a m ag a z i n e fo r a l u m n i , pa r e n t s a n d f r i e n d s o f m i l l b ro o k s c h o o l
S u m m e r / Fal l 2 0 13
Pitching In To Green Our World.
Millbrook’s Mission Millbrook School educates its students to succeed and serve in college and beyond. In a community where everyone is known and needed, our curriculum instills • curiosity and a commitment to academic excellence; • respect for oneself and for others; • a moral framework based on personal integrity; • a commitment to serve as stewards of the natural world; • a readiness to use one’s knowledge and skills in service to others. We promote the intellectual, emotional, spiritual, creative, and physical growth that will lead to a life satisfying to the individual and valuable to the greater good.
a magazine for alumni, parents and friends of millbrook school
Summer / Fall 2013
Living the Tradition of Non Sibi Sed Cunctis up front 3 Introduction from Headmaster Drew Casertano
On Campus 4 Millbrook Snapshots: A Pictorial Year in Review
10 Headmaster’s News Connecting with Millbrook’s Present and Past in Asia
12 The Big Picture Academics, Arts, and Student Life Reading Ragtime
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Must Photographs Capture Reality? Athletics
20 Facilities
Features
Alumni
24 Green, Gray and Blue,
64 Millbrook
Alumni Gatherings
Through and Through
69 Class Notes
26 Reagan Brown ’13
79 In Memoriam
Learning and Leading, Greening and Giving Back – One Student’s Journey
30 A n Aspiring Green Team Supporting Sustainability Through Community Service
32 Jane Meigs
On the Cover a m ag a z i n e fo r a l u m n i , pa r e n t s a n d f r i e n d s o f m i l l b ro o k s c h o o l
An Inspirational Voice & Champion of the Natural World
36 A lumni/ae Profiles
54 I n Their Own Words
Pitching In To Green Our World.
Summer / Fall 2013 •
Members of Millbrook’s Green Team Community Service with faculty leader Lyuda Pope
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Director of the Annual Fund & Alumni/ Constituent Relations
a m ag a z i n e fo r a l u m n i , pa r e n t s and friends of millbrook school
Cynthia McWilliams Assistant Director of Advancement
Robin Herow
Honorary Trustees: Farnham Collins ‘53 Lucy P. Cutting (P ’77) David Holbrook ’56 (P ’82, ’83, GP ’11, ’12, ’14) Bruce Huber ‘47 Thomas Lovejoy ’59 (P ’86) Bradford Mills ’44 (GP ’03) Oakleigh Thorne (P ’95)
EDITOR
Director of Parent Programs
Michelle Blayney
Barbara Gatski
DESIGN
Advancement Officer
Proof Design
Deborah Vanecek
CONTRIBUTORS
Events Coordinator
NON DISCRIMINATION
Mark Cartland ’81 Elizabeth (Druback) Celaya ’98 Katherine Havard Jonathan Lopez ’02 Thomas Lovejoy ’59 Sarah MacWright Jane Meigs Jonathan Meigs ’65 Lyuda Pope Ted Sailer ’75 Laurel Stine ’14 Voith & Mactavish Architects
Betty Siegenthaler
Millbrook School adheres to a long-standing policy of admitting students of any race, color, creed, religion, sexual orientation, national or ethnic origin to all the rights, privileges, programs, and activities generally accorded or made available to students at the school. It does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, creed, religion, sexual orientation, national or ethnic origin in the administration of its education policies, admission policies, financial aid program, or other school-administered programs.
PHOTO CONTRIBUTORS
Jonathan Lopez ’02
Michelle Blayney, Daniel Cohen ’86, John Dolan, Michael Gunselman, Jonathan Lopez, Chip Riegel, Kandice Zakarian MILLBROOK is published by the Communications
Research & Campaign Coordinator
Ginny Connolly Gift Entry Manager & Administrative Assistant
Melissa Pastre Administrative Assistant & Database Manager
Bonnie Lodevole Director of Communications
Michelle Blayney Assistant Director of Communications
Communications Assistant
Catherine Zeiser
BOARD OF TRUSTEES
ENVIRONMENTAL STATEMENT
Millbrook School for alumni, parents, and friends
Chairman
of the school. Contents may be reproduced
William Menard ‘78
Millbrook magazine is printed on Finch Fine Bright White Ultra Smooth 100 lb. cover and 80 lb. text. This paper is manufactured with 10% postconsumer fiber using on-site renewable power. It is FSC certified.
Office and Alumni & Development Office of
or reprinted only by permission of the editor. Opinions expressed do not reflect the official position of Millbrook School.
Vice Chairman & Treasurer
Paul Solomon ’61 (P ’98) Secretary
Hampton Lynch III ’69
Millbrook School 131 Millbrook School Road Millbrook, NY 12545
Headmaster
Drew Casertano
Phone: 845-677-8261 Website: www.millbrook.org Follow Millbrook at your favorite social media sites: Facebook
Linked in
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ALUMNI & DEVELOPMENT OFFICE Director of Advancement
Nancy Stahl Assistant to the Headmaster for External Affairs
Robert Anthony ‘65
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Francisco Borges ’70 Peter Chapman (P ’11, ’12) William L. Crossman ’74 (P’ 09) Drew W. Effron ‘83 Cynthia Gray (P ’07, ’11) William R. Hettinger ’77 (P ’01, ’04) Christopher Holbrook ’82 (P ’11, ’12) Sandy Holbrook James ’86 Robert Koenigsberger (P ’13, ’16) Martin Lynn ’72 (P ’09) Tracy Merrill (P ’09, ’11, ’13) Gordon Pennoyer ’99 Anne Putnam ‘95 Bradley Reifler (P ’08, ’10, ’14) Gilbert Schafer III ‘80 Richard Stuckey (P ’00, ’03, ’09) Caroline Wamsler ’87 George Whalen III (P ’06, ’09, ’10, ’14)
For this issue we reduce our carbon footprint the equivalent of...
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22,000,000 BTUs energy not consumed
Please Recycle this Magazine
Introduction from
Headmaster Drew Casertano:
“P
rivate schools with a public purpose.” I first encountered the phrase when visiting “public schools” - that is, private boarding schools - in England in March 2004. I was fortunate to be invited to attend a meeting of headmasters of northern schools in York, during which they discussed their government’s recent mandate that they demonstrate “a public purpose.” Today, I hear the phrase often as private schools in the United States - independent schools as we prefer to be called - are taking the initiative to consider and implement ways to “serve the common good.” We have growing numbers of institutions, at all educational levels, adding words to this effect to their mission statements, community service involvement to their diploma requirements, and service learning centers to their programs. Given the substantial resources of most independent schools and the privileges that our students and faculty enjoy, these efforts and initiatives could not be more timely or right. Similarly, we now regularly read and hear the phrase “green schools.” Here, again, mission statements include language about environmental stewardship and sustainable practice. Recycling is the norm, with composting not far behind. Facilities are being built and renovated to LEED standards, with geothermal wells to heat and cool them and solar installations to provide the electricity for these systems and more. Campus gardens and farms are being cultivated. “Going green” is the thing to do...and to promote. As the students say, this is “all good.” Indeed, there are no better places than schools, boarding schools especially, to teach students to conserve and reduce their impact on the planet. But, at the risk of being institutionally immodest, I admit to chuckling inwardly each time I see one more school promoting its “going green.” After all, this has been the Millbrook way since it’s founding. Long before anyone was even thinking about environmental issues, Mr. Pulling imagined a school where boys learned as much in the fields and streams as they did in the classroom. He then hired Frank Trevor, who advanced this vision through his innovative teaching, his passion for the natural world, and his creating the Millbrook zoo. During his 41 years on the faculty, Senior Master Jono Meigs ’65 has done as much as anyone to deepen and advance Millbrook’s commitment to educating its students to serve as environmental stewards. Jane Meigs has been his partner every step of the way through her leadership of the Environmental Council and with Students Concerned About Planet Earth (SCAPE) and other campus groups. In 2013-14, Jono will hand over leadership of the zoo
to Alan Tousignnant, his long-time associate. In turn, he and Jane will focus their considerable energies and expertise on our planning to be a carbon neutral campus. In the pages that follow, you will hear from Jono on the zoo as the perfect vehicle for helping students to interact with the natural world and from Tom Lovejoy ’59, known as the “Planet Doctor,” on the school’s commitment to conservation and his Millbrook inspirations. You will read about alumni, faculty, and students who are doing their part to preserve, conserve, inspire, and educate. Each is making a difference; each credits Millbrook as the place where his/her dedication to conservation and the environment was fostered, if not initiated. All of this is ample evidence of Millbrook’s unique excellence, where individual achievement must always be accompanied by service to the “greater good.” I hope you enjoy this update from school and share in the pride I feel in the achievements and contributions of Millbrook’s students, faculty, and alumni. Best -
Drew Casertano Headmaster
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Millbrook
Snapshots
A P ictoral Year Review 2
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1-3. S tudents participate in Millbrook’s second service trip to Ghana. 4-5. O rientation 2012 brings new and returning students together during games and activities. 6. I nternational students carry their country’s flag during Convocation. 7. G randparents Day brings over 100 grandparents to campus for classes and much more.
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1. A lumnus John Frank ’56 and Tom Pulling, son of Founding Headmaster Edward Pulling, were instrumental in bringing the Art of Persuasion to the Warner Gallery. 2-3. B oth III formers and advanced science students wade into the marshes in the fall. 4. A beautiful day for climbing on the Canopy Walkway. 5. S tudents and faculty gather for a ribbon cutting ceremony to celebrate the grand opening of the Barn in September.
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6. S tudents lead a series of debates in the Barn prior to the presidential elections. 7-8. Students and faculty help with clean up efforts in the Red Hook area of Brooklyn after Superstorm Sandy. 9. E lana Haviv speaks at an all-school forum on human rights and children’s education.
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2-3. S ingers and musicians take to the stage during Fall Arts Night.
4. Headmaster Drew Casertano is joined by squash captains Eleanor Sednaoui and Felipe Pantle to cut the ribbon at the opening ceremony of the new Reese Squash Center..
5. V I formers Eva Kudenholdt, Ashlyn Kang, and Sydney Greenfield attend the Black & White Snow Ball, an event that raises money for Outreach.
6. V I formers (from left to right) Gavin Rice, Ashlyn Kang, Joon Hwang, and Josh Webb compete in the annual Yale Physics Olympics.
7. A student flash mob, led by our Millbrook Mustang, temporarily interrupts the usual quiet in the library, surprising the students therein.
8. I nstrumental performers entertain a crowd during Winter Arts Night.
9. T he entire school gathers in the Mills Athletic Center for a large group activity on Diversity Day.
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1. A ctors in a more serious moment during the fall play, Arcadia.
