Mercersburg Magazine - Winter 2008/2009

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Anniversary Reunion Weekend June 11–14, 2009 www.mercersburg.edu/alumni

Celebrating reunion classes ending in 4 and 9 See page 42 for full details

alumni@mercersburg.edu

800-588-2550

M ERC ERS BU RG MAGA ZI N E WI NTE R 20 08 – 2009

Mercersburg Academy 300 East Seminary Street Mercersburg , PA 17236-1551

Mercersburg A magazine for Mercersburg Academy family and friends

ON THEIR WAY

Young Alumni page 18

VOLUME 35 NO. 3 WI NTER 2008 – 2009

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M ER C E RS B U R G MA G A Z I N E

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M y S ay

When I was 14, the short drive from the interstate down Route 16 was the most dreaded part of the trip. It didn’t matter that we’d already been in the car for five hours; I was willing to turn right back around once I saw the Chapel in B Y J E N N F L A N A G A N ’ 99 the distance.

School meant sharing my room with someone who ate olives in bed after lights out, speaking French to my teacher outside of class, and missing home. Today, this part of the trip means that I am home. When the Chapel spire rises above the hillcrest, I tell myself how lucky I am to live in such a beautiful place—and how glad I am to be back.

The beginning of this school year brought the kind of excitement and anxiety I haven’t experienced in quite a while. I had a few nightmares about missing Rotation 5 or not knowing how to do my math homework, only to wake up and think how lucky it would be to be a student at the Mercersburg of today. The Burgin Center for the Arts, robotics, and Chinese classes are just a few of the offerings that weren’t here just 10 years ago. And since the modern world hasn’t yet mastered the art of traveling back in time, I am happy to settle for being a faculty member at the Mercersburg of today, working in the admission office, and having the opportunity to share how great our school is with new students from all over the world.

I was struck by the eloquence and drive of my faculty colleagues as they shared the impressive details of their continued learning during the summer. Despite what our students may think, we do have lives beyond teaching and coaching. And while it’s always a pleasure—albeit a rare one—to find time to socialize with each other, it’s an even greater pleasure to work next to Sue Malone or Matthew Kearney or Jeff Pierce, whose excitement for teaching our kids is tangible and contagious.

Without the faculty, this place would not be—yet it’s easy to take this for granted. As a student, I was unaware of the time, thought, and care that go into the preparation for the beginning of the year. I have a new respect for how things come together.

It’s a true privilege to be a part of a community that dedicates itself to educating our future—it’s a value on which you can’t put a price tag.

While I take my new position very seriously, I do manage to have a little fun as well. Living in the dorm brings me back to the days of impromptu dress-up nights, room “parties” with the music too loud, coloring, and eating ramen noodles just before bed (I don’t know how our bodies handled it). It’s fun simply to

watch the girls having fun—and just as I was anxious at the beginning, the girls were nervous, too. I reassure them that this is normal—and that it takes time for nerves to settle and to get into the rhythm of the school year.

Thankfully, some things never change, while with others, it just takes time. I still struggle to say “Peter” instead of “Mr. Kempe.” Pretzel pie tastes as good as it did 10 years ago.

And I smile every time I hear the Tippetts girls call me “Ms. Flanagan.”

A native of Oxford, New York, Flanagan worked as a paralegal in New York City and spent two years as a staff member in Mercersburg’s Office of Alumni & Development before becoming an assistant director of admission in 2008. She is one of 18 members of her family to attend Mercersburg, a group that includes brothers Bill ’10 and Tom ’10 and cousin Peter ’11.

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N O. 3

WINTER 2008 – 2009

A magazine for Mercersburg Academy family and friends

Mercersburg

Young Alumni

8 4,047 Words Spending some of the summer in South America.

Page 8

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On Your Side Mercersburg students seeking the right college fit have a built-in advantage in Bill McClintick. Page 10

Mercersburg Profiles They’ve only just begun; meet some of Mercersburg’s notable graduates of the past 10 years. Page 18

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You Should Know At Mercersburg’s 116th Opening Convocation in September, Chip Vink ’73 (inset) served as featured speaker. Vink, who holds the Mary Keeler Lawrence Distinguished Teaching Chair, teaches English and is head men’s squash coach; he also served as the Academy’s director of admission from 1989 until 2000.

The Michelet Prize and Culbertson Prize were presented to Magdalena Kala ’09 and Wade Burelbach ’11, respectively.

Photos by Bill Green.

Photo credits: p. 2 Chris Crisman; p. 3 courtesy Pomegranate Arts; p. 4 Bill Green; p. 5 (top) John Hutchins; p. 7 courtesy Will Willis; p. 8–9 (all photos except portrait) Mariah Blake, (portrait) Stacey Talbot Grasa; p. 11 Ryan Smith; p. 13 courtesy NACAC/Jim McDonald; p. 14 courtesy Jeff Cohen; p. 15 Smith; p. 16 NACAC/McDonald; p. 19 courtesy Ripal Shah; p. 20 courtesy Rachna Shah; p. 21 Sandie Cubit; p. 22 American University Department of Athletics; p. 23 (Larson) Louisiana Tech Athletic Media Relations; p. 24 (Van Ness, Miller) Debra Collins, (Mort) Grasa; p. 25 Duke Sports Information; p. 26–27 courtesy Anjuli Pandit; p. 28 courtesy Pierce Lord; p. 31 courtesy Bill Schindler; p.32–36 (all photos) Green; p. 37 (Dalton) Stein Communications, (bottom) Green; p. 38 Smith; p. 39–40 John Hutchins; p. 41 (all photos) Renee Hicks; p. 42 Green; p. 44 Smith; p. 50 (Fleury, Quinn) Natasha Brown; p. 53 Smith; back cover (top) Green.

Illustrations: cover: Paul Cox

My Say Back home at work with Jenn Flanagan ’99.

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From the Head of School Via Mercersburg Alumni Weekend Arts Athletics Alumni Notes Mercersburg magazine is published three times annually by the Office of Strategic Marketing and Communications.

Mercersburg Academy 300 East Seminary Street Mercersburg, Pennsylvania 17236

2 3 32 37 38 42 Editor: Lee Owen Alumni Notes Editor: Natasha Brown Contributors: Jim Applebaum, Mariah Blake ’09, Natasha Brown, Shelton Clark, Tom Coccagna, Jenn Flanagan ’99, Phil Kantaros, Susan Pasternack, Jay Quinn, Dom Schrader ’00, Wallace Whitworth

Magazine correspondence: Lee_Owen@mercersburg.edu

Art Direction: Aldrich Design

Alumni Notes correspondence: NewsNotes@mercersburg.edu

Director of Strategic Marketing and Communications: Wallace Whitworth

Alumni correspondence/ change of address: Leslie_Miller@mercersburg.edu

Assistant Head for External Affairs: Mary Carrasco

www.mercersburg.edu

Head of School: Douglas Hale

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From the Head of School

The Art of Leadership Central

to the educational experience at Mercersburg is teaching young people to read, write, and speak with greater skill and clarity. We measure those teaching efforts in many ways, and I can confidently report that the school continues to realize great success in teaching students those critical communication skills.

Every time a speaker visits the campus or a musical group performs or an announcement is made in the dining hall, I am reminded of another communication skill central to a successful educational experience here: being a good and discerning listener. The debates and commentary and speeches surrounding this remarkable and historic political season have also served to underscore the importance of listening well. Although we have a harder time measuring our effectiveness in teaching this particular skill, we, nonetheless, constantly strive to inculcate better listening skills in Mercersburg students.

While being a good listener is unquestionably one of life’s most important qualities, it is also one of the hardest things we ever try to do. Listening well is a complicated process and often mistakenly thought of only in terms of listening to another person’s actual words. And although listening to those words is certainly part of the deal, we must also listen carefully to what is being said between the actual words—to listen carefully to what is not being said. For example, imagine a parent or friend saying as you are about to leave, “Drive carefully.” Those literal words suggest you might intend to run every stop sign and red light or break every speed limit. Of course, what is really being said in between those words is, “I love you very much. I don’t want any harm to come to you. I need for you to be safe.” If we don’t listen carefully both to the words and to the reality behind the words, then words can become a source of misunderstanding.

While listening to others is important, listening in yet another way is also vital — being willing and able to listen to one’s own inner self and voice and experiences. In his book Now and Then, Fred Buechner expresses this idea as follows: “Listen to your life. See it for the fabulous mystery that it is. In the boredom and pain of it no less than in the excitement and gladness: touch, taste, smell your way to the holy and hidden heart of it, because in the last analysis, all moments are key moments. Listen carefully to them.”

The point, of course, is that listening carefully to our own lives will make us more discerning about which voices within us have the ability to teach, to heal, and to help make things whole, and which voices can hurt and harm and break things apart.

We are ever hopeful that Mercersburg students will become more discerning listeners to their friends, teachers, coaches, parents, and all those whose principal motive is to help them.

We don’t insist, though, that listening well will mean they’ll always want to listen, or they’ll always agree with what they’re hearing, or even that listening well will give them better answers; indeed, listening well more often than not will only give them better questions.

Douglas Hale Head of School

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A roundup of what’s news, what’s new, and what Mercersburg people are talking about.

here in april: Philip Glass

W

orld-renowned and prolific composer Philip Glass is coming to Mercersburg April 3–4 for a two-day intensive residency with students and faculty.

Glass has had an extraordinary and unprecedented impact upon the musical and intellectual life of his times. His operas— Einstein on the Beach, Satyagraha, Akhnaten, and The Voyage—play throughout the world to packed houses.

In addition to his many operas, Glass has written eight symphonies, eight concertos, film scores, and solo works. He achieved even greater notoriety during the past decade through his Academy Award–nominated scores for motion pictures The Hours and Martin Scorsese’s Kundun, among others.

On one of Glass’ two days at Mercersburg, the entire student body will have the opportunity to meet and work with Glass—who very much wants to delve into the Academy’s culture, which translates into working faceto-face with the entire student body.

“This is an extraordinary opportunity for Mercersburg students and faculty to share in the creativity of one of the foremost composers of our time,” says Eugenio Sancho, Mercersburg’s academic dean. “Philip Glass is an artist who has helped shape the world’s musical and intellectual life in significant ways.”

2009 Dates to Remember

Jan 22–23

Board of Regents Meetings, Philadelphia

Feb 7

Alumni Council Winter Meetings

Feb 27–Mar 5

Irving-Marshall Week

Mar 6–23

Spring Vacation

Jun 6

Commencement, 11 a.m.

Jun 11–14

Anniversary Reunion Weekend (for classes ending in 4 and 9)

Schedule subject to change; for a full and updated schedule of events, visit www.mercersburg.edu

on Creativity and Collaboration

The second day will include a performance by Glass and cellist Wendy Sutter. Full performance details were incomplete at press time; visit www.mercersburg.edu for updates as they become available.

Born in 1937, Glass grew up not far from Mercersburg in Baltimore, Maryland. He studied at the University of Chicago, the Juilliard School, and in Aspen with Darius Milhaud. Glass moved to Europe, where he

studied with legendary pedagogue Nadia Boulanger (who also taught Aaron Copland, Virgil Thomson, and Quincy Jones) and worked closely with sitar virtuoso and composer Ravi Shankar. He returned to New York in 1967 and formed the Philip Glass Ensemble—seven musicians playing keyboards and a variety of woodwinds, amplified and fed through a mixer.

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FAMILIAR FACES

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FAMILIAR PLACE When they arrived on campus late this summer, several new Mercersburg faculty and staff members didn’t need a map. Or directions. That’s because, in a way, they all came home.

Five Academy alumni have returned to campus to work at Mercersburg. The group includes new faculty members Nate Jacklin ’96, Jennifer Miller Smith ’97, Jenn Flanagan ’99, and Morgan HigbyFlowers ’03, along with staff member and Assistant Director of Annual Giving and Volunteer Programs Nate Fochtman ’03.

“We’re always thrilled to have Mercersburg alumni return to our community in a professional capacity,” Head of School Douglas Hale says. “To have five alumni join us in a single year is a testament to the bonds that our students form with this place.”

Jacklin teaches history and is head wrestling coach; Smith is teaching science and math and serving as head diving coach; Flanagan, who had previously worked in the Alumni & Development Office, is an assistant director of admission; and Higby-Flowers (the son of

longtime Mercersburg faculty members Mark Flowers and Kristy Higby) is a part-time teaching intern in the fine arts department.

“I’ve always had a lot of interests, and working here allows me to pursue several of my passions, while most jobs would have me focus on one,” Smith says. “I love teaching such small classes and being able to focus on individual students during class time—and in addition, I was attracted to the idea of bringing my family to a place where they can experience cultural events, athletics, and the outdoors in a very safe and intellectual environment.”

Mercersburg welcomed 13 new faculty members for the 2008–2009 academic year. Front row (L–R): Wallace Whitworth (marketing & communications), Sayo Yamaguchi (Chinese), Dave Cesa (mathematics), Morgan Higby-Flowers ’03 (fine arts), Gonzalo del Real (Spanish). Back row: John Burnette (mathematics), Jenn Flanagan ’99 (admission), Mike Mitchell (admission), Jennifer Miller Smith ’97 (mathematics/science), Nate Jacklin ’96 (history), Tommy Adams (admission). Not pictured: Steve Blake (alumni & development), Matthew Geeza (library).

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I N S I DE MER C E RS BU R G

Planning in Works for New Turf Field, Athletic Improvements Beginning in fall 2009, a new synthetic-turf athletic surface will serve as a home field for some Mercersburg athletic teams, including the varsity field hockey and women’s lacrosse squads. Construction was made possible through a lead major gift from an anonymous donor.

“This is a really exciting time for our program,” says Gretchan Chace, who enters her fifth season as Mercersburg’s head field hockey coach this fall. “It’s a great recruiting tool; we’re already pointing out to prospective students that the 2009 team will be the first to play on turf here.

“A lot of college programs are going to turf. So when we send our graduates to play at that level, they’ll be better equipped to handle the transition to the college game.”

Additionally, the Academy has chosen Bowie Gridley Architects to move forward with planning for interior renovations to Nolde Gymnasium. Mercersburg alumnus and parent Bill Gridley ’69 is a partner in the firm and is the lead architect for the project. Bowie Gridley, with headquarters in Washington, D.C., previously worked with the Academy on the development of its campus master plan, its dormitory renovations, and several athletic facilities, including the Smoyer Tennis Center and Davenport Squash Center.

Dedicated in 1912, the original Nolde Gymnasium has had numerous additions, and today is home to the nine-lane Flanagan Pool, the

Plantz Courts, the Kuhn Wrestling Center, the Davenport Squash Center, the McDowell Fitness Center, locker rooms, athletic-training facilities, and office space for athletics and physical-education personnel.

The driving force behind this building project was an $11.5 million bequest from Dwight Goldthorpe ’37, to be used specifically for new construction. These additions will help the Academy continue to attract top-caliber students interested in the well-rounded Mercersburg educational experience.

Meetings to gather input from parents and alumni were held as part of Family Weekend and Alumni Weekend events in the fall.

From the Official Olympic Mailbag Editor’s note: A native of Finland, Dr. Jean Cronstedt ’50 competed for Sweden at the 1960 Summer Olympics in Rome, and went on to become an internal medicine and gastroenterology specialist.

After receiving the summer 2008 issue of Mercersburg, he sent the following from his home in Trelleborg, Sweden:

D

uring my year attending Mercersburg on an American Field Service scholarship (1949–1950), gymnastics was not on the official sports program.

However, “King” John Miller needed an additional diver for his team, and offered to help me transfer my gymnastics skills to the springboard. I gratefully accepted his offer.

But gymnastics was still my sport. Coach Frederick Kuhn located a set of old parallel bars for me, and also arranged for a high bar to be mounted between the walls of the tower of the gymnasium. During giant swings on

that bar, my toes were only a few inches away from the walls!

My gymnastics spurred interest among the students and faculty, and I was asked to give performances during football games. While representing Mercersburg, I won an Eastern Seaboard Gymnastics Championship. During my three years at Penn State, I won two individual NCAA gymnastics championships in 1953 and four in 1954. (I am still one of just two gymnasts to have won four championships during the same competition.)

On a visit to Pennsylvania in 1996, my

wife, Gerd, and I drove to Mercersburg to see my old school. Outside of Keil Hall, we met a girl with a slight accent; it turned out she was from Lithuania and at Mercersburg on an American Field Service scholarship— just like I had been half a century earlier.

In 1998, I received a surprise letter from Leonard Plantz, one of my favorite Mercersburg teachers. We hadn’t had any contact for 48 years, but he saw my name in an NCAA championship program and found my address—and it so happened that we were on our way to fly to the U.S. for a visit. It was simply great to see Leonard again.

The article on Mercersburg’s Olympians in your beautiful magazine brought back many fine memories. For this, I thank you very much.

—Jean Cronstedt ’50

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Passports, Professional Development, and Preparation Between international trips, time spent in the classroom pursuing advanced degrees, and other endeavors, summer 2008 was a full season for many Mercersburg faculty members.

Following are just a few of the highlights: Jeff Cohen completed a master of science for teachers in mathematics at the University of New Hampshire; a number of faculty began or continued work on advanced degrees, including John David Bennett , Matt Maurer, Chip Patterson, Jeff Pierce, and Chip Vink.

Mark Cubit, Eric Hicks, John McAfee, and Richard Rotz explored different corners of the world’s map after their names were drawn in the faculty travel lottery [page 28].

Cubit, his wife, Sandie, and three of their children (Colin ’06, Kelsie ’08, and Kendra) visited Colombia; Hicks, his wife, Renee, and children, Elliot and Emma, experienced England, France, Denmark, and

Sweden; McAfee traveled to the Indonesian island of Bali; and Rotz visited Greece.

And Jim Applebaum and Peter Kempe (Germany/Austria) and Will Willis (Chile) accompanied students on exchange visits with Mercersburg’s sister schools.

Faculty serving as readers and graders for national AP exams included David Bell , Franklin Bell , Wells Gray , Phil Kantaros , Heather Prescott, Frank Rutherford ’70, Allison Stephens, and Wendy Valenteen… Larry Jones participated in an Oxford Round Table on the relationship between science and religion… Sue Malone spent 30 days with a National Outdoor Leadership School program in the Pacific Northwest… Laurie Mufson visited Prague on an ASSIST travel grant, and also traveled to Amsterdam to conduct research for Stony Batter’s fall production of The Diary of Anne Frank; Mufson and Applebaum are taking a group of Mercersburg students to Prague in spring

’Burg’s EYE VIEW

Eric Hicks (left) and children Emma and Elliot at Wimbledon with tennis legend Guillermo Vilas.

2009… Frank Rutherford ’70 left in August for Visakhapatnam (Vizag), India, where he spent four months teaching AP environmental science and micro-economics courses at the Visakha Valley School through School Year Abroad… Alisa Springman won a 50-mile race around Lake Mead in Nevada, and finished 20th in the grueling 135-mile Badwater Ultramarathon from Death Valley to Mount Whitney in California.

C AMPUS NOTES

With a goal of reducing waste and minimizing Mercersburg’s daily impact on the environment, the school implemented a pair of significant changes this fall in the area of dining services.

In a typical week during the 2007–2008 academic year, the school disposed of more than 10,000 paper cups from Ford Hall. As a response, 850 white china mugs were purchased to eliminate the need for paper cups; students or employees wishing to take beverages from the dining hall may utilize the mugs, which can be returned to drop-off bins in each of the dormitories, academic buildings, and other locations around campus.

