when Madame Porte took a group of us to Paris. (David Wilson and Mary Bralove were on the same trip). We spent time in Provence and stayed in the picturesque town of St. Remy. From there we visited neighboring towns of Arles, Aix-enProvence, Les Baux, Avignon, and a small town on the Cote d’Azur. We completed our trip by taking the TGV train to Paris, where we spent a few days visiting key museums. I found that my ‘rusty’ French came back, though I am sure Mme. Porte would have winced at some of the grammar errors! Curt and I still live in the Washington area. Since 2005, I have been working as the director of the Executive Office of the President Library. In June our oldest daughter, Katharine, received her MBA from the University of Chicago and is now working for Cargill in the Midwest. Emily has just finished a clerkship for three judges with the Delaware Family Court and will be moving to California at the end of the month.”
Van Wood writes, “After 40-plus years of working in the museum exhibition field, my wife Molly and I are moving gradually toward retirement. We are turning the management of our manufacturing company, Smallcorp, over to our son Hoyt and his wife Jen. As a result, Molly and I were able to spend more than two months this summer at our house in the woods of Maine. I have in recent years renewed my Spanish skills working on museum projects in Buenos Aires and Santiago de Chile. Gracias, Guillermina, que en paz descanse. I have five grandchildren, three of whom are looking at colleges this fall.”
Doug Yriart reports, “I’ve been assigned to the position of chief engineer, benefits systems, at the U.S. Office of Personnel Management. This summer I managed the development and roll-out of the software used to reimburse benefits to the health insurance companies participating in the Federal Fallback program of the National Preexisting Conditions Health Insurance Pool, for people who can’t get health insurance because they are high risks. Other systems in my realm pay federal retirement benefits, manage the federal employee
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health and life insurance programs, and manage the massive amounts of funds involved in these programs. Grandson number four is celebrating his 8-month birthday this week. Son number three graduated with a master of science in information technology from the Kellogg School of Engineering, Northwestern University, in June. He’s a global network architect for one of the major international consulting firms. Both his brothers are in the business, too, following, unfortunately, in dad’s footsteps. We made the event into a family reunion.”
tor to national publications, including the Huffington Post. He has also written a novel—a political thriller, 19 Angels, which will be published in the fall. His wife Nancy is a painter and educator and his son Michael is a grad student in painting in NYC. Hoyt lives in Pasadena and would love to hear from classmates. You can reach him through his Web site, http://hoythilsman.com.
After freelancing for a decade, Catherine O’Neill Grace has taken a full-time job as director of communications for Noble and Greenough School in Dedham, Massachusetts, where she’s responsible for the alumni magazine, Web site, and other school publications. She says it’s wonderful to be back in a school. “The energy and idealism of the kids here reminds me of Friends in the ’60s,” she reports.
1964 Class Secretary Louise Berry Strait lbstrait@gmail.com
1965
Alex MacLean has a new exhibit of his photographs, “Vegas | Venice” at Eres Siftung in Munich, Germany, September 10 to November 13. He captures the changing nature of natural landscapes from the bird’s eye view of his airplane: golf courses, suburban developments, even entire cities that devour deserts, lagoons, and farmland. In his latest work, Alex has focused his camera on two cities that are shrouded in myth as well as ecologically endangered: Las Vegas and Venice.
1966
Hoyt Hilsman shared this story about his time at Sidwell Friends School: “Miss Rosebrook was my beloved Latin and Greek teacher. I remember her sparkling smile as she told jokes that would only be funny to aficionados of Latin, as well as the annual Latin banquets held in the old gym. I also vividly remember the day that President Kennedy was assassinated. Miss Rosebrook had heard the news from Dallas, but kept it from us until we finished our Latin class. Then, her voice choking, she said, ‘I don’t know how to tell you this, but the President has been shot.’ We were in shock, but I will always remember the anguish on her face as she delivered the news.” After running for Congress in California, Hoyt is back in the film and journalism world, although he continues to be active politically. He is writing a screenplay about the life of Nelson Rockefeller and is a regular contribu56
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nicknamed ‘The Patron Tequila Express.’ The event raised funds to benefit the redevelopment of St. Bernard Parish after its severe devastation from Hurricane Katrina.” Chris currently works at the Los Angeles Urban League. Evelyn recently worked on the production team for an independent, featurelength documentary. She also volunteers with several different groups in the Los Angeles area, spends time running halfmarathons, and plays golf and guitar.
1969
Marian Greely writes, “Still playing tennis and teaching water aerobics. Worked for the Census Bureau for the summer.”
Gail Meltzer (above) lives at Smith Mountain Lake, Virginia, and travels twice each year to Surat Thani, Thailand, to visit her son, Peter, and his family. Peter owns and manages Super English, a school for learning English. Peter and Jeab’s son, Solo (above), is also a big draw for “Yagi” Gail.
1970
1967
Philip Khoury writes, “Hans Carter and his wife Josie visited in June at the time of their nephew’s graduation from Harvard. I continue to play tennis weekly with Steve Batzell at MIT.”
Betsy Glassman (above right) visited Margaret Weaver Krull (left) and her hus-
1968
band Gary at their home in Williamsburg, Virginia. Betsy and Margaret toured Colonial Williamsburg, apparently misbehaved, and were forced to have a “time out” in the pillory.
benefit for St. Bernard Parish in Louisiana. The event was hosted by Patron Tequila and took place at Los Angeles Union Station alongside the private rail car GM&O 50,
Ellen Hopman writes, “My third novel in the Priestess of the Forest trilogy was just accepted. It should be out sometime in 2012. My dream would be to make a movie version!”
Evelyn Brown reports, “Chris StrudwickTurner ’70 and I met up by accident at a
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Richard Murray (above) had an opportunity to visit the People’s Republic of China recently. Richard still lives in Philadelphia. His wife Patricia Bailey is a general surgeon. His son Andrew is a junior at the University of Cincinnati, and his daughter Victoria is back home for two years in graduate school at Bryn Mawr. Richard has a new position at Merck under the chief medical officer as vice president, Global Center for Scientific Affairs.
Liz Norment writes, “I was really sorry to miss the 40th reunion; had been so looking forward to being there, but in my vertiginous freelance market, work must prevail. Did beam in to Alan Bubes’s party via telephone and loved chatting with Leslie, Ann, Twiggy, Helen, and others. Sounds
like everyone had a glorious time (and looks so from the great photos as well). I’ve been in a wonderful phase with work in the past couple of years. Highlights were Blithe Spirit on Broadway last summer, where I had the privilege of being onstage with Angela Lansbury, and this summer, an off-Broadway revival of Lillian Hellman’s Another Part of the Forest that turned into a thrillingly sold-out hit. In between have been other great joys: The Year of Magical Thinking, Joan Didion’s one-woman show (a 62-page monologue!), at the Milwaukee Rep, directed by my partner and favorite collaborator, John Sipes; Oedipus Rex, also directed by
John, at the Clarence Brown Theatre; and portraying the remarkable Eleanor Roosevelt in another one-woman show at the Berkshire Theatre Festival. I’ve been very grateful for these enormous challenges. Puts all my Yale School of Drama training (and years of life experience) to the test, and I’ve been soaring. I’ve loved seeing everyone’s photos in the SFS Web gallery, and they’ve inspired me to post some of my own. Sorry I missed the festivities in D.C., and I send fond greetings to all. New York visitors always welcome.”
1970 Class Secretary Margaret Weaver Krull mwkrull@aol.com
Remembering Marcia Adler ’72 Excerpts from a letter sent by John Arnold, Lower School teacher and Middle School principal, 1962-1972, now living in Pinehurst, North Carolina. Tears streamed down my cheeks as I read in the spring Alumni Magazine that Marcia Adler ’72 died in December after a six-year bout with breast cancer. I was her fourth grade teacher and later her middle school principal at Sidwell Friends. Of the hundreds of students I have taught over the years, Marcia was my very favorite. Her empathy, compassion, and natural goodness remain with me always. I’ll never forget the day John Kenney was assassinated. When Pete Rice brought the news to our classroom, I went to a window, grabbed the upper frame, and began to sob and tremble. After a few moments, I felt a tug at my pants pocket, and a little hand reached up to take mine. I gazed down at Marcia, who with moist eyes pressed my hand to her cheek, looked up, and said softly, “It will be okay, Mr. Arnold.” Marcia especially loved Antoine St. Exupery’s The Little Prince, a poignant book that I read to my class every year. She could scarcely wait until it was story time. She loved its interplay between whimsy and deep insight; the fact that it had great appeal to both children and adults; its extraordinary tenderness. Marcia intuitively seemed to understand every word and nuance though much of it was ostensibly beyond her 10 years. Eight years later, when Marcia was a senior interning as a middle school teacher’s aide, I taught her group of volunteers a course in child development. One assignment was to bring in artwork done as a child. Marcia brought in a drawing she had crafted at age six—an incredible, multicolored, jolly-looking owl, who she described as “wise, with a positive outlook on life.” Seeing that I was really taken with the drawing, she insisted I keep it. Marcia’s owl has adorned the wall of every office I have ever had. As I write this in my study, I look at it, and as always, smile. Sidwell Friends School should be enormously proud of Marcia Adler, and of having helped nurture in her the spirit and values that made her such a remarkable, giving human being. Truly she understood and lived the Little Prince’s secret: “It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.”
Liz Norment ’70 (right) in the play Third.
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1971
Gerald Peereboom retired in May 2009 after nearly 31 years with Amoco and BP. He writes, “In the year since leaving BP, I have been doing some consulting and am now looking for a new permanent position in the energy industry.”