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1. Y ellow is golden in the airband competition as Prum/ Guest House wins first place. 2. T he boys of Case Hall are champions, once again, of Winter Weekend.
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3. C larkies cheer their hearts out to win the pep rally competition. 4. It is an historical moment when the girls of Annex join forces with the boys green team in Harris. 5. A bbott girls are “breaking out� the moves. 6. C ase brings their A-game to every competition during the 3-day festivities.
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1. R epresentatives from nearly 50 colleges were available for students and parents in the Wray Gymnasium during the College Fair. 2. R ock Band performs during Cabaret Night in the Barn. 3. I ntersession’s D.C. Curious group meets with our Congressional representatives regarding their stand on immigration issues. 4. S tudents and faulty in Intersession’s LAX for Life group travel to Guatemala to work with students at Safe Passage. 5. I ntersession’s Animal Farm Foundation group works with alumna Inga Stots McKay ’03 to explore their curiosity and grow their compassion for shelter dogs. 6. P atty Morel ’15, Ruby Ellery-Thornley ’14, and Reagan Brown ’13 attend the Honors and Advanced Art Exhibit opening in the Warner Gallery.
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1. A mber Koenigsberger ’13 performs at the piano during Spring Recital Night. 2. G roups collect more than a ton of garbage from the roads around Millbrook School during Earth Day.
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3-4. I nternational Week activities include a fair where students share their culture in a variety of ways – from food to costumes to poetry. 5. S tudents and faculty have the pleasure of speaking with William Kamkwamba, author of The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind, during his forum talk in April. 6. M ansell Ambrose ’14 is awarded the Founder’s Prize at the Underform Awards Ceremony for her commitment to the community and her enthusiasm for meeting life’s challenges.
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7. V former Julia May’s keepsafe box was one of many boxes created by students and faculty to support the Cheetah Conservation Fund. 8.-9. Z ooies celebrate the 30th birthday of Patches, one of our black and white ruffed lemurs (Varecia variegata), who enjoys treats made by Animal Care Coordinator Jessica Bennett.
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On Campus
• R econnecting with Millbrook friends in Hong Kong, Drew and Linda Casertano are joined by Samuel ‘73 and Jenna Wong ‘P 02, Wellington and Virginia Yee P ‘03, and Jennifer Wang ‘93.
H E A DM A ST E R’S N E W S
Connecting with Millbrook’s Present and Past in Asia
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n January of 2013, Drew and Linda Casertano set out on a two-week journey that took them from Hanoi, Vietnam to Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong and Shenzhen in China to Seoul, Korea, where they met with alumni, past parents, current parents, and prospective students. Along the way they learned much about the culture and customs of so many of Millbrook’s extended Asian family, and they brought a bit of Millbrook to them. In Hanoi, hosts Dr. Son Minh Nguyen and Ms. Hang Nguyen (parents of Nam Nguyen ’13) welcomed Drew and Linda to a
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traditional “green fish” meal and over dinner expressed their excitement for the commencement exercises and Nam’s graduation. Nam is one of two students from Vietnam enrolled at Millbrook this year. In Beijing, parents of three current Millbrook students also hosted the Casertanos, and they enjoyed delicious traditional Chinese meals and a quick tour of the Forbidden City. Shanghai offered more opportunity to converse with several current parents, and the afternoon included a visit to the World Foreign Language School, the alma mater for three current Millbrook students.
On Campus
Following a delightful dinner and a night in Hong Kong with two sets of Millbrook parents, all roads led to Shenzhen, where lunch, a tour of their huge fashion market and a sightseeing stop at Hong Kong Bay were all on the schedule. Back in Hong Kong Drew and Linda had the opportunity to meet with alumna Jennifer Wang ’93, past parents Mr. and Mrs. Wellington Yee P ’03, as well as alumnus, former trustee, and past parent Mr. Samuel Wong ’72, P’02. Mr. Wong was Millbrook’s first student from Hong Kong, and his son Jason followed in his footsteps thirty years later. Jennifer Wang has represented Millbrook for several years at admission fairs, and in the past, along with her parents, Frank and Lucia, has graciously organized a dinner for other Millbrook alumni and past parents. The last leg of the Casertano’s journey took them to Seoul, Korea for two nights and a day, where they were graciously hosted by Mr. Yong Moon Hwang and Ms. Jieun Kim, parents of Joon Hwang ’13. Parents of Bum Jun ’13 toured Drew and Linda through Seoul before taking them to a beautiful traditional Korean restaurant, where they enjoyed dinner with the mothers of Ashlyn ’13, Joon ’13, and Shane ’14. The mothers of our Korean students meet frequently as a group and also meet with the moms of Millbrook alumni every three months. Additionally, the Korean Alumni Association, established in 2010 by Jong Hie Lee P ’09 and continued by Albert Park ’04, is intended to allow alumni and parents to maintain a strong Millbrook network. This visit only confirmed the fact that a strong fellowship exists amongst our Korean Millbrook families. Our relationships with current families and alumni in Asia grow ever stronger and substantial, as Drew, Linda, and Cindy McWilliams, who began our Asia travel, expand on Millbrook’s goal of creating connections amongst constituents around the world. The Casertano’s trip this year certainly helped to deepen our connections with our own students by sharing their stories and photos with parents and alumni, who always appreciate a glimpse of life at Millbrook today.
Leading a Collegial Organization: The Headmasters Association Founded in 1893, the Headmasters Association is a unique professional organization comprised of 100 active members, with 75 heads of school of independent schools and 25 public school principals and superintendents. They come together annually to focus on important issues of the time and share in good fellowship. Their annual meeting gives the members “hope, affection, and encouragement to go on to [their] fortunate journey with [their] youngsters, [their] schools, and [their] commitment.” (Edward T. Hall, 1992) At this year’s annual meeting in February, the association named Drew Casertano its 119th president. He joins a list of
presidents that includes such impressive names as Endicott Peabody (Groton), Horace Taft (Taft), and Frank Boyden (Deerfield). Four of Millbrook’s headmasters have been members of the association including: Edward Pulling (1943-1965), Donn Wright (1973-1984), Don Abbott (1989-1990), and now Drew Casertano (since 1997). Having served as treasurer of the Association since 2010, Drew was nominated for the presidency in song, as is the tradition, and was elected to his one-year term at the February meeting. “From the day I was elected to the Headmasters, I have valued greatly the association’s rich history and the opportunities at the annual meeting in February to engage with school leaders from around the country. Without fail, these gatherings are inspiring and enjoyable. I’m honored to serve as president.”
A Better Chance (ABC) Honors Millbrook’s Commitment to Young People of Color On May 14, Drew and Linda Casertano attended a breakfast at Barnard College in celebration of the 50th Anniversary of A Better Chance (ABC). There the headmaster was delighted to accept, on behalf of the school, an Access Award “for opening doors to greater educational opportunities and demonstrating continued commitment to A Better Chance’s mission by graduating more than 50 scholars.” Other schools recognized included Blair Academy, Brooklyn Friends School, Chapin School, Collegiate School and Kent Place School. In response, Drew said, “Millbrook School is truly honored to have played a role in ABC’s history and in its extraordinary efforts to increase substantially the number of well-educated young people of color who are capable of assuming positions of responsibility and leadership in American society.” The recognition for the school was timely. Just a week before the ABC event, the Millbrook Board of Trustees approved a diversity statement that was two years in the making under the direction of the board’s School Life Committee and through the efforts of a sub-committee chaired by English Instructor and Diversity Coordinator Tony McKinley ’98 and Director of Admission Jon Downs ’98. Chaplain Cameron Hardy P ’01, ’08 ’13, French Instructor Jenna Harvey, and Trustee Caroline Wamsler ’87 formed the balance of the committee. Their next steps will be to develop action plans for review and implementation. For nearly two decades Millbrook has hosted Diversity Day, a campus-wide celebration of inclusivity and education. The conversations sparked during Diversity Day extend throughout the year. This past year Diversity Day focused on gender, and the event was so provocative that a group of students formed a gender equality club.
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On Campus
THE BIG PICTURE Millbrook graduates begin the next chapters of their lives as independent thinkers and problemsolvers. That is because lessons at Millbrook leap off the pages and engage students in many forms. Faculty have a voracious passion to teach creatively and collaboratively, pushing the boundaries of the academic experience for their students. From spectacular facilities that are environmentally friendly to cutting edge technology to the deeply committed and invested faculty, Millbrook students have unprecedented access to a wealth of resources. This year the school-wide theme was centered on curiosity, one of Millbrook’s core values.
Academics, Arts, and Student Life Campus has never looked better than it does today. From the familiar Flagler Memorial Chapel to the brand new Barn, our setting complete with the unchanging views of rolling hills is an awesome inspiration for learning and creativity. Add to that a community of like-minded peers and adults for whom intellectual curiosity is paramount and you have the foundation of the Millbrook academic experience. This year’s forum series—where guest speakers are invited to address students, faculty, and staff—has been especially provocative and inspirational. Elana Haviv shared her passion and curiosity for human rights and children’s education and discussed how she helped bridge the gap between teens from Bosnia and Herzegovinia. Haviv sparked further interest in students who already contemplate how they can become global citizens and extend Non Sibi Sed Cunctis beyond the boundaries of Millbrook. Professor Richard Bedient joined us from Hamilton College to discuss our fall play, a Millbrook production of Tom Stoppard’s Arcadia. A fun fact about professor Bedient: he was Mr. Todd Feitelson’s advisor when Mr. Feitelson attended Hamilton College as a student.
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In anticipation of the show taking the stage at the Chelsea Morrison Theater, Professor Bedient spoke on Arcadia’s subject matter—the historical and literary background, plus chaos theory and fractals—and shared his work on the play, about which he teaches a course each year. Jennifer Pozner, author of Reality Bites Back, visited campus during Diversity Day and spoke to us about gender and the portrayal of women in the media. Prior to Diversity Day, the school watched the film Miss Representation by Jennifer Seibel Newsom; Pozner acted as an adviser during the film production process. Taking place annually on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, Diversity Day celebrates inclusivity at Millbrook, and this year’s theme was centered on gender equality. The experience was so enriching that it provoked Casey Murray ’14 to create the Gender Equality Club, a student group dedicated to continuing the conversation from Diversity Day and raising awareness throughout the year. After his semester abroad experience at the School for Ethics and Global Leadership in Washington, D.C., Gabe Fekete ’13 invited humanitarian Carl Wilkens to campus to deliver a forum on Rwanda. Gabe had spent a few weeks last
summer in Rwanda, studying the genocide with Mr. Wilkens, and was so moved that he took the initiative to have Mr. Wilkens share his story with the entire school. He spoke to the students about his refusal to evacuate Rwanda with the rest of the Americans so that he could serve those in need.