During the fall term, required dinners on Tuesday and Thursday nights were served buffet style (as opposed to family style, where platters of food are brought to each individual table; in accordance with health regulations, any uneaten food from family style meals must be thrown out).

The result, according to Director of Dining Services Jim Butler, has been a significant reduction in the amount of waste generated in the process. More than 500 students, faculty, staff, and family members enjoy meals in Ford Hall each day of the school year. SAGE Dining Services serves as Mercersburg’s food service provider.

Members of this year’s Mercersburg student body are citizens of a record 33 nations and represent 31 states and the District of Columbia. Approximately 438 students were enrolled at the beginning of the fall term, including 164 new students.

More than 9,000 Mercersburg alumni can be found in all 50 states and in 76 countries around the world.

The 2008 edition of the Blue Review , Mercersburg’s student-produced literaryarts journal, garnered a Silver Medal from the Columbia Scholastic Press Association. The publication will compete in CSPA’s prestigious Gold Circle Award competition; winners will be announced in early 2009. Madeleine Foster ’08 and Laura Willwerth ’08 were co-editors of the Blue Review this year; Lorraine Simonis ’10 served as managing editor.

Blue Review traces its origins to The Lit, which was first published on campus in 1901.

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World Travelers In August, five Mercersburg students

Top: Mercersburg in Chile. Right: Students cruising the Rhine.

CORRECTIONS We have learned of a pair of inaccuracies in records maintained by the school that were printed in the summer 2008 issue of Mercersburg. Jean Cronstedt ’50 represented Sweden at the 1960 Summer Olympics in Rome; he was erroneously listed as having competed at the 1952 Summer Games. (Read his letter on page 5 of this issue.) And Lauren Bolte ’99, who earned 12 varsity letters in her four years at Mercersburg (in volleyball, diving, and track), was not listed among students to have accomplished that feat . Merce rsburg regrets the errors.

and faculty member Will Willis became the first group from an American secondary school to participate in an exchange program with Colegio Alemán de San Felipe, a sister school of the Academy in central Chile.

Several students from Colegio Alemán spent a month at Mercersburg in January 2008; the exchange program is modeled after Mercersburg’s long-standing exchange with the Gauss Gymnasium in Worms, Germany, which is celebrating its 10th year in 2008– 2009. Head of School Douglas Hale marked the anniversary with a visit to Worms in September, immediately before a group of Gauss students and faculty crossed the Atlantic for their annual stay at Mercersburg. Nine Academy students joined faculty members Jim Applebaum and Peter Kempe in spending three weeks at Gauss in June; the group also visited several points in Germany and Austria on the trip.

“Our relationship with the Gauss Gymnasium has been an amazing one,” says Willis, director of international programs, who spent a year teaching in the former East Germany as a Fulbright scholar in the mid-1990s. “It’s an important annual experience for the Mercersburg community to meet and learn from our guests. And when our students travel to Worms, they complement years of classroom learning with a real opportunity to delve into the language and culture; the impact of that hands-on learning is hard to calculate, and certainly memorable for everyone taking part.”

In 2009, Mercersburg plans to offer international trips for students to several locales around the globe, including the Czech Republic, Costa Rica, Ireland, France, and Spain— as well as domestic trips to Hawaii (for the study of marine biology) and New Orleans (community service).

For images of the Chile exchange courtesy of trip participant Mariah Blake ’09, see pages 8–9.

4,047 Words During Mercersburg’s first-

ever exchange with Colegio Alemán de San Felipe in Chile, Mariah Blake ’09 (inset) snapped these photos of her home for three weeks on the other side of the world, a place where— given Chile’s location in the Southern Hemisphere—cool, winter-like conditions can be felt in August.

SIDE

ON

YOUR While searching for that perfect fit between themselves and a college, Mercersburg students (and parents) have the advantage of a college-counseling leader working for them INTERVIEW BY WALLACE WHITWORTH

In September 2008, Bill McClintick, Mercersburg’s director of college counseling, was installed as president of the 11,000member National Association for College Admission Counseling (NACAC) at the association’s annual conference in Seattle.

This marks Bill’s 20th year at Mercersburg.

Has he seen the field of college counseling change over the last two decades? You bet.

MM: How did you come to Mercersburg?

McClintick: It was a crossroads decision when Wirt Winebrenner ’54, my

predecessor, picked up the phone and called me and said, “Have you ever thought about going to the secondary side?” My goals at that time were to

Bill McClintick

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“Certainly, for us, the most exciting thing is helping kids open their eyes to possibilities that they would have never thought of, but which are great fits.” —Bill McClintick either become a full-time collegiate soccer coach or a director of admissions—and I hadn’t even considered working on the secondary side.

I had become particularly fond of Mercersburg from visits during my years at Kalamazoo College. I always found Mercersburg to be a very unpretentious, accepting place. Coming from a midwestern school, many of the eastern boarding schools wouldn’t give us the time of day; that was never the case with Mercersburg. We always got great kids from Mercersburg—kids who were adventurous and willing to look at new and different and interesting places. So I had very fond feelings toward the place.

After a lot of soul-searching, my wife and I decided this would be a great place to settle down, raise a family, and work more closely with kids. And I have absolutely no regrets 20 years later.

MM: It’s obvious that you like college counseling a lot. What are and have been the most fulfilling aspects of heading Mercersburg’s college-counseling program?

McClintick: I enjoy the diversity of students

that I get to work with, ranging from kids from affluent families to first-generation [college] kids, whose hands you really have to hold all the way through the process— along with their parents’ hands. And also the fact that we are, I feel, somewhat unique in terms of the variety of colleges that our kids go to. We are atypical in the number of different schools that our kids consider every year.

I find that both challenging and rewarding, because there’s nothing more fun than helping a kid find a good fit that he or she had never heard of two years before.

MM: How has college counseling changed in the past few decades?

McClintick: Thirty years ago, it was a far more

collegial profession, where it was much easier to pick up the phone and have an impact on a decision.

There were no U.S. News & World Report rankings; people were far less obsessed with where they went to school than they are now.

What we see now is a profession that is beset by all of these cottage industries that prey on the fears of kids and their parents. There are commercial interests charging $500 for this service or that service. Scams exist in a variety of areas, such as financial-aid counseling. In the older model, you’d have a dean of admissions that had served at an institution for many years and had some institutional memory. Now, you have “enrollment managers” who are being pushed by presidents and provosts of colleges and universities to generate more applications so that they can deny more applicants and look better in the rankings. And that is their ultimate goal, as opposed to thinking about the best interest of the students.

So unfortunately, I feel it really has changed, and not for the better.

MM: Since we’re on the topic of U.S. News, how do you think those rankings aid or skew people’s perceptions and decisions?

McClintick: It depends on how sophisticated

the consumer is. U.S. News & World Report has filled a void for many families who don’t have access to good counseling. On the other hand, Americans have always loved the quick and easy fix. If someone else does all this research to rank colleges for them—given our national obsession with rankings—then U.S. News has been able to step into that void.

The problem is that it’s not an individualized ranking system: It does not, because it cannot, take into account the strengths and weaknesses of every individual child, which, of course, is the most important variable in the college search process.

In fairness to the folks at U.S. News, they are always trying to improve. For example, there are usually some very good articles about the search process that accompany the rankings, but they tend to get lost because people go straight to the rankings. Most people don’t realize that every year U.S. News tweaks the formulas to make sure that the rankings shift. The respective institutions have not changed a lick, but they appear to have changed, because U.S. News intentionally tweaks variables of their formula—so that schools move up and down in the rankings.

MM: What are some of the myths about what college counseling entails, and how do you and your staff go about dispelling them?

McClintick: The greatest asset that my staff

and I bring is helping kids navigate what is now a very complicated process in ways that the average public-school counselor simply cannot. Yes, there are many myths, and to fight nearly every myth, we constantly have to remind folks of one overriding message about getting into a college: It’s the transcript, it’s the transcript, and it’s the transcript. If you don’t have the transcript, then the rest doesn’t really matter.

There are at least three or four primary myths, all of which assume that there are other factors that can trump or make up for a weak transcript. One huge myth is that one’s connections matter more than one’s

THE McCLINTICK FILE Education: B.A. (political science), Hartwick College; M.A. (educational administration), Hood College; East Greenwich [Rhode Island] High School At Mercersburg since 1989; served as head women’s soccer coach 1990 –2000; currently coaching goalkeepers for men’s soccer team Family: Wife, Liz; sons, Ian ’04 (Lafayette College ’08), Chris ’08 (University of Richmond ’12), Brendan ’12 transcript; very rarely does this actually happen. People will assume that if their neighbor went to College X and writes a letter of recommendation for their child, that it will somehow make a difference. The truth is that rarely is this the case. There’s also the notion that good SAT scores can make up for a lackluster transcript, or that how one performs in the ninth grade really doesn’t count, or that extracurricular activities can outweigh the transcript—which is never the case, with the rare but possible exception of a student who is a recruited athlete.

The reality is that I can’t pick up the phone, call a school, and make something happen just by snapping my fingers. And I think a lot of times people think that somehow we can wave a magic wand and get their child into their college of choice.

MM: What distinguishes Mercersburg’s college-counseling program? Does much of it center on determining what is right for each student—versus a cookie-cutter approach, such as trying to push as many students as possible toward one of the Ivies?

McClintick: We are truly a national prep

school. While many schools may pretend to

be national prep schools—for example, a lot of our peers up in New England are truly New England prep schools, where everyone has a New England-or-bust mentality— Mercersburg sits in a part of the country with a student body that is very different and diverse. It is every bit as common, if not more common, for a student to walk in my door and say, “I’d like to look in California,” or “I’d like to look in Texas,” or “I want to go south,” rather than wanting to go to New England.

And that’s what is great about our counseling program; we are truly a national office.

We have to know not just 50 or 100 places, but we have to have a working knowledge of 400, 500, or 600 colleges, because every year we will have kids apply to 300 or 400 different colleges. Certainly, for us, the most exciting thing is helping kids open their eyes to possibilities that they would have never thought of, but which are great fits.

MM: How often do you find yourself in a situation where a parent is pressuring, either overtly or subtly, a student to attend an Ivy League school or similar, but the parental desire is totally out of touch with the child’s

President, National Association for College Admission Counseling (NACAC); spent five years as organization’s liaison to the NCAA and three years as vicepresident for admission practices; past president, Pennsylvania Association for College Admission Counseling (PACAC) 1998 winner of NACAC’s prestigious Margaret Addis Award; namesake of PACAC’s new William R. McClintick Service Award Previous stops: Hartwick College (assistant director of admission), Kalamazoo College (associate director of admission/head women’s soccer coach) On his start: “Unbeknownst to me, John Muyskens, the dean of admissions at Hartwick, was one of the living legends in the world of college admissions; he had been the director of admissions at both Yale and Stanford before coming to Hartwick. He approached me about working in admissions, and having nothing else lined up, I accepted; so, like many other young alums across the land, I started in the business by working for my alma mater. What I didn’t realize was what a great philosophical underpinning working for Muyskens would give me in terms of the profession.”

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THE ADVISER SYSTEM For most Mercersburg students, boarding school is their first experience living away from home. But that doesn’t mean students are on their own.

Mercersburg’s adviser system is in place to make sure all students have at least one faculty member specifically watching over them during the course of the academic year. All advisers are assigned a handful of students (usually between six and eight) that are associated with the same dormitory. Advisee groups meet at least once each week, and advisers act as liaisons between parents and the school by conveying comments, concerns, and accomplishments on a regular basis.

“In a way, the adviser is a safety net,” says Associate Head of School Debbie Rutherford, who oversees the system. While the adviser may or may not be the confidant for each of his/her individual advisees, “advisers are always taking the temperature of how a student is doing ,” adds Rutherford, who is an adviser herself and has seen the system work from the other side as a Mercersburg parent .

“Being an adviser is probably my favorite part of the job here,” says faculty member Jeff Cohen, who lives in Main Hall. “I feel like more of a big brother to the kids, and living in the dorm with them helps me keep up with them daily. It’s my hope that it feels like an extended family for them; I know it does for me. The kids also look out for one another, and some of the best experiences I’ve had here involve seeing my upperclass advisees showing new students the ropes—be it socially, athletically, or academically.”

The adviser system at Mercersburg traces its roots back to the arrival of former headmaster William Fowle in the early 1960s. The system is one of several in place to support students in all areas of their lives; others include regular interactions with peer groups (where all 9th-grade students meet weekly for the first half of the year with a senior student leader), in-dorm faculty, athletic teams, student organizations, and even assigned tables in the dining hall (which rotate every two weeks to allow all members of the Mercersburg community to interact with one another).

hopes, dreams and/or capabilities? Or the opposite, where the student has the castlein-the-sky view, and the parents are more realistic? How do you handle those situations?

McClintick:The media have actually helped

work against some of these perceptions, because there’s been so much focus on how hard it is now to get into the Ivies and the handful of institutions that the national media love to focus on. So I think most parents now have a much better understanding of how exceptionally difficult it is to get in to those elite schools.

I think kids get it, too. Kids tend to be far better about this, because kids are a little closer to the process. They see what happens to their peers—whether it’s through Facebook or blogs or what have you, they know how tough it is. Sometimes we do have to push kids harder. At 17, some kids are afraid to take the risk, because their greatest fear is rejection.

This is the problem that arises when parents push kids toward unrealistic options.

The student knows they’re unrealistic, and he doesn’t want all those rejection letters in the spring—but the parents are making him apply to these places because they perceive the social advantage of saying, “Well, Johnny’s applying to College X, Y, and Z.” The kid doesn’t really want to apply to those places, and yet feels he has to in order to keep his parents happy—those are the more difficult cases. But students are probably savvier than the parents, for the most part.

MM: What kind of role does financial aid play in the college admission process?

McClintick: The sad truth is that it’s a very

Jeff Cohen (second from right) with former and current advisees Chris Freeland ’08, Joe Strider ’10, David Strider ’08, and Josh Rosenblat ’08.

different process for students with financial need than for families who do not need aid.

Talking about financial aid is important, because a lot of families don’t think about that until they get into the process—but for many families, this is a critical factor.

Mercersburg has always done such a

Mercersburg’s college-counseling staff (L–R): Frank Betkowski, Karla Bingaman, Caroline Sanders, Bill McClintick.

wonderful job of supporting kids during their time here, but many colleges can’t afford to be as generous as we are. It’s important for parents and students to have an open line of communication on this front so we can plan accordingly.

MM: In September, you were installed as president of NACAC. Where will leading this esteemed organization take you in the next year, and how is your presidency a benefit to Mercersburg faculty, students, and parents?

McClintick: When you serve as president of

an association like NACAC, you’re serving a diverse national association and representing everything from community colleges and small rural high schools to top prep schools and the most selective colleges in the country. So everything we do as an association is going to be fairly focused on the big picture. And the big-picture items consistently are pushing for access and funding for education, outreach efforts for underserved

“It’s important for kids and parents to take the time to really do their homework in the search process. This is not a process to be taken lightly.” kids, trying to demystify the process as best we can, and keeping control of our own profession so that the cottage industries and the media are not presenting a warped view of how the process really works.

For Mercersburg, clearly the greatest advantage is that we’ll get tremendous exposure nationally within the world of college admissions and higher education and in the national media, because there will be a number of occasions where I’ll be able to be interviewed by national media or travel to represent NACAC nationally in different

forums. So I think it will be a great opportunity to get our name out there more so than it already is.

MM: What kind of general counsel would you give parents whose children are now in the zone for the college search process?

McClintick: Try to take a step back and really

focus on what’s going to be best for your child. Try to focus on their happiness and their ability to succeed at the college they choose—and not on the bumper sticker continued on page 17

RELENTLESS IN SEATTLE Go along for the ride with Mercersburg’s intrepid college counselors

BY WA L L A C E W H I T W O R T H Imagine a room the size of a Costco or Sam’s Club—fluorescently bright and stripped to the bare essentials for rapid exchange.

You won’t find blue-light specials, shopping carts, or boxes of corn flakes the size of a 3-yearold here. Yet there are “checkout” lanes, where the buyers and sellers switch roles, depending on who needs what from whom. No money changes hands, but everyone arrives flush with the currency du jour—a lifetime supply of business cards.

This is one frenetic annual ritual—the gigantic Counselors’ College Fair at the annual conference (held this year in Seattle) of the National Association for College Admission Counseling , better known in the academic world as NACAC (pronounced “NAC K-ack”).

Most of NACAC’s 11,000 members are college-admission counselors at the secondary level, or college-admission deans and admission officers. NACAC is the voice for high-school students and those who help them pursue their higher-education dreams. For Caroline Sanders and Frank Betkowski, Mercersburg’s associate directors of college counseling , NACAC provides a network of people they can lean on and tap into in order to ensure they are as helpful as possible to Mercersburg’s students and their parents.

This writer is along for the ride, but for Frank and Caroline, this is serious business. As we push through the crowd into the fair, I can see that the room is filled with row upon row of nothing but booths staffed by admission officers from virtually every college in the United States, plus a fair amount from Canada and the United Kingdom.

“This is our chance to talk face-to-face with admission officers—and sometimes the actual deans of admission—about specific Mercersburg students,” Frank tells me as we grab a huge alphabetical list of the participating schools. ”I’m going to start from the bottom of the alphabet, since most other people are starting from the top.”

[Editor’s note: To protect student privacy, some details in the descriptions of students that follow have been altered.]

OUR

first stop is Yale University.

Frank’s approach works; there’s no one at the Yale booth yet . He introduces himself to the Yale representative, then dives into what I come to see as his very focused “elevator speech” about a particular student . “I’ve got this student who is near the top of his class… a possible salutatorian… he’s an excellent tester, great activities, very admissible,” Frank says to the Yale rep.

“Meanwhile, admit rates in the Ivy League are tending into the single digits, and I just described most of the applicant pool. He’s from Asia. [The admit rate for international students is usually half the normal rate.] Tell me, does he stand a chance?”

The Yale rep is noncommittal, but interested.

As we leave, Frank turns to me and says, “He won’t remember the name of the student I talked about, but chances are he will remember that Mercersburg has a viable candidate of interest to them.”

From Yale we go to the University of Texas.

Frank readies, aims, and fires: “I’ve got a student who is a Texan, but attending a boarding school in Pennsylvania. In Texas, he’d be an instant admit because he’d qualify for the top-10percent program. But we’re obviously not a Texas high school, and we don’t rank. How is he going to be read?” The UT rep proceeds to clarify what’s possible and what isn’t, and luckily for Frank and the student in question, the news is largely positive about his chances for acceptance.

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continued from page 15 that’s going to be on the back of your car.

Make it about the child. And know that we will help open up a world of possibilities to them; we will work with them, we’re accessible, and they will get the best advice we can give them to help them through this process and keep the stress level to a minimum—to the extent that we can.

But ultimately, the most important thing is setting your child up for success in college, and for your child to be happy. Because if your child isn’t happy, he or she won’t be successful. We want to work with your child to find that place, that fit. To us, it’s all about fit—that’s our mantra.

Still bouncing around the T-U-V aisles, we head for the University of Chicago’s booth. It ’s fairly crowded. Suddenly, three people walk away, and we move in to fill the void.

Frank, once again on the stump: “I’ve got this student who is genuinely intellectually curious. It ’s amazing how many colleges there are out there full of bright, high-achieving kids—while there are so few for the truly cerebral. Anyway, she’s a real ‘life of the mind’ kind of kid, so, not surprisingly, she has more B’s than A’s. She’s an excellent tester. With admissions being so competitive these days, does Chicago even take chances on intellectually curious kids with B’s anymore?”