1974
The Class of 1974 had such a good time at their last 35th reunion that they are getting together in Washington and on the Sidwell campus for a mid-recycle reunion slated for next year—October 21-23, 2011. Everyone is saving the date because we’re too close to wait for our 40th. People are coming in from far and wide. Karl Bostic from London, Craig Wilson from Bangkok. More than 35 classmates have already confirmed from all over the West, and a large contingent from New England to North Carolina and the Midwest. Ronni Linowitz Jolles, Scott Meza, Donna DeMarco Sayada, Stephen Chanock, Chris Nordlinger, and others will put together a fun weekend. For those who missed it, at the last reunion we stayed until 2:00 a.m. at Ronni’s. ~Chris Nordlinger
Stephen Chanock writes, “Lizette and I are enjoying the unanticipated pleasures of being empty nesters with four now in college and beyond. With cell phones and e-mail, the four kids are not far away. I continue in my position at the National Cancer Institute trying to figure out the genetic signatures of cancer—how and why it develops in one in three Americans. Lizette is running a nonprofit animal rescue organization, so we have many dogs and cats in our house—six permanent dogs and four cats as well as the scores of rescued pets on their way to a new home.” Kit Emory writes from the New York metro area: “I just spent another seven weeks up at Bard College participating in their amazing summer music festival, performing in the American premiere of the 1912 Schreker opera Der Ferne Klang. I had the good fortune to play a down and dirty whore. Yes, mine is a glamour profession! The opera was followed by concerts with the American Symphony Orchestra—all fabulous, rarely 58
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heard works. I returned a few days ago from San Francisco, where I was honored to sing at my nephew’s wedding. It provided a great mini-vacation for Andy and me. Now I’m in the middle of Jewish High Holy Day gigs and looking forward to several fall concerts in NYC and Boston. I’m grateful—and very fortunate—for the wonderful work that still comes my way; I take nothing for granted!”
Patty Eyster reports, “I’m finally back in the workforce full time after 15 years! I’m managing the office of a group of neuropsychologists four days a week and acting as curriculum director for a school in Virginia serving kids on the autism spectrum. Although I am very busy, it feels good to earn some money and have adult conversations with work colleagues.” Matt Gamser reports from Hong Kong: “Anka and I are very proud that our son, Marius, graduated from the University of Vermont last May (our daughter Lucy is a sophomore at Lewis and Clark College in Portland, Oregon). Marius has joined us again in Hong Kong, doing an internship with the Association for Sustainable and Responsible Investment in Asia (ASrIA) while he figures out his next moves. Our tour in Hong Kong is scheduled to end this coming August, but could be extended. So those interested in a visit, to be safe, should be making plans! So far no SFS ’74 visitors to report, though my sister Diana ’76 and family have been here.” Fraser Brewer Gilbane—who is coming to the reunion—was in Colorado this past June, and spent a weekend with Sarah Challinor in Aspen. Fraser writes, “We hiked hard, ate well, and had a great time
catching up with one another. But for our creaky knees and reading glasses, it was just like the ‘good ol’ days.’”
Sue Gorey, Kate Norment, Wendy Yondorf, and Rae Nelson Haigler, who all went to Western Junior High before transferring to Sidwell, refuse to release details of their lives but can’t wait for the reunion.
Bill Grant writes, “Alas, I will be in Bujumbura the weekend of our reunion, about to officially launch a business incubator that we have been setting up for the past year (funded by the United States and the Dutch). Was in Johannesburg recently, but am currently in Gabarone, starting up a major new 13-country program for USAID. The last two weeks were spent in Nampula and Maputo working on the final stages of a design of a nine-year, Swiss-funded ‘making markets work for the poor’ program. So never a dull moment. The quiz for everyone is to figure out which countries belong to the cities above. No cheating with atlases . . .”
Ronni Linowitz Jolles reports, “I just had a successful solo show at Foxhall Gallery (in Washington, D.C.), and I’ve got a number of big commissions that have come my way. I am afraid to get too optimistic about the economy, but 2010 seems to be going much better (in the art world, anyway) than 2009. As I look ahead, I have some shows lined up for 2011 so that motivates me to work hard.”
Barky Jones reports that he is still building 4G wireless networks for Samsung. Marianne Bernstein Kalb writes, “Do any of you live in Philly? I’m sorry to have missed the last reunions but am hoping to make it to
NO NEWS FROM YOUR CLASSMATES? Your class year may not have a class secretary! Class secretaries stay in touch with their classmates twice a year—once in the spring and once in the fall—to collect news for the Alumni Magazine. The job is an easy one. Class secretaries simply use an e-mail list provided by the Alumni Office to send out a call for information, and then compile and forward the news to the Alumni Office to appear in the magazine’s Class Notes section. We would love your help. Please e-mail alumnimagazine@sidwell.edu or call Lauren Pauer at 202-537-8137.
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this next gathering. I’m a longtime photographer, filmmaker, and independent curator. My book Tatted, on Philadelphia’s legendary tattoo culture, was recently published by GritCityInc and is available on Amazon and Photo-Eye. I also co-directed a documentary film, From Philadelphia to the Front, which has travelled across the globe, and I am currently producing a feature short titled The Earthquake directed by filmmaker Danielle Lessovitz. Last year during DesignPhiladelphia 2009, I conceived and curated The Welcome House, a 10’ x 10’ transparent cube in Love Park that was an artist residency by day and video installation by night. I am hoping to travel this soon, in a new improved Corian version, maybe to a city near you! For this year’s DesignPhiladelphia 2010 I am curating a video installation in the subway called The Philadelphia Underground. Life is good; I’m enjoying middle age. I’m married (26 years), to Robert Kalb, an awesome guy, and we have two sons, Jake, 23, and Ben, 21.”
Dan Kingsley writes, “I recently set up a community-based economic development project (Aid for Artisans) in Morocco.”
Andrew Lazarus reports, “I’m now working at a San Francisco hedge fund run by a retired Berkeley math professor. It feels a lot like going back to graduate school except better paid.” Rik Malone writes from San Francisco: “I’m still keeping the world safe for classical music through my work at 102.1 KDFC, the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, and the San Francisco Symphony. You can hear my latest project—podcasts!—at www. sfsymphony.org. Anne is still trying to do something constructive for the educational system in California through her grantmaking, and enjoying her small successes.”
Rob Nooter writes, “Oldest daughter, Madie, is in her second year at Guilford College and loving it. She is also doing very well. Oldest son, Wes, is a senior in high school and has already applied to four colleges. Youngest son, Austin, is playing football at George Mason High School where he plays on the JV team, but suits up and plays in limited roles on the varsity. Barb and I are doing well, and I underwent knee replacement surgery in August, so I am
still in the painful throes of physical therapy.”
Chris Nordlinger reports from Silicon Valley that he continues his board work at the Cisco Foundation and at the Silicon Valley Education Foundation supporting significant investments in programs to encourage math and science skills and interests in students 13 and older in local public schools. This is a hopefully not-too-late effort to create replicable school programs that can be rolled out nationally, helping to once again build a U.S. workforce prepared for the technology jobs of the 21st century. Chris’s family recently got together with his oldest son, Nick, who was studying the classics in England this past year. The U.S.-bound members of the family missed work and school for an extra nine days as a result of the volcanic ash cloud—and loved every minute of it.
Valerie Rumsfeld-Richard is coming in from Santa Fe for her first reunion in three decades. She reports that her eldest daughter, Rachel, is a freshman at the University of Denver. Her husband Paul has an architectural practice in Santa Fe. They have three daughters.
Donna DeMarco Sayada reports, “My son Alex became a Marine this summer after spending three months on Parris Island. He is in the reserves until he finishes his undergraduate degree at AU. Last month I produced my eighth CD, Cairo Blue— Egyptian Jazz. I am working on three more for next year.”
Doug Sedon reports from Latvia: “Well, since we were last together, my marital status has changed—Sidonie and I are no longer living in sin. That has been the major happening in the life of Doug Sedon. On the work front, my company has been struggling to complete this embassy project. I have been sent over to Latvia to try to clean up the mess and get the project closed out so we do not face liquidated damages from the owner, the State Department.”
Ann Donnelly Voelker writes, “Two of my three daughters got married over the last year, one at Harbor Island in the Bahamas, and one in New Orleans, where my girls were raised. If anyone needs help planning weddings, I’m your girl. Yikes! Is it
possible that I will soon be a grandmother? Actually, I am looking forward to it. Since I likely beat everyone in the class to the altar and motherhood, I am going for broke and hope to be the first grandmother as well. Professionally, in the past month I have finished a long article with my coauthor and boss, Sumpter Priddy, on some previously undocumented Washington, D.C., cabinetmakers who made furniture for the White House during the Madison and Monroe administrations and for other prominent D.C. families of the era. It will be published early next year in a fairly geeky scholarly journal, American Furniture, published by the Chipstone Foundation. In the land of decorative arts history, it is pretty important stuff. I am also completing a project for Nemours Mansion, a DuPont family estate outside of Wilmington, Delaware, researching their garden history and writing the official garden tour of the site. I can’t wait to hear the news from others, and I really enjoyed reconnecting with everyone at the reunion. Count me in for October.”
Mary White says “I am going on 15 (yikes) years teaching medical ethics in Ohio, off this week to do something similar in Gondar, Ethiopia, for a month. Who would have thought, from Yellow Springs, Ohio, but it is great to get out and away.” Craig Wilson writes from Bangkok: “The Cambodian orphan boy whom I support is now in 7th grade and a devoted Facebook user. Although (for a variety of reasons, mostly legal—don’t you hate lawyers?!) I cannot adopt him, after six years of steady visits he understands that we’re family—so much so that his Facebook user name is SinLong Wilson! Would that it were so. Given my late-blooming passion for amateur boxing, I helped establish a boxing club at the orphanage, and in the most recent national amateur boxing tournament they won two gold, one silver, and three bronze medals. Very proud of them. SinLong, however, is a soccer player—a goalie! And they call me crazy….The Red Shirts’ demonstration this spring forced me to abandon my apartment for approximately 10 days. Their base was at the end of my street; they parked a truck laden with gas tanks on the bridge across the canal, just outside my apartment, which (so I learned later) would have wiped out
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the entire block if it had exploded. Not a fun time for anyone, and especially not for the many Bangkok citizens who live from hand to mouth and had no real income for quite a long spell.”