• Carl Wilkens
Current Dartmouth student William Kamkwamba visited campus this spring to discuss his book, The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind, in which he shares anecdotes of his upbringing centered around one amazing feat: his creation of an electricitygenerating wind turbine for his village in
On Campus
Malawi. Kamkwamba shared fascinating details about his journey to overcome adversity and pursue his passion in the face of reasonable skepticism. His goal, Kamkwamba explained, was simple. After living through a devastating drought that took the lives of many in his village and beyond, he wanted to make it possible for his family to harvest their farm more than the one time per year.
• William Kamkwamba
In anticipation of Kamkwamba’s visit to Millbrook, the science department stretched its syllabus to explore aerodynamics, the Bernoulli effect, and electromagnetic induction as students set out to build their own wind turbines. Students conducted controlled experiments in lab groups using empirical data, figuring out known variables and manipulating those variables in an effort to explore the curiosities of constructing an efficient and effective wind turbine. Throughout the process students learned to think and behave like scientists. William Kamkwamba visited classes during his visit and was on-hand to observe and critique the presentations of student turbines. Lab groups of students voluntarily explored their curiosity for wind turbines beyond the class schedule. Matt Dilley, science department chair, encourages the exploration of curiosity, “Science, sometimes, is a matter of tinkering.”
The fall play, Tom Stoppard’s Arcadia, marked the beginning of a year of exciting collaborations in the Holbrook Arts Center. In the form of the third law of thermodynamics, of conflict and character development, and of dictation and stage direction, Arcadia found itself a subject of study in Mr. Feitelson’s VI form math classes, in Mr. Zeiser’s literature discussions, and ultimately, in the hands of Ms. Lifter’s capable actors. The play was performed in the Chelsea Morrison Theatre before a full audience, and there it received wide acclaim from members of the Millbrook community and beyond. Members of the audience appreciated the way that this demanding
play challenged them to think quickly yet tickled their funny bones, thanks to Stoppard’s impeccable (and occasionally risqué) sense of humor and the nuanced performance of Millbrook’s actors. Meanwhile, this fall in the Holbrook Arts Center’s art studios, students were thinking about a question posed by the faculty and staff of the Trevor Zoo: what do students want to “keep safe” in their lives – an endangered species, beloved family member, or cherished possession? In response to this question students created artwork from a plain wooden box, and their boxes were then exhibited and auctioned in the spring semester to benefit the Cheetah
“The ordinary-sized stuff which is our lives, the things people write poetry about—clouds—daffodils— waterfalls—what happens in a cup of coffee when the cream goes in—these things are full of mystery, as mysterious to us as the heavens were to the Greeks.” – Arcadia (Tom Stoppard)
• The cast and crew of Arcadia.
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On Campus
THE BIG PICTURE Conservation Fund. In photography class, students used these boxes as pinhole cameras. In ceramics, they became templates for slab-constructed ceramic boxes. And in drawing and painting the boxes offered a surface for experimentation in mixed media. In addition to exhibiting student artwork like the “Keep Safe” boxes, the Holbrook Arts Center’s own Warner Gallery continues to attract locally and nationally exhibiting artists. Bill Hardy and David Greenwood, who co-teach Millbrook’s unique art history class, worked with acclaimed photojournalist Ron Haviv to give art history students the opportunity to curate a show of his works. In preparation for this show, students studied and discussed Haviv’s works within the context of the greater history of photojournalism. The students picked the title “Testimony” to describe the exhibition, which opened in the late spring. The second semester also featured the musical theatre production of Fame and arts and recital nights featuring Millbrook’s talented musicians and singers.
• Walker Zeiser’s AP English class
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• The cast of Fame.
In the humanities, faculty and students have tackled gargantuan life questions and explored curiosities in interesting and novel ways. From studying literary classics like Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice and Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment with master teacher Walker Zeiser to breaking down how cultures and subcultures develop in anthropology class with Trip Powers, Millbrook students develop strong critical thinking and analytical skills that transcend their academic experience and carry on in their everyday lives.
Millbrook’s academic experience is comprehensive, exploratory, challenging, and hands on. Most of all, Millbrook’s academic experience takes place 24/7, whether it’s in the classroom, in the zoo, on the quad, in the student center, on the athletic field, in the dorm, or in the dining hall—it’s ubiquitous. Millbrook faculty and staff understand that teachable moments present themselves all day, every day, and they accept the task of embracing these opportunities with alacrity.
On Campus
THE BIG PICTURE Academics:
Reading Ragtime by Dean of Faculty Katherine Havard
Ragtime, the novel by E. L. Doctorow, has been a pillar of the Vth form English curriculum at Millbrook for the past seven years. It depicts America at the turn of the twentieth century, but as it was published in 1975, it also reflects the historical distance and the skepticism of that era. For our students, however, both periods are ancient history. Sam Tarnasky and I – two of Millbrook’s Vth form English teachers – wondered how we could get students to embrace the novel’s relevance today. We turned to Twitter, the perfect vehicle for them to enact and riff on the wildly unexpected connections between historical characters (and fictitious ones) that drive the novel forward. And as we completed the book, we turned to New York City itself, on a day-long field trip that asked students to consider whether the city depicted in Ragtime – one starkly divided between the haves and the have nots – is still a reality today. Here’s what happened.
confines to which the novel prescribed them, and who invented historically plausible reasons to reach outside them. In my class, Mrs. Stuvyesant Fish and Stanford White tweeted only a few invitations to their exclusive parties (though Commander Peary retweeted the invites), and Mr. J. Pierrepont Morgan
sent no direct tweets, preferring to intone general proclamations (“If you have to ask the price, you can’t afford it.”) Others – Teddy Roosevelt, Booker T. Washington, and Emma Goldman - tweeted with nearly every other character, making alliances, and challenging perceptions. Given that the experience of reading this novel is significantly enhanced when one knows these historical characters inside and out, I think our Twitter project was more successful than the individual PowerPoint presentations that students have done in the past. Their dynamic interactions on Twitter sparked students’ curiosity and allowed them to enter into the spirit of Doctorow’s creative project, and I’ll bet they’ve retained more historical knowledge than they did as passive listeners. We look forward to refining how we assess student participation in the project, and to expanding the creative possibilities for students who really get into it, including creating multi-media blogs and connecting with other students and readers beyond Millbrook.
Uptown Downtown The two fictitious storylines that close Ragtime - Coalhouse Walker Jr.’s violent take-over of J. P. Morgan’s library in protest against acts of racism, and Tateh
#TheRoughRiders Samantha Tarnasky had the brilliant idea to use social media while teaching Ragtime; we determined that Twitter would be a solid platform for this purpose. Using research and archival photographs and images, the students created detailed Twitter profiles for their historical characters, followed one another, and they were off! The character limit forced concision, the hash-tags encouraged creativity, and it was fascinating to see which students stayed within the social
• V form students tour the Lower East Side Tenement Museum.
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On Campus
THE BIG PICTURE (an Eastern European Jewish immigrant eking out a living on the streets of the Lower East Side) confidently reinventing himself as a baron and filmmaker – resonate today. Even as we were reading, the ex-LA policeman Christopher Dorner was ending his violent protests in a remote mountain cabin, and talk of comprehensive immigration reform dominated the news from Washington. Ms. Tarnasky and I joined forces with Mr. McKinley’s classes and headed to New York City to experience various settings of the novel first hand. My group started uptown, strolling the wide, sedate streets of the Upper East Side, gawking at the glorious facades designed by McKim, Meade, and White, and exploring the spectacular southern wing of the Metropolitan Museum, with its Egyptian treasures and light-drenched atrium filled with classical sculpture. We then hopped the subway downtown, way downtown, where we embarked on a tour of the Lower East Side Tenement Museum. Through committed preservation and re-creation, the museum features
apartments inhabited by specific immigrant families from the 1850’s through the 1930’s, with stories like those in Ragtime. We stooped in the dark and crowded tworoom living space where a family of seven would cook, eat, sleep, take in sewing, talk about the old country and celebrate the milestones of life. We trudged up and down dark and dangerous staircases to the only toilet and water supply for the entire building. We learned how the Tenement House Act of 1901, bitterly fought by landlords, slowly began to change these buildings. Students asked tons of questions, and they agreed that the artifacts, from recordings of popular songs to a baby’s cradle, from Shabbat candles to letters and newspapers, yellowing with age, evoked the place and time in a powerful way. Meanwhile, the other group had spent the morning downtown, and was now touring J. Pierrepont Morgan’s exquisite private library in mid-town Manhattan. This is the setting for Coalhouse Walker Jr.’s fictional showdown with New York City police, and as students saw the Italian marble, the vaults holding four Guttenberg
bibles, Mozart’s and Beethoven’s handwritten scores, and the desk behind which Morgan sat while agreeing to bail out the country, they could contemplate his astonishing wealth, and better understand the forces in a young America that Doctorow was pitting against each other in the novel’s climax. On the train ride home and in class the next day, students from the two groups shared their experiences and impressions with one another. My class did not reach a verdict about how different New York today really is from that depicted in the novel, but the discussion was a vibrant one. My students’ essays about Ragtime took on its depiction of class and racial divides, as well as the viability of the American Dream for all, in nuanced and substantive ways. They also wrote about the fact that while one’s life is absolutely shaped by fate and by the period in which one lives, one must nurture hope, a growth mindset, and an openness to discovering connections in unexpected places, as the only means of transcending difficult circumstances. I felt first-hand knowledge of the tenements reflected in their words.
Arts:
Must Photographs Capture Reality? Is it even possible for a photograph to be abstract? by Photography Teacher Sarah MacWright
This fall Millbrook students tackled these questions in Advanced Photography, with digital and film cameras in hand. Having mastered the basics of shutter speed, aperture, and ISO settings, students experimented with making deliberate “mistakes” by, for example, framing a subject too closely, from too far away, blurred in motion, or using an unusual point of focus. Inspiration came courtesy of the great American photographer, Minor White, and from kite aerial photography (KAP), a photographic technique that involves cameras attached to kites! Ultimately, taking photographs while working through this question helped students get at a bigger one: when are photographs documents and when are they fine art? Could a photograph ever be both? The excellent student examples included with this article include digital work in color, and black and white silver gelatin prints created in Millbrook’s state-of-the-art darkroom. photo by Dan Pollis ‘14
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photo by Josh Clarke ‘15
photo by Alden Woolford ‘14
photo by Emily Hoffman ‘14
photo by Zac Schymura ‘15
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On Campus
THE BIG PICTURE
Athletics: Millbrook’s fall and winter athletic performances were nothing short of amazing, with historical achievements in cross-country, soccer, and hockey.