We learn the verdict: Chicago still has a place for intellectually curious kids and encourages the Mercersburg student’s application.

But each stop doesn’t entail a marketing pitch for a specific student . The event is the perfect time for Caroline and Frank to research different schools—ones that they know well and ones that they’ve never visited—that seem interesting for Mercersburg students.

NACAC is where Caroline and Frank can gather information not found on a college’s website or in its admission materials. It ’s also a time to reconnect with old friends to learn what is going on at their schools and to invite them to campus to meet students.

MM: Any final thoughts?

McClintick: It’s important for kids and parents

to take the time to really do their homework in the search process. This is not a process to be taken lightly; one of the great things about being at a place like Mercersburg is you don’t just follow your friends or girlfriend to college, and you don’t just go the easy route. We won’t let you get through it without doing some real soul-searching, and you have to be prepared to do that. And if you give us quick and easy answers, we’ll probably challenge you to see if you’ve really thought through some of the things that you’re saying.

Are you making choices just because of name or just because of what your friends or parents said, or are you making decisions based on good research and knowledge? We want to make sure it’s the latter.

Case in point: Wellesley College. Caroline and I head over to their booth. Caroline doesn’t have a particular student to pitch, but she knows of several students at Mercersburg who’ve mentioned Wellesley as a college-ofinterest. So she takes time to question the admission officer about recent changes to Wellesley’s application process, what they are looking for, how they balance SAT scores with a transcript, etc. She comes away feeling much more clear-minded about whom she should steer to Wellesley.

The fair and its frenzy lasted just two hours, but Frank and Caroline were consumed for three solid days with all of the other facets that the NACAC conferences offer to people in their field.

One of the sessions that stood out to Frank featured a report by the NACAC Commission on the Use of Standardized Tests in College Admissions—a blue-ribbon panel chaired by Bill Fitzsimmons, the dean of admission and financial aid at Harvard University. Frank also attended a town-hall meeting featuring Mercersburg’s own Bill McClintick and the NACAC executive board surrounding trends in financial aid and the influence of rankings on higher-ed (which admission officers generally decry while willfully participating in), and a presentation

by Scott Anderson, Frank’s predecessor at Mercersburg , who now chairs the national

admissions practices committee. Anderson’s session dealt with proposed changes to the Standards of Principle s of Good Practice—the code of ethics by which all NACAC members must abide.

Caroline was intrigued by a session examining the use of data in admission counseling . “The lead presenter, Trish Hatch of San Diego State University, is a true researcher and teacher,” Caroline says. “Trish taught us tangible ways in which we could collect data in all that we do—not just anecdotal evidence.

She had great suggestions for how to determine if a particular type of programming works for students.”

Clearly, the annual NACAC conference is beneficial not only for Mercersburg’s counselors, but, in the end, for the students they counsel. “I had been a NACAC member for years,” Frank says, “but until I arrived at Mercersburg , I had never been afforded the opportunity to attend the conference. I had no idea how invaluable the professional development and networking opportunities can be.”

While Caroline and Frank agree that being able to attend the national conference each year is a major help, they are nothing short of emphatic that working each day with McClintick, a legend in the profession, has made them much more proficient as professionals.

MM: And advice for a group of 11th-graders?

McClintick: Don’t limit yourself; it’s a big

world. This is your chance to think broadly, to take risks, and to be open to considering places you may have never thought of before.

Don’t become part of the ESPN generation that feels as if you’ve never seen a school on ESPN, it must not be any good. Or if it’s not in the top 50 of the U.S. News & World Report rankings, it can’t be any good.

Be flexible. Be a good listener. Follow your heart, and don’t assume that you know it all at age 16. Take the time to take a step back and look at a wide variety of options.

Mercersburg Profiles

B

oarding school, by nature, lends itself to accelerated development. ¶ Learning to live on your own in a supportive and focused environment like the one at Mercersburg—to say nothing of the challenging academic workload—helps students quickly prepare themselves for college and beyond. ¶ Some alumni made an impact before they even enrolled in college.

Claire Van Ness ’03 assisted with the teaching of an intermediate-level French course while still a student.

Fellow 2003 graduate Zak Zielezinski worked on a fundraiser for his Mercersburg class involving the purchase and sale of used textbooks—an idea that was the impetus for his early success in the business world.¶ The guidance and counsel of dedicated faculty living and working alongside students is crucial; Bill Schindler ’02, a sportscaster working for an ESPN Radio affiliate in Hawaii, will tell you he considers Director of College Counseling Bill McClintick (his Mercersburg adviser) a friend to this day. Teach for America participant Rachna Shah ’03 speaks equally highly of Tom Thorne, her Latin teacher here.¶ On the following pages, you’ll find just a few Mercersburg graduates of the last 10 years who are already making their mark.

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IMMEDIATE IMPACT RIPAL AND RACHNA SHAH DOUBLE THEIR EFFORTS TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE

At Mercersburg, twin sisters Rachna ’03 and Ripal ’03 Shah had a lot of proverbial irons in the fire. Both were active in a number of extracurricular activities and played on several athletic teams. In the five short years since their graduation, not only have they not slowed their pace of activity, but each has

focused her energy toward helping others and having a positive effect on the world.

Both sisters grew up in West Virginia and enrolled at Duke University, where Ripal became involved in the Red Cross and other community outreach programs, and Rachna worked at the Boys & Girls Club while tutor-

BY SHELTON CLARK

ing Duke athletes and other students. Today, Ripal teaches special-needs children in Boston, and Rachna teaches seventh-graders at Harlem’s Frederick Douglass Academy.

In fall 2009, Ripal plans to start medical school, while Rachna will begin law school.

Each points to her years at Mercersburg

Ripal Shah with children at an HIV/AIDS orphanage in South Africa

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as formative to the endeavors that have followed.

“One thing that helped me a lot was athletics,” Ripal says. “I didn’t play a sport when I got to Duke, but having that sort of strict schedule at Mercersburg—sports practice, followed by a newspaper or yearbook meeting—when I got to college, I basically did the same thing. Having that balance of life,” she says, “Mercersburg helped me to learn time management.”

“In boarding school, there’s so much emphasis on holistic education: it’s character development, it’s academic, it’s a huge amount of extracurricular activities,” Rachna adds. “All of those things start to shape identity. I don’t know that I would have had nearly as many opportunities for that kind of identity development in another type of school.

And there are so many components that make the [Mercersburg] education much more personal, like living alongside your teachers

exposure to so many different demographics and it being just a part of daily life.

“Now, when I’m in a classroom with 95 percent African-American children and 5 percent Latino children, with no other ethnic groups represented in any of my classes, it doesn’t seem like a barrier to me. I don’t feel like I have any kind of difficulty approaching these students because I’m used to a high level of diversity.”

Ripal credits Mercersburg teachers Brent Gift and Eric Hicks with sparking her interest in science, which she used to create two nonprofit organizations during her time at Duke. Immediately after the South Asian tsunami on December 26, 2004, Ripal traveled to the Nicobar Islands off the coast of Myanmar to teach CPR and first aid to victims of the tsunami. She instructed large numbers of Mongolian and African tribal populations, and the training those groups received helped save a number of lives when a second tsunami

Rachna Shah with students at Frederick Douglass Academy in Harlem

and having these close relationships. I still talk regularly to my Latin teacher, Mr. [Tom] Thorne. He’s really more like a friend and colleague now, which is a huge blessing.”

In her second year with the Teach for America program, Rachna is also working on a master’s degree in human rights at Columbia University. “The demographic at Mercersburg is significantly different from any public school and a lot of private schools, because Mercersburg attracts a lot of overseas students; there is a huge emphasis on diversity,” she says. “Seeing that at an early age is important for people when it’s such a significant time for identity development. I don’t think I would understand my place in the world and my relationships with other ethnic groups as being necessary and so seamless if I didn’t have

hit in March 2005.

“I came back and friends said, ‘I wouldn’t even think to do something like that, but if I’d known that you were taking a trip, I would have gone,’” Ripal says. “I just got to thinking, ‘Why don’t [college] kids do stuff like this more often?’ There were so many kids I knew who were trained as EMTs or paramedics or in first aid and CPR. They were teaching here in the States, but what they really wanted to do was be able to teach abroad to underserved communities—to people who don’t have access to something like Red Cross centers, as we do in the U.S.” Not only was Ripal moved by a passion for global health, she was also armed with publications experience from her days as an editor for The Mercersburg News and the

KARUX. “Instead of having to hire someone to do graphic design, brochures, business cards, and pamphlets,” she says, “we were able to do it on our own because of what I’d learned being involved in the publications at Mercersburg. It’s nice that the skills I learned in various activities at Mercersburg transcended those activities.”

Ripal then helped bring CPR Centers Worldwide (www.cprcenters.org) into being.

“The whole mission is to make a sustainable cycle of health care education,” she says. “We train people well enough for them to train other people.” The organization is active in India, Thailand, South Africa, Botswana, and Zimbabwe, with plans to expand into South America and further into Africa.

Another nonprofit, From The Ground Up, arose from a need Ripal saw when she served as president of Duke’s Red Cross chapter. “One of the things we tried to address was the fact that the campus was completely inaccessible to kids with disabilities and physical limitations,” she says. “You don’t even think about a kid in a wheelchair never having swung on a swing before or never having been on a merry-go-round.

“While those things seem trivial, when you think about your childhood, some of the things you remember the most are recess time and playing outside with your friends on the playground. And so, to have those recreational limitations, it seems appalling that people really don’t think about it.”

Again, Ripal brainstormed with fellow Duke students, and contacted city officials in Durham, North Carolina, where the Duke campus is located. Just as she had with CPR Centers, From The Ground Up filled a service opportunity: “I think [college] kids often want to get involved in service activities and want to do something with the skill set they have, and this was the perfect thing for engineers.”

Two and a half years after Ripal made contact with city officials, Durham’s Morreene Road Park became a fully handicap-accessible park. “On our opening day,” she says, “we had mothers of children with disabilities who were crying, because they were saying, ‘No one ever thinks about the fact that they didn’t have this growing up.’ It was a very motivational day.”

RE

TH E G IN

BY DOM SCHRADER ’00

AC H

Running to win the most important race

Peak

It was one of those mornings.

I got up too early, did not get enough sleep, and decided to try to make the best of the morning before going to school. A nice long run is a good way to start the day. I get my gear ready, turn on my iPod, check my training schedule, and I am off to a workout through the German countryside. It is raining, and of course the wind is blowing straight into my face. The pace is too slow; I bite my lips and long to finish those miles.

On a morning like this, I question myself: Why do I get up to run? Why do I not try to sleep in? Why do I push myself every day?

Of course, it is to stay fit, to be part of one of the best German running teams, and to win races and set records and because of the appreciation I receive from my parents, friends, and other teammates.

But I want to use running as more than a competitive sport. I heard about a group of extreme-sport guys—and their leader, Joachim Franz, who wants to fight the spread of HIV/AIDS and to raise awareness of its global threat by pushing himself and his teammates beyond limits. He uses different sports to spread his message; to not give up in the struggle against HIV/AIDS. He wants other athletes to join him.

Since I knew Joachim through a mutual friend, I was able to set up a meeting and hear his thoughts and ideas. His latest challenge, Cape2Cape, is an expedition from the North Cape of Norway to Cape Town, South Africa—where he and his team will climb the highest mountain in every country they cross. I have joined this effort.

The message we want to promote is that “the peak has been reached”—the peak of human infection from a virus that threatens the world. Cape2Cape is the start of the World AIDS Awareness Expedition (WAAE); its goal is to climb all of the highest mountains of the world and to plant a flag at each summit displaying the number of those infected with HIV/AIDS. I had a thought that this guy must be crazy to want to climb Mount Kenya, Mount Kilimanjaro, and Mont Blanc during a twomonth trip. But at the same time, I was inspired and motivated by the chance to be an ambassador—to meet with the International Olympic Committee in Switzerland and to give third-world countries an opportunity to make the world aware of their HIV/AIDS situations and to ask for help.

I may not be the guy that climbs all the most challenging mountains, but I will run to the top of the highest peaks in Denmark, Germany, and South Africa. By running, I will do some good. And as a photographer on the trip, I will help market this campaign by capturing the moments and some of the most beautiful landscapes.

Schrader, of Wolfenbüettel, Germany, has spent six summers as a counselor for Mercersburg Summer Programs. A member of the Braunschweig Running Association, he penned this essay before the 18-member WAAE team began its journey from Norway to South Africa during October, November, and December 2008. For more information, visit www.waae.de; look for additional coverage in future issues of Mercersburg magazine.

Winning the

Game of Life ROMONE PENNY’S STORY IS FULL OF RICHES

BY TOM CO CCAG N A

As college basketball careers go, the greatest moments of Romone Penny ’03 will not be replayed on ESPN highlights, and his accomplishments won’t roll off the tongues of statistics freaks.

As far as success stories go, however, Penny’s is an American classic.

Penny earned a degree in business last spring from American University in Washington, D.C. He landed an accounting job with the prestigious firm Ernst & Young and began working in the company’s Washington offices in October.

The future, it seems, is limitless. The past, though, is what makes Penny’s story so compelling.

Penny grew up in a tough urban neighborhood in Minneapolis. Like many other inner-city children, he played basketball, which is a religion in urban settings all across the country.

Rex Holland, an investment banker in Minneapolis, was coaching a seventh-grade intermediate-level team.

Penny was a nondescript player trying not only to earn some playing time, but to just find a way to get to games.

“He was just a kid that was on the team, and one day a lady came up to me and said, ‘You need to get that kid some rides,’” Holland recalls. “It was a nice thought, but I told her I wasn’t running a taxicab service. When you’re dealing with inner-city kids, you try to get parents to take ownership, and you can’t do that if you’re giving kids rides all the time. You can get sucked into a trap of dependency.”

But the woman was persistent, and Holland eventually agreed.

“Without Rex, I don’t know where I’d be,” Penny says.

“He’s been a role model, a father figure, and a best friend.”

Holland kept giving Penny a ride, figuratively as well

“[Romone] is going to pay back what he’s received. He’s going to be in a position to do things for someone else—and for more than just one kid.”

—MARK CUBIT, Mercersburg men’s basketball coach, on Romone Penny ’03

as literally. Holland paid Penny’s way through DeLaSalle High School, a private Catholic school in Minneapolis. He blossomed as a basketball point guard and drew the attention of Division I schools, including Bucknell University and Lafayette College.

“My SAT scores were not the greatest, and I was still a little small [5-feet-11-inches, 155 pounds] to play point guard in Division I,” Penny says. “They said I should go to a prep school, but I had no idea what a prep school even was.”

Holland put together a video package and sent one to Mercersburg head coach Mark Cubit. When Penny visited campus, he immediately felt comfortable. “There was just something different about it that I liked,” he says.

“What impressed me the most,” Cubit recalls, “is that he was so eager to learn. He would always ask questions, and he appreciated everything you did for him.”

Penny also grew to realize basketball was just a small part of life.

“I was an average student, and I would see the study habits of other students [at Mercersburg], and that would push me,” he says. “I’d see people who aspired to be the president, or a doctor, or a CEO, and I met people from different countries.”

After graduation, Penny decided to attend Florida State University. He made the basketball team as a walk-on and played in six games his freshman season. “It was amazing,” he says. “I got to play in some games, even a few ESPN games.”

But he also understood he needed to be somewhere else, so he transferred to American and began working diligently toward a business degree.

He played in 21 basketball games his senior year, including one as a starter.

“Romone really worked hard and pushed the guys who got the minutes,” says Jeff Jones, American’s head coach. “He would never back off, and he would always be positive.

He contributed a lot to the team, even if he wasn’t always a big contributor on game day.”

Penny finished the 2007–2008 season with 73 minutes played, and totaled 11 points, two assists, and five steals. More important, the Eagles won the Patriot League championship and made the NCAA Tournament for the first time in 41 years.

“I just picked up my ring last week,” he said proudly during a September interview.

And now, it’s off to a career that someone from the tough streets of Minneapolis could never have envisioned. “Without the help of other people, I would not be where I am today,” he adds.

“Romone is going to pay back what he’s received,” Cubit predicts. “He’s involved in trying to help others find the path he did.

He’s going to be in a position to do things for someone else—and for more than just one kid.”

Penny sponsored a charity bowling event in Washington this fall. He’s also involved with Holland’s program, MinneapolisNEXT, which helps inner-city students escape tough neighborhoods and attend private schools.

That program, which grew out of Holland’s relationship with Penny, is sponsoring 42 high-school students this year and has helped more than 200 students in the past seven years.

“And it all started because I gave a kid a ride,” Holland says. “Thanks to that, a lot of kids are going to high school today.”

MERCERSBURG BRIEFS Ashley DeMeza ’03, an aspiring filmmaker studying at Bond University in Australia, wrote and produced Let Go, a 10 -minute short film about a young mother diagnosed with breast cancer. The film (www.letgomovie.com) is semi-autobiographical; DeMeza’s mother, Karen, is a 16-year breastcancer survivor and the inspiration for the film.

DeMeza has interned at DreamWorks, MTV Networks, and with Diplomatic, a production company founded by Michael Davies ’85 . She also attended the prestigious Cannes Film Festival through the Kodak Young Filmmakers program, and will return to Los Angeles following graduation; she hopes to manage her own production company.

Ben Larson ’01 is a graduate assistant football coach at Louisiana Tech University. He works with special teams, so one could imagine his excitement when the Bulldogs forced a pair of critical fumbles on special teams during a nationally televised upset of Mississippi State University in the 2008 season opener.

A graduate of Susquehanna College (where he played offensive and defensive line), Larson has worked as a strength and conditioning assistant at the University of South Florida, and was a member of the sports performance and football staffs at Northwestern State University before coming to Tech. His parents are longtime Mercersburg faculty member Ray Larson and the late Marilyn Larson.

The last name of Ben Larson’s boss should be familiar to college football fans; Tech head coach Derek Dooley’s father, Vince, won a national title and six Southeastern Conference crowns at the University of Georgia.

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TEACHING MOMENTS

MERCERSBURG BRIEFS Andrew Miller ’00 is the manager of strategic initiatives at ARES Corporation, a government services contractor in Arlington, Virginia. He holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Harvard University in history and Earth and planetary sciences, respectively. An Eagle Scout, he founded Harvard Friends of Scouting , a community-service program partnering Harvard students with local Boy Scout and Girl Scout groups; he also develops outdoor programs at summer camps throughout the Northeast .

Miller, who was editor-in-chief of The Mercersburg News and the Scoblionko Declamation Cup winner (for Irving) in 1999, has served on the Alumni Council since 2006. His father, Doug ’68, is a member of Mercersburg’s Board of Regents; his brother, Sam ’03, is among several other family members who are Mercersburg alumni.

Emory Mort ’01 spent three years on the Mercersburg faculty before departing after the 2007 –2008 academic year. He serves as a volunteer assistant coach for the track and cross country teams at Cornell University (his alma mater), and is working and racing for LetsRun.com— as well as continuing to train for the 3000 -meter steeplechase, an event in which he finished 22nd at the 2007 USA Track & Field Outdoor Championships.

Mort notes that the current academic year is the first at Mercersburg since 1996 – 1997 with no Morts on campus; his brothers, Austin ’04 and Tyler ’08, are fellow alumni.

Getting a head start in front of a class

Claire Van Ness ’03 (left) with Heather Prescott

BY LEE OWEN For Claire Van Ness ’03, being in front of a class isn’t scary anymore.