1974 Class Secretary Chris Nordlinger cnordlin@cisco.com
1975
George Marcou ’75 writes, “Recently my wife Karen and I hosted Vice President Joe Biden and Dr. Jill Biden at our home in Washington for a fundraiser to support the D.C. Volunteer Lawyers Project, a nonprofit that my wife cofounded in 2008. The DCVLP helps stay-at-home lawyers take on pro bono cases by providing training, mentoring, case flow, and malpractice insurance. The pro bono work is mostly domestic violence and guardian ad litem, but they do some child custody and immigration work as well. The vice president spoke about his profound interest in domestic violence issues and his authoring of the Violence Against Women Act of 1994. In her remarks, Dr. Biden mentioned that she sent one of her students (she teaches English at a local community college) to Karen when she learned that the student was a victim of domestic violence. The evening also featured a fantastic video about the DCVLP made by Sidwell alum Liz Bernstein Norton ’84 at Liz’s nonprofit, Stone Soup Productions (how ‘bout that shout out, Liz!). Karen’s organization contributed 1,000 hours of pro bono work in 2008 (its first year), 4,000 hours in 2009, and is on track this year to exceed 4,000 hours. There are now in excess of 100 DCVLP lawyers. I am working on my sixth domestic violence case and—by far—I find it the most challenging and rewarding pro bono work I have done in my career. If anyone wants any more information about DV work or Karen’s organization, please do not hesitate to contact me at georgetmarcou@gmail. com. When not involved in DV cases, I am an IP/patent partner at King & Spalding in D.C., where I specialize in the info tech/ computer science area. We have two sons, Georgie ’15, who is now taller than I am (but, as I tell him, I will always have the ’psychological edge’), and Jack ’18. They 60
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From left to right: Tony Horwitz ’76, Karin Karina Wilkinson ’77, and Cal Hoffman ’76 with son Harry.
are at Sidwell and (thank goodness) can now both walk to school!”
1976
Cal Hoffman reunited in September with Tony Horwitz and Karin Wilkinson ’77. Cal, his wife Victoria, and son Harry, 2, thank Karin for a wonderfully stimulating, fun-filled week communing with nature at the Wilkinson home in Oak Bluffs, Massachusetts.
1977
Development Corporation. I’m now running the ’No on 2’ ballot measure campaign in Western Massachusetts to prevent repeal of Massachusetts’ primary affordable housing law. Something new awaits me after November 2. In the meantime, we preach occasional sermons at our tiny and rapidly aging Unitarian-Universalist church, walk and bike among the leafy hills, and help run the town hall community movie theater (Pothole Pictures) that I started 16 years ago. Stop by for a visit and an old movie; there’s lots of room in our drafty old 1850s Greek revival house with many ‘green’ project in the works.”
Joe Audette writes, “Living in Boston since I went to college and work as a physician. Two kids and life is very full and happy.”
Andrew Baker writes from Shelburne Falls, Massachusetts: “Life is good and full of transitions here in my town (pop. 2,012), where I’ve lived for the past 18 years. The nest is empty; my wife Andrea and I sent the last two (Isaac Baker and Alec Henry) of our five children and stepchildren off to college this fall. Andrea has started a PhD program in English at UMass Amherst while still teaching 8th grade English at our Mohawk Trail public school. I completed four years of service in June as executive director for the nonprofit Hilltown Community
Andrew also sends along the above photo of himself with classmate David Demere (right), taken in October. Andrew writes, “I recently returned from a wonderful visit with David and family in Maine. We had a
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beautiful last sail with about 10 of David’s friends (his boat came out of the water the next week). Sun and wind and kids and some good storytelling about our big bike trip from D.C. to Maine and back in the summer of ’75. Maybe it was the foot rubs that helped energize him for the boat ride. David has a big heart and a loving community helping him through what looks like the last leg of his voyage.” (Ed.’s note: David Demere died on November 1 at home surrounded by family and freinds.)
Dan Berler writes, “My family and I have relocated to Coconut Grove, Florida, which more or less represents a replay for me because I lived in the Miami area in the late 1980s.” Mika Brewer writes, “For the past 24 years, I have lived in Wayland, Massachusetts, where my wife Kate teaches 4th grade and I work in real estate development. Our three children, Emily, 20, Will, 18, and Michael, 15, keep us incredibly active and entertained (usually). I miss not seeing my Sidwell ‘friends,’ although Danny Berler and I manage to get in a little hunting just about every year. If anyone finds themselves in Boston, please look me up as I would love to get together and reminisce about old times.” Amanda Eastman Buschi writes from Doylestown, Pennsylvania: “I am continuing with my PhD program in human and organizational development. It is wonderful to be back in school. While balancing family and studies is surely a challenge, I find the reading to be fascinating and love the writing, so I’m embracing it all. In fact, I am adding an evidence-based coaching program this month. Ultimately, I hope to coach executives who oversee international offices and executives who are returning from overseas assignments to facilitate their reentry process. My dissertation will still likely be on something related to repatriation. Husband Neil is fine, and daughter Sarah continues to be my pot-of-gold at the end of the rainbow. Warm wishes to all.” Alex Doty writes, “I am living in London and would love to see classmates who might be passing through. I read David Demere’s recent writings and admire his courage. The passing of Brian Muys’ father
earlier this year was a shock. Brian gave a heartfelt eulogy at the memorial service. John Ross and I see each other whenever I am in Bethesda, Maryland, visiting my parents. Sally Rudney and I exchanged Facebook messages and caught up on 30 years recently. I have also been in touch with Ken Johnson in this way.”
(smile). Our classmates Jeff Pierson, Adam Kolker, Steve O’Neill, Steve Clark, James O’Donnell, Eddie Lazarus, and Bill Henry look almost the same as they did in high school.”
Jocelyn McClain Hazlewood writes from Princeville, Illinois: “I must tell you how much I enjoy reading about the lives our classmates have crafted. I am extremely proud that I went to school with such interesting, creative, accomplished individuals. I am an anesthesiologist in a private practice group. I live in central Illinois with my husband of 20 years and our two children, a daughter, 13, and a son, 9. Both children are on travel soccer teams (our daughter was selected to join the state soccer team), so soccer is a year-round commitment. In addition to traveling to soccer tournaments, we make time for travel abroad. My kids are amazing, and my husband and I feel that it is a privilege and a challenge to parent them. Despite my D.C. city roots, I now live in a rural area with cornfields, horses, and sheep for neighbors. Last spring I started raising chickens. I now have fresh eggs each morning! I also have a vegetable garden, and I try to grow everything organically. I even planted 20 fruit and nut trees. Since we all share the same high school graduation date, I cannot sidestep the question of age. For my 50th birthday, I celebrated in Switzerland with a group of friends. Sidwell provided the framework for many of the views that I cherish today. While I wish that I could provide my children with the gift of a Sidwell education, the daily commute would be a bit much. However, the principal at my children’s school is a transplant from northern Virginia. He is very familiar with Sidwell’s approach to education, and he has built a school culture that is similar to Sidwell. The life stories of our classmates prove that Sidwell properly prepared us to lead fascinating lives. I look forward to seeing you at our next reunion.”
Bill Hyun writes from San Francisco: “Not much news from me . . . just older and fatter. I met up with Molly Andrews and we walked arm in arm on Carmel Beach
Steven Johnson (above) writes from Kensington, Maryland: “My wife Ely got her citizenship earlier this year and voted this month for the first time. Little Steven is doing well in 1st grade and little brother Andreas just turned 3 and is very precocious. He takes in everything from his big brother and never seems to forget anything. I am still at Aruba Networks, and we are fortunately doing pretty well, as customers look to ‘right size’ their networks from wired to wireless.” Eddie Lazarus writes, “After 19 years in Los Angeles, we returned to D.C. last year, two kids in tow. I left law firm life to become chief of staff at the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), which has been a wonderful new challenge. My son, Sam Henry ’17, is at Sidwell, and his younger sister, Lily, is at Horace Mann. Hope to see you in D.C.”
Brian Muys writes, “I recently moved to Fairfax, Virginia, after joining American Public University System in Manassas as communications director last spring. I previously worked at a local PR firm and as an independent PR consultant to several D.C.-area technology clients for the last several years. My daughter Dierdre has just started her sophomore year as a psychology major at UMass. I periodically see Alex
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Camacho, Jim Mead, and John Ross, and would love to hear from others in our class.”
Jeannine Perrot writes from Houston: “I’m trying to bring better balance of work and relaxation into my life. I was fortunate to spend two weeks in Hawaii in August. I’d been wanting to go since 1987, so this was a dream come true. My family and I participated in the Association of Women Geoscientists’ field trip to Hawaii Volcanoes National Park. The fresh lava landscape is incredibly beautiful and austere. We were fortunate to see lava slowly oozing out and breaking through one of the flows. As we approached the location of the lava tube, the air temperature got hotter and hotter. It was awesome. You could see the trace of the tube snaking down the hill to the ocean outlet from the steam rising above it. Pretty neat stuff for a geologist!”
Polly Nooter Roberts (below center) continues her work as professor of world arts and cultures at UCLA along with her husband Al, who teaches in the same department. Son Seth, 20, is writing up a storm as a sports journalist at the University of Iowa and has a delightful girlfriend named Rachael. Sid, 15, has taken a huge interest in medicine and plays varsity soccer. Daughter Avery is pregnant, and in December Polly and Al will be grandparents! Polly has undergone some major medical issues these past six months, but is doing great, and is shown here with, from left, Seth, Rachael, Al, and Sid in front of their Westwood home.