Cross-Country Hosting the New Englands for only the fourth time in two decades, Millbrook’s cross-country teams dominated. The girls celebrated a first place win on their home course, and the boys placed third overall. Over 90% of the Mustang runners posted personal records on their time for their best finish in Millbrook history. The team was all smiles as they reflected on the greatest cross-country season Millbrook has ever seen. Coaches Kathy Havard (P ’11, ’13), dean of faculty, and Dr. Alan Tousignant, associate director of the Trevor Zoo, were thankful to the many people who supported this major event and made it so memorable. The boys head coach, Ryan Tolfree, credited his team for their competitive spirit that drove them to consistently reach personal records throughout the season.
Boys cross-country captain John Norfleet ’14 followed up his personal record during the New Englands by running 26.5 miles just four days later in support of the “Penny Run,” which raised nearly $300 for the Food of Life food pantry in Amenia, New York. Millbrook students and faculty clocked over 200 miles during the fundraiser.
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Soccer In girls soccer Morgan Davis ’13 and Kat Gilmour ’16 were selected to the New England all-star team for their prowess on the field. Davis competed in the big school division, while Gilmour took to the pitch in the small school division. Both Davis and Gilmour recorded one goal in their respective all-star games and led their teams to victory. Maddie ’13 and Kayla ’14 Schmalz were selected as Western New England all-stars for their efforts in the field hockey program at Millbrook. The most impressive accomplishments came in mid-November as the boys varsity soccer team beat Beaver Country Day School in the New England Championship finals. The Mustangs captured their second consecutive New England Championship and their third in four years. Two years ago the Mustangs lost in the finals and were the runner-up team in New England.
While the team celebrated their hard-fought victory, they also celebrated their coach, Rick McWilliams, or McWilly, as he is affectionately called, who, in his 36th year of coaching at Millbrook School, notched his 300th career win in the boys New England semi-final match against Concord Academy. Having completed 36 seasons coaching soccer, he admits how the game has changed over time. He is not only proud of the successes of his players, but he commends them for their
On Campus
determination and hard work, which is the reason Millbrook soccer regularly wins titles in both the Western New England conference and in the New England finals. Millbrook has also won the Western New England title thirteen times during McWilly’s tenure. The celebration of Coach McWilliams’ 300th win in the semi-final game commenced only after the team’s celebration of their moving into the finals. Not wanting to take any of the glory away from the players, their coach didn’t give even a hint of the magnitude of his achievements until well after the game had ended. All of those who have played for Coach McWilliams, however, know how extensive his contributions have been to the athletic program at Millbrook.
Squash This winter, squash enthusiasts at Millbrook were thrilled to host for the first time the girls Class C New England Tournament in our beautiful new squash center. The girls varsity squash team began their season in a space that had more than doubled in size, as four new international squash courts were added to the existing four courts. The girls’ schedule consists of league matches against schools such as Westminster, Williston, and Berkshire, and their Class “C” tournament was an eight team affair with the following schools in attendance: Millbrook, Canterbury, Ethel Walker, Green Farms, Holy Child, Kent, Newton Country Day, and Williston. All of our girls played their best squash of the season and finished a very strong second, only two points from the championship. Two Millbrook players were named Class C New England champions in their flight: Eleanor Sednaoui ’13 won at #4 and Amber Koenigsberger ’13 won at the #6 slot.
Hockey Both the girls and boys varsity hockey teams also made the New England tournament this year. The boys varsity hockey team finished their regular season at 13-12 and played in the New England Quarterfinals as the #8 seed, losing to the #1 seed, Kents Hill. The girls varsity hockey team entered the tournament as the #7 seed and finished their season going to the New England finals for the first time in Millbrook history. Having completed their regular season at 13-7, they entered the quarterfinals facing off against #2 Southfield. With a 3-2 win, they moved on to a dramatic upset (2-1) over Governor’s Academy in the semi-finals. The Mustangs were up against another formidable opponent in Gunnery in the finals, and despite a 3-0 deficit going into the final period, the team competed with championship poise and energy and were able to narrow the gap on two goals by Emily Even ’13, assisted by Meg Ahern ’13, and Melissa Sheeran ’14 respectively. In the end, the Mustangs were outlasted by Gunnery, 4-2. The Mustangs represented Millbrook with integrity, good sportsmanship, and fierce competitive spirit and proved to be greater than the sum of their parts in a terrific season.
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On Campus
Facilities:
The Barn The Barn, one of the oldest original buildings on campus, underwent a complete renovation beginning in March of 2012.
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he doors to the new facility officially opened to students and faculty as everyone gathered early in the evening on September 15th for a ribbon cutting ceremony followed by a number of “firsts” — the awarding of the first pizza, the first bagel, egg, and cheese, and the first viewing in the tv room. The first dance of the school year — appropriately, a hoe-down — kicked off shortly thereafter, as students moved in between the dance floor and the mechanical bull on the new patio.
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Always the center of student activity, over the years the Barn has housed the milk bar, the gymnasium, the theater, classrooms, the school store, college counseling offices, and general student center spaces. The new Barn remains home to the student center, the snack bar, and the school store. It also houses spacious new digs for the College Counseling Office. A TV room, recreation/ game room, and meeting rooms upstairs and a new café downstairs are beautiful
and comfortable spaces for students to meet, gather with friends, or study. A new outdoor elevated patio also provides a sunny place for students to get together during the fall and spring.
The Barn has definitely become the new favorite spot to hang out on campus, and while students are very appreciative of the aesthetics of the new building, the real beauty lies in its green design, which includes the following features: • Water-conserving fixtures are used throughout the building to reduce water consumption by 21% from an average baseline.
• A more than 30% reduction in energy use has been achieved compared to similar conventionally designed buildings.
• A geothermal (ground-source heat pump) system was installed to the west of the building to achieve this exceptional level of energy efficiency.
•7 7% of the construction waste generated on-site was diverted from landfills and sent to recycling centers. •A ll wood flooring installed throughout is reclaimed from old barn siding or from the original barn.
• 100% of the energy used by the student center will come from renewable energy sources.
•T he original copulas were rebuilt as a part of the alternative ventilation system. During the fall and spring
Additionally, very purposeful choices were made in regards to materials and resources: • 75% of the original barn structural elements were reused (including existing structural members in the walls, floors and roof). All exterior windows were reinstalled as interior windows, and structural wood was reclaimed for use as counter tops, furniture, or used throughout as wood trim.
• 24% of the total value of all new materials were extracted and manufactured within 500 miles of the barn.
seasons, the heating and air conditioning can be turned off and the copulas and windows can be opened up to allow the building to be ventilated naturally.
•T he main café area features the red Navy 111 Chair; each is made from 111 recycled plastic Coke bottles.
The Barn was awarded gold-level LEED certification in February of this year, making this Millbrook’s 2nd goldlevel LEED certified building on campus (the Math & Science Center being the first). LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) is a certification and rating system that provides third-party
verification for buildings that achieve a certain level of high performance and green features through design, construction, and operation. To earn LEED certification, a project must achieve a certain number of points; points earned determine if the project is certified, and if it receives a Silver, Gold, or Platinum rating. Millbrook remains committed to continuing to strive for at least gold certification in all new building projects on campus.
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On Campus
Facilities:
Squash Center The Squash Center is a portion of a larger concept, the Millbrook Racquets Center, which will include the existing tennis courts and a new platform tennis court to be installed in the future.
C
onstruction of four new international squash courts adjacent to the existing four courts began last spring, and the new facility now offers phenomenal views of campus to the south. In addition to the four new courts, a large common space, a viewing platform, an extension of the viewing gallery, a team room and a racquets office were completed just before the start of squash season in November of 2012. The expansion of the Squash Center included many green initiatives. Voith & Mactavish Architects engineered the façade to allow diffused light into the common space and a shaded viewing area down to the tennis courts and fields beyond. The diffusing glass fractures light, allowing almost 100% of the
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daylight to pass through the façade while diffusing heat. Incorporating as much daylight as possible minimizes the need for artificial lighting, creating better ambience while decreasing energy use. Oversized ceiling fans assist with driving warm air down in the winter and venting hot air out during the warmer months, cutting down the heating and cooling loads and reducing the school’s energy bills. A beautiful flagstone terrace has also been constructed on the south side of the gym providing a place to watch tennis matches. Fast growing tulip poplars, whose habits are straight and tall, will provide shade for spectators and reduce the heat gain on the south wall of the basketball court.
More than 70 players across five teams utilized the new squash center this past season. Highlights certainly included the girls New England Tournament, which Millbrook hosted for the first time in the school’s history. Two Millbrook players were named Class C New England champions in their flight: Eleanor Sednaoui ’13 won at #4 and Amber Koenigsberger ’13 won at the #6 slot. Boys varsity squash players also enjoyed great success on the new courts, finishing their season at 13-4.
On Campus
The Annex & the New Miller Brown Health Center A smaller space on campus, but also brand new, is the Annex, an additional girls dormitory located on the lower level of Harris Hall, where the Miller Brown Health Center once resided.
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he growth of Millbrook’s enrollment over the past several years has necessitated additional
living spaces for girls, thus the 6-room Annex came to be. In addition to the six rooms that house 12 girls, the Annex includes a faculty
apartment, two bathrooms, and a lounge area. These beautiful new digs on the Pulling Quad have quickly become a highly requested dorm space! With the conversion of the Annex, the Miller Brown Health Center has moved
to a bright, new 1,600 square foot facility conveniently located just behind Prum Hall. The new building has exam and treatment rooms, three bedrooms that can accommodate as many as six students, a kitchen, and offices for the Director of Health Services and the nursing staff. That staff consists of six registered nurses, two full- and four part-time, plus an administrative assistant. One further “enhancement” of note: longtime head nurse Eileen Jeffreys will be returning to school this fall after a year’s sabbatical. She looks forward to re-joining the Millbrook health care team as it begins its second year in its new home.
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Through and Through Inside: Student Feature Reagan Brown ’13 page 26
An Aspiring Green Team page 30
Facutly Profile Jane Meigs page 32
Alumni/ae Profiles page 36
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In Their Own Words page 54
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Green, Gray and Blue, Through and Through
Reagan Brown ’13 Learning and Leading, Greening and Giving Back –
One Student’s Journey F
rom a young age, Reagan Brown ’13 proudly considered herself an environmentalist. She encouraged her parents to use less paper, use the dryer and other appliances less, and to buy appliances that were more energy efficient. She recycled and asked for local, healthier food options at home. As a freshman in high school in 2010, she was filled with consternation, feeling helpless in the wake of the BP Gulf Oil Spill. She wanted desperately to be able to contribute: to help with the clean up or to help ensure a disaster like this would not happen again. She couldn’t get involved to the degree that she wanted to then, but she knew she did have a choice that could make a difference in the long run. That choice was to attend Millbrook. The school Reagan attended as a freshman did not offer “green” programs for its students, and nothing in the curriculum really tied in to conservation. So when Reagan visited Millbrook with her parents, saw the zoo, and learned about how students were involved in SCAPE (Students Concerned About Planet Earth) and other environmental groups, she knew she had found a school where she could jump in, make a difference, and become a leader. And that is exactly what she has done over the past three years.