That’s because she got an early start in teaching—while still a student at Mercersburg, Van Ness completed a directed study as a French teaching intern under faculty member Heather Prescott.

“After that experience, I knew I had the power to teach,” says Van Ness, who describes herself as reserved and shy by nature. “I wasn’t sure I could do it before.”

Van Ness (who grew up next door to Mercersburg Honorary Regent Ted Boyd ’60 in Canton, Ohio) had studied French since age 6. Upon arriving at Mercersburg as a ninth-grader, she was placed in French 30H—an honors course populated almost exclusively by upper-middlers and seniors.

“It was intimidating—for example, my peer group leader (a senior) was in my class,” she says. “But I managed to hold my own.

Madame Prescott was amazing and so supportive. She helped me realize that I was strong enough to be in that class.”

After taking AP French Language (French 50AP) in 10th grade, Van Ness was the only student enrolled in Prescott’s French 55AP (a literature course) as an 11th-grader. “It was challenging, but having that one-on-one attention and not being able to hide in the

background of a class was rewarding,” Van Ness says. “I felt comfortable talking to her about anything; she was always open to hearing my ideas and pointing me in the right direction.”

When her senior year rolled around, Van Ness knew she wanted to continue with the study of French—even though she had essentially run out of French courses to take. So she approached Prescott about serving as a teaching intern, and became just the second French student in Prescott’s 11-year Mercersburg tenure to assist with a class (Mike Krell ’99 was the first). Van Ness helped Prescott with lesson plans and even with the teaching of selected class periods in French 20H, a second-year honors course.

“I remember being nervous and stressed at first when it came time to teach, but it was a great experience and certainly helped me prepare for my job now,” says Van Ness, who earned a bachelor’s degree in Italian from Vassar College and is working with secondgraders at Horace Mann Elementary School in northwest Washington, D.C., while she completes work on a master’s degree in French at Middlebury College. “While I was nervous at first in front of the class, I had been involved in Stony Batter; it helped me to think of [teaching] as another role on stage.”

M E RC E R SB UR G M A GA Z I N E

The arrangement allowed Prescott to conduct oral evaluations while Van Ness led the class in listening exercises and reviewed student responses. The two frequently dissected videotape of Van Ness’ teaching sessions and critiqued and discussed her in-class performance.

“Claire is a motivated young woman who enjoys the study of French,” Prescott says. “Because there were no further course offerings, she took the initiative to create a course of study for herself, which led to tremendous growth in her self-confidence, in her command of the language, and in her ability to explain concepts to others.”

Van Ness spent the summer before her 10th-grade year in Paris as part of a Choate Rosemary Hall program, and studied for a semester in Bologna, Italy, during her junior year at Vassar. While she was interested in studying abroad while a Mercersburg student, Van Ness decided that she didn’t want to leave campus for an entire year; for the same reason, she decided to spend one semester in Europe as a college junior instead of two.

“Everyone should have an opportunity to experience the different cultures that are out there,” Van Ness says. “As someone interested in languages and history, being able to travel, see places, and hear and experience the language really opens up a world of possibilities and goals.”

At Horace Mann, in addition to her normal teaching duties, Van Ness works with students in optional extracurricular enrichment sessions that feature language instruction before and after the school day.

“During the day, often the students involved in the enrichment classes will exchange little pleasantries back and forth in French,” she says. “Once the kids learn how to say three words in French, they get excited. They say, ‘I can speak French, too.’”

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Bluex2

Vincent Rey ’06 (above) led Duke’s football team in tackles during the 2007 season. Rey, who helped the Blue Devils win three of their first four games (the team’s best start since 1994), returned a fumble for a touchdown in a September win over Navy. Rey is one of four Mercersburg graduates on the Duke roster—along with Bryan Morgan ’07 (the team’s starting center), Cameron Jones ’07, and Colin Jones ’07.

Q&A Anjuli Pandit was born in Texas, but has lived in Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Nigeria, Kuwait, the Czech Republic, and India in addition to the United States. As a student at the University of Miami, she became involved with The Climate Project, an organization founded by former Vice-President Al Gore dedicated to raising awareness of global warming. Today, she works for The Climate Project-India in Mumbai, and in September helped preside over the 12-city launch of the organization’s Go Green @ Crossword initiative, a children’s awareness campaign.

Working for the World: A conversation with Anjuli Pandit ’03

MM: What has it been like to live in so many different places?

AP: Everything is temporary. I lived in Saudi Arabia for 10 years, so I still feel most at home in that part of the world. But I could never call one country I lived in or one place I’ve traveled to “home.” Home has always been where my parents are, whether it’s Africa or a hotel off the freeway in Pennsylvania. I find it easy to get up and move myself, and have always been able to pack all my belongings into a couple of suitcases. I feel pretty privileged to have been given all these opportunities and to have met so many amazing people from all walks of life. I can get along with anyone and find it very easy to be out of my comfort zone—mainly because I am never anywhere long enough to develop a comfort zone!

MM: What do you remember most about your time at Mercersburg? Did your time here change you in any way?

AP: Coming to Mercersburg was a huge wake-up call; up until that point, I always had my parents around to help make tough decisions. I learned to understand different types of people from different backgrounds, and I became less judgmental of people based on their lifestyles, and more interested in who they were at heart.

AP: Academically, I will be grateful to Mercersburg until the end of my days.

College was a breeze, and being able to handle the demanding job I have now is all due to what was expected of us at Mercersburg. I truly appreciated that the bar was set high and we strived to reach it. Multitasking,

taking responsibility, and efficiency are all major skills I gained from watching my teachers and peers succeed.

MM: When did you first become passionate about raising awareness of global warming?

AP: Having studied in international schools most of my life, climate change and environmental awareness were always main parts of our curriculum. And growing up in an Indian household, you are always taught to constantly conserve water and energy and consume less since so many others have nothing—ask some of the Swank girls about how I would go around turning off their taps while they brushed their teeth! So it has always been part of my life. I have been fortunate to have traveled to almost every major forest or biodiversity reserve in the world, and have had quite a bit of exposure to the beauty of nature.

MM: How did you become connected with The Climate Project?

AP: During my second year at Miami, Al Gore came to speak at our school. I was fortunate to be chosen to meet him beforehand and get a signed copy of his book. After his presentation—which gave me goose bumps—he announced he was training 1,000 Americans to give the presentation themselves. I applied on a whim, thinking I never would have a chance. But a few weeks later, I received an invitation to Mr. Gore’s final training in Nashville. I spent four incredible days in a room full of people twice my age, half my skin tone, and 10 times more educated or placed in society. I asked a man

from CNN why this place was full of such a specific group of people, and he said that whether we like it or not, these are the movers and shakers of the country, and if Mr. Gore can convince them of global warming and to spread his message, then we have a very good chance of winning the battle.

MM: What’s it like to live in India today?

AP: I am so glad that I have chosen to come back to my home country! The atmosphere is charged with possibilities and you feel as the pioneers must have felt when they were settling in America so many years ago—there is no end to what you can accomplish. India is about to produce the cheapest car and the most expensive home (a 27-story monstrosity), and has recently produced both its first individual Olympic gold medal [in rifle at the 2008 Summer Games], and homemade terrorist bombs. Good, bad, or ugly, India is breaking records every day, and being on the ground to watch it all happen makes you feel like you live the life one would only find in the history books.

MM: What are your goals for the future?

AP: I plan to be in India for eight years. I want to spend two years in the environmental field, and then five or six going back to do rural education development all over the country. The only goal I want to set is how many people I can impact in my life—I hope it becomes a number that is impossible to count. Maybe that sounds idealistic, but if I keep sleeping as well as I have the last few months, then I must be on the right track.

—Lee Owen

“The only goal I want to set is how many people I can impact in my life—I hope it becomes a number that is impossible to count.”

—Anjuli Pandit ’03

For an expanded Q&A with Anjuli Pandit, visit www.mercersburg.edu.

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SEEING THE WORLD

By Natasha Brown

P I E R C E LO R D H E L P S M E R C E R S B U R G FA C U LT Y G O G LO BA L

Last spring, when faculty member Mark Cubit heard his name announced as a winner of Mercersburg’s faculty travel lottery, he immediately thought about the type of students that graduate from Mercersburg and the passion they have for this place.

For him, this gift was surreal.

Just a few months later, Cubit and his family were in Cartagena, Colombia, explor-

Pierce Lord ’98

ing the historic walled city, enjoying exotic Spanish cuisines, and relaxing under the Colombian sun. Cubit was one of four annual winners of the drawing, which is open to all full-time Mercersburg faculty and made possible by Pierce Lord ’98, who provides $7,500 to each faculty member for travel abroad.

In college, Lord realized the importance of travel while studying economics in London during his junior year at Colgate University.

“I grew up very fast when I traveled,” Lord says. “Not only do you learn about other cultures, but you also learn a lot about your-

self. You’re in a place where you have to fend for yourself, and in doing that, I feel like I learned a lot about who I am and the world in general.”

Lord has traveled to all corners of the world—to Fiji and New Zealand. He’s been spear fishing in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, and rode an elephant in India. These experiences have helped him understand other cultures and people. Through these adventures, he realized why it is important for young people to travel and explore the world as he did.

“Most of the conflict in the world today is caused by actual misunderstandings

between different groups of people from different cultures,” Lord says. “So simply having our young people learn more about different cultures, in theory, should lead to fewer misunderstandings in the future. It’s that simple.”

He became a firm believer in Mercersburg’s focus on global citizenship. So he decided to give back to his alma mater; he began providing aid for international trips for Mercersburg students who could not afford them—and, since 2007, for a faculty travel lottery.

“If we can make sure that every student who deserves and wants to go on a trip with the school can go, the international travel program is going to grow,” Lord says. “The faculty lottery is a little different. I think it’s important that Mercersburg retains the best talent and gets the best new talent. That teacher who wins a trip to Fiji and goes scuba diving for a few weeks is going to come back so much more energized than he was the year before.”

At age 28, Lord (who lives in New York City’s East Village) is the chief financial officer of Lord Capital Management. His passion for finance has blossomed from his days of trading stocks between classes in Lenfest Hall to managing stock portfolios of city professionals. No matter where his travels or business takes him, Mercersburg remains an important part of Lord’s life.

“I really believe in Mercersburg as an institution for young people,” he says. “I can’t imagine a better place for someone to spend four years, grow up, and really have their eyes opened to the world and diversification. The school really focuses on the person graduating. Part of the Mercersburg mission is for young people to be good global citizens, and I believe in that.”

In October, Lord visited campus to meet with winners of the faculty travel lottery; Cubit presented him with a Colombian cigar, a T-shirt, and a DVD of his family’s trip.

BOOK LEARNING

For Zak Zielezinski, one good idea deserves another

As

a student in the fledgling Innovation & Entrepreneurship program at Clark University, Zak Zielezinski ’03 found himself in the dead of winter in Worcester, Massachusetts, staring at the campus bookstore with a sense of victory.

Zielezinski’s business, the Campus Book Brokerage, had taken on the university’s bookstore as direct competition—and delivered a 10 percent return on investment for its shareholders, who were fellow students. Not bad for a business that had been organized less than two months before.

One reason for Zielezinski’s confidence in his idea is because he had seen it in action a few years before. “The whole idea for that stemmed from a fundraiser that my class did while I was at Mercersburg,” Zielezinski says. “We bought and sold used textbooks from students. My class operated that as a fundraiser three or four years in a row, and by the time our senior year rolled around, we had more money in our class fund than any previous class—by a lot.

We had $30,000 by our senior year; the next-closest class had maybe $7,000. And that was what gave me the idea that it could be profitable to buy and sell used textbooks to students.”

Soon after his success with the Campus Book Brokerage, a professor from Clark’s graduate business school gave Zielezinski the idea to go after another market. “He had previously worked with some private high schools in supplying them with their textbooks through online ordering,” Zielezinski says. “In high schools, you’re not going to be competing with places like Amazon.com and a lot of online sources for textbooks.

“So I brought on one of my partners from the Campus Book Brokerage, and we started a new company called Interactive Purchasing Solutions (IPS). We expanded upon the original idea of just supplying textbooks, to the point where we decided to serve as a single-source provider for all types of school supplies that a student might need in high school—school supplies, textbooks, school uniforms, gym uniforms, apparel, and gift-type items. I was familiar with prep schools from my time at Mercersburg, which was one of the things that made me comfortable entering a market like this.” IPS creates custom-branded websites unique to each school.

By the time Zielezinski finished college, IPS was already serving a number of prep schools. Today, IPS’s client base stretches from Massachusetts to Florida. In the meantime, Zielezinski moved to Palo Alto, California. “It’s really the hub for my passions and interests, which are technology, software, and e-commerce,” he says.

“One thing that Mercersburg instilled in me is being a lifelong learner.

I’m always on the lookout for new and exciting experiences which are going to expand my understanding of how industries and markets work and help me to acquire new skill sets that I can put to use.”

—Shelton Clark

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ParadiseFOUND Bill Schindler’s dream job is all sports, all the time

By Lee Owen

H

osting a sports talk show on Maui presents some challenges.

There’s the time difference; catching the live kickoff of a midday football game broadcast from the Meadowlands, State College, or Foxboro can require a 7 a.m. (or earlier) wake-up call. There’s the fact that a large portion of your audience grew up on the mainland, and thus has a seemingly infinite list of favorite teams about whom they expect you, their beloved talkshow host, to know every last detail. (Who’s gonna play nickelback for the Raiders this year? Do the Twins need another lefty in their bullpen?)

Oh, and there’s the fact that you live on Maui, but spend the most important three hours of your day in a windowless radio booth the size of a closet; you might as well be in Upper Mongolia.

But Bill Schindler ’02 sees the bright side.

Maui is paradise, and sports are his paradise. It’s a match. And needing an encyclopedic knowledge of all things sports is a positive—“it keeps you on your toes,” he says.

“You know the phone’s gonna ring and somebody’s going to catch you on something if you don’t know it.”

Schindler co-hosts “The SportsPhone,” a three-hour radio show each weekday on KMVI-AM, the ESPN Radio affiliate in Wailuku, Hawaii. He’s done play-by-play for high-school sports and the prestigious Maui Invitational, a Thanksgiving Week tradition in college basketball. He’s been mentored by a broadcasting legend, worked for a

summer baseball team in Alaska, and lives in one of America’s most beautiful spots—all because, he insists, of a year at Mercersburg.

Schindler went to public high school in Cumberland, Maryland; with an August birthday, he was always one of the youngest students in his class, so he was open to the idea of a postgraduate year before going off to college. He remembers talking to his highschool guidance counselor about schools, and expressing an interest in Pepperdine University, with its picturesque mountaintop campus in Malibu, California.

“The counselor said, ‘Oh, that’s on Maui, right?’” Schindler recalls. “It hit me that perhaps this situation wasn’t going to help me get into college.”

At Mercersburg, Schindler played baseball, declaimed for Marshall (“we lost, and I’m still bitter,” he chuckles), and started his path toward a career in sports media. For his year-end senior project, he spent a week with the nearby Hagerstown Suns minor-league baseball team, interviewing players and coaches and soaking up life behind the scenes—and received a baptism by fire when the team’s radio announcers put him on the air on his final night with the team.

“I had never been on the air before, but they just handed me the microphone and said, ‘Here you go,’” Schindler says. “The scoreboard had been struck by lightning the week before, so it wasn’t working. I’m just this kid trying to piece things together, and there’s this superfan sitting in the stands below the press box yelling at me. But it was the first game I really ever called, and it was because of Mercersburg. It was something where I

told [the school] ‘this is what I’m interested in,’ and they let me go out and try it.

“Mercersburg really set up the dominoes to fall in place. Not only for what I learned academically, but it was a good life lesson; I’m an only child, and it was the first time I’d lived away from home in a dorm.

It really got me prepared for college. When I went out to Pepperdine, it wasn’t scary— I’d moved into a dorm before, and now I knew how to communicate with administrators and teachers.”

In his first year at Pepperdine, Schindler put his communication skills to good use when he discovered that several of the Waves’ baseball coaches had played in the Alaska Baseball League, a summer league for college players similar to the Massachusetts-based Cape Cod League. Several phone calls later, the Peninsula Oilers offered him a plane ticket—and little else— to serve as the team’s color man on its radio broadcasts for the summer. He jumped at the chance; his experience in Alaska led to roles on Pepperdine’s baseball and women’s basketball broadcast teams, and to a stint one summer as the Oilers’ assistant general manager.

“It was a great experience,” Schindler says. “I’ll put on the Travel Channel and they’ll show Alaska and I can say I’ve been there eight times. I got to broadcast the Midnight Sun Game, and I’ve been salmon fishing in the middle of the night.”

Back at Pepperdine, Schindler’s work broadcasting events for TV 26, the school’s student television station, connected him with Don Ohlmeyer, an Emmy-winning

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“Mercersburg really set up the dominoes to fall in place. Not only for what I learned academically, but it was a good life lesson… When I went [to college], it wasn’t scary.”

—Bill Schindler ’02

TV executive who served as executive producer of Monday Night Football and president of NBC’s West Coast operations.

Ohlmeyer, who has a home in Malibu, was serving as an adjunct professor at the school and took Schindler under his wing.

“I knew Don was a big deal, but I didn’t know all the things he had done,” Schindler says. “I gave him a CD [with recordings of broadcasts], and he came back and had all these notes for me and we started working one-on-one. I remember the first volleyball

game I ever did; right before it started, he walked up and announced that he was going to listen, and that I would be interviewing him at halftime.

“Luckily I was able to Google him during the game and find out some stuff about him, and we did the interview. It was great practice for thinking on your feet; I think that’s why he planned it, to see how I’d do with it.

Later, I’m standing in line at the concession stand, and I feel this big slap on the back— it’s Don, and he tells me, ‘Boy, I think you

can do this.’ You can’t pay for the kind of advice he’s given me.”

Following graduation, Schindler broadcast Pepperdine baseball games until the Waves were eliminated from the NCAA Tournament, and then flew to Maui (where his parents had built a house after they retired).

He thought his island stay would last a couple of months, until he found a position on the mainland—but one thing led to another and he landed the job at ESPN550 (he also produced a news show on a sister station until that show went off the air).

“Maui’s nice, and you couldn’t ask for a better place to get your feet wet right out of college,” Schindler says. “But at the same time, this is a small market. In 10 years, I’d like to be working for one of the big sports networks—whether that’s ESPN, the Golf Channel, whatever. To me, this is not work.

I enjoy the homework and preparation that goes into it. I like to learn the little things. I love talking to the players.

“And I’m always happy to do things for Mercersburg. It made a heck of a difference for me. Coming out of public school in a small town like I did, would I have gotten into Pepperdine? Probably not. Would I have gotten to meet guys like Don Ohlmeyer and work in Alaska and get a job out here?

Probably not. Mercersburg was a great experience for me—it was only one year, but it was unbelievable.”