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Beth Rubenstein is living in San Francisco with her husband Evan and daughters Danya, 13, and Sulmi, 9. Beth sees her sister Amy Rubenstein ’84 and brother-in-law Winston Little ’83 regularly and is happy about staying connected to Adam Stern and his family. Beth writes, “Our daughters share a Harry Potter obsession. Last January, Danya celebrated her bat mitzvah, and we had a slew of loving folks from around the country come out and share this special time, including Susan Bernstein, Adam Stern, Betsy Zeidman ’76, and my brother Barton Rubenstein ’81 and his family from Washington (Benjamin, Sabrina, and Ari).” Beth is co-founder and executive director of the Out of Site Youth Arts Center, a 10-yearold nonprofit that works with public high school students in the visual and performing arts. Linda B. Sheffield reports that her son Noah celebrated his bar mitzvah in September at a liberal temple in Berlin, Germany, where she has resided with her husband for more than 20 years. It was the first bar mitzvah in her family in 100 years and an exceptional day and celebration for all!
Mackenzie Anderson Sholtz writes from Sumter, South Carolina: “Life is good in SC. Spouse David is an ER nurse, kids Apphia, 13, and Harrison, 7, are busy in school. Homework each night reminds me of Lower and Middle School classes at Sidwell. I am working on children’s clothing patterns from the Civil War era for one of my pattern lines, KayFig (www.figleafpatterns.com), as well as continuing research on family letters from the 19th century.” Geoff Smith writes from Milton, Massachusetts: “Many of you know that 2009 was a difficult year for my family with the loss of my mother and wife in a oneweek span. Some good fortune did follow, because many of my classmates contacted me—some for the first time in years. It was good to hear from old friends, and I want to thank everyone for reaching out when it really mattered. I especially thank those who contacted my father. This is a better year so far. My son is a Cornell freshman. My daughter is a high school freshman. And I have a job!”
Diane Thaler writes from Chevy Chase, Maryland, in haiku: “No More Phonics!” Sidwell memories, Adam’s deadline is right now. Yes, I will respond. I am a teacher. I taught first grade for two years. OH MY! YIKES! HELP! AAAAHHHH! 2010, a relief. I am now teaching third grade. Wow! So much better. A K-1 teacher? I am not, nor ever will be, again, thankfully. With older children, text and writing, more in depth. YES!!! No more phonics!!!!
1977 Class Secretary Adam Stern adamcstern@aol.com
1978
Hilary Kacser again took part in the Capital Fringe Festival, producing and starring in “In PURSUIT of the ENGLISH” and “DISORDEr.” The former play reprised the dramatization of Doris Lessing’s memoir of post-war London, bringing to life “Rose,” who survives with wit and pathos the WWII Blitz. “DISORDEr,” which also showed at the 2010 International OCD Foundation Annual Conference, humorously exposed PakratPatty’s collector-itis and disposophobia.
1979
David Parks writes, “It’s been a fun and busy year for me, and my only regret was not being able to attend our 30th class reunion. In July of ‘09 I was again honored to play soccer for the U.S. Master Soccer Team in the World Maccabiah Games. As my wife puts it, my third time at this ‘once-in-a-lifetime event.’ Work-wise, I had a couple of fun recent projects for the NHL, producing the 2009 NHL Awards in Las Vegas and again serving as the supervising creative producer for the 2010 NHL Winter
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Classic, which was played on January 1 at Fenway Park in Boston. I loved keeping up with my snowbound D.C. friends this winter and appreciated seeing all the amazing photos. Maybe I’ve lived in L.A. too long, but we actually considered flying back to D.C. to be in all the snow, something my kids have never experienced. I also finally had a chance to tour the amazing Middle School building on my last trip back to Washington. It is so impressive, as was the knowledge of the student who showed us around.”
1980
Signe Allen writes, “I was married on May 20 to Kevin Williamson (my oh-so-lame reason for missing the recent festivities, what with the accompanying buying and selling of houses, moving, etc.). We had a wonderful small family wedding in D.C. on a Thursday with glorious weather and a great celebration. I’m happy to report that the blending has gone well for my own little version of the Bradys. I am a sales consultant and national product presenter for the Etcetera clothing line. I’m also horrified at the amount of food I must provide to the three teenage boys who live in my house. Kevin, a former naval aviator, is a captain with American Airlines and grateful that someone else is now feeding his son. Jordan (Kevin’s son) has just joined the Air Force and is waiting to ship out to basic; Devon (Kevin’s daughter) is travel crazy and just started her junior year in high school; Jack (my son) is a freshman at J.E.B. Stuart High School and HUGE into NoVa Special Olympics soccer, basketball, and track; and Judd (my son) is in 7th grade at St. Albans, a huge athlete, and really loving it there. As soon as I find a day to sit at the VA DMV, the name change will be official, and then Mr. and Mrs. Williamson will try and find a lot more time for golf. Sorry to have missed everyone, a special thanks to Christine Cox-Hill for carrying my news to the party—and very big thanks indeed for the many good wishes that came our way.”
Nephelie Andonyadis writes, “My son, Leo Korf, and I still live in Redlands (one hour east of Los Angeles), where he just started high school. I am in my 10th year
Call For Alumni in the Peace Corps or U.S. Military Did you or do you now serve in the Peace Corps or the U.S. Military? Let us hear from you! The Peace Corps celebrates its 50th anniversary in 2011. And in a recent alumni survey, we heard from many who want to read about alumni in the military. It seems fitting, then, to focus on alumni who have chosen one of these opportunities for service to country as we plan the spring 2011 issue of the Alumni Magazine. Do you have a story about your experience? Send your news to Martha Membrino, editor, at membrinom@sidwell.edu by February 1. If possible, attach a high resolution photo of you at work. on the faculty at the University of Redlands in the theater arts department. I recently had a great phone conversation with Nick Atkeson, whose daughter is looking at colleges and is interested in Redlands. In addition to teaching, I continue to take on design projects outside of the university working at theaters like South Coast Repertory and Oregon Shakespeare Festival. And just this year, I joined the ensemble of Cornerstone Theater Company, which is based in Los Angeles and does some great work collaborating with a diverse range of communities and artists. In fact, I was happy to discover that our manager of community partnerships at Cornerstone, damali ayo ’90, is also a Sidwell alum. Starting in January, I will be on a sabbatical leave during which I’ll take on several design projects and go on a second adventure to Bali to study traditional mask carving and performing arts. This time, my son will accompany me for part of the trip. We are well here, and though we like many things about Southern California, we miss the East Coast and enjoy visiting my parents and my brother, who continue to live in the same neighborhood we grew up in.”
Charles Breer writes, “I took advantage of a year-long sabbatical to ride my bicycle across the USA last July and August. With a group of 50 other riders (mostly older than me!), we started in Everett, Washington,
near Seattle, and ended up at the beach in Yorktown, Virginia, 30 days later. The scenery was fabulous, we ate tons of great food, and I was reminded what a huge country we live in. Also, no injuries or sore body parts, except for fever blisters on my lips.”
Charles Breer ’80 finishes a 30-day cross-country bike ride in Yorktown, Virginia.
Christine Cox-Hill and family are excited to be hosting a Chinese exchange student from Beijing for a year. Yiran is attending Holton-Arms and is in the 11th grade with Anna, who is taking AP Chinese this year and is art editor of the yearbook. Christian is in the 8th grade at Landon and enjoys art and science but is doomed for another year of Mrs. Simpson’s dance classes. Ice hockey for MYHA Blue Devils is in full swing, and the girls U19 team looks good. Holton’s hockey begins in November, and they
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have a new female coach, a former 2006 Olympic player.
Martha Hausman writes, “My family and I (Raizi, 9, Hallel, 7, and Andy Vogel, 42) are taking a sabbatical in Haifa, Israel, January-June 2011. Usually, I am in Newton, Massachusetts, conducting my mediation and negotiation work on behalf of clergy clients around the country, and Andy is a rabbi in Brookline (i.e., a referral source!). In Israel we are looking forward to some volunteer work, some study, some hiking, and sitting in cafes reading books (what’s a book?!).”
Extend Media, was just acquired by Cisco Systems (I was CEO until the deal closed— now I’m happily unemployed).” Extend Media makes software that allows media companies to send video to computers and mobile devices.
Will McMillan writes, “I was only at Sidwell through 4th grade. But I certainly have lots of memories. I attend the same health club as Eve Stern; sometimes we meet and muse over our lives. I am currently assistant director of the Cambridge Center for Adult Education (www.ccae.org) and sing a fair amount on the side (www.willsings.com). My time with Mrs. Imhoff (our wonderful music teacher at Lower School) was well spent!”
reunion 2011 If your graduation year ends in 1 or 6, you have a reunion coming up in May! Class secretaries are needed to collect news from their classmates and report on Reunion Weekend activities for the summer edition of the Alumni Magazine. For Reunion 2011, only three of 10 classes have designated class secretaries. Please consider volunteering your time as a class secretary. To learn just how easy—and fun—it is, e-mail alumnimagazine@sidwell.edu or call Lauren Pauer at 202-537-8137.
1980 Class Secretary Andi Donohue amdonohue@aol.com
1981
Tanya Lumpkins writes, “Looking forward to reunion next year!”
1982
Brooke Jackson (above) writes, “I ran my ninth marathon in Chicago on October 10 (10-10-10) and was honored to be selected as one of the 10 runners profiled in this year’s Bank of America Chicago Marathon.” The profile reads: “Dr. Brooke Jackson’s motivation is to inspire healthy living one mile at a time. Brooke is a dermatologist who promotes healthy living through her running to make people aware of the dangers of sun exposure and skin cancer. She started Chicago Fit, the Chicago chapter of USA Fit, in 1999, and the club has grown from 75 to 450 members. Brooke is competing in her ninth marathon and fourth Chicago Marathon.”
Tom MacIsaac writes, “I have some big news on the business front: my company,
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Frances Barbour Melbostad with her husband Bill Melbostad and her son Teddy Hayden, 11, at the Leukemia Cup regatta at the San Francisco Yacht Club.
Hadley Boyd and her husband John Parachini welcomed a daughter, Eliana Grace Parachini, on April 22. She joins big sister Julia.
1984
Ben Klayman has moved to the Ann Arbor, Michigan, area. He is still working with Reuters covering the business of sports.
Frances Barbour Melbostad writes, “I’m a nationally certified instructor for the League of American Cyclists and very happy living in Tiburon, Marin County, California. When not teaching or cycling, I’m sailing, singing in the choir, cooking, proofing my husband’s marine surveys, or helping in my son’s 5th grade class.”