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Reagan hasn’t met a challenge she isn’t willing to tackle, and every faculty member who came to know her recognized both her creativity and determination. That determination was never more obvious than in her efforts to push Millbrook even farther in continuing and improving programs supporting environmental stewardship. Joining SCAPE as a IV former, Reagan worked with other students in this group, which is led by Mrs. Jane Meigs, to bring green ideas and initiatives to the student body. Meeting once a week during the activities period, they brainstorm initiatives and ways to raise money for good causes. Their goal is to have more students involved in developing sustainable practices as a school and to get them thinking more about conservation. During Reagan’s time at Millbrook, SCAPE has been responsible for several new initiatives. They were instrumental in raising money to buy printers for every dormitory. This helped to considerably lessen paper use by students and regulate waste, as every printer was set up to print double-sided. SCAPE volunteers also work in the community garden helping to bring fresh, organic produce from the garden into the dining hall. A large potato crop this year was particularly successful. They raise money through various activities like dances, and the money is earmarked for endangered species foundations and other special projects. At any time students can make suggestions for projects or fundraisers, which can then be filtered through SCAPE. While SCAPE is an open group that any student can join, the Environmental Council is a group of both faculty and students who are committed to making the Millbrook community greener
and more sustainable. Encouraged by Mrs. Meigs to join the EC, at the beginning of her Vth form year, Reagan wrote an essay and submitted her application; she was invested in bringing the student perspective to discussions. Her application was accepted, and she has since been a part of the group talking about recycling and composting, phasing out bottled water on campus, and providing filtered water stations in all buildings. Meeting once per month, they analyze better ways to recycle and offer suggestions on how to make the recycling process more efficient. The missing piece for Reagan in both SCAPE and the EC was the subject of local, healthy food options and getting students involved in decision-making processes in the dining hall. Her creativity kicked in, and she and friend Laurel Stine ’15 began the Student Food Group, a club that meets regularly and is open to all students. The group filters student concerns and suggestions about daily food options to the Food Committee, which is a small group of faculty, staff, and students that interacts directly with Millbrook’s dining hall director from Aramark. Having joined the Food Committee in her V form year, Reagan realized that there was not a lot of dialogue between students,
faculty, and dining hall staff about the food being served on campus. She started the Student Food Group so that students could share concerns, ideas, recipes, and anything that they felt the dining hall needed to hear. As a member of the Food Committee, Reagan could then better represent the students’ voices and support them. While a full academic schedule, roles on the stage in both the fall play and the winter musical, spring zoo squad, and all of her commitments to SCAPE, the Environmental Council, the Food Committee, and the Student Food Group kept Reagan beyond busy, she made time to lead the way in her dorm, Abbott, in Millbrook’s Recycling Cup Challenge. Who could have been surprised when Abbott ended up winning that challenge on campus? “The Recycling Challenge allowed us to see how much we were doing right there in the moment. Having it as a competition really makes students want to do what they can to win and gives them another purpose for taking part. It’s been interesting to see how each year the student body in Abbott decides to jump in.” continued next page
• As the 2012 Founder’s Prize winner, Reagan spent 14 days in Peru, immersing herself in the culture and volunteering in the small town of Cusco.
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Green, Gray and Blue, Through and Through
Her leadership and enthusiasm for continuing to green Millbrook were considerations in her election as the Founder’s Prize winner, a prize announced during the Underform Awards Ceremony every spring. Established by Bradford Mills ’44, the Founder’s Prize honors the qualities that Millbrook’s founders, Edward and Lucy Pulling, sought to inspire in their students. It is given annually to a member of the Vth form who has displayed an enthusiasm for life’s challenges, a creative and innovative spirit, and a commitment to the community. Along with receiving a cup and having his or her name listed on a permanent trophy, the Founders’ Prize winner receives a scholarship to NOLS, Outward Bound, or a similar program during the summer. Reagan might have been surprised when she learned that she had won the 2012 Founder’s Prize, but it was not surprising to those faculty and students who applauded her that day. Soon after the awards ceremony, Reagan was making plans for the summer – where would she go? Many winners had gone to an Outward Bound or Knowles program, but Reagan “really didn’t want to sit in the woods for two weeks.” She knew she wanted to join a program that offered community service; it was important to her that the program offered a component that would benefit someone else. GLA—Global Leadership Adventures—offers community service and volunteer work in Guatemala, China, India, Ghana, Peru, and other countries. Reagan choose a 14-day leadership adventure in Peru, where she worked with a group of other students from across America to build a greenhouse in the small town of Cusco. The greenhouse provides rural families with opportunities to plant vegetable gardens and traditional medicinal plants used to combat malnutrition in their children. It was no easy task getting the project started. One group of students made the mud bricks. One group moved rocks for the foundation, while a third group cut open the foundation using sticks and shovels to dig into the ground and make a trench. When it came time to create the mud cement by mixing straw, cold water, and clay dirt, Reagan stepped in when no one else wanted to. Mixing involved jumping in feet first and ceaselessly tromping through the mud so it would not set. “Sometimes the water was freezing cold. I didn’t have rain boots. I was wearing sweatpants and a t-shirt and went in barefoot. One of the Peruvian helpers there kept telling me in Spanish what I was supposed to be doing. At one point, he finally just got in himself to show me how!” Every day offered a new learning opportunity. Reagan saw firsthand how Peruvians live sustainably by using local and natural substances for building material. She studied the economics and social policies in Cusco and immersed herself in Peruvian culture,
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studying Quechua, a dialect imposed in Peru by the Incas. She learned how to bond quickly with a diverse group of new friends, and she made a lasting impression on them as the group hiked in the Andes over four days. Recovering from a painful parasite and unable to eat, she nevertheless completed the hike at 15,000 feet. Her fellow hikers complemented her positive attitude. Although Reagan was consistently at the back of the line, in the end her peers thanked her for inspiring them and leading by example. Almost a year has passed since Regan’s climb in the Andes Mountains, and she will spend time this summer preparing for her next adventure—college. She will be involved in supporting environmental stewardship—whether through volunteering, internships, or in her course selection—at Mt. Holyoke College. In one way or another, she will continue to be involved over the long term, as she considers possible career paths in economics, environmental law, or politics. Whatever path she follows, Reagan will make a difference in protecting the natural world. Her days of feeling helpless are long gone.
INSPIRED GIVING
Mark Cartland ’81 I remember first visiting the campus of Millbrook School in the Spring of 1979. I knew I wanted a different educational experience from my first two years of public high school, but I lacked direction, focus, and motivation. All of that changed, really forever, once I set foot on the grounds of the Trevor Zoo. Attending Millbrook School the following fall wasn’t just an option - it was the only option. I entered as a fifth former filled with all of the trepidation and excitement that I imagine all of my classmates had. In typical Millbrook fashion, I was quickly “adopted” by Jono and Jane Meigs and I experienced a remarkable period of personal and intellectual growth. Several years later I returned to Millbrook, this time as a faculty member. I taught ecology, worked as the assistant director at the Trevor Zoo and was a dorm master in Prum Hall, perhaps not coincidentally, since I had been the prefect there during my sixth form year. I spent an amazing two years as a faculty member at Millbrook developing skills that I would utilize over the next 25 years of my professional life. Needless to say, I feel a
strong bond and a debt of gratitude to Millbrook. A few years ago I decided it was important for me to give back for all of the gifts and experiences that Millbrook bestowed upon me. For this reason I made Millbrook and the Trevor Zoo a large part of my planned giving. Of course, I hope it will be many years before my gift is realized, but I take pride in knowing that I have established a mechanism to help future generations of Millbrook students and a place that means so much to me.
For more information on how you can make a planned gift contact the Development Office at 845-677-6792 or ranthony@millbrook.org.
You may also visit our website at
www.millbrook.org
Left: Mark Cartland with partner Jonna Justiniano Summer / Fall 2013 •
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Green, Gray and Blue, Through and Through
An Aspiring
Green Team Supporting Sustainability Through Community Service
M
illbrook’s Green Team community service is a terrific example of student and faculty creativity and ardent determination to be exemplary stewards of the natural world. While not an altogether
new endeavor at Millbrook, an organized community service dedicated to organic gardening was born during the 2007-2008 school year when two VI form boys, Sam Augustine and Andrew Fiore, established Millbrook School’s community garden as an independent project for their CES (Culminating Experience for Seniors). Assisted by their science faculty advisor, Jane Meigs, the students designed and planted six raised beds, each measuring 6’ by 18’. The seniors also built a fence to enclose the garden area and gave an all-school presentation in May at the CES Festival, where they spoke about building the garden and about the benefits of local organic gardening.
Their project evolved into what became known as the community garden, which was run in the beginning by Amy Manny, a long-standing faculty member and dedicated and innovative member of Millbrook’s Environmental Council. Together, Mrs. Manny and Mrs. Meigs came up with the idea for the Green Team as a community service option. The Green Team would tend the garden and manage the composting program. At that time, serious composting began as students brought vegetable food scraps
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and biodegradable paper waste from the dining hall to a compost pile behind Prum Hall. Leaves and other grass clippings were mixed in as well. Eventually, the Green Team used the compost to enrich our community garden. The Maintenance Department, other interested faculty members, and a group of students also helped out with the project. In the fall of 2011, Lyuda Pope became the faculty advisor to the Green Team community service, and she has been actively assisting in the ongoing
maintenance and growth of the community garden. Student members of the Green Team have cared for the garden on a daily basis during the school year, sowing the seeds, raising the seedlings in the greenhouse, and later on transplanting the plants into the community garden. Students have weeded and cleaned the garden, collected the harvest and brought it to the kitchen to be used in dishes for everyone to enjoy. During the summer months faculty volunteers have tended to the garden, and faculty members and their families have widely enjoyed a variety of produce. The harvest was limited, however, by the size of the beds, so in the spring and summer of 2012, the Green Team decided to expand the community garden by adding a potato field. Local farmer Michael Lawrence kindly plowed a 50’ by 75’ pasture that then became Millbrook’s potato field. Students, faculty, and maintenance staff enriched the soil and planted five different varieties of potatoes to be harvested in the fall and served in our dining hall. Millbrook’s land was originally a working farm, so the Community Garden and new potato field represent a returning to the school’s roots. According to an article in The Silo on October 19, 1940, a new project was started at Millbrook
Their plan involves the addition of a greenhouse hoop garden, an unheated greenhouse that uses a polycarbonate cover and derives heat from the soil, which would allow the school to grow vegetables during the winter months, involve more students in the Green Team community service, and provide our own locally grown vegetables to our dining program in the winter months. In addition, we hope to eventually add more vegetable field crops as well as more berries and apple trees. The “winter” greenhouse and additional crops would enable us to have three sections of community service throughout the year for our IIIrd formers and other interested students. We hope that the “winter” greenhouse will bring the health and vigor of a summer experience into the longer and darker days of winter.