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Alumni Weekend 2008 Crisp fall weather and a boatload of activities greeted the more than 500 alumni, family, and friends who enjoyed Alumni Weekend festivities October 17–19. Classes from years ending in 3 and 8 celebrated anniversary reunions. Highlights of the weekend included: • A Friday golf outing at Penn National Golf Club • A brown-bag lunch with Charles Barndt ’58, who spoke about his experiences as an aviation engineer with Lockheed Martin • The Blue & White Swim Meet, plus a recognition ceremony honoring Stan Smoyer ’30 • A Burgin Center reception and exhibition by former Regent Robert Kurtz ’52 • A weekend kick-off event, followed by Steps Songs & School Cheers and a bonfire • The annual Alumni Remembrance and Recognition Ceremony • A Saturday barbecue on Tippetts Beach • Athletic contests, including football and women’s tennis wins over Bullis • Dedication of Nolde Gymnasium’s Wein Foyer in memory of Isadore Wein, father of Alan ’58, Robert ’64, and Gary ’67 • Class dinners and gatherings • Sunday Chapel service and carillon recital featuring faculty emeritus James W. Smith Bond Stockdale ’09 and father, Jim ’68, celebrate a victory

Paula Johnson Smith ’83, Megan and Todd Friedman ’83, Laura Sawyer Pitman ’83

Alan Wein ’58, Douglas Hale, and Director of Athletics Rick Hendrickson at the dedication of the Wein Foyer inside Nolde Gymnasium

A bird’s-eye view

Ed Bou ’48 visiting with football players

Steps Songs on the steps of Main Hall

Scott Mironov, Amber Mironov, Doug Crompton ’83, Susan Blaschak Mironov ’83, John Park ’83

Dick Schmidt ’55, Bill Cook ’51, Bill Turpin ’55, John Hornbaker ’55

Stan Smoyer ’30 addressing swimmers and alumni at the Blue & White Swim Meet

Jonathan “Doc” Shirer ’58, Jack Farrell ’58, Fred Robins ’58, Jim Young ’58

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ALUMNI COUNCIL SERVICE AWARD

Andrew R. Ammerman ’68 Ammerman’s passion for philanthropy, spirituality, and family has guided his life. During his high-school years, he loved Chapel services and credits the spiritual aspects of Mercersburg for helping him return to his spiritual roots. He graduated from the University of Rochester with a degree in Asian American inter-disciplinary studies and a minor in theology, with credits earned at Georgetown John Lawrence ’58, Alan Wein ’58, Jim Pfautz ’48, Andrew Ammerman ’68, Head of School Douglas Hale University’s School of Foreign Service. co-authored more than 830 articles and 20 books, and has more Ammerman is passionate about education and the future of young than 50 multimedia presentations to his credit. His professional people; he has applied this passion to his service to Mercersburg’s honors include the Urodynamics Society Lifetime Achievement Board of Regents. Ammerman and his mother, Josephine, have endowed Award and the F. Brantley Scott Award of the American Foundathe annual Ammerman Family Lecture Series, the annual Ammertion for Urologic Disease. man Distinguished Teaching Award, and contribute an annual full At Mercersburg, Wein was a member of the Cum Laude Society scholarship at Mercersburg. and The Fifteen, captained the tennis team, and was a Marshall The Ammermans co-sponsor the Fund for the Future of our Chilman. He remains active in the Mercersburg community as a dren’s annual Peace Essay Contest for the Children of Abraham. FFC member of the Board of Regents, and sits on the Board’s Admisnurtures today’s youth into tomorrow’s peacemakers. sion-College Counseling and Academic Policy committees. Wein Ammerman serves on the Board of Trustees of Arena Stage in Washhas three daughters and lives with his wife, Noele, in Gladwyne, ington, and on Georgetown University’s Board of Regents as a member Pennsylvania. of the Mission and Ministry and Law School Affairs committees. He The Class of 1932 established the award at its graduation to is a third-generation member of the Washington Hebrew Congregarecognize former students who have distinguished themselves tion and a member of the Army and Navy Club of Washington. through their character, service, or achievement.

Established by the Alumni Council, this award is given to the person who has made the most outstanding contributions to Mercersburg ALUMNI COUNCIL ACHIEVEMENT AWARD Academy.

James C. Pfautz ’48 Following his graduation from Mercersburg, Pfautz received an CLASS OF ’32 PLAQUE English-Speaking Union scholarship to the Shrewsbury School in John K. Lawrence ’58 England (where he was honored among its 100 distinguished gradAlan J. Wein ’58 uates—a list that included Charles Darwin). He retired from the Lawrence earned a bachelor’s degree from Harvard University, and United States Air Force with the rank of major general, and is a received a master’s and Ph.D. in physics from Northeastern Univergraduate of the U.S. Military Academy, American University, and sity. His career in physics and astronomy has included teaching at Calithe National War College. fornia State University, Northridge, and research in the areas of relativity, In 1974, Pfautz was named senior military fellow at the Council cosmology theory, and solar astronomy. on Foreign Relations in New York. He worked as an assistant chief The valedictorian of his Mercersburg class, Lawrence earned the of staff for intelligence at the Pentagon, and had command assignSenior Medal and was a member of Irving and The Fifteen. He served ments in France, Egypt, Vietnam, and the U.S., which included on the Board of Regents from 1990 until 1999, and remains an Honorary 188 combat missions flown during the Vietnam War. Pfautz received Regent. the Republic of Vietnam Gallantry Cross, the Legion of Merit with Lawrence has served as director of Helio Research, a nonprofit Oak Leaf Cluster, and the Distinguished Service Medal. research organization; he is also a director of A Noise Within, a reperAt Mercersburg, Pfautz was a member of Irving and the swimtory-theatre company in California. Lawrence and his wife, Barbara, ming and cross country teams. He has served on the Alumni live in Glendale, California.

Council, as chair for his 25th and 40th reunions, and as a member Wein is a graduate of Princeton University and the University of of his 60th reunion committee.

Pennsylvania School of Medicine. He holds an honorary Ph.D. from Established in 1997, the award recognizes Mercersburg alumni the University of Patras in Greece. who have distinguished themselves not just in their professions, A professor and chair of the Division of Urology at the University but who also have outstanding records of service to their commuof Pennsylvania School of Medicine, Wein also serves as chief of urology nities and others. at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. He has authored or

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LOYALTY CLUB Front row (L–R): Tom Gardner ’48, John Linderman ’55, Tom Browning ’48, Hugh Miller ’48, Steve Heine ’48, Tom Kelly ’38, Tom Diehl ’48, Ray Magill ’48, Chuck Wiley ’48, Ed Bou ’48, Rick Mattern ’58, Jack Farrell ’58, Dick Schmidt ’55. Row 2: Tom Massey ’43, Charles Barndt ’58, Bill Simpson ’58, Tom Heflin ’58, Harry McAlpine ’47, Dick Law ’48, Bill Lawrence ’48, Frank Harvey ’48, Duke Wellington ’58, Steve Kozloff ’58, Bob Kerstein ’58, Bob Perry ’58, Bob Cullen ’58. Row 3: Bill Cook ’51, Jim Starkey ’58, Martin Myers ’36, Philip Abrams ’58, James Papoutsis ’58, Rudy Torruella ’58, Ched Hultman ’58, Ross Lenhart ’58, Guy Anderson ’58, Frank Richardson ’58, George Porter ’58. Row 4: Jonathan Shirer ’58, Alan Wein ’58, John Lawrence ’58, George Van Sciver ’58, William Erb ’58, William Vose ’58, George Kistler ’58, Jim Young ’58, Walter Cohen ’58, Fred Robins ’58, John Ewing ’58, Dale Williams ’54.

CLASS OF 1948 Front row (L–R): Ray Magill, Tom Browning, Tom Gardner, Tom Diehl, Ed Bou, Chuck Wiley. Row 2: Steve Heine, Hugh Miller, Bill Lawrence, Dick Law, Frank Harvey.

CLASS OF 1958 Front row (L–R): Jonathan Shirer, Jack Farrell, Rick Mattern, John Ewing, Walter Cohen, George Porter. Row 2: Charles Barndt, Bill Simpson, Tom Heflin, Duke Wellington, Steve Kozloff, Bob Kerstein, Bob Perry, Bob Cullen. Row 3: Alan Wein, Jim Starkey, Philip Abrams, James Papoutsis, Rudy Torruella, Ched Hultman, Ross Lenhart, Guy Anderson, Frank Richardson. Row 4: John Lawrence, George Van Sciver, William Erb, William Vose, George Kistler, Jim Young, Fred Robins.

CLASS OF 1968 Front row (L–R): Philip Barry, Eric Klieber, Bruce Kemmler, John Fox, Robert Magill, Charlie Alter. Row 2: Doug Bressler, Bill Ford, Lou Stanton, Jim Stockdale, Doug Miller, Michael Gery. Row 3: Andrew Ammerman, Rawley Krasik, Kendrick Snyder, Dennis Forney, Barry Marshall, Tucker Shields.

CLASS OF 1963 Front row (L–R): Charles Ballou, Harry Eiferle, Jim Goodwin, Richard Loebl, Jim Campbell, Geoff Russell. Row 2: Mike Gocke, Paul Sommerville, Charlie Coates, Drew Bisset, Marty Sweeney, Witcher McCullough. Row 3: David Millstein, John Miller, William Woods, Hugh Jamison, Kent Price, Bob Adair, Gene Homicki.

CLASS OF 1978 Front row (L–R): Mark Hammond, Ceci Depman Bennett, Chuck Rogers. Row 2: Pilar Diaz Benassi, Steven Schmidt, Nancy Lawrence Hill.

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CLASS OF 1983 Front row (L–R): Carolyn Dickie Lewis, Kathy Hughes, Jonathan Puleo, Paula Johnson Smith, Susan Blaschak Mironov, Jim Worthington, Anne Raugh Keene, Alfredo Baquerizo, John Park. Row 2: Jack Crawford, Scott Sundstrom, Laura Sawyer Pitman, Guido Porcarelli, Rich Katz, Janice Jackson, Erika LaCerda, Tim Burbank. Row 3: Doug Crompton, John Palmer, Ted Smith, Betsy Mitchell, Todd Friedman, Shawn Stouffer-Rodrigues, Robert Wheeler, Jay Bowden.

CLASS OF 1993 Front row (L–R): Sarah Smith, Ashley Bastholm Piraino, Jackie Crane Peacock, Paul Royer. Row 2: Rob Pitts, Alyson McKee Humphreys, Bryce Poirot.

CLASS OF 1988 Front row (L–R): Susie Lyles-Reed, Tim Hoover, Todd Hershey, Neil Mendelsohn, Michael White, Meredith Ruble, Andrew Hall. Row 2: Eric Reed, Chris Varner, Lisa Lemley Webber, Julia McMillanJones, Natalie Kostelni McGrory, Heather Gibson Wetzel, Jennifer Cutshall Sobich, Suzanne Dysard, Iain Martin. Row 3: Paul Giannaris, Bill Su, Jim Sienkiewicz, Doug Eddy, Alex Keller, Andrew Saulnier, Hans Morefield, Roger Staiger. Row 4: Steve Pessagno, Mark Hjelle, Mike Olsen, Dan Hauschild, David Newcomb, Nancy Widmer, Sara Plantz Brennen, Jim Poirot.

CLASS OF 2003 Front row (L–R): Gabrielle Joffie, Charles Cutshall, Wynn Thane, Jennifer Hendrickson, Meredith Knott, Mariel Gallet. Row 2: Whitney Groseclose, Vanessa Youngs, Sarah deVries, Nathan Fochtman, Morgan Higby-Flowers. Row 3: Victoria Leontieva, Jamie Blackburn, Chris Gallon, Joseph Ambrose, Sam Miller, Scott Lindquist.

CLASS OF 1998 Front row (L–R): Kira Robles, Abby Russell, Sarah Reed, Jim Kaurudar, Robyn Gdula, Molly Edmonds, Taylor Phillips, Seb Moity. Row 2: Kevin Hunt, Laura Mullett, Chris DeSimone, Shelley West, Julie Hasson, Kristine Pierson, Kristen Pelekanakis, Miranda BeVier, Jessica Swope, Bradley Codrea. Row 3: Patrick Lykins, Chesley Bastholm Nonemaker, Sarah Cohen, Elizabeth Curry, Julia Wiedeman, Jaiman Park, Leslie Magraw, Andy Sprott, A.J. Thieblot, John Mulcahy.

Row 4: Kyle Logan, Owen Rice, Jeff Adair, Peter Hamilton, Timothy Edmonds, Ryan Chodnicki, Pierce Lord, Derick Hahn, Jay Lee.

Arts

2008–2009 Dates to Remember

Feb 6–8

Stony Batter presents Brigadoon Simon Theatre (8 p.m. Fri/Sat, 2 p.m. Sun)

Feb 20

Winter Pops Concert Simon Theatre, 8 p.m.

Apr 3–4

Philip Glass in residence (performance information TBA)

May 1

Student Art Auction begins, 7 p.m.

Schedule subject to change; for a full and updated schedule of events, visit www.mercersburg.edu

Spring Music Concert, 8 p.m.

Dalton Dances In as Department Head

By Jim Applebaum Seven years ago, after a flashy but short-lived explosion of dance performances at Mercersburg, Denise Dalton arrived with solid training and educational credentials and began to construct what has become a key ingredient of the school’s dynamic and diverse arts universe—one that was mightily enhanced two years ago with the opening of the Burgin Center.

This fall, Dalton added to her duties as director of dance by beginning a five-year term as chair of the arts department. In her new role, she succeeds Laurie Mufson, who held the position for six years and continues as Mercersburg’s director of theatre. (Mufson was named the school’s inaugural Palmer Family Chair for the Fine Arts this fall.)

When asked about the value and worth of the arts in an increasingly bottom-line-driven society, she exclaims with more than a hint of seriousness, “It’s right brain, baby!” For those around campus who participated in an all-faculty seminar on two recent books (Howard Gardner’s Five Minds for the Future and Daniel Pink’s A Whole New Mind), Dalton’s exclamation signifies the continuation of a powerful advocacy for the intellectual and social power of the arts in secondary education. “American culture is one of the few that devalues the arts,” she sighs. “But often, the arts provide important indicators of what’s happening in society.”

The Mercersburg community is chockfull of commitments from daybreak to well past dusk, and the arts must work hard to insert itself in students’ busy schedules. Yet, as Dalton recalls clearly, “my hair stood up when

Kathleen Metcalfe ’06 choreographed a dance that had her peers coming out of their seats—a community that was otherwise too busy for such enthusiasm.”

The magnet that ultimately drew Dalton to Mercersburg (she was then considering a number of teaching options, including some at the university level) was the support for enlarging and empowering the arts by the administration and faculty. “Academics must be our first consideration—but surrounded by fully embraced arts and athletics,” she says.

Her new role as department chair, she says, will be to consolidate and maintain the gains of recent years. “Laurie did an incredible job, going

ON

Stage Stony Batter opened its 2008– 2009 season with The Diary of Anne Frank in September in the Hale Studio Theatre.

Ashton Vattelana ’09 (pictured right, with John Henry Reilly ’10) was cast in the role of Anne.

to bat time and time again for the arts, arguing for increases in graduation requirements in the arts, running retreats, and bringing in a visiting committee to objectively evaluate our programs,” Dalton says. “She b ro ug ht t h e arts to a really solid place at Mercersburg, and I want to continue that.”

As she whisks off for a session with young dancers in the Burgin Center’s Reeder Dance Studio, Dalton mentions a quote by the great choreographer Twyla Tharp: “Art is the only way to run away without leaving home.”

Athletics Dates to Remember

Feb 13–15

Men’s/women’s basketball at MAPL Tournament

Feb 14

Pennsylvania Independent Schools State Wrestling Tournament

Feb 20–21 Feb 28

Eastern Intercollegiate Swimming Championships

MAPL Winter Track & Field Championships

33rd Annual Burbank Squash Invitational (Davenport Squash Center)

Schedule subject to change; for updated schedules and results, visit www.mercersburg.edu

The Game within the Game Inside Mark Cubit’s philosophy of basketball A native of South Philadelphia, Mark Cubit played his way from Sharon Hill High School to the University of Vermont and then Syracuse University. A guard on a nationally ranked Syracuse team under the leadership of a young coach named Jim Boeheim, Cubit (Mercersburg’s head men’s basketball coach for the past 10 seasons) still goes to upstate New York for basketball; but now it’s to watch his son, Colin ’06, play for the University of Rochester.

He and his wife, Sandie, estimate that they receive two or three calls each week from former players, and he proudly served as best man at one former player’s wedding.

Simply put, Cubit thinks and talks basketball—and his players, past and present, respond to his philosophy of the game. Read on for some of Cubit’s insights, in his own words: • “Practice is another classroom. Coaching is teaching, but it’s not just teaching about the game. Respect, honor, selflessness, community service, preparation, immersing oneself in something bigger than any one person, the ability to see what is really in front of you as opposed to only looking for what you expect to see—these are some of the most important things we teach.

• “Basketball is as close to jazz as you can get in sport. You have five players playing different instruments and they perform best

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when combining preparation with creativity. At some point, each player has to step to the front.

• “We don’t identify positions on our teams. We don’t have players playing a position. A skill set defines what we do, not a job description. In fact, we haven’t had the same offense or defense for two years’ running since I’ve been here. We let them play first, and then we build upon their strengths.

• “In a rapidly changing world, you first have to understand yourself. By serving others, you learn about yourself. If you always put the task first and you focus only on that, then you are in the moment. It’s not about you; it’s about something bigger than you. A player setting the screen is just as important as the person scoring the points, but the screen-setter’s role may only really be appreciated by one or two people in the stands who really understand the game.

• “I learned much of my own philosophy from coaches like Boeheim, who work hard to make better men as well as better basketball players. The best coaches intersect with players where they live. We spend five or six minutes at the end of each practice session asking kids how our work on the court applies to their current and future lives.

• “Each week we focus on a different character trait. For example, we’ll take Aristotle’s quote, ‘We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit,’ and we’ll make that our focus for a full week—both on and off the court.

We ask players to do something significant each week, but to do it anonymously. We work to appreciate the roles different people play on campus, whether in the dining hall, in the school administration, or in the classroom. We try to become that person in the stands who fully appreciates the game, who recognizes the contributions of each player.”

—Phil Kantaros

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Spring Varsity Athletics Roundup Baseball

Golf

Captains: Chris Freeland ’08, David O’Brien ’08 Baseball Award (most outstanding player): Freeland Brent Gift Baseball Award (most improved player): Tom Timoney ’09 Swoope Baseball Trophy (sportsmanship/good fellowship): O’Brien Head coach: Karl Reisner (17th season) Record: 18–8 (7–3 MAPL) Highlights: Team earned a MAPL co-championship (with Peddie)… Chris Sintetos ’08 and Tom Timoney were named first-team All-MAPL, while Freeland garnered honorable-mention honors and was named all-area by the [Chambersburg] Public Opinion… Freeland, Sintetos, Tom Timoney, Collin Stevens ’08, and Christian Binford ’11 were named second-team all-area by the [Hagerstown] HeraldMail… five players (Stevens, Sintetos, Trevor Smith ’09, Matt Timoney ’11, and Tom Timoney) all batted more than .400… Binford tossed a no-hitter against Martinsburg in his first high-school start, and finished the season with a 6–2 mark and a 1.43 ERA… Tom Timoney struck out 57 hitters in 44 innings and posted a 2.06 earned-run average…

Freeland smashed three grand slams and drove in 31 runs.

Captain: Mike Reddy ’09 Golf Award (most outstanding player): Ben Mellott ’09 Coaches’ Award (most improved player): Reddy Head coach: Paul Galey (9th season) MAPL finish: 4th Highlights: Caroline Lovette ’09 became the second straight Mercersburg golfer to win the MAPL women’s individual title when she captured the league crown by three strokes… Notre Dame Academy and Bullis fell to the Blue Storm in headto-head competition… the team finished fourth at the MAPL Championship, besting Hun by eight strokes and Blair by nine; Mellott and Peter Jones ’09 carded the top team score (86) at the tournament.