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1985
Phoebe Stein Davis writes, “Still very much enjoying Baltimore and my job at the Maryland Humanities Council. Have seen classmate Judy Lichtman here in Balitmore, as well as Lynn Heller ’84 and Sarah Szanton ’84.”
Peter Krause writes, “Sorry I couldn’t make the reunion. Hope to see everyone at the 30th!”
Meg Elliott Smith writes, “I’ve started a new job as a camp advisor working with Lisa Bulman Mullen. Tips on Trips and Camps provides free advice to parents for children ages 8-18. We help with summer overnight camps, teen community service and immersion, and travel programs. If you need help, please give me a shout at meg@ tipsontripsandcamps.com.” 1985 Class Secretary Nicole Janin Sheehan nicolesheehan@comcast.net
Reproduction, and Women’s Health in the Second Wave by Wendy Kline. This is Kline’s second monograph. She is a professor of history at the University of Cincinnati.
Jit Singh connected with Amanda Godley ’88 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and formally apologized for when he and Ezra Borut ’88 moved her car back in 11th grade. The apology was later accepted.
1988
Leigh Lambert and her son Oliver, also born in April.” Jenaya Leigh Landham was born on November 19, 2009, to Alison CrockettLandham and her husband Robert. Jenaya joins her sister Kissiah, 6, in the LandhamCrockett musical empire.
Charles Fairchild writes, “After a 15-year career in sales and marketing, I went to law school, passed the California Bar, and am practicing business and tax law as a solo practitioner.”
Ben Simons and his wife Alison Cooley ’91 welcomed a baby boy, Finley Gray Simons, on August 2. Finn was born at 11:36 a.m. and weighed 7 lbs., 14.8 oz.
1986
1986 Class Secretaries Laura London llondon@alum.mit.edu Marina McClelland smarinamcclelland@yahoo.com
1989 Skip Holmes and his wife Rachel welcomed their first children in February, twin boys Oliver and Jacob (above). The double snow storms made things a little tense, but everyone is doing well.
1987
Duncan Evans and his wife Sarah are pleased to announce the birth of their daughter, Vivienne, on August 5, 2009, in Tampa, Florida. She joins her big brother and sister, Graeme and Genevieve, who are very excited.
Midori Kanda moved to New York from Vienna, Austria, in May. She works on economic and social affairs at the United Nations. Leigh Lambert and her husband Mike
Andy Kaufmann writes, “After retiring from the Army in January 2009 as a lieutenant colonel, I took a break to regroup—spent some quality time with the family, debated moving away from upstate New York—and just relax. Was hired by a company out of California called Allied Container as the assistant director of military programs. I work out of my house in northern New York, where we have decided to stay. It’s nice being at home!” The University of Chicago Press recently published Bodies of Knowledge: Sexuality,
Rennie Crocker Anderson and her husband Kai welcomed baby number four in March. Pictured above, Milo joins older siblings Tala, 10, Caleb, 8, and Avey, 6.
Katie Craig Bocock and her husband, Piers, welcomed a fourth son, Alexander Kyle Eliot Bocock, on April 3. Katie says that things have been busy, but big brothers Miles, Toby, and Leo have been very helpful. She also reports, “I’m in a group called Takoma Mamas with classmate
Bauer announce the birth of their son, Oliver Nicholas Bauer, on April 16. Leigh has started her own business, Batch by Batch Bakery (www.batchbybatch.com), and sells her baked goods out of Capital City Cheesecake in Takoma Park, Maryland. Katie Craig Bocock recently sampled the brownies and reports that they are “amazing.”
Thao Le writes, “I’ve been pregnant for three years, so it’s quite a shock to be able to see my toes again! Sister Noe, 3, brother
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Lev, 2, husband Neil, and I welcomed Ada into the family last December. We’re now complete . . . . Let the good times roll!”
Morgan McGill left her attorney position at the ISDH Office of Legal Affairs and has taken over leadership of the Indiana State Department of Health’s Office of Women’s Health. Morgan’s daughter, Lila, 5, started kindergarten this fall.
Erin Sheehy and Jon Davidson welcomed a little girl, Serena, on August 18. She joins brother Leo and sister Mia, who adore her.
Elizabeth Wyatt and her husband Craig Peckham are enjoying sharing all the wonders of New York with their daughters Arely, 3, and Casey, 7 months. Elizabeth encourages people to submit pictures old and new to the class Facebook page! 1989 Class Secretary Elizabeth Wyatt ebwyatt@aol.com
1990
Amy Shields Doyle is the supervising producer of the TLC television series Hoarding: Buried Alive.
Meta Puttkammer Valentic sends the above photograph of her and Amy McKee, Jean Chiang, and Toni Hicks. The four friends reunited in April with their children, shown here sporting stylish Sidwell Friends clothing. Pictured from left are Meta with daughter Malia, Amy with daughter Emma, Jean (who gave birth the next month to her second child, Vaughan) with daughter Keira, and Toni. Nick Walsh and Diana Alberghini welcomed a daughter, Amalia Yvonne Walsh, on August 1. Nick writes that her brother Sidney, 5, and sister Maddalena, 3, are “very enthusiastic at their new sibling’s arrival, and have yet to ask if she comes with a return policy.”
Charlotte Kaiser sent the above photo of her 14-month-old son Linus Hazard Peterson in front of St. Paul’s Cathedral in London.
1990 Class Secretary Justine Wruble Fahey justinew1@yahoo.com
1991
Shelleye-Anne Bailey writes, “I am looking forward to our reunion next year!”
Geoff Gross and his wife Amanda welcomed their son William Leo Vaughn Gross on March 8. The three live in New York City on the Upper West Side. Justine Wruble Fahey and family welcomed Zander Reid Fahey (above) on July 30. Sister Hailey, 9, and brother Noah, 7, are very excited.
Colin McKay has returned to the D.C. area with his family after spending several years in the Bay Area.
Ed Ugel was on the Today Show twice talking with Matt Lauer about his new book I’m With Fatty. (Editor’s note: See Alumni Bookshelf on page 33.)
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Masaki Hidaka and her husband, Trip Clattenburg, have been living in Tokyo with their daughters. Their next move will probably be to Singapore in 2011.
Dorothy Mares McCuaig lives in D.C.’s Adams Morgan neighborhood with her husband Dan and their two sons, Alexander, 3 ½, and William (Liam), 1. Dorothy is a lawyer working in the Office of the General Counsel at the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Alexa Polmer writes, “I had a beautiful baby girl, Ruby Frances Spencer, February 19 in Newport, Rhode Island. I was thrown a surprise baby shower last December; in attendance were fellow Brooklynites Che Chisholm, Shelleye Anne Bailey, Dahomey Coleman, and Sara Schwartz ’96. I’m currently living with Ruby and husband Jason in the Ditmas Park area of Brooklyn in the very same building as BFF Megan Hester (her daughter Zora is holding Ruby in the above photo) and her family. I thought about going back to directing and teaching—decided to wait a year (at least). Life is good.”
1991 Class Secretary Charlotte Kaiser cjkaiser@post.harvard.edu
› CLASS NOTES
1992
Tripp, David Vine ’93, Dan Hirsch, and For those of you addicted to your iPhone, Husani Bastien writes that he recently launched a company that publishes content to iPhones and other smart phones. You can find his company on the Web at www. a2digital.net.
Michael Robbins.
Tracy Pruzan-Roy and her husband Bret welcomed their son Matthew Vincent to the world on September 23. Matthew was 7 lbs., 4 oz., and 19 inches long at birth, but that doesn’t mean he can’t grow up to play in the NFL. Will he be a Pats fan like his dad or a Redskins fan like his mom? Only time will tell.
Ben Fitzpatrick writes, “My wife Leila and I welcomed two beautiful daughters into the world on May 24: Emma Finn Fitzpatrick and Abigail Jamie Fitzpatrick. Emma and Abby were born 10 weeks early, lived in the Georgetown NICU until mid-July, and are now doing fine. They have hung out with classmates Jonathan Stoel and Moyo Myers Ellis, and their uncles Michael ’83 and David ’86.”
Olivia Gentile and her husband, humorist Andy Borowitz, announce the birth of their daughter, Madeline GentileBorowitz, on January 24.
Cory Hartquist recently tied the knot, and a whole host of Goobs, and baby Goobs, were in attendance. Cory married Marianne Rae Minton on September 24 at the Sanderling Inn in Duck, North Carolina. The newlyweds reside in Memphis, Tennessee. Sidwell family in attendance included Laura Hartquist ’89, Jane Hartquist, Peggy Kane, Malcolm Logan, Colin Findlay, Matthew
From left to right: Lisa Franklin Topchik, Brooke Bralove Ugel, Tracy Pruzan-Roy and Emily Paster
Emily Paster writes, “Back in July, while Tracy Pruzan-Roy was still pregnant, Lisa Franklin Topchik, Brooke Bralove Ugel, and I feted the mom-to-be during a girls getaway at Bethany Beach. As you can see, we still look like the 18-year-olds who frequented the Delaware beaches during Beach Week. However, the years had clearly caught up with us because none of us could stay up past 10:00 p.m. all weekend.”
Follow us on Twitter at SFSAlumni.
Reconnect with your SFS classmates!
Join the “Sidwell Friends School Alumni” groups! Coen moved from Missoula, Montana, to Elkins, West Virginia, in May. They spent the summer fixing up their new house, which isn’t new at all but rather about a century old. (It was once the area’s first post office.) Reasons for the move included better proximity to family and friends, not to mention the possibility of attending future reunions. They’re finding that the license plates are correct: West Virginia really is wild and wonderful. Elkins is close to tons of federal and state parks and forests and would be a great base for tubing, hiking, or checking out the fall leaves. The house has a nice guest room, so why not go for a visit? Sutton is still writing business case studies, among other freelance projects, and Amy is checking out the local job market for people who follow birds around or do other science-y things in the woods. You can reach Sutton at sutton.stokes@gmail.com; he is also, of course, on Facebook.