School when Mr. Callard and Mr. Leavitt, neighboring gentlemen farmers, gave their time and experience to become sponsors of the new Farm Squad. “Supported by a large turnout of boys, Mr. Callard and Captain John Northrop enthusiastically began to plan their farm. The Farm Squad decided on twelve acres of oats and one acre of potatoes. That year students ate their own potatoes until Christmas. The entire sale of the potato crop, representing
the boys’ hard labor, was estimated to be approximately fifty dollars. This money was sent to a war relief agency. A good crop of oats was harvested that summer; the yield was enough to feed the horses for a whole year.” While the size of the school has increased considerably since 1940, the Green Team has a goal of being able to provide a substantial harvest for the enjoyment of all students and faculty.
The Green Team community garden allows us to not only use our rural land resource to grow crops but to connect our students and other community members to sustainable gardening and farming practices. The raised beds and the new potato field are the essential core of an ongoing and developing garden and farming project, and the Green Team community garden has drawn together people and energy from all segments of our community, joining them in progress toward Millbrook’s common goals of environmental stewardship and community service while increasing our commitment to sustainably and locally grown foods. We welcome community interest and support for this exciting new facility and project.
Written by Lyuda Pope, science teacher and faculty advisor to the Green Team, and Jane Meigs, chair of Millbrook’s Environmental Council
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Green, Gray and Blue, Through and Through
Faculty Profile
Jane Meigs An Inspirational Voice & Champion of the Natural World
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rowing up outside of Chicago, Jane Meigs enjoyed a typical large, suburban public high school experience, and her summers were
spent picnicking in the groves of the local forest preserves, swimming in the cools waters of Lake Michigan, boating on the Des Plaines River, sliding down the Warren Dunes, and strolling through the Brookfield Zoo. Looking back, those experiences were very formative. What she did not know then was that she would become an integral member of a zoo family for forty plus years and would make life-long connections as an educator focused on the natural world. In the late 60’s Jane was a college student studying government, political science and biology at Oberlin College in Ohio. Drawn to the culture, the music, and the opportunities in a big city and having interests in international relations, Jane set off after graduation for new adventures in New York City. She worked for a small non-profit that promoted strong relations between companies and helped them develop programs for executives traveling overseas. Visiting an Oberlin friend in Woods Hole over a long weekend in July of 1973, Jane met Jono, and their long partnership and love affair began. Less than a year after they met, they were married in the Flagler Memorial Chapel. Jono was working at Millbrook as the “zoo guy” then, having joined the faculty in 1972, and there were many Millbrook faculty, classmates, and friends who joined in their wedding celebration. They took a lovely 6-week honeymoon by car
across Canada with a kayak, reaching the west coast and camping on the Pacific in the little town of Tofino. Thirty-nine years later, Jane and Jono are still at Millbrook, and Jane remains focused on her goal of educating students to become responsible stewards of the natural world. Jane worked briefly with Bob Anthony in the Development Office before taking time to raise three children. As Holly, Bridget, and Garrett grew up, Jane began working in Millbrook’s library and by 1981 had completed studies to earn her master’s of library science. In the spring of 1984, Jane, Jono, and all three children packed up and traveled to Jersey in the Channel Islands (in the English Channel), where Jono took part in a program for zookeepers to learn about the breeding of endangered species. The entire family enjoyed the wonderful cliff paths and hiking trails all around, and the ocean was right there, with the coast of France only 14 miles away. It was another opportunity for the Meigs’ family to become immersed in the wonders of the natural world. It was 1996 and the start of Jono’s 25th year at Millbrook, when he was awarded a full-year sabbatical – this time, in Australia and New Zealand. The Meigs’ (minus Holly, who was attending Hamilton College) spent most of their time at the Bookmark Biosphere Reserve as conservation volunteers, and this experience truly set Jane on her path to focus on conservation and education. In this year she consolidated her interests and energies, beginning with the creation of an environmental science library at the research center of the Bookmark Biosphere Reserve. Returning to Millbrook, Jane took on the newly created position of conservation education director at the Trevor Zoo, one of many roles she would assume in order to advance Millbrook’s mission of environmental stewardship. She began the Stewardship of the Natural World Committee at that time and, along with a number of other faculty members, started to ramp up recycling, fine-tune continued next page
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• The Meigs Family, Alumni Weekend 2013
• Getting married at Millbrook, 1974
advocating for the design of green buildings, bringing sustainable food into the dining hall, and weaving regular education across the curriculum. Jane credits the involvement of many others in establishing these programs and continually working to accomplish even more, “It’s been a really great exercise in seeing something grow throughout the school – it’s like a web of green life growing everywhere and involving many, many people.” “We always ask so much of people here [at Millbrook]. We are chock full of duties and activities and yet… here’s one more thing. I am asking people to now “do it green.” But, yes! You have to make the effort.”
• The Meigs Family with Rocky the raccoon, 1994
on-campus energy conservation, grow a composting program, and more. By 2001, the original committee had evolved into the Environmental Council, an all-inclusive group made up of faculty, staff, and students, and members drafted a mission statement that was broad-based and touched on all areas of school life. Getting teaching faculty involved was critically important in establishing leadership to bring environmental stewardship into the curriculum. The group’s original goal was to accomplish two or three actions per year; the list quickly evolved into 15-20 items which included improving recycling, increasing energy efficiency on campus,
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Under Jane’s energetic leadership, Millbrook has, indeed, made the effort. We entered the Green Cup Challenge for the first time in 2007 and won that competition, reducing the school’s energy usage by a greater percentage than any of the other 40 schools that participated. Millbrook joined the Green School’s Alliance in 2008 and took the pledge to aim for carbon neutrality by 2020. In 2012 Millbrook joined 31 other schools in a Recycling Challenge, placing 6th and earning “Recycling Heroes” honors. Just this year, Jane worked with dorm parents and dorm leaders to create a new “Green Dorm Challenge,” an inter-dorm competition at Millbrook that took inventory of “green” efforts in the dorms, especially with energy efficiency, recycling, and water and paper use. In between the competitions, she has been the force urging a green purchasing policy, working with students on SCAPE (Students Concerned About Planet Earth, formerly Student Concerned About Rainforests), and planning for carbon neutrality. Those plans include a possible solar field, weatherproofing faculty homes, continuing to improve energy efficiency on campus, and using more geo-thermal wells in new buildings.
For Jane, action and education are most effective in combination, and she continues to work with Millbrook’s teachers to develop green curricula and bring environmental stewardship into their classes or bring the classrooms out into the natural world. In her own environmental science class for eight years, Jane used the incredible resources within Millbrook’s campus—the mature woodlands, the wetlands, the upland meadows, and the zoo—to teach lessons on animal adaptation, endangered species and species survival plans, population ecology, and climate change. And she continues to teach through her work with students in Millbrook’s environmental groups. “Laurel Stine ’14 was taking a close look at our recycling program and found ways that it could be better. She came to me and to Martha Clizbe, and she’s made really tangible changes. She’s also gotten Abbott dorm more involved, and she’s gotten the recycling community service to improve. Everybody can help. That’s the only way we can make a difference.” Other educators have recognized Jane’s commitment to environmental stewardship and education at Millbrook. This spring, she was invited to join a panel at the NAIS-NYSAIS Green Schools Conference on “how to green a curriculum.”
• Jane with Students Concerned About Planet Earth
“When you are at a boarding school, everything you do is part of your curriculum—your dorm life, your sports life, your activities, your dining experience. Certainly what teachers are doing in the classroom here matters - like Trip Powers, his new class in economics and sustainability. I am really proud that Millbrook is recognized as a leader by NYSAIS, by NAIS, by the Green Schools Alliance, and that we are there talking about our story.” Jane has just finished her 29th year at Millbrook, while Jono completed his 41st. During Alumni Weekend everyone in attendance celebrated their immense and collective contributions to Millbrook, as they both prepare to step into new part-time roles. Jane remains invested in helping Millbrook achieve its goal of carbon neutrality and will continue to work with students to guide their environmental initiatives. With some free time, she will work with others in her hometown of Ancram as a member of their Conservation Advisory Council. She has been instrumental in their adoption of a green purchasing policy, and she will follow up on other community issues like promoting later mowing of meadows to protect habitats for bobolinks and other grasslands species. “From the town, we can take it to the county. From the county, we can take it to the state. From the state, take it across the country. Sometimes I am pushy… but it does take keeping your ears open to what’s happening on the next level and bringing it here. I want Millbrook to continue to be a leader in greening schools and in kids greening their world. I am absolutely hopeful that these kids can inherit a better planet.”
• In the outdoors classroom
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Alumni/ae Profiles Lucy Von Reusner ’08 Leveraging the Power of Corporations to Influence Policy You might know Lucy Ron Reusner as the talented tour guide for Millbrook’s Trevor Zoo video tour on our website. Her video tour remains relevant and continues to accurately represent all that the zoo has to offer the students as well as its many public visitors. But Lucy’s spot also demonstrates her love of the zoo and all the animals therein, which is clearly evident to those who watch it. She has undoubtedly inspired many potential Millbrook zooies to fill out the inquiry form and come to campus to explore Millbrook and the Trevor Zoo in person.
graduated in 2012 with a degree in Natural Resource Management and a concentration in business. While she was studying theory in her classes, she was pursuing every opportunity for practical experience outside of the classroom. During the summer of 2010, she took environmental issues head on at Green Peace, working on their palm oil campaign to prevent deforestation in Southeast Asia. As an environmental organizer, she helped to generate buzz and mobilize large numbers of people concerned about deforestation. Trained on how to run an environmental campaign, Lucy had her hands in everything as she worked with the media, wrote press releases, canvassed to get petitions signed, created signs, and more.