Men’s Lacrosse Captains: Ben Axelrod ’08, Garrett Matthews ’08, Andrew Reichardt ’08, Jay Whyel ’08 Men’s Lacrosse Award (most outstanding player): Reichardt Lacrosse Alumni Award (most improved player): Mitch Shetter ’08 Nelson T. Shields ’70 Lacrosse Award (spirit/teamwork/sportsmanship): Tad Holzapfel ’09 Special award (sportsmanship/overall contribution): Hisaki Mizutani ’08

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Head coach: Todd McGuire (1st season) Record: 2–12 (1–4 MAPL) Highlights: Reichardt was the team’s leading scorer; other top scorers included Will Fejes ’08, Whyel, and James Gotoff ’09… Chris Stoken ’09 moved from attack to the net and kept the Blue Storm competitive in most contests… Reichardt earned honorable-mention All-MAPL honors… wins came against Blair and St. James… those playing collegiate lacrosse this season include Reichardt (Dickinson), Axelrod (Sewanee), Matthews (Washington College), and Nick Rowan ’08 (Gettysburg).

Women’s Lacrosse Captain: Mary Lancaster ’08 Women’s Lacrosse Award (most outstanding player): Lancaster Coaches’ Award (most improved player): Paige Harry ’10 Head coach: Stephanie Bacon (1st season) Record: 9–5 (2–3 MAPL) Highlights: The team, which opened the season with wins in six of its first eight contests, beat

Lawrenceville for the first time in the program’s history… Jenn Dillon ’09 set a school record (and led the MAPL) with 67 goals; Annie Birney ’09 added 41 goals and Stephanie Seibert ’09 contributed 144 saves in goal… Dillon and Lancaster were named first-team All-MAPL, and Birney, Dillon, Seibert, and Coralie Thomas ’09 garnered first-team all-area recognition from the Herald-Mail… Lancaster earned a varsity letter all four years… Sarah Mason will be the team’s new head coach this spring.

Softball Captains: Lauren Dobish ’08, Cree Riley ’08 Softball Award (most outstanding player): Riley Coaches’ Award (most improved player): Leigh Saner ’10 Head coach: Nikki Walker (2nd season) Record: 12–8 (4–6 MAPL) Highlights: Dobish won the Ecker Award, which is given to the outstanding female athlete/citizen in the senior class… Dobish was first-team All-MAPL, while Riley and Sarah Duda ’10 earned honorablemention honors… Public Opinion all-area selections included Riley (first team), Dobish (second team), and Duda and Julie Garlick ’11 (honorable

mention)… Dobish, Riley, Rachel Greenberg ’08, and Destinee Hays ’08 were all four-year letterwinners…

Riley was 11–2 with an 0.91 earned-run average and struck out 118 hitters in 93 innings of work; she also led the team in stolen bases (24) and runs batted in (21)… Duda was the team leader in batting average (.385) and on-base percentage (.408).

Men’s Tennis Men’s Tennis Award (most outstanding player): Stephan Kreifels ’09, Napat Waikwamdee ’09 Coaches’ Award (most improved player): Marcel Wontorra ’09 Head coach: Eric Hicks (14th season) Record: 3–7 (1–4 MAPL) Highlights: Kreifels, who played No. 1 singles, earned first-team All-MAPL honors and was selected all-area by the Herald-Mail… Waikwamdee, who compiled a 7-6 mark at No. 2 singles, won more matches than anyone on the roster… Eli Littlefield ’11 (No. 6 singles) went undefeated in MAPL singles play… Kreifels and Waikwamdee formed the Storm’s top doubles team (3–5 at the No. 1 position)… the team recorded head-to-head wins over Blair, Jefferson, and Chambersburg.

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Men’s Track & Field Captains: James Finucane ’08, Patrick Morgan ’08, Fleet White ’08 Men’s Track & Field Award (most outstanding athlete): Finucane Edward J. Powers ’37 Award (most improved athlete): Nebiyu Osman ’10 Robert Fager Black ’07/’45 Trophy (sportsmanship/loyalty): David Strider ’08 Head coach: Skip Sydnor (1st season) MAPL/state finish: 4th/7th Highlights: See below for full details about the three school records set during the season…

Finucane (1600m/3200m), White (400m hurdles), and Strider (high jump) were individual MAPL champions… state independent-school champions included Finucane (1600m), White (300m hurdles), and the 4x400m relay team of Strider, Morgan, Finucane, and White… Finucane also earned the Plantz Award, which is given to the outstanding male senior-class athlete/citizen... honorablemention All-MAPL selections included Morgan, Osman, Bill Campi ’08, Kareem

Broken Records Two members of the Class of 2008 (James Finucane and Fleet White) posted a total of three men’s track and field records in the spring. Finucane’s 4:18.59 mile at the prestigious Penn Relays in April was the best ever for a Mercersburg athlete, and came in front of an estimated crowd of 30,000 at Franklin Field in Philadelphia (he finished eighth overall at the meet). Finucane also set a new school best in the 3200-meter run at the West Central Coaches’ Meet in Altoona in May. Finucane was the Mid-Atlantic Prep League champion in both events.

White ran the 400-meter hurdles in a school-best time of 56.08 seconds at the MAPL Championships in May. Both are running for NCAA Division I programs this year (Finucane at Penn and White at Navy). And Finucane’s younger sister, Lena ’09, pulled off a rare sweep of the 800-, 1600-, and 3200-meter runs at the MAPL Championships.

James Finucane (left) and Fleet White

Hannoun ’09, Zach Bailey ’10, Ellis Mays ’10, Zach Olivos ’10, Nikolai Paloni ’10, Ethan Strickler ’08, Palis Tarasansombat ’11, Will Wongsirikul ’10, Trent Woodham ’08, and Clayton Young ’08… Morgan lettered all four years.

Women’s Track & Field Captains: Laura Diller ’08, Annie Spencer ’08 Women’s Track & Field Award (most outstanding athlete): Lena Finucane ’09 Edward J. Powers ’37 Award (most improved athlete): Spencer Robert Fager Black ’07/’45 Trophy (sportsmanship/loyalty): Diller Head coach: Betsy Willis (7th season) MAPL/state finish: 2nd/4th Highlights: Finucane swept the 800-, 1600-, and 3200-meter runs at the MAPL Championships… other MAPL champions included Paige Summers ’11 (discus) and the 4x800m relay team of Hannah Miller ’10, Joy Mullins ’10, Soso Buggisch ’10, and Spencer… Finucane (1600m) and Deborah Adjibaba ’11 (800m) claimed titles at the Pennsylvania Independent Schools State Championships… honorable-mention All-MAPL selections included Adjibaba, Diller, Brea Davies ’10, Michelle Karbach ’08, Sarah Kolanowski ’10, Brookke Mahaffey ’10, Whitney Matthew ’08, Mackenzie Riford ’11, Asia Walker ’09, and Emily Weiss ’08… Diller and Spencer were both four-year letterwinners.

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ANNIVERSARY REUNION WEEKEND

Connect the past, present, and future ● June 11–14, 2009 If your class year ends in 4 or 9, celebrate your five-year anniversary reunion with fellow alumni, faculty, and students this June. During weekend events, connect your past Mercersburg experiences with the Mercersburg of today, and create relationships that will last a lifetime.

Thursday, June 11

Saturday, June 13

6–7:30 p.m. Casual, relaxed dinner in Ford Hall with classmates and guests. After dinner, join Mercersburg family and friends for a great time at Flannery’s Tavern on the Square.

8–9 a.m. Morning Warm-up Join us for yoga, an alumni run, or a round of golf at Whitetail Golf Resort.

Friday, June 12

9–10 a.m. 50th Anniversary Reunion Breakfast with the Head of School at North Cottage.

10–11 a.m. and 2–3 p.m. “Faculty Connections” Don’t miss these stimulating discussions with faculty.

4–5 p.m. Alumni Focus Groups Here’s your chance to have an impact on important school programs.

9:30–10:15 a.m. Student Discussion Panel Up-close and candid student conversations—you ask, they’ll talk!

5–6 p.m. Cocktails & Mocktails for Mercersburg Class Agents and Reunion Volunteers at Landis House.

10:30–11:15 a.m. Mercersburg Admission Have a family member or friend interested in Mercersburg Academy? Here’s the chance to get an insight into the admission process.

6–8 p.m. Outdoor Soirée Get out your dancing shoes and enjoy a delicious meal, music, and a Mercersburg party!

11:15 a.m.–12 p.m. School Update What’s happening and what’s to come at Mercersburg? Head of School Douglas Hale shares the Academy’s plans.

8–10 p.m. After-dinner Tournaments Show your school spirit by participating in fun activities—family members included.

10:15–11 a.m. and 2–2:45 p.m. Discover Mercersburg Walk around the historic district and through the alleys with faculty.

All day Friday and Saturday Legacy Camp Children ages 7 and older can create their own Mercersburg memories.

12–2 p.m. All-alumni Luncheon with Keynote Speaker in Ford Hall. More clues about this exciting keynote address to come.

12–4 p.m. Individual Class Activities Look for more details about what your class volunteers have in store.

6–11 p.m. Class Dinners, Photos, and Dance Party

Sunday, June 14 10 a.m. Anniversary Reunion Weekend Chapel Service Look for the early-bird registration notice in January. For future updates and more information, visit www.mercersburg.edu/alumni.

See you in June!

ME RC E RS BUR G MAGAZ I N E

WINTER 2008 – 2009

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Alumni Notes Submit alumni notes and photographs online or by email to NewsNotes@mercersburg.edu or your class agent. Submissions may appear online or in print. Mercersburg reserves the right to edit submissions for space or content, and is not responsible for more than reasonable editing or fact-checking.

David Smith ’32 with (back row, from left) grandson Joshua ’96 and sons Allan ’64, Paul ’59, Brian ’75, Ronnie ’57, Dave III ’68, and Stephen ’68.

how He can change anyone’s life that will invite Him to do so. Later, I spent 30 years as a Methodist pastor—retiring in 1986 from the itinerancy but still being a witness for Jesus.”

’42

Tom Marshall relocated to Cokesbury Village near Hockessin, Delaware. His former home will become part of the Friends of Auburn Heights Preserve, which is home to Tom’s inherited collection of small-scale steam trains.

◆ Bill Alexander 740-282-5810

Back on campus: Bill Watkins ’49.

◆ Ned Hermann ehermann404@comcast.net

◆ Pat Harris (widow of Bill Harris ’48) whatpath@mindspring.com ◆ Ray Magill rmagill@juno.com ◆ Hugh Miller hcmfaia@comcast.net ◆ Jim Pfautz bsgimd@aol.com

’38 ’39

The late Jack Welsh was inducted into the University of Pennsylvania Athletic Hall of Fame.

’43

’40

William A. “Bill” Schneider writes, “At 86, I’m getting a little too out of breath to travel great distances, so I am unable to visit the ’Burg. However, I still ride my Sinski scooter around my hometown of Kane, Pennsylvania (in the northwestern part of the state), distributing Christian tracts and sharing with anyone who will listen how Christ changed my life and I was reborn at the age of 33—and

Ed Young and his wife, Louise, have created an endowed fund at Mercersburg to support the teaching of American constitutional precepts. Ed and Louise feel it is critical for young people to study the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights, and that it is fundamental background in their growth as citizens of today’s world. Ed and Louise look forward to returning to campus soon to visit with students who are benefiting from their gift; they would also like to hear how Ed’s Mercersburg contemporaries have chosen to support the current activities of the school.

’48

’49

Bill Watkins writes, “It has been rough for me since July 2007. As a result of two seizures, I spent three weeks in Fairfax County Hospital, followed by eight weeks as an inpatient in a rehabilitation center. This was followed by several weeks of home care and extended outpatient treatment. Both before and after my seizures, I have spent considerable time getting some normality in my retired life—many years as a Master Gardener under the auspices of the Virginia Extension Service, attending training classes on a weekly basis and working in the County Plant Clinics in the growing months. Other volunteer efforts that I enjoy are taking care of

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some of my neighbors’ dogs and supporting the North Shore Animal League and Animal Rescue in this area. Recently, Kelly Schoenberger from Mercersburg’s Alumni & Development Office came to visit. It was a most pleasant experience, which included my thoughts of my time at Mercersburg as a resident workingboy from 1947 to 1949, and of the Mercersburg environment since graduation.

Fortunately, I’ve been able to get back for Alumni Weekend many times since retirement from the Army in 1979.”

’51 Bert McGann writes, “When I attended Mercersburg in 1950 and 1951, we had perhaps the best track team in the history of the school. Those were the years of Gus Ormrod ’50, Henry Thresher ’51, Larry Lattomus ’51, and Lee Yoder ’50.

Gus ran a 4:18 in the Boardwalk Mile at Atlantic City. The various times of Henry in the sprints were incredible, as were

those of Olympian Yoder in the hurdles.

I tip my hat to James Finucane ’08 and his 4:18.59 mile.” [Editor’s note: Since the Boardwalk Mile was run in a straight line and not on an oval track, it does not qualify as an official school record.]

Larry Sheridan is enjoying full retirement. He was appointed to the Board of Governors of the Lehigh-Northampton Airport Authority, which oversees the Lehigh Valley International Airport.

James Turney Jr. writes, “I was 65 when I ran my first marathon, was diagnosed with prostate cancer just after the second one, had seed implants that worked, ran another marathon, and now am in total remission. I run daily with my 70-pound Airedale, Star Sweetheart.

We average 3.74 miles per day; our goal is 1,365 miles for the year. Last year, I fell off a ladder, which cost me 70 miles, so I only had 1,260 miles for the year. This year, it will be much more. Getting better, not older.”

◆ Jack Connolly jackconnolly@cfmr.com

◆ Guy Anderson guykanderson@att.net ◆ George Kistler gwkistler@aol.com ◆ Steve Kozloff riokoz@cox.net ◆ Ross Lenhart rlenhart@sc.rr.com ◆ Jim Starkey starkyj1@universalleaf.com ◆ Bill Vose wovose@kaballero.com ◆ Alan Wein alan.wein@uphs.upenn.edu

’54

service. He keeps busy with volunteer work, reading, and his computer.

’58

◆ Hank Bowis hbowis@cox.net ◆ Al Douglass al_douglass@ml.com ◆ Barry Dubbs bdubbs@targetlogos.com ◆ Clem Geitner hkyleather@aol.com ◆ Charlie Hamburg chamburg@effortfoundry.com ◆ Bob Hecht rhecht@ecovacs.com ◆ Bob Hughes bob.hughes@jgr.com ◆ Frank Lloyd fwlloyd@mintz.com

John Stevens retired after more than 15 years of work for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. He had previously retired from the U.S. Air Force after 23 years of

’59

’60 Ken Pearlman, head of the Department of City and Regional Planning at The Ohio State University, has been inducted into the American Institute of Certified Planners’ College of Fellows. Only 400 of the approximately 15,500 members of the group have earned the designation.

Election is granted to planners who have demonstrated excellence in professional practice, teaching and mentoring, research, community service, leadership and communication.

◆ Gene Homicki ukey@spiders.com ◆ Dave Millstein sponte@aol.com ◆ Paul Sommerville psommerville@hargray.com

’63

Joel Stein writes, “For the last five years, I entered and completed (don’t ask for my times) the Brooklyn Half Marathon. It starts on the boardwalk in Coney Island and finishes in Prospect Park, near where we live. Our daughter, Dana, is beginning college this fall at George Washington University. In case it’s not obvious, we got a late start. I plan to continue practicing law (criminal defense) for at least five more years—until my current lease expires, and then I’ll see how I feel and whether I want to continue.”

Ties, totes, and belts made exclusively for Mercersburg AVA I L A B L E I N T H E S C H O O L STO R E A N D O N L I N E AT

www.mercersburgstore.com

After Marty Sweeney graduated from the University of Vermont with a bachelor’s degree in languages, served with the Army in Vietnam and Korea, and attended graduate school at the University of New Hampshire, he had to make some decisions. Marty and his wife, Pam, decided to embark upon a career in the hospitality industry, starting with Sheraton Hotels. In 1978, they purchased the Wildcat Inn in Jackson, New Hampshire, and owned and ran it together until 2007. Marty was head chef and concierge while Pam was the head baker

ME RC E RS BUR G MAGAZ I N E

In Hilton Head, South Carolina, before a Mercersburg leadership briefing (front row, L–R): Marilyn Kurtz, Mary Imler, Ariel Imler ’09, Alexis Imler ’05, Jenica Lee ’05 (daughter of Joe Lee ’73). Back row: Robert Kurtz ’52, Gail Reeder (mother of Adam Reeder ’97 and Anne Reeder ’00), Head of School Douglas Hale, Joe Imler ’72.

and tended to most of the business aspects. As a husband-and-wife team, they thoroughly enjoyed their work and managed to raise two sons. They sold the inn last year, but remain connected with the neighboring Whitney’s Inn. The couple also enjoys catering, and Pam produces fused glass art that is sold in the Jackson/Conway area. They have a lovely, rambling New England home on three acres with a beautiful river cutting through their property. If you are in the area, give Marty and Pam a call; they would love to show you their community in the White Mountains of New Hampshire.

◆ Mike Radbill mradbill1@comcast.net

’64

◆ Allan Rose byrose@superior.net ◆ Ed Russell martnwod@bellsouth.net

’67

Albert “A.R.” Perez has two granddaughters, Reagan Elizabeth Shaw and Ryan Jayne Shaw.

Steven Warden continues to practice urology in Virginia Beach, Virginia. He is enjoying his first grandson, Jacob, who is 14 months old and the son of Natalie Warden Wilmer ’98. Steven retired from flying after 40 years, and is taking up sailing on the Chesapeake Bay. His travels will take him to Chile again this year to visit a close friend.

’68

Class Agents Al Rose ’67 and Ed Russell ’67 in Hendersonville, North Carolina.

◆ Charles Alter ca@buckeye-express.com ◆ Bill Ford william_ford@ml.com ◆ Rich Helzel rhelzel@mac.com ◆ Bruce Kemmler kemmler@kemmlerproducts.com ◆ Mike Kopen kopen@goeaston.net ◆ Tucker Shields shieldst@mercersburg.edu ◆ Clarence Youngs clarence4150@aol.com

◆ Rick Fleck aspnrick@aol.com ◆ Rich Freedman rfreedman@iqworks.net ◆ Dick Seibert rseibert@knobhall.com Ty Lawrence ’80 and Jim Leberknight ’80 rolled their Harleys onto the steps of Main Hall. Ty lives in Virginia Beach and Jim lives in Houston.

’69

Dick Seibert writes, “Jay Weiss was quick to remind me that it was about this time in our senior year. Bob Stokley and I roomed together in Tippetts and we signed out on a Saturday to go to my

home in Hagerstown, Maryland. (Going home was always a treat as my mother was a great cook.) My aunt and uncle brought us back to the ’Burg, and I can still remember entering our floor from the stairwell and being hit with a sickening smell and asking Stokley, ‘What’s that?’ When I opened our door, I found that it was our room; Weiss, John Groh, and Val Deininger had decided that our cologne was better served on the floor than on our faces, so our Jade East and English Leather (remember those wonderful aromas? barf!) went on first. Then came a layer of shaving cream—about 1 to 3 inches if I recall.

But the crowning achievement was the layer upon layer of magnolia petals that were put on the shaving cream; if the cologne was not bad enough, the petals were. Magnolias smell great outdoors, but inside, the smell is overpowering, and overpowering it was… Jay and (I assume) John and Val—and perhaps some of you unnamed—spent hours going around campus collecting these petals. I understand that one or two teachers may have even helped in the collection. I am still plotting my revenge!” On a completely different note, Dick’s vineyard, Knob Hall Winery, is on tap to become Maryland’s largest vineyard and Washington County’s first winemaker after 60 acres of grapes are planted in 2010.