1992 Class Secretary Emily Paster ekpaster@yahoo.com
1993
Jane Bechtel Brown writes, “My family is
From left to right: Malcolm Logan with Chandler Logan; Mike Robbins with Madeline and Tai Robbins; Matthew Tripp; Colin Findlay with Anna Findlay; Danny Hirsch with Claire Hirsch; and David Vine ’93 holding Israel Robbins because Mike ran out of hands.
D.C.-area folks may soon get to meet Sutton Stokes’s 1-year-old son, Coen, pictured above. Sutton, his wife Amy, and
moving to Windsor, California (outside of Santa Rosa), from Saint Paul, Minnesota. I have been married for eight years to Geof Brown, and we have lived in our house since we got married. I have a 5-year-old daughter, Audrey, and a 3-year-old daughter, Cecelia. I have quit my job after working for Minneapolis Public Schools in a num-
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ber of different elementary school teaching positions since I graduated from Macalester. So after years of stability, we are turning the apple cart upside down! Finally something to put in the Alumni Magazine.”
Julia Davis reports, “I finally started work as a lawyer, and Michael headed back to teaching at his bilingual school in east New York in a brand-new building. Our daughter Alma (below) turned 2, and we are celebrating 16 years together as a couple. We can’t wait to see all the class of ’93 babies on the way in Brooklyn and Maryland that we keep hearing about; email me if you are scrounging for used baby clothes: julialdavis@yahoo.com.”
Lara Holliday (below) writes from New York that she can’t believe her daughter Josie is already 1. “I started my own little consulting biz to give me more flexibility and time with Josie; I’m doing communications and fundraising consulting in the education reform world. Things are good.”
Ann LoPresti Payne and her husband Matt just moved back from Germany to Virginia, where Matt works for the State Department and Ann writes children’s books. “We’re enjoying the roller coaster of life with a toddler and a crazy corgi,” Ann writes. For more on her books, including her forthcoming first U.S. publication, The Frazzles, check out www.annbonwill.com. Andrew Price lives in L.A., where he helped launch the inaugural Hollywood Fringe Festival this summer. More than 17,000 patrons attended 184 productions over 11 days, Andrew reports. He returned to Washington this spring for his second Helen Hayes Award nomination, this one for his work in Antebellum at Woolly Mammoth Theatre (but sadly, no win this time). He writes that he’s staying busy in the theater and voiceover worlds, along with solid doses of camping, hashing, and day-job reverie. Dax Ross is currently completing a novel and multimedia project about capital punishment in Texas. You can find out more on his blog, www.makembelieve.com.
Thomas Karro-Gassner reports that he got married to Melany Hughes in April and moved to New Orleans in August.
Matt Lawsky writes, “I’m still in the
Harley Feldbaum recently moved from Johns Hopkins SAIS to the U.S. Agency for International Development as a White House Fellow. He’s living in Glen Echo, Maryland, with his wife Nicole, Maddox, 5, and Nora, 3, pictured below.
same house in Berkeley I’ve been in for 10 years, with my wife of five years and partner of 10 years, Luna, and our almost3-year-old daughter, Magnolia. Luna and I continue to work in concert and event production through our company Taylor Street Production LLC, which I started about five years ago. We produce events as diverse as the Nike Women’s Marathon and the Furthur Festival, featuring former members of the Grateful Dead. On the home front, our backyard has become a gathering place for the neighborhood toddlers. It’s all a lot of fun!”
Enid Maran writes, “I’m still at The Nielsen Company doing business development and still living in Brooklyn’s Prospect Heights. Doug and I are expecting our first baby in December.”
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Ivy Ross is headed to Tucson. She writes, “I’ve been living in Portland, teaching song writing, voice, guitar, and yoga in Portland Public Schools and in my spare time volunteering with The Community Cycling Center and The Center for Medically Fragile Children. I’ve got a new band called The Pillowfight that has been creating wondrous mayhem with feathers flying at our shows around town! I’ll be going to Tucson for the winter to deepen my understanding of therapeutics in yoga at an anusara immersion. I’ll travel there by train with my ukulele, playing solo shows along the way! Diana Zumas will be there, too, and I’m so excited to live in the same city as her again. Yippeeee!” Vivien Schweitzer is enjoying life in New York, where she is a freelance music critic and reporter for the New York Times.
Kathleen Jost Seward recently returned to her new post as the principal at Benjamin G. Brown Elementary School after giving birth to her second daughter, Mairéad Elizabeth Seward, on August 17. “Things are busy at home with a second child and a new job, but I am thrilled to be working
› CLASS NOTES
unexploded bombs that still litter the Lao countryside. He is also chair of Princeton’s East Asian Studies Advisory Council.
Faye Walsh Drouillard and her husband Vincent are happy to announce the birth of their daughter Eloise Caitlin Drouillard on February 23 in Los Angeles.
Paul Goldstein is working for a clean-tech company in Silicon Valley called Bloom Energy. His daughters, Sadie and Maggie, are 3 and 1.
SFS Alumni gathered at the wedding of Graham Bullock ’94 and Sally Lawrence on May 23, 2009. From left to right: Sara Depew with husband Ali Mohamadi ’94, bride and groom, Jonathan Goldman ’94 with wife Anu Tewary, and Tijan Watt ’94.
right here in Somerville, Massachusetts, after the past five years of a crazy commute. Vashti Van Wyke is living in Somerville too—great coincidence.”
two years in Santa Fe. I moved to Tucson, Arizona, in October to be closer to my relationship and to further my career as a therapist. I am still training to be a ‘psychodrama’ practitioner, which is a modality that blends theater and therapy. And I am a proud owner of a little black cat named Baby, who is quite spoiled—and I intend to keep it that way.”
1993 Class Secretary Emily Kaiser eek@emilykaiser.com
1994
Amanda Werner Gomez writes, “James and I welcomed our beautiful little girl, Abigail Elizabeth Evans Gomez, on March 21. She is such a sweet and funny baby. We are absolutely in love.” Jessica Green received her PhD in political science from Princeton University in June. “I am now an assistant professor of political science at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio,” she writes. “I recently saw Graham Bullock at a political science conference, who looks exactly the same, and whose research interests are eerily similar to mine. Drop me a line, or let me know when you pass through Cleveland (it happens a lot, I know): jessica.f.green@ case.edu.”
Graham Bullock married Sally Lawrence
Brooke Wolvin (above) married Kevin Guerrero on September 4 at the Old Ebbitt Grill in Washington, D.C. She writes, “Monica Lewis Coughlin served as my matron of honor. It was a gorgeous day! We live in D.C. I am a radiologist in private practice at Washington Hospital Center. Kevin is a lawyer at the Securities and Exchange Commission.”
Diana Zumas writes, “I have a master’s in counseling and am now a licensed mental health counselor and have been working at a treatment center for addictions for the past
on May 23, 2009, at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park. He reports, “No lions interrupted the ceremony, but a cheetah did make an appearance at the reception, which was pretty cool.” Class of 1994 alumni in attendance included Ali Mohamadi (with his wife Sara Depew), Jonathan Goldman (with his wife Anu Tewary), and Tijan Watt. Graham is currently finishing his PhD in environmental policy and management at UC Berkeley, and Sally works in public health and nutrition consulting in Oakland.
Brett Dakin is finishing up a research fellowship at Columbia Law School and working on a book about comics and communism in post-war America. He is chair of Legacies of War, a nonprofit working to raise awareness about the Vietnam Warera bombing of Laos and clean up the
Mia Cutler Meyer sends this photo of her son Grayson, whose birth was announced in the spring issue of the Alumni Magazine.
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Laura Reznick writes, “Big brother Aaron, 3, Alex, and I welcomed Kevin Lazer Zhu (below) on January 31—a little early due to the full moon and snow!”
Thea Myers writes, “My husband Jay and I welcomed our little baby daughter (above) in June! She’s a very sweet little girl called Alia, and we’re slowly but surely falling in love with her.”
Emily Sherman Webb and her husband
Ivan Petrovitch reports that he and his wife Sonia had a son, Zander Petrovitch (above), on June 13. Zander weighed in at 8 lbs., 4 oz.
Alec Phillips reports that his son William started Pre-K at Sidwell this fall. He’s in the Class of 2024.
1994 Class Secretary Tali Woodward tmwoodward@gmail.com
1995
Sara Siegel Poulios writes, “Regretted missing the reunion. Will see you at the 20th!”
1996
Lindsay Harris received her PhD in modern art and architectural history from the New York University Institute of Fine Arts. She is currently organizing an exhibition on the role of photography in preserving historic buildings and urban plans in Rome. 70
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Vince Webb welcomed a daughter, Freya Grace Webb, on April 16. Freya shares her birthday with her 18-year-old half brother, Chris. Emily and Vince both work for AOL; she is an executive assistant, and he is a senior systems engineer. Emily is also a dog trainer and enjoys teaching one of her rescued dogs, Modi, new tricks. She writes, “The Border Collie can put all of Freya’s toys in a basket, recycle plastic water bottles, and ride a skateboard.” The family lives in Centreville, Virginia.
1997
Mark Buckley married Jane Earle on June 19 in Ithaca, New York. Alumni in attendance included Giovanni Lizama, Bert Choe, Graham Archer, Marisa Buckley ’94, James Dowd, and Tony Jackson. Mark graduated from Cornell in August with a PhD in physics. He is now working as a post-doctoral fellow at the University of Pennsylvania’s McKay Orthopedic Research Laboratory researching tendon biomechanics.
On June 28, 2009, Kathryn Lanouette (above) married Jamie Bennett outside Washington, D.C. Kathryn’s sister, Nicole Lanouette ’93, and mother, JoAnne Lanouette (retired SFS English teacher), were present as well as classmate Rachel Kravetz. Kathryn and Jamie live in New York City.