Focusing on environmental leadership in business during the summer of 2011, Lucy completed her second internship, this time at Conservation International in Washington, D.C. She worked again on the palm oil issue but from a more scientific approach, analyzing the landscape in Indonesia and researching the palm oil industry and the trees and forests that are their primary resource. She helped with the research and the development of recommendations about what sustainable palm oil could look like. Just one year later, in her new marketbased role as a shareholder advocate with Green Century Capital, Lucy found her internships had prepared her well to approach Starbucks about their use of palm oil in many of their products. Starbucks shareholders, concerned about maintaining the company’s good reputation, want accountability, and Lucy has been working to ensure they get it, raising concerns with Starbucks executives about how their practice of buying palm oil from any source, regardless of how the source material was obtained, was posing
During her two years as a day student at Millbrook, Lucy was a zooie, then a zoo curator, and a stalwart supporter of all Millbrook programs supporting environmental stewardship. She was a member of SCAPE (Students Concerned About Planet Earth) and was instrumental in Millbrook’s winning the Green Cup Challenge in 2007. So, it is not surprising that Lucy has now chosen a path professionally that allows her to make a positive impact while being foremost environmentally responsible. Having always been interested in and involved in environmental advocacy, Lucy attended Cornell University and
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• Lucy testifies in front of the Environment and Natural Resources Committee of the Maine Legislature in support of a ban on BPA in baby food containers
a risk to their investment. Starbucks responded to her inquiry, understood the concerns of Green Century Capital and other shareholders, and asked what they could do. They began buying their palm oil from sustainable sources. While Green Century Capital invests in environmentally responsible mutual funds, they believe that every company in which they invest has room for improvement. A small investment firm of only 10 people, they are the for-profit arm of a large network of non-profits with a very strong commitment to being socially responsible. Lucy’s role as a shareholder advocate helps to fulfill that commitment, as she actively engages with management at the highest level to make a positive impact on the companies in which they invest.
“Every company we invest in – I work with them to develop more environmentally responsible practices, encouraging companies to use more renewable energy, to set specific targets, to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and to take steps to become more energy efficient. Energy efficiency, especially, is good for the bottom line of the company and good for the environment. It’s a win-win.” Just how she can make a difference is something that Lucy has thought about for a long time and the reason that she is so excited about her work and the direction it might take her. She had identified early on that corporations have the largest environmentally degrading impact and use the greatest amount of resources; they are also
an enormous source of power that can be leveraged to influence policy. She believes in using the power of corporations to have a positive impact. Don’t be surprised when in the future you read about Lucy in a national publication, quoted as a market maker and a force for environmental stewardship. The quote might read something like this: “The markets send a strong message and demand environmental responsibility. I will continue to make the case directly to corporations about what is in their best interests long term, to go to where the biggest impact can be made, the places where the biggest problems exist, to help figure out how those problems can be fixed.”
Calder Greenwood ’97 Out of the Ordinary Art Changes Perceptions
• Giraffes by Calder Greenwood, photo by Chimino
Living in downtown Los Angeles for the past few years has made Calder Greenwood appreciate the verdant beauty of Millbrook even more than he always had. Calder grew up in a Millbrook home nestled between horse farms and followed in his brother’s (Wixon ’96) footsteps to attend Millbrook as a day student for four years. He was an avid arts student, an athlete, an outdoor enthusiast, student body vice president, and a dedicated four-year zooie. It was growing up in scenic Dutchess County and being a student at Millbrook that heightened his awareness of his
surroundings. Today, while he enjoys city living, he notices the empty and often neglected spaces in Los Angeles’ cityscape, and he has drawn attention to many of these spaces through a terrifically unique vehicle – strategically placed full scale animal and human papier-mâché forms. Building these forms began more as the pursuit of an interest than a career. Calder was a Media Studies major in college, focusing on film and video, and he minored in Japanese, spending his junior year abroad in Japan. He
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“Seeing the environment, and seeing what it could be and changing it. In a sense the downtown area is kind of a playground. So, you can put anything out there, and you can change the way people perceive it… it’s up to us to encourage potential change, how can this environment be better.” Calder Greenwood - (From a short documentary film by Zak Geoffray)
• This 15’ shark hangs in Calder’s LA apartment.
• Calder’s paper mache sunbathers in downtown LA.
• Phone art.
earned his final college credits through a course he took in Hong Kong and then remained there for two more years working for a visual effects company. One project included the award-winning film Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. This was his first foray into the business of film editing. Moving to Santa Monica outside of Los Angeles in 2005, Calder continued his work in the television and film industry, supporting himself mostly with freelance project work, which included the creation of special effects for National Geographic’s television shows. His full-time work in Hong Kong had tested his ability to sit in front of a
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computer all day, and realizing that he could not continue in such a stationary job long-term, he made the transition from computer special effects to building the props and sets used by filmmakers. Working on a freelance basis allows him time in between projects to focus on his other interests including street art. Street art became the topic of conversation one day at a friend’s party, where Calder met Wild Life, an artist who has been intent on bringing art and culture to the streets of Los Angeles. Their discussion led to planning, and soon they were creating very lifelike papier-mâché forms and deciding on where they should be placed. There was an empty lot downtown, close to where Calder was living. It was run down, an eyesore, and needed some new life. In a little over three weeks they built and
installed their family of sunbathers in this perfectly unnatural setting, which drew instant attention from passersby. The space happened to be next door to the Los Angeles Times, and they were intrigued by both the story behind the installation and the history of the space itself. Soon after, the Times featured the sunbathers on the front page of the paper, and, suddenly aware that people were conscious of the property’s condition, the city cleaned up the lot. Motivated by the positive effects that resulted from the press coverage and wanting to continue to inspire others to see beautiful things in these not-so-beautiful spaces, Calder and Wild Life planned additional art installations in equally unexpected places. Next to a parking lot, on a hillside filled with garbage, they placed a family of deer grazing. On one of
the many hundreds of broken pay phones in downtown Los Angeles, they attached a giant receiver to a phone handle. They built a pair of 14’ giraffes and placed them behind a construction site, which remained their home for more than 6 months. And most recently, they hoisted a giant 8’ duck in a spot in between some rocks in the Los Angeles River. It floats there along the waterway in Los Feliz, rising and lowering with the tide, and it has hopefully reminded some of the river’s recreational potential and sparked their desire to get outside.
He is translating his recent notoriety into a productive career, as he continues to make forms, props, and sets for movies. He uses mostly cardboard and papier-mâché, and he collects and uses largely recycled materials good for improvised building of various forms. He built a 12’ robot, for example, out of cardboard for a short film, and he currently has a 15’ shark that he built hanging from the ceiling in his apartment, just for fun, of course. Since the publicity in the LA Times, offers have come in from student film
producers, commercial producers, and art galleries who need something built, and Calder is content to continue to take these freelance opportunities, which allow him the flexibility of taking time to work on the next inspiration. His work has certainly made those living and working in downtown LA more aware of their surroundings and encouraged them to see their local spaces in a different light. Don’t be surprised if you hear more about Calder’s out-of-theordinary art, which might come to a city near you.
Bridget Meigs ’96 Green Genes: This Apple Doesn’t Fall Far from the Family Tree “Today, when I come home to see my parents, driving down School Road brings tears to my eyes. Time disappears, and I can be a teenager again or a young child. It still looks just as beautiful now as it did when I was growing up on Millbrook’s campus.” Growing up at Millbrook definitely instilled a love of the natural environment, and Bridget and her brother, Garrett ’00, and sister, Holly ’94, developed their own passion for the natural world very early on. As children they regularly hiked ski hill and cleaned up the blue bird boxes in the spring. Bridget loved the ½-mile walk from the zoo to their home, through the woods, enjoying time alone in the beauty of the forest, even at night without the use of a flashlight (dad’s rules!). Of course, the zoo was a big part of life in the Meigs’ household. Jono was
always working with the animals, and Bridget was there to help. She knew early on that she liked to work with her body and her mind, and she discovered that at the zoo, working with the animals, figuring out how to best recreate their natural environment and how to come up with ways to keep the animals active and stimulated. But it was more than just the zoo – Millbrook has always stressed the importance of students interacting more with the natural world. Looking back, Bridget appreciates the requirement for students to play on sports teams two out of the three seasons. She remembers always being actively engaging with her peers, outside in nature, even if that was on the soccer or field hockey fields. While the zoo was growing under her dad’s expert guidance and leadership, her mom, Jane, was a stalwart proponent
of information, providing students with access to educational materials in the Flagler Memorial Library. Jane was the head librarian when Bridget was a student and only really became active in teaching environmental science and becoming a leader in environmental stewardship at Millbrook after her graduation. Today, environmental stewardship is a part of everyday conversation between mom and daughter.
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there, Bridget also teaches college courses including Environmental Studies, Food Politics, Food Justice, and a special topics course in Sustainable Agriculture. She finds her work particularly rewarding as many of her students have begun other campus initiatives following their experience working on the farm or studying about food justice or sustainable agriculture. The new Compost Group now brings hundreds of pounds of compost being generated weekly through the campus dining system back to the farm. The same group is instituting a No To-Go week in order to rid the campus of plastic or Styrofoam containers in the dining halls; their Grab the Green campaign allows students to buy reusable to-go containers. Another new student initiated group, Real Food Stonehill, is working with the dining service to examine the foods being prepared on campus in an effort to bring in more local, fairly grown ingredients.
• Working the soil at The Farm at Stonehill.
Attending Queens University and majoring in biology, Bridget worked in Kenya on a semester program in 2000 and during the summer thereafter. It was in Kenya that she found her passion for growing food, as she focused on farming and resource management. Very interested in the international experience and food production, she completed her MPS (Masters of Professional Studies) in the Department of Natural Resources in the Agriculture School at Cornell in 2004, a program that took her to Guatemala to help establish gardens and grow food. In 2007 Bridget landed in Pennsylvania, working for the Fruit Guys, a Californiabased company providing fresh fruit mail order packages. They were focusing their efforts on businesses, encouraging a “wellness at work” approach by encouraging management to provide fresh fruit to employees rather than bagels and
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less healthy snacks. Running the Farm Stewardship program, Bridget worked directly with farmers, extending goodwill to them and managing logistics. Today, Bridget is the farm manager at Stonehill College, a small Catholic school with a focus on positive outreach and a commitment to service. Located near poor neighborhoods where access to fresh food is limited, the school had land and a vision to start a farm. The Farm at Stonehill was born on a 1.5-acre plot in February of 2011, and Bridget was hired to not only start and run the farm but to teach students about food access and other food-related topics and to lead evolving sustainability initiatives on campus. The job was a leap of faith – Bridget had never run a farm before. “I tell my students now, if you think it will challenge you, if seems scary, then do it.” In addition to managing the farm and the students who work
Bridget’s work at The Farm at Stonehill has not gone unnoticed. Bridget and The Farm won a 2012 Green Difference Award from Project Green Schools, a Massachusetts nonprofit dedicated to creating “greener and healthier learning environments through education and awareness.” She was one of 20 educators honored at a ceremony at the Statehouse last year. What does the future hold? Bridget is excited about teaching and farming and leading sustainable efforts at Stonehill, and although she may eventually be lured to a new role somewhere else, she will remain committed to managing and teaching and continuing her own education about the intricate relationship between farming, sustainable food production, and food access “because it is endless. There’s always something to learn.”