◆ Paul Mellott pmellott@mellots.com

Lloyd Schaeffer visited campus in August with his father, F. David Schaeffer ’37, and Cindy Compton. Lloyd retrieved some information on his classmates and promises to get in touch with some of you in the near future— watch for his calls or emails. Lloyd and Cindy planned to attend the Candlelight Service in December.

Lloyd can be reached at Lloyd_Schaeffer@troweprice.com; he now has a granddaughter, Jaiden Ann Schaeffer, who was born December 11, 2007.

’72

In 2005, Thomas Lansdale stepped down after 10 years as chairman of med-

45

Main Hall roommates Dave Dupont ’80 and John Beeken ’80.

icine at Greater Baltimore Medicine Practice at GBMC. He says he has never been happier professionally, and remains in good health “under the masterful care of friend and colleague Jim Porterfield.”

◆ Joe Lee jos.lee@comcast.net

’73 ’74

◆ Kevin Longenecker kklong@epix.net

’70

Faculty member and Director of Instructional Technology Frank Rutherford left in August for Visakhapatnam, India, where he spent four months teaching AP environmental science and microeconomics with School Year Abroad. Frank has been blogging about his experiences; be sure to visit web.mac.com/frunner/ India/Welcome.html, comment, and learn more about his semester in India.

◆ Tom Hadzor T.Hadzor@Duke.edu ◆ Eric Scoblionko wekdirscobes@aol.com

WINTER 2008 – 2009

◆ Heidi Kaul Krutek hkrutek@bellsouth.net

’78

Jim Roy won his fourth career Post-Standard Amateur Golf Championship in June in Syracuse, New York. His 18-yearold son, Kevin, tied for second; another son and fellow alum, Kyle ’07, is in his second year on the golf team at the University of Tampa.

◆ Gretchen Decker Pierce pierce306@embarqmail.com ◆ Carol Furnary Casparian furnaryc@mercersburg.edu

’79

Judy Russell Purman has published Tracking Your Carbon Footprint: A Stepby-Step Guide to Understanding and Inventorying Greenhouse Gas Emissions.

For more information, visit www.thepurmangroup.com.

PPG Industries named Greg Wagner general manager of industrial coatings for the Americas region.

◆ Dave Wagner wags1262@sbcglobal.net ◆ Greg Zinn greg@zinn.com

’81

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M E RC E RSB U RG M AG AZI N E WI N T ER 2008 – 2009

Mark Montgomery was interviewed for Carrier, a 10-part PBS miniseries that follows the USS Nimitz during a deployment to the Persian Gulf in support of the Iraq War.

◆ Duncan White duncan.m.white@accenture.com ◆ Todd Wells todd.wells@jetblue.com

◆ Mark Pyper mark.e.pyper@smithbarney.com ◆ Bruce Ricciuti jbr@birchrea.com

’82

Jennifer Cox is a New York–based filmmaker. She is a principal in Moto Films LLC, and has produced and directed shows featuring the likes of President Bill Clinton, Alan Greenspan, and Ethan Hawke. Her client list has included Showtime, the History Channel, and Lifetime, as well as corporate clients MetLife and Barnes & Noble. (For more information, visit www. motofilmsllc.com.) She adds that about a year ago, while en route to a shoot with author/reporter Tom Friedman, she ran into Kitty Daly Resor, and they’ve been in touch since.

Raymond Liddy was recognized in the San Diego Daily Transcript’s list of Top Attorneys for 2008; the list pays tribute to San Diego County’s legal cream of the crop.

◆ Rachel Haines Bowman rachbowman@comcast.net ◆ Ann Quinn aquinn@scandh.com

’83

’84

More than 20 years after they first floated the idea to start a company and work together, Jose Alonso and Jorge Vargas have done just that. In 2004, Jose and his father-in-law founded ForgeHouse Inc., a software solutions company based in Alpharetta, Georgia.

Jose is the company’s chief operating officer; Jorge was hired as its chief financial officer this spring. The company went public in January 2008.

Tom Evans started swimming with a Masters group in Denver, and finished third in the 1500-meter freestyle and fifth in the 400-meter individual medley at the 2007 U.S. Masters Nationals.

He also completed all five events in the Postal Championships. For his efforts, the Denver Athletic Club honored him as one of the club’s Athletes of the Year.

Tom occasionally trains with some “kids” who swam for John Trembley at Ten-

Births

nessee, and says he also got in a good ski season this past winter and managed a run with Chris Erdman. “Our children had a good time together, and we got to catch up a bit,” he says. Tom is vicepresident of acquisition and development at Magnolia Hotels. “I have taken on a new role helping a smaller hotel company grow into a brand,” he says.

“Our hotels are in the central business districts of Denver, Dallas, Houston, and Omaha; each is in a historic, architecturally significant building that we have transformed into a hotel.”

’86 Elizabeth Steinhauser Bray is enjoying life in Texas. She was recently promoted to vice-president for Cape Classics, a South African wine importer. She says that the world of food, wine, and travel is great fun, but time at home with husband Christopher and daughters Riley (7) and Casey (5) is more fun than anything in the world.

◆ Kirsten Dryfoos Thompson kirsten.e.thompson@gmail.com ◆ Louis Najera louis@davincicomm.com

’87

Amy Konikowski-Lamperti published The Playground Guide, Best of Morris

To Marianne Rosini Taylor ’90 and her husband, Steven: a daughter, Regan Patricia, March 10, 2008.

To Tim Putnam ’94 and his wife, Julie: a son, Miles MacKinsey, June 30, 2008.

Lily Joon, daughter of Sasha Emral Shaool Nourafchan ’93 and her husband, Romyar, born June 8, 2008.

Isaiah Torohn, son of Yvonne Rodriguez Blanc ’87 and her husband, Glenford, born March 13, 2008.

To Tim Peterson ’97 and his wife, Michele: a son, Kain Alexander, August 16, 2007.

To Masroor Ahmed ’99 and his wife, Suroor Raheemullah: a daughter, Sophia Nasiha Ahmed, August 8, 2008.

To Laura Downs Niedosik ’01 and her husband, Lenny: a daughter, Allison Elizabeth, March 26, 2008.

Rowan Philip, son of Kim Lloyd ’90 and her husband, Jonathan Nessel, born April 23, 2008.

Children of Paul Moody ’89 and his wife, Jill: big sister Heidi holding Paul, who was born June 6, 2008.

Todd Friedman ’83 and Rip Esselstyn ’82 at the 2008 Masters Swimming National Championships in Austin, Texas.

To Kathleen Fleck ’07 and Morgan Siffert: a son, Noah Louis Siffert, June 18, 2008.

Susan Blaschak Mironov ’83 with her children, Zachary and Amber, and husband, Scott.

Faculty/Former Faculty To Amy Dickerson Mohr and her husband, John: a daughter, Ann Kathryn (Annie), September 15, 2008.

To Derry Mason and his wife, Sarah: a daughter, Mary Elizabeth, August 8, 2008.

To Todd McGuire and his wife, Michele Poacelli: a son, Gaven Peter, August 27, 2008.

To former faculty member Jack Sweeney and his wife, Mary: a son, Jackson Robert, July 23, 2008.

ME RC E RS BUR G MAGAZ I N E

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River. What used to take 15 minutes to drive now takes 45. Most people in Cedar Rapids didn’t have flood insurance. The government’s $28,000 will not help most people enough to get their lives back to normal. We will rebuild, but many people will have to start over. Please pray for the people of our city.”

Julia Streeter Berle ’87 and her family.

County, NJ. The book includes pictures and information on 265 publicly accessible playgrounds in the area. Amy says the book is getting some press locally and is available at about 20 different locations. She says the next version will be The Playground Guide, Best of Santa Cruz, CA.

◆ Kristin Butterfield Vickery kbutterfield@aapa.org ◆ Jennifer Cutshall Sobich j.sobich@verizon.net ◆ Paul Giannaris nicksinn@aol.com ◆ Susie Lyles-Reed ebsl_reed@yahoo.com ◆ Eric Reed ereed_md@yahoo.com

’88

Steve Cohn writes, “In 2005, I was diagnosed with adrenal cortical carcinoma, had a resection, and received chemotherapy. In May, I received the results of my third-year CAT scans. They were negative, and my oncologist told me that he would ‘bet the farm’ that this cancer will not return. I took that as good news. Lately, I’ve been settling into my new life on the ‘left coast.’ I live on a houseboat in Sausalito, California, just over the Golden Gate Bridge from San Francisco. Marin County has lots of natural beauty, and has offered me proof that even a dyed-in-the-wool Manhattanite like me can enjoy taking an occasional hike amid the redwoods of Muir Woods.”

Suzanne Dysard is co-coordinator of the Boulder CROP Hunger Walk, which raises money for efforts to fight hunger and poverty internationally (www.boulder cropwalk.org). Suzanne and her husband, James, live in Boulder, Colorado; in recent years, she has traveled to Vietnam and Kenya to help bring clean water and sanitation to remote villages.

Todd Hershey and his wife, Jennifer, welcomed a son, Oliver Hayden, on June 2, 2008. He joins brothers Henry (4) and Jackson (2).

Andrew Saulnier writes, “I live in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. My family and I have escaped financial damage from the flood.

We are far enough away and elevated high enough to avoid any flood damage. That being said, I have several friends who have damaged homes, businesses, or both. Travel is limited to one bridge (of five bridges) across the Cedar

◆ Zania Pearson zmp2work@verizon.net ◆ Ames Prentiss aprentiss@intownvet.com

’89

Paul Moody is an engineer planner for the 1st Cavalry Division at Fort Hood, Texas.

◆ Helen Barfield Prichett helenprichett@yahoo.com ◆ Laura Linderman Barker laura.linderman@t-mobile.com

’91

Kara Adzima is a chemical engineer at NovaTech in Owings Mills, Maryland.

She earned a degree in chemical engineering from Western Michigan University last spring, and had previously received degrees from Oberlin College and the Siebel Institute of Technology.

John Barnes is a new partner with Grant Thornton. He leads the firm’s business advisory practice in Baltimore, and specializes in internal audit, Sarbanes-Oxley consulting, internal controls, and riskmanagement services. As a Certified Public Accountant (CPA), John has more than 12 years experience in public accounting with a focus on complex projects for clients in the manufacturing, technology, health care and real estate industries. He is a member of the Institute of Internal Auditors, the Greater Baltimore Committee, and the Maryland Association of Certified Public Accountants.

◆ Emily Gilmer Caldwell gilmercaldwell@yahoo.com

’92

Chip Nuttall is a senior consultant with C3 Consulting, a project leadership-consulting firm providing personalized services for companies headquartered in Middle Tennessee. Chip also serves on the board of directors for the Nashville chapter of PMI, and volunteers several hours a month with the Red Cross, with a focus on disaster preparation.

◆ Danielle Dahlstrom dlld93@hotmail.com ◆ Alexis Kemmler Simpson a_kemmler@hotmail.com ◆ Jamil Myrie jmyrie@foreyes.com

’93

Billy Jarrett ’91 (right) with two-time Olympic gold medalist Melvin Stewart ’88 at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing.

◆ Karen Pak Oppenheimer karenpak@yahoo.com ◆ Rob Pitts robkpitts@hotmail.com ◆ Sarah Smith smiths@nbps.org Sasha Emral Shaool married Romyar Nourafchan December 22, 2007, in Beverly Hills, California. They live in Marina Del Rey, California, and would love to hear from Mercersburg friends; they planned an East Coast visit for Thanksgiving. Sasha plans on being a full-time mom, and eventually would like to have a studio and paint again when Lily (their baby) is ready to be away.

◆ Tim Gocke tim.gocke@gmail.com ◆ Rob Jefferson rmjefferson@venable.com

’94

Jessica Hope Diebold married Nicholas Edward Lewis August 11, 2007, in Pittsburgh; the couple lives in Reston, Virginia. Jessica, who practices emergency medicine at Pender Veterinary Centre in Fairfax, graduated from Edinboro University and St. George’s University in Grenada and completed her clinical year at the University of Florida. Among her professional interests are exotic-animal medicine and surgery.

Tim Putnam writes, “Seven or eight years ago, my friend Robert Hicks told me about a book of collected short stories by songwriters that he was putting together. He knew I was a songwriter and asked me to submit a story to be considered. Many years passed, and I received a call from Robert, who had since gone on to write the New York Times best seller The Widow of the South. He told me his dream of publishing the book was finally coming true and my story made the cut. The book, called A Guitar and a Pen, features contributing authors Charlie Daniels, Kris Kristofferson, Tia Sellers, Tom T. Hall, and many others, as well as a foreword by Vince Gill.” The book was released in May 2008; learn more at www.aguitar andapen.com.

Bebe Lloyd Welch ’94 celebrating the Fourth of July with children Charlie and Mattie.

◆ Lori Esposit Miller lori_esposit@msn.com ◆ Geraldine Gardner geraldide@hotmail.com

’96

Timothy Kim has decided to join his family business as senior vice-president.

Tim had worked as an associate at ING Bank N.V. in Hong Kong. He will travel frequently to Nigeria, where main operations are located.

◆ Emily Peterson emilyadairpeterson@gmail.com ◆ Chris Senker chris.senker@cookmedical.com

’97

Karli Richards has joined Orthopaedic Associates in Chambersburg, where she practices alongside her father, Bob ’70.

Her grandfather, Robert Sr., was the Chambersburg area’s first orthopedic surgeon in the early 1950s. She specializes in care of disorders of the foot and ankle, and is a graduate of the University of Notre Dame and the Temple University

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M E RC E RSB U RG M AG AZI N E WI N T ER 2008 – 2009

◆ Anne Reeder annereeder@sbcglobal.net

Andrew Bramhall ’97, Liz Curry ’98, Pete Watkins ’97, and Kevin Hershock ’96 at Pete’s 30th birthday party in Pittsburgh.

School of Podiatric Medicine. Karli and her husband, Scott Stenger, married in 2006 in the Irvine Memorial Chapel.

◆ Liz Curry ecurry@tigglobal.com ◆ Dean Hosgood dean.hosgood@gmail.com ◆ Pierce Lord piercelordnyc@yahoo.com ◆ Beth Pniewski Bell bethannbell@gmail.com ◆ Owen Rice orice4@gmail.com ◆ Abby Russell russell04@bellsouth.net

◆ Jenn Flanagan flanaganj@mercersburg.edu ◆ Jess Malarik jmalarik@gmail.com ◆ Jasen Wright contactjasen@gmail.com

’98

◆ Heidi Anderes handeres@gmail.com ◆ Ann Marie Bliley abliley@gmail.com

’01

Mike Best is a medical student at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine.

’99

’00

◆ Noelle Bassi noelle.bassi@gmail.com ◆ Bryan Stiffler bryan.stiffler@gmail.com ◆ Liz Stockdale lstockdale@foxcroft.org ◆ Ian Thompson ianmthompson@gmail.com

’02

Kristin Burkhart writes, “I am working toward a master’s in college student personnel at Shippensburg University; I hope to graduate in May 2010. In the meantime, I continue to work as a learning specialist at Penn State Mont Alto, mentoring college students and helping them with study skills. I finished my second summer working with Penn State Mont Alto’s First-Year Testing, Counseling, and Advising Program, where I advised incoming students and assisted in the Advising Center. I also took some time off to visit my younger brother, Eric ’04, who graduated in May from Harvey Mudd College. I welcome anyone who is passing through Franklin County to stop by.”

Jennifer Lee Ware was selected as a 2008–2009 Fulbright Scholar and began her research in Kazakhstan in September. There, she will continue her undergraduate research on the Chechen diaspora in Central Asia.

Luke Swetland ’99 and his family at Luisenpark in Mannheim, Germany.

Jacob Hunka ’03 with his wife, Katharine Gill. Jacob returned to the U.S. in July after teaching in Taiwan; he and Kate married October 11 in the Irvine Memorial Chapel.

Wes Miller is an assistant men’s basketball coach at Elon University, a Division I school in North Carolina. Elon is just down the road from Chapel Hill, where Wes played on the University of North Carolina’s 2005 national championship team. Wes averaged 19.6 points per game during the 2007–2008 season for the London Capitals of the British Basketball League.

Cassie Hubbard started a graduate program at Johns Hopkins University and is working at the Kennedy Krieger Institute in Baltimore.

◆ Kevin Glah kevglah@gmail.com ◆ Taylor Horst taylor.horst@tufts.edu ◆ Andrew Miller amiller@pioneeringprojects.org

Jeremy McGarvey graduated from the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, and has begun his surgery residency in Philadelphia at the University of Pennsylvania and affiliated hospitals. He plans on pursuing cardiac surgery and robotic surgical device development.

Daniel Wright writes, “After graduation back in 2006, I took a deep breath, closed my eyes, threw everything I owned into a Honda Civic, and drove to Texas. That fall, I began the counseling

Todd Small ’04 greets President George W. Bush upon graduation from the U.S. Air Force Academy.

psychology doctoral program at Texas A&M University. After some considerable Rocky Mountain withdrawal, I came to the realization that I needed to somehow make Texas ‘home’ if I was to have any chance of making it through my dissertation. Year one passed without too much trouble. The course load was typical of grad school, and because my program followed the ‘scientistpractitioner’ model, we began seeing clients by the second semester. Year two was quite colorful as well; I began facilitating psycho-educational groups for students at some of our sister campuses, and group therapy is the direction I’m heading (as of now) in regard to practice. With respect to research, I have been very interested in public health, a field in which I am quickly learning a considerable amount. I spent the summer in Santiago, Chile, working with a research team in the field of international health. I graduated in August with a master’s in counseling psychology, and it’s another two years before I apply for an internship.”

◆ Colleen Booth ccbooth@comcast.net ◆ Kolb Ettenger wke2@gmail.com ◆ Nate Fochtman nfochtman@gmail.com ◆ Whitney Groseclose wgrosecl@goucher.edu ◆ Jenn Hendrickson jennhendrickson@gmail.com ◆ Gabrielle Joffie joffieg@dickinson.edu ◆ Eric Wilkins lefty07@aol.com ◆ Vanessa Youngs veyoungs@gmail.com

’03

Gabrielle Joffie coached lacrosse at Drexel University for a year while earning a master’s degree there in fashion design. She interned with the MTV wardrobe department in summer 2008.

Jana Podzimkova is studying medicine in the Czech Republic and has two years left to complete her degree.

After high-school graduation in Germany, Marius Rosenberg completed a

ME RC E RS BUR G MAGAZ I N E

year of civil service as an ambulance driver before pursuing a degree in business administration. This fall, he began work on a master’s degree. “I have the best memories of my time at Mercersburg, because it taught me to organize myself, work hard to achieve goals, and to cherish international friendships,” he says.

Eric made the dean’s list every semester of his undergraduate career and was class president during his junior and senior years. He works for Link 4 Corporation in Placentia, California.

Julia Hopkins graduated with honors from Elon University with a degree in communications and art. She is a member of Lambda Pi Eta, the national communications honor society.

Rachel Gray graduated from the United States Naval Academy and was commissioned as an officer in the U.S. Navy.

Matt Jackson moved to Manhattan to begin work at Vornado Realty Trust.

’04

Will Gridley is entering the master’s in architecture degree program at Yale University.

◆ Katherine Keller kkeller@bucknell.edu ◆ Nick Mellott mellottn@bu.edu Eric Burkhart graduated from Harvey Mudd College and has been accepted at Stanford University to pursue a master’s degree in electrical engineering.