Rael Nelson-James writes, “I am very excited to announce to the Sidwell community that I have joined the team at LIFT as executive director at LIFT-DC. LIFT is a growing movement to combat poverty and expand opportunity for all people in the United States. LIFT currently runs centers staffed by trained volunteers in Boston, Chicago, New York, Philadelphia, and Washington, D.C., to serve low-income individuals and families. LIFT clients and volunteers work one-on-one to find jobs, secure safe and stable housing, make ends meet through public benefits and tax credits, and obtain quality referrals for services like childcare and healthcare. Simultaneously, the LIFT experience pushes volunteers to grapple with our country’s most challenging issues related to poverty, race, inequality, and policy. Since LIFT’s founding, more than 5,000 volunteers have served more than 30,000 individuals and families.”
› CLASS NOTES
Mark Buckley ’97 married Jane Earle on June 19. From left to right: Giovanni Lizama ’97 and son, Bert Choe ’97, Graham Archer ’97, Marisa Buckley ’94, groom and bride, James Dowd ’97, and Tony Jackson ’97.
1998
Basil Papavassiliou Alexander and his wife, Conamore Alexander, are excited to announce the birth of their daughter, Summer Sophia, on July 30. Sophia, pictured above with her older brother Xavier (almost 2), is doing great. The family lives near the National Zoo in D.C., and both parents work in the construction/design sector. Conamore is an architect and Basil manages a construction consultancy. Matthew Blong’s photography exhibit, “Latvian Landscapes: The Road Less Traveled,” was the lead exhibit at the Embassy of Latvia during the Europe Week festivities in May, when many D.C. embassies opened their doors for special events. Zac Bookman is practicing trial litigation in San Francisco.
Kate Hut ’98 married Ben Levy on June 5. From left to right: Bill Siegel ’98, Brooke Press ’98, Mark Krafft ’02, Katie Rollins ’98, Margaret Wilner Hut ’64, John Wilner ’58, Rachel Ballali ’98, bride and groom, Nick Hut ’92, Chris Hut ’95, Peter James ’98, Andrew Griffith ’98, Annie Hurwitz ’98, Noah Feinstone, Jon Miller ’99, Eric Gross ’98, Morley McBride ’98, and Steve Hut.
Dorothy Fortenberry writes that she graduated from the Yale School of Drama in 2008 with an MFA in playwriting. In 2009 she moved with her husband Colin Wamsbgans to Los Angeles, where he started his MFA at CalArts in music composition. She is still writing plays and has recently started writing for television as well.
Alison M. Friedman finished her “sabbatical” in D.C. as a fellow at the Kennedy Center Arts Management Institute and is now splitting her time between China and the United States running Ping Pong Productions, which facilitates cultural exchange and collaborations between Chinese and international performing artists. Check out her latest projects at www.pingpongarts.org, and be sure to drop a line at the “contact us” page.
paid tuition for three lifers, so we made him an honorary one.” Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley presented Phil Selden with the state’s highest award for volunteerism for his work on behalf of adopted children, the NAACP, the Special Olympics, and his service as a volunteer firefighter. Phil recently left Arnold & Porter LLP to become an assistant U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia.
Katie Hut married Ben Levy on June 5 at Bethany Beach, Delaware. Alums in attendance included Katie’s mom, Margaret Wilner Hut ’64, her brothers Nick Hut ’92 and Chris Hut ’95, and uncle John Wilner ’58. Other SFS graduates attending were Rachel Ballali, Andrew Griffith, Noah Feinstone, Eric Gross, Annie Hurwitz, Mark Krafft ’02, Peter James, Morley McBride, Jon Miller ’99, Brooke Press, Katie Rollins, and Bill Siegel. Margaret writes, “Steve Hut, Katie’s dad, is also in the picture above. Though not an SFS grad, he
Bill Siegel married Julie Velasquez on May 27, 2009, on Virgin Gorda in the British Virgin Islands, with other Sidwell Friends grads in attendance. Pictured above from left to right: Noah Feinstone, MacGregor Stockdale, Katie Hut, the groom and bride, Annie Hurwitz, Sara Siegel Poulios ’95, and Peter James. Bill writes, ALUMNI MAGAZINE
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“I met Julie eight years ago at a bar on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. We have been together ever since and live in the West Village.”
1998 Class Secretary Samantha Staffier Burman samantha.staffier@gmail.com
1999
Katia Fowler writes, “I entered the University of Virginia’s English MA program this fall.”
2000
Nick Friedman and Omar Solliman recently published their first book, Effortless Entrepreneur: Work Smart, Play Hard, Make Millions (Crown Books). Based on their company, College Hunks Hauling Junk, the book presents 10 common-sense commandments to building a straightforward, fun, and successful business that does a simple job well. (Editor’s note: See Alumni Bookshelf page 34.)
Treva Lindsey received her PhD in history and the prestigious Graduate Teaching Award from Duke University in May. In August she began a tenure-track assistant professor position in the Department of Women and Gender Studies at the
University of Missouri.
Nyia Noel writes, “I graduated from the University of Michigan Medical School in May and have moved to Philadelphia for my residency in ob-gyn at the hospital of UPenn. I live with my sister, and I’m surviving internship so far.”
Margot Lowenstein Simmons writes, “2010 has been a fantastic year! Still working in New York leading the marketing department for an education reform organization called New Leaders for New Schools. In March I married Jon Simmons, and fellow Sidwell alumni Molly Browne Lynch, Mark Flemming, Michael Krafft, and Emily Levey were all there making the day even more special! Jon and I recently bought an apartment on the Upper West Side and are looking forward to finishing out 2010 as happy as it started.” Margot is also the NYC Sidwell Alumni club copresident and looks forward to reconnecting with young alums in the area. Contact her at margot.l.simmons@gmail.com. Sintana Vergara writes from Bogotá, Colombia, where she serves as a Fulbright fellow conducting dissertation research on the environmental impacts of formal versus informal recycling (aka scavenging). “Besides being on the trail of trash, I am also getting to explore a beautiful city and
country, sampling wonderful tropical fruits, meeting interesting people, and of course, learning more about my heritage (both of my parents are Colombian, but I have never lived here before). I will return to UC Berkeley next year to wrap up graduate school (in the Energy and Resources Group), but until then, please get in touch if you find yourself traveling in Colombia!”
2000 Class Secretary Freddie Ghesquiere frghesquiere@gmail.com
2001
Kristina Van Doren-Shulkin Coskun and her husband, Murat, announce the birth of their son, Noah (above), on May 20.
Jennifer Millard (above) married Win Margot Lowenstein Simmons ’00 married Jon Simmons in March. From left to right: Aryanne Ferranti, Mike Krafft ’00, bride and groom, Molly Browne Lynch ’00, and Stephen Lynch.
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Sheridan on August 23 at Tucker’s Point in Bermuda. In attendance were Jen’s sisters,
› CLASS NOTES
Kate ’98, Amanda ’04, and Molly ’07 as well as former Upper School math teacher Joan Reinthaler. Jen and Win live in Clarendon, Virginia.
2002
Emma Basch was married to Matthew Fleischman on June 20. In attendance were Sidwell alums Natalie Prizel, Marie Turner, Virginia Ferris, and Alaina Murphy. Emma is in her final year of a doctoral program in clinical psychology in New York. Roberto Reyes Gaskin writes, “I’ve started practicing U.S. and French securities and mergers and acquisitions law at the Paris office of a U.S. law firm.”
2003
Ashley Satterfield writes, “I graduated from the University of Chicago Law School in June and moved back to Washington, D.C., as a legal fellow for Microsoft. I would love to catch up with classmates in the area.”
2004
Cameron Davison Benedetto writes, “Luca Davison Benedetto was born on February 13 in Fairfax, Virginia. He joins big sister Jeffy Rose, 2, and his very happy mom and dad!” 2004 Class Secretaries Alex Stewart astew73@gmail.com Jeffery Mullins jmullins581@gmail.com
Ethan Heard reports, “I recently joined Elliot Quick ’03 and Jake Jeppson ’01 at the Yale School of Drama. Elliot is a second-year dramaturg, Jake’s a secondyear playwright, and I’m a first-year director. It so happens that Matt Pearson ’01 is here performing in the Yale Repertory’s first show of the season, a new musical called We Have Always Lived in the Castle.”
2005
2005 Class Secretary Nicole Weissman neweissman@gmail.com
In August, Associate Head of School Ellis Turner was on a family vacation in Lake Placid, New York, where he learned that two of his former students, Elise Lemle ’04 and Julia Lemle ’07 were there as well. Elise suggested the three play a round of miniature golf at a piratethemed course. Results unknown.
2006
Peter Collins was given one of 18 medals awarded nationally for high scores on the collegiate Greek exam. Peter plans to study Greek, Latin, classical and modern Chinese, and ancient ethics in graduate school. Loren Sands-Ramshaw graduated magna cum laude from Dartmouth College on June 13. Daniel White just moved to New York. He recently got a job with Random House Books working in the children’s division as a marketing assistant for a brand licensing team. Zach Mueller was accepted as the 2010 Zeidman fellow and is currently studying Mandarin Chinese in Beijing. He will return to the United States next June and has already run into many other Sidwell Friends here in China!
2006 Class Secretary Zach Mueller zachmueller@gmail.com
2008
Savitri Sedlacek reports, “My work, From left to right: Jake Jeppson ’01, Matt Pearson ’01, Elliot Quick ’03, and Ethan Heard ’02 celebrate Ethan’s birthday at Yale.
a collection of photographs from India, was accepted into the Target Gallery
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juried show ‘5x5 Exposed: Small Works in Photography.’ The show will be at the Torpedo Factory Art Center in Alexandria, Virginia, and runs from November 6 to November 28.”
Sidney Sands-Ramshaw studied full time at Beijing Normal University this summer after finishing her freshman year at Dartmouth College.
Marielle Young is the newest addition to Columbia University’s cheerleading team and is looking forward to “flying” at Columbia’s football and basketball games. She is also serving on the Columbia Class of 2013’s student council and will go to Italy for Christmas break to try out her Italian language skills.