Bill Brune ’87 A Conservationist Following His Life’s Passion
While his decision to attend Millbrook School was influenced by the fact that a cousin was a member of the second graduating class and the school which he attended in Oyster Bay, Long Island was directly across from Edward Pulling’s estate, it was the Trevor Zoo that provided the real draw. The fondest memories of his tenure at Millbrook involve his time spent caring for the animals, from the beginning as a lowly III former looking after the kestrel, a sparrow hawk, to his rising through the ranks to become zoo head as a VI former and, ultimately, being responsible for all of the animals. His job as zoo head
entitled unlimited access to the animals, a privilege he did not take lightly. Bill reminisces, “I still tell people to this day that I’ve never had as much responsibility before or since.” At the end of the day, he reviewed a checklist to ensure that each animal had received proper care and tended to those animals that on rare occasion may have been overlooked during the day. Jono Meigs and Alan Tousignant were taking the zoo to new levels—from a mindset of providing rehabilitation services to becoming an accredited facility housing endangered species—while Bill was going through school. Initial
zoo accreditation took place during that period. As the concept of environmental stewardship was strengthening, the mission became one of making the zoo relevant to the student body in the classroom. Jono taught a course on zoo science. Enrollment in biology classes would lead to extensive teaching at the zoo. Photography classes were using the zoo and the animals as a backdrop for learning skills. Seward Highley, Alan Tate, and many other teachers realized what a teaching aid they had in the zoo and found creative ways to bring that into the classroom. For Bill, any subject that could incorporate the zoo into the curriculum immediately became that much easier and more interesting. Bill graduated from St. Lawrence University with degrees in Environmental Studies and Geography. From there, he ventured to Alaska, working with commercial fisheries. He moved back east to apply for his “dream job” with the Nature Conservancy as an environmental consultant. Initially overlooked for the position, Bill made a contact through a friend in the office, and his tenacity was rewarded. He was offered a volunteer position that became a paid position within three months, and he was tasked with putting together a 17-mile land acquisition project involving property along the Hudson River that was owned by a power company. At the conclusion of this project, Bill moved to northern Michigan to work for a land trust before returning to the Nature Conservancy in Maine in 1996. In 2007, Bill was afforded the opportunity to focus on a growing interest in marine conservation when he visited Indonesia. For four months he worked on remote islands of this nation reinforcing sustainable fishing practices in the face of a threat from large financial forces from mainland China who were
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offering large amounts of money to these fishermen to increase the haul. Bill was able to facilitate a dialogue amongst tribal chiefs to give them increased power as they approached the higher levels of state government about self-determination of economic decision-making. More recently, in the spring of 2012, Bill took on a project in Zambia that linked big game hunting and conservation, a counterintuitive concept at first glance. The reality in much of Africa is that unless people see the environment as something relevant to them and their interests, they have little enticement to protect it. What he discovered was that in areas where there is well managed hunting, the people prosper. The herds are thinned, but not alarmingly so, employment is bountiful, and the people engage in revenue sharing. In areas where this level of management was not present, people turned to poaching, hunting with impervious understanding as to the size
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of the herd, selling their kill for far less than market value, and generally looking at the land as having far more value when deforested and planted with crops. Bill’s challenge was to come up with a strategy to allow for better managed hunting while showing the local population that it was in their collective best interest to maintain the lands. Ultimately, due to a change in the ruling party, a moratorium was imposed on hunting as the new government evaluates the situation. Returning to the northeast, Bill decided to pursue a passion and get more “real world” experience outside of the non-profit framework he had been a part of for so long. Currently on sabbatical from the Nature Conservancy, he is focused on several opportunities in aquacultures and in fisheries management, including one opportunity right in his own back yard. The Magnuson-Stevens Act of 1976 eliminated the foreign fishing fleets from fishing in American waters, while allowing for new private, federally subsidized American fleets sporting bigger boats and the latest technology. East coast fisheries were decimated, and there are now too many
fishermen and not enough fish. Also, the amount of bycatch, netted fish other than the intended catch, has increased. Certain species are depleted because of overconsumption. It is a situation that is totally unsustainable. Bill’s intention is to model a style of sustainable fishing that would benefit all fishermen by emphasizing low volume, high value fishing. Is there a way to restructure the fishing industry in the northeast and cut down on overfishing? Can he illustrate the economic viability of the individual boat that the big boat fleets deliver without the negative side effects? He is going to try, having purchased a 36-foot Downeast lobster boat named the Peregrine, Bill is obtaining his captain’s license and putting together a small crew. As Bill puts it, “I don’t want my fish coming out of a net that has been dragging coral and killing seabirds.” Bill Brune provides another glowing example of Millbrook’s real world impact. If you’re traveling to Maine in the near future, you might find yourself eating fresh, sustainably caught, seafood brought in by the crew of the Peregrine. Tell Bill that Millbrook sent you…
David Kline ’85 Creating Innovative Educational Programs in Environmental Science As a boy growing up in the Adirondack Mountains, David Kline developed a very strong relationship with nature and the environment. He dreamed of exploring jungles and developed a love of the rainforests of the Amazon region. He carried that relationship and those dreams and interests to Millbrook, where he studied for four years and graduated in 1985. He followed his Millbrook experience with four years at the University of Vermont, earning a Bachelor of Science degree in Secondary Education with a concentration in Environmental Science. While at UVM, David developed a keen interest in sustainability education. He was also able to delve into his interest in the rainforests and deforestation through his studies in Native American Indian cultures, plants and soil science, and horticulture.
An avid outdoorsman and skier, David lived for a period of time after college in Colorado, where he competed in extreme skiing. He then became a partner in a niche business that modified, serviced, converted, and maintained fireplaces in Summit County and the Vail Valley, selling his stake in the company shortly after his son was born. Upon returning to the east coast and settling in Chester County, Pennsylvania, David pursued an opportunity to be a volunteer educator at the Maysie’s Farm Conservation Center. His responsibilities included educating children, families, and teachers on how to grow food in a sustainable fashion, and he focused on the development of home and school gardens. While doing this, he took classes through the Institute for Educational Excellence
• David works with students at the Montgomery School on many environmental initiatives including a meadow restoration project.
and Entrepreneurship at West Chester University of Pennsylvania. It was there that he encountered Project Based Education. PBE’s goals are to educate students on the development of 21st century skills through interaction with professionals while working on realworld problem solving. After substitute teaching in various public and private schools in Chester County, David received a substitute assignment at the Montgomery School, a K-8 school of 250 students located in Chester Springs. This proved to be fortuitous in the long run as David’s enthusiasm and innovative classroom strategies impressed his fellow educators, and in 2004 he was rewarded with an offer, which he accepted, to become the 4th-6th grade science teacher. As is the expectation of any good teacher, David was constantly looking to innovate and improve his curriculum to make it more relevant and outwardlooking. When given the chance to secure $100,000 in grant money for the development of an effective environmental program, he took that opportunity to construct a program that integrated his past experiences with Project Based Education, sustainability, his lifelong love of nature and the outdoors, and a resonance that today’s youth might not have the same awareness of and exposure to the environment. Out of this was born the Programs for Environmental Awareness and Sustainability model (PEAS). The PEAS model has been responsible for a number of campus initiatives since its inception. These include: the Paper/ Styrofoam Coffee Cup Ban and Ceramic Coffee Cup Cupboard, the Montgomery School Composting Demonstration Site, a Student Run Recycling Program, and the creation of the Montgomery School
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School International Partnership, as a part of the International Green Schools Initiative (IGSI), with San Isidro School in Puerto Maldonado, Madre de Dios, Peru. The project culminated with the opportunity for David to travel to Peru to experience their ecosystems and to learn about the environmental and sustainability challenges that face the country; while interacting with members of other IGSI schools, David was really able to focus on ways to educate the global community to care for and conserve our natural resources, culture, biodiversity, and ecosystems.
• Through a fellowship with ACEER, David learned much about the environmental issues facing Peruvians.
Nature Trails and Quarry Overlook Outdoor Classroom. All of these programs were “innovative and integrated in their approach to building awareness for environmental issues and creating effective changes towards developing sustainable behaviors in the community.” David cites the Montgomery School Garden as the initiative that has had the most impact on him. With technical, planning, and financial assistance from
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Maysie’s Farm Conservation Center, the student-led project created garden beds for each grade level to grow and harvest a variety of crops. Families volunteer to maintain the gardens when school is not in session. The project itself allows all participants to see the effects of sustainable agriculture. A very compelling community service element of this project presents itself in the opportunity to donate food surpluses to the Chester County Food Bank. Says David, “It was an incredibly powerful experience for me to facilitate the giving back to the community and assisting families in need with access to healthy, organically grown food!” An offshoot of this project and its success has been speaking engagements at the Pennsylvania Science Teachers Association Convention, the Pennsylvania Sustainable Agriculture Conference, and the Pennsylvania Alliance of Environmental Educators Conference. David has become involved with the Amazon Center for Environmental Education and Research Foundation (ACEER) as a part of his interest in the rainforest and the biodiversity of that environment. This involvement came in the form of a fellowship with ACEER through West Chester University to initiate a Green
Most recently, David has been instrumental in the development of the Upper Quarry Native Grass and Wildflower Meadow Restoration Project through the Pennsylvania Environmental Council (PEC) and the Natural Lands Trust’s Center for Conservation Landowners (CCL). This project has allowed students to reclaim a meadow on campus, which was overgrown with invasive plant species. The invasive species have been removed and replaced with native species with as little disruption as possible to the local wildlife. The meadow will be mowed 2-3 times per year, and students will spread wildflower seeds that will help fill in the meadow and attract butterflies, bees, and other pollinators. David explored the wetlands, marshes, and meadows of Millbrook School during his time here as a student, and he enjoyed those experiences both in and outside of the classroom. Now he has come full circle, as he brings his students to their newly reclaimed meadow to explore topics in ecology, biology, and environmental science and helps them develop an understanding and awareness of the issues that we all face. Millbrook students do not hear about core values – they live them here every day. And David Kline understands the value of action and knows the importance of getting his students to become advocates of change.
Jon Jacobs ’74 A legal expert protecting our planet for this generation and generations to come A scholar-athlete during his time at Millbrook, Jon Jacobs graduated in 1974 and headed to Trinity College intent on becoming a marine biologist. His focus shifted, however, after discovering that organic chemistry was not his strong suit, and so he switched his major to history, graduated with high honors, and set his sites on law school. After earning his J.D. in 1981, Jon worked for several public interest
groups before going back to school to earn his Master of Laws in Taxation from George Washington University. After a two-year turn at Coopers & Lybrand’s national tax office, Jon took a position with the EPA in 1987; his tax background and understanding of how companies benefit economically when committing violations was, he believes, what got his foot in the door. Since then,
• Jon (middle) receives the Morrison Award from the Department of Justice in 2012 for his environmental justice accomplishments.
he has worked his way up the ranks of the EPA, from Attorney-Advisor to Deputy Division Director in the civil enforcement program to a senior attorney in EPA’s Office of Criminal Enforcement, Forensics and Training. Along the way, he has become a national expert on asbestos, lead-