Katrina Honigs graduated first in her class from Grinnell College with a double major in math and physics. In October, she began a one-year master’s course in mathematics (called Part III) at the University of Cambridge; she then plans to enter the math Ph.D. program at the University of California, Berkeley.

Adriane Koenig graduated from Goucher College. She was a double major in art history and international business management and was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa. She will be staying in Baltimore and working with The Rosen Group, an arts-advocacy firm that coordinates the nation’s largest wholesale craft trade show.

Todd Small was part of the U.S. Air Force Academy’s 50th graduating class last spring. He was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Air Force and grad-

WINTER 2008 – 2009

49

uated fourth in his class of 1,012 cadets.

While serving as an Air Force officer, Todd is pursuing a postgraduate degree at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His brother, Tyler ’07, is in his second year at the Air Force Academy.

◆ Carl Gray carlhgray@gmail.com ◆ Zander Hartung zanderhartung@gmail.com ◆ Alexis Imler imler@gmail.com ◆ Tammy McBeth tammy.mcbeth@gmail.com ◆ Nick Ventresca ventresca.r@neu.edu

’05

Matt Brennan shattered his lower leg in an accident this past spring, but con-

Marriages The wedding of Catherine Wahl ’99 and Christopher Bove, November 17, 2007, in Baltimore. Front row (L–R): Amy Hendrickson, Jenn Flanagan ’99, Catherine and Christopher. Second row: Jennifer Barr ’99, Tom Dugan ’99, Rick Hendrickson. Back row: Paul and Marcia Galey, Heather Reichhart Dugan, Colleen Corcoran ’99.

At the wedding of Patrick Koch ’99 and Kelly May Fuller, May 10, 2008 (L–R): Jake Koodrich ’99, Kent McGlincy ’99, Heidi Anderes ’01, Dave Holzwarth ’78, Tom McCahill ’99, Patrick, Ian Wauchope ’99, Nick Modha ’97, Kevin Koch ’97, Seth Lando ’97.

The wedding of Kelley Keeler ’91 and Austin Short, June 7, 2008 (L–R): Alfred Mast ’62, Tim Keeler ’94, Chris Erdman ’84, Rebecca McNulty Randall ’91, Austin and Kelley, Melissa Erdman Holson ’87, Tara Brendle Owens ’91, Hannah Smith Kudrik ’91, Chris Frisby ’91, Shani O’Neil Calhoun ’91.

The wedding of Jessica Shartle ’00 and Richard Duvall, March 3, 2008, in Negril, Jamaica (L–R): Elliott Van Ness ’05, John Shartle III ’05, Sheila Shartle, J. Adam Shartle Jr. ’60, Jessica and Richard, Emily Lowry Stark ’00. (Jessica is the granddaughter of the late John Shartle Sr. ’22.)

Sasha Emral Shaool ’93 to Romyar Nourafchan, December 22, 2007.

Jessica Hope Diebold ’94 to Nicholas Edward Lewis, August 11, 2007.

Tim Peterson ’97 to Michele Manouchehri, June 30, 2007.

Robert Snyder ’97 to Michelle Dennis, August 27, 2008.

James Hazelrig ’01 to Kirsten Bogue, June 14, 2008.

Jacob Hunka ’03 to Katharine Gill, October 11, 2008.

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tinues work on his degree in political science at the University of Chicago. This past summer, he interned at New York City–based hedge fund Lyster Watson and Company, and next summer he plans to attend the U.S. Marine Corps Officer Candidate School.

Hannah Galey competed at the 2008 Canadian Olympic Swimming Trials.

Hannah, who earned All–Ivy League honors in five events as a junior at Columbia University, swam 26.82 in the 50-meter freestyle to finish 12th of 157 competitors; she also competed in the 100 free and the 200 free.

Sarah Powell studied at the Institut d’études françaises d’Avignon in France during summer 2007. That fall, she continued her international studies at ParisSorbonne University. Sarah was accepted as a 2008 summer intern in the Washington office of Senator John D. Rockefeller IV, and returned to Haverford College in September to complete her senior year as an English major and French minor.

Elizabeth Wilber was invited to join Phi Alpha Theta, a national history honor society, and was named Academic AllAmerica for the third year in a row at Sewanee. She is vice-president of her sorority and has made the Dean’s List four semesters in a row. This summer, she lived in Northern Virginia and worked in D.C. on the majority staff of the House Energy and Commerce Committee as part of the Subcommittee on Health.

◆ Joy Thomas jatho2@wm.edu ◆ Jonathan Wilde jt.wilde@furman.edu

’06

Colin Cubit, who plays basketball at the University of Rochester, was named to the University Athletic Association’s AllAcademic Team. In addition to Rochester, the UAA includes Brandeis University, Carnegie Mellon University, Case Western Reserve University, the University of

Chicago, Emory University, New York University, and Washington University in St. Louis.

Greg Larson and Jessie Tippen are engaged; they hope to marry in summer 2010.

’07 ◆ Xanthe Hilton xanthe89@gmail.com ◆ Bada Kang badakang@gmail.com ◆ Chuck Roberts galway989@yahoo.com Sally Huang is heading back to New York University after having finished her school year abroad in London. She liked London very much, as well as the exciting trips to Germany and France.

Kyle Roy is in his second year on the golf team at the University of Tampa.

Fleet White ’08 at the U.S. Naval Academy.

Kristina Trudeau was named to the spring 2008 Dean’s List at Wake Forest University.

New on the Alumni Council Emily Gilmer Caldwell ’92, Lindley Peterson Fleury ’77, and Ann Quinn ’84 were elected to the Mercersburg Alumni Council during its spring meeting in May. Colin Marsh ’01 was elected through balloting in the summer 2008 issue of Mercersburg magazine.

Emily Gilmer Caldwell ’92 is a graduate of Syracuse University. She is a senior associate director in the Office of Leadership Giving at Dartmouth College, helping Dartmouth to raise $1.3 billion in its current campaign. Emily has served Mercersburg in various volunteer roles, including as a class agent and reunion volunteer for her 10th and 15th reunions.

She was also involved with the Board of Regents’ Ad Hoc Committee on Alumni Participation, lending her experience in development to this group charged with assessing Mercersburg’s fundraising program. Emily’s father, J. David Gilmer ’62, is a former president of the Alumni Council. Her sister, Julie Gilmer Schaner ’87, brother, Bryce Gilmer ’95, and brother-inlaw, P.J. Schaner ’86, are all Mercersburg graduates.

Lindley Peterson Fleury ’77 earned a bachelor’s degree in microbiology from Indiana University in 1982. She later earned an MBA and MHA from Pfeiffer University. Lindley is president of Carolina Physicians Resources, conducting financial analyses of medical practices. She is also a partner with OMNISCAN Inc, a document-scanning software entity.

Lindley has been a national- and worldrecord-holder Masters swimmer. She is currently training for the 2009 Masters World Championships in Sydney, Australia. Mercersburg is also a family tradition for Lindley, as four uncles (William D. Clowney ’41, Frank S. Clowney ’40, John L. Kelly II ’45, and Daniel M. Kelly ’42) and her grandfather

(George W. Kelly ’20) preceded Lindley in attending Mercersburg.

Lindley’s daughter, Ashley Doughty ’04, graduated with honors from Auburn University and plans to attend law school. Her son, Gregory, attends Southern Methodist University, where he is on the swim team. Lindley served on the Alumni Council from 1998 to 2005, including a term as president. She is active as a class agent and reunion volunteer for her class.

Ann Quinn ’84 holds both B.B.A. and MBA degrees from Loyola College in Maryland.

She is a senior vice-president with SC&H Capital. Her practice concentrates in the following areas: strategic planning and transaction advisory services, raising equity financing, and corporate divestitures and acquisitions. Prior to SC&H Group, Ann worked at Chessiecap, a regional investment bank focusing on middle-market companies in the technology industry. She also worked at the Maryland Venture Fund-DBED, where she was responsible for overseeing all equityfinancing activities for the State of Maryland. Ann was recognized as one of the top 40 metro-area business professionals under the age of 40 in 2004. She is very active in the Baltimore/Washington Area technology and venture-capital communities. Ann serves as chair for the Greater Baltimore Technology Council and is a member of the Mid-Atlantic Venture Association and Association for Corporate Growth. Ann also serves as class agent for her class.

Her sisters, Ruth ’79 and Judi ’80, and brother, John ’81, are Mercersburg graduates; Ann’s father is Mercersburg faculty emeritus Jay Quinn. Ann lives in Baltimore with her husband, John Angel, and their three children.

ME RC E RS BUR G MAGAZ I N E

WINTER 2008 – 2009

Obituaries ’30 Henry E. Stanton, April 28, 2008. (Marshall, swimming, Class Day Committee) He was a graduate of Brown University.

’32 Reginald B. Gerhardt, December 5, 2007. (Marshall, News assistant editor) A graduate of Lafayette College, he served in the U.S. Navy during World War II. Prior to his 38-year association with Bethlehem Steel, he was on the editorial staff of the Wall Street Journal. He was preceded in death by his first wife, Jane Goodwillie, and his second wife, the former Ann Hackett. Survivors include two sons, a daughter, his brother (David ’33), and seven grandchildren.

’33 W. Keller Potter, July 12, 2007. (Marshall, Class Prophet, Chapel flagbearer, Stony Batter, Glee Club, Chapel Choir, cheerleader, football, basketball, baseball) He was a graduate of Northwestern University. In 1975, after 25 years as vice-president of corporate affairs and communications, he retired from Allstate Insurance Company. He was preceded in death by his former wife, Muriel, and his wife, Maggie.

Survivors include two sons.

’34 Forrest B. Leland, July 17, 2006. (Marshall, track) He attended Lehigh University and served in the U.S. Army in World War II. In 1992, after 47 years, he retired as manager of Thomas Publishing Company. He is survived by his wife of 68 years, Ruth Spanjer Leland, as well as two daughters, five grandchildren, and 11 great-grandchildren.

’35 Hadley P. Cadmus, July 20, 2008. (Marshall, Glee Club) Hadley attended Rutgers College; during World War II, he served with the U.S. Army Ordinance and Medical Corps. His entire professional career was in the fuel oil business, spanning a total of 53 years with Cities Service Oil and then with Eastern of New Jersey Inc. He retired to Montclair, New Jersey. Survivors include his wife, Laurel Churchill Cadmus, a son, and two grandsons.

’36 John C. Yates, August 28, 2008. (Marshall debater, News Board, Stamp Club, Les Copains) John graduated cum laude from Princeton University with a degree in economics. He enlisted in the U.S. Navy in 1942 and was made a commissioned deck officer. In the Pacific theater, he commanded LCT-167 and saw combat action during the invasions of Tarawa and Makin Island, for which he received a Commendation Action Ribbon with star and the World War II Victory Medal. Upon his return to the U.S., he was assigned to Stillwater, Oklahoma, to learn the Japanese language in preparation for the expected invasion of Japan. He was discharged from active service in January 1946. John

then joined Harry Ness & Company, became a partner there in 1952, and retired in 1999. Survivors include his wife of 65 years, Jean; three sons, including Philip ’66; seven grandchildren, including Elizabeth Yates Eppley ’96; and two great-granddaughters.

William H. Stuart, February 28, 2008. (Irving, Marshal of the Field, Les Copains, track) A graduate of Princeton University, Bill was the former president of The Stuart Company, an industrial advertising company in Newark, New Jersey.

’40 Robert J. Brown Jr., August 11, 2006. (Irving, Lit, News, Glee Club) Bob left the University of North Carolina at the opening of World War II. After flight training stateside, he was sent to England with other members of his B-17 crew. On a mission near Paris, his plane was crippled by antiaircraft fire. The crew was forced to bail out; Bob and others were injured by German fighter planes and captured. He spent six months as a prisoner of war in Germany before being liberated in June 1945. Following the war, he began his journalism career, which included a stint at Time-Life. He also worked for United Press (later United Press International) and in publicity for the Idaho Power Company. A freelance writer for many years, Bob was a correspondent for several McGraw-Hill publications. Survivors include his wife of 65 years, Betty Nixon Brown, and two daughters.

’42 Donald G. McHenry, May 24, 2008. (Irving, South Cottage, Radio Club, cross country) Don attended the University of Michigan and Wayne State University, earning degrees in philosophy and law. He was admitted to the bar in 1956. He served in World War II as a flight mechanic and B-29 pilot, later joining the Michigan National Guard, where he continued in its legal services office through the Korean and Vietnam wars. He retired with the rank of lieutenant colonel in 1972, and continued to work in family law until the day he died. Survivors include Lois (his wife of 48 years), three children, and three grandchildren.

’43 William B. Johnson, July 21, 2008. (Marshall, Chemistry Club, Concert Band) Bill was the retired marketing manager of the Atlantic Cement Company in Stamford, Connecticut. He and his wife, Vivian Cass Johnson, retired to the Tidewater area of Virginia in 1988. In addition to his wife, survivors include two sons and a granddaughter.

Mathias S. Hartman, June 10, 2008. (Marshall) He was the retired owner of M.S. Hartman Funeral Home in Latrobe, Pennsylvania.

’46 G. Donald Colbert, December 23, 2007. (’Eighty-eight, Marshall, Stony Batter, cross country, track) He was a graduate of Pennsylvania State University and served in the U.S. Army during the Korean War.

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’47

’55

Charles C. Zook, July 16, 2008. (South Cottage, Marshall, football) Curt attended Lafayette College and served with the U.S. Marine Corps during the Korean War. He was a mentor to many in business and community areas. Survivors include his wife, Patricia Womeldorf Zook, three daughters, and five grandchildren.

Arnold Gold, March 18, 2008. (’Eighty-eight, Marshall, Lit Board, Stony Batter) Arnie received a bachelor’s degree from the University of Pittsburgh and his medical degree from the State University of New York at Buffalo. He was a physician in Oil City, Pennsylvania. Survivors include two sons, three daughters, and seven grandchildren.

’48

’58

Frank P. Heckel, April 22, 2008. (South Cottage, Marshall, News Board, El Circulo Español, Choir, Laticlavii, Glee Club, Concert Band, Stony Batter, swimming, Marshal of the Field, cheerleader) Frank was a graduate of Moravian College and received an MBA from Penn State University. He was an Army veteran of the Korean War. He was preceded in death by his wife, Barbara, and is survived by three sons and seven grandchildren.

David P. Smay, April 17, 2008. (Main, Irving, Rauchrunde, Cum Laude, tennis) Dave graduated from Yale University and received an MBA from Harvard Business School. He served in the U.S. Marine Corps from 1964 to 1966 before taking a direct commission in the U.S. Navy, and served as a naval intelligence officer until 1972. David had a 40-year career with Chevron, working as a manager of aviation foreign sales and later as a trading manager for the European region.

He subsequently served as Chevron’s foreign-exchange manager. In 1984, while serving as the finance manager, he prepared and implemented the $14 billion acquisition of Gulf Oil Company. Prior to his retirement in 2005, he had also served as assistant treasurer, general credit manager, and treasurer of Chevron products and chairman of the board of the Chevron Texaco Credit Union. He is survived by his wife, Claudia, two sons, and a grandson.

’52 Charles R. Beall, May 1, 2007. (Keil, Irving, News Board, KARUX Board, El Circulo Español, Glee Club, Jurisprudence Society, basketball, Student Council) Charlie was a graduate of Washington and Lee University, a U.S. Army veteran, and a retired representative of Lincoln National Life Insurance Company. Survivors include his companion, Anna Crowell, two daughters, a son, and four grandchildren.

R. Sheldon Holmes, June 11, 2008. (Laucks, Marshall, football, basketball, Student Council) A graduate of Miami University, he retired in 2007 from Great Western Bank.

Former faculty/staff/friends Ann Walthall Kittredge, former wife of former faculty/current staff member Henry Kittredge, June 11, 2008.

Extra space, so maybe put a scenic photo here?

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MECERS BU RG MAGAZI N E S PR I N G 200 7

M ER C E RS B U R G MA G A Z I N E

WI NTE R 200 8 – 2 009

M y S ay

When I was 14, the short drive from the interstate down Route 16 was the most dreaded part of the trip. It didn’t matter that we’d already been in the car for five hours; I was willing to turn right back around once I saw the Chapel in B Y J E N N F L A N A G A N ’ 99 the distance.

School meant sharing my room with someone who ate olives in bed after lights out, speaking French to my teacher outside of class, and missing home. Today, this part of the trip means that I am home. When the Chapel spire rises above the hillcrest, I tell myself how lucky I am to live in such a beautiful place—and how glad I am to be back.

The beginning of this school year brought the kind of excitement and anxiety I haven’t experienced in quite a while. I had a few nightmares about missing Rotation 5 or not knowing how to do my math homework, only to wake up and think how lucky it would be to be a student at the Mercersburg of today. The Burgin Center for the Arts, robotics, and Chinese classes are just a few of the offerings that weren’t here just 10 years ago. And since the modern world hasn’t yet mastered the art of traveling back in time, I am happy to settle for being a faculty member at the Mercersburg of today, working in the admission office, and having the opportunity to share how great our school is with new students from all over the world.

I was struck by the eloquence and drive of my faculty colleagues as they shared the impressive details of their continued learning during the summer. Despite what our students may think, we do have lives beyond teaching and coaching. And while it’s always a pleasure—albeit a rare one—to find time to socialize with each other, it’s an even greater pleasure to work next to Sue Malone or Matthew Kearney or Jeff Pierce, whose excitement for teaching our kids is tangible and contagious.

Without the faculty, this place would not be—yet it’s easy to take this for granted. As a student, I was unaware of the time, thought, and care that go into the preparation for the beginning of the year. I have a new respect for how things come together.

It’s a true privilege to be a part of a community that dedicates itself to educating our future—it’s a value on which you can’t put a price tag.

While I take my new position very seriously, I do manage to have a little fun as well. Living in the dorm brings me back to the days of impromptu dress-up nights, room “parties” with the music too loud, coloring, and eating ramen noodles just before bed (I don’t know how our bodies handled it). It’s fun simply to

watch the girls having fun—and just as I was anxious at the beginning, the girls were nervous, too. I reassure them that this is normal—and that it takes time for nerves to settle and to get into the rhythm of the school year.

Thankfully, some things never change, while with others, it just takes time. I still struggle to say “Peter” instead of “Mr. Kempe.” Pretzel pie tastes as good as it did 10 years ago.

And I smile every time I hear the Tippetts girls call me “Ms. Flanagan.”

A native of Oxford, New York, Flanagan worked as a paralegal in New York City and spent two years as a staff member in Mercersburg’s Office of Alumni & Development before becoming an assistant director of admission in 2008. She is one of 18 members of her family to attend Mercersburg, a group that includes brothers Bill ’10 and Tom ’10 and cousin Peter ’11.

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Nonprofi fitt Org U.S. Postage

PA I D Minneapolis, MN Permit #3723

A D D R ESS SERVIC E R EQU ESTED

Anniversary Reunion Weekend June 11–14, 2009 www.mercersburg.edu/alumni

Celebrating reunion classes ending in 4 and 9 See page 42 for full details

alumni@mercersburg.edu

800-588-2550

M ERC ERS BU RG MAGA ZI N E WI NTE R 20 08 – 2009

Mercersburg Academy 300 East Seminary Street Mercersburg , PA 17236-1551

Mercersburg A magazine for Mercersburg Academy family and friends

ON THEIR WAY

Young Alumni page 18

VOLUME 35 NO. 3 WI NTER 2008 – 2009