2009
2009 Class Secretary Marielle Young xmalielex@gmail.com
2010
Marriages Signe Allen ’80 and Kevin Williamson, May 20, 2010 Cory Hartquist ’92 and Marianne Rae Minton, September 24, 2010 Thomas Karro-Gassner ’93 and Melany Hughes, April 2010 Brooke Wolvin ’93 and Kevin Guerrero, September 4, 2010 Graham Bullock ’94 and Sally Lawrence, May 23, 2009 Mark Buckley ’97 and Jane Earle, June 19, 2010 Kathryn Lanouette ’97 and Jamie Bennett, June 28, 2009 Katie Hut ’98 and Ben Levy, June 5, 2010 Bill Siegel ’98 and Julie Velasquez, May 27, 2009
Bostonians (above, left to right) Amsie Hecht, Caitlin Lesczynski, Katie Choi, and Catherine Heyward attended a Cambridge Friends Meeting together this fall to honor those who died on September 11. After finishing her first year at Barnard, Julia Kennedy returned for the summer to D.C., where she worked with Sidwell’s Alumni Fund and studied at Georgetown University and George Washington University. This fall Julia was an orientation leader for Barnard’s freshman class and is enjoying being Barnard’s sophomore class vice president and tour guide for the Admissions Office. She is contemplating majoring in either French or psychology and is looking forward to her sophomore year!
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Margot Lowenstein ’00 and Jon Simmons, March 6, 2010 Dartmouth freshmen Julian MacMillan (above left) and Jordan Verrilli (right) attended the Brown vs. Dartmouth women’s soccer game in September and caught up with Brown freshman and soccer player Louisa Pitney (center). Dartmouth beat Brown 2-1, but Louisa appreciated Julian and Jordan (quietly) rooting for her.
Jennifer Millard ’01 and Win Sheridan, August 23, 2010 Emma Basch ’02 and Matthew Fleischman, June 20, 2010
› LIFE CYCLES
Births & Adoptions Hadley Boyd ’82 and John Parachini, a daughter, Eliana Grace Parachini, April 22, 2010 Duncan Evans ’87 and Sarah Evans, a daughter, Vivienne Evans, August 5, 2009 Ben Simons ’88 and Alison Cooley ’91, a son, Finley Gray Simons, August 2, 2010 Rennie Crocker Anderson ’89 and Kai Anderson, a son, Milo Anderson, March 2010 Katie Craig Bocock ’89 and Piers Bocock, a son, Alexander Kyle Eliot Bocock, April 3, 2010
Ben Fitzpatrick ’92 and Leila Fitzpatrick, twin daughters, Emma Finn Fitzpatrick and Abigail Jamie Fitzpatrick, May 24, 2010
In Memoriam
Olivia Gentile ’92 and Andy Borowitz, a daughter, Madeline GentileBorowitz, January 24, 2010
Albert Marland Jr. ’39 July 26, 2010
Tracy Pruzan-Roy ’92 and Bret Roy, a son, Matthew Vincent Roy, September 23, 2010 Kathleen Jost Seward ’93 and Liam Seward, a daughter, Mairéad Elizabeth Seward, August 17, 2010 Faye Walsh Drouillard ’94 and Vincent Drouillard, a daughter, Eloise Caitlin Drouillard, February 23, 2010
Alison Crockett-Landham ’89 and Robert Landham, a daughter, Jenaya Leigh Landham, November 19, 2009
Amanda Werner Gomez ’94 and James Gomez, a daughter, Abigail Elizabeth Evans Gomez, March 21, 2010
Skip Holmes ’89 and Rachel Holmes, twin sons, Oliver Holmes and Jacob Holmes, February 2010
Thea Myers ’94 and Jay Queenin, a daughter, Alia Elaine Queenin, June 8, 2010
Leigh Lambert ’89 and Mike Bauer, a son, Oliver Nicholas Bauer, April 16, 2010
Ivan Petrovitch ’94 and Sonia Szlyk, a son, Zander Petrovitch, June 13, 2010
Thao Le ’89 and Neil Peretz, a daughter, Ada Peretz, December 2009 Erin Sheehy ’89 and Jon Davidson, a daughter, Serena Rae Davidson, August 18, 2010
Laura Reznick ’96 and Alex Zhu, a son, Kevin Lazer Zhu, January 31, 2010 Emily Sherman Webb ’96 and Vince Webb, a daughter, Freya Grace Webb, April 16, 2010
Justine Wruble Fahey ’90 and Pete Fahey, a son, Zander Reid Fahey, July 30, 2010
Basil Papavassiliou Alexander ’98 and Conamore Alexander, a daughter, Summer Sophia Alexander, July 30, 2010
Nick Walsh ’90 and Diana Alberghini, a daughter, Amalia Yvonne Walsh, August 1, 2010
Kristina Van Doren-Shulkin Coskun ’01 and Murat Coskun, a son, Noah Coskun, May 20, 2010
Geoff Gross ’91 and Amanda Vaughn, a son, William Leo Vaughn Gross, March 8, 2010
Cameron Davison Benedetto ’04 and John Benedetto, a son, Luca Davison Benedetto, February 13, 2010
Barbara Huff Bowers ’38 August 16, 2010
Josephine Berliner Vargas Gorrell ’44 March 4, 2010 Victor Ottenstein ’45 March 21, 2010 Robert Barker Evans ’47 March 18, 2010 Philip Morgan III ’53 February 8, 2009 Linda Griffin Williamson ’56 May 21, 2009 Peter Marshall ’57 September 8, 2010 Lois Clarenbach Oksenberg ’58 March 26, 2010 Myra Howe ’60 August 10, 2010 Barbara Newmyer Johnson ’65 July 2, 2010 Holly Edison Mason ’73 September 21, 2010 Hall Katzenbach III ’74 February 28, 2010 Janne Ritzenberg Piper ’74 May 13, 2010 David Demere ’77 November 1, 2010 Lisa Vise ’06 March 19, 2010
Alexa Polmer ’91 and Jason Spencer, a daughter, Ruby Frances Spencer, February 19, 2010
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From THE ARCHIVES:
Tom Farquhar FROM Middle School Science Teacher to Head of School
By Loren Hardenbergh, School Archivist Tom moved to Upper School in 1982, where he began teaching math and science and coaching track. As an article in Horizon explained, Tom led efforts to construct a new track surrounding the football field.
1982
1978
Tom Farquhar began his Sidwell Friends career in the fall of 1978 as a Middle School science teacher. Here, Tom conducts an experiment showing the effects of static electricity on a student’s hair using a Van de Graaff generator.
1983
Tom Farquhar is appointed Upper School dean of students in 1983. “[Farquhar] will bring sensitivity, commitment, common sense, and a Quaker presence to the job . . . ,”said Upper School Principal Clint Wilkins in a 1983 Horizon article. “[Tom has] the respect of students and faculty, . . . is fair yet firm, . . . committed in setting and maintaining limits, . . . interested in counseling and listening to students and their needs, . . . organized, and . . . willing to deal with conflict cheerfully.”
1987, conference in ing in a parent his car at w cip sa rti d pa an le w Whi out the windo ed ok victim lo e Th ly al it. Tom casu ale sign on den with a for-s e. id str in l in Sledge Gar it al ank, Tom took of a student pr
1987
An interesting side note: The track around the new turf field atop the recently completed Athletic Center was laid this fall, just as Tom commenced his new duties as Sidwell Friends’ ninth head of school.
Tom sitting at his desk in the dean’s office, in a discussion deep with Upper Sc hool student Ka Ottesen ’89. rin
1989 In 1989, Tom shares a light moment with then-Head of School Earl Harrison. Coincidentally, Earl had served as head at Westtown for 10 years before coming to Sidwell Friends. Tom went on to serve as Westtown’s head for 12 years before moving to Bullis and then back to Sidwell Friends.
At the end of the 1988-89 school year, Tom Farquhar left Sidwell Friends to become the head of Westtown School, a Quaker boarding school in Pennsylvania. In a 1989 interview with Horizon, Tom was especially prescient when he told a student reporter that his work at Sidwell was not finished. “I could have happily stayed here for decades,” he added.
2010-11 Alumni Fund Upon my return after 21 years away, I find the hallmarks of the School—great teaching, talented students, and a deeply meaningful meeting for worship experience—are stronger than ever. ~Tom Farquhar, Head of School
Every gift matters. Your gift to the Alumni Fund helps ensure that today’s students continue to benefit from the unparalleled educational experience you did. It will help ensure that teachers have the instrumental they need. It will support the enrollment of very capable students who otherwise could not be included.
New Head of School Tom Fa rquhar greets who came to those welcome him at a reception honor on Sept in his ember 12.
To make your 2010–11 gift online, please visit our secure Web site at www.sidwell.edu/support. Questions? Please contact Leslie Hutchens, Director of Annual Funds 202-537-8147, hutchensl@sidwell.edu.
ALUMNI MAGAZINE
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DECEMBER 16, 2010
FEBRUARY 8, 2011
APRIL 4-10, 2011
ALUMNI HOLIDAY PARTY McLean Garden Ballroom (for alumni who are 21 or older)
NET@NIGHT With Ed Steinberg, Senior Relationship Manager, LinkedIn
SFS ONLINE AUCTION
JANUARY 29, 2011
MARCH 8, 2011
9TH ANNUAL ALUMNI VARIETY SHOW
NET@NIGHT Speed Networking
ALUMNI COMMUNITY SERVICE DAY Nationwide
FEBRUARY 4, 2011
MARCH 12, 2011
ALUMNI “SKYBOX” FOR A NIGHT SFS vs. GDS Varsity Boys Basketball Game in the new Athletic Center
TENNIS TOURNAMENT WEEK OF MARCH 14, 2011 JOHN FISHER ZEIDMAN ’79 MEMORIAL LECTURE
APRIL 9, 2011
APRIL 16, 2011 SFS LIVE AUCTION MAY 13–14, 2011 REUNION 2011! JUNE 13, 2011 GOLF TOURNAMENT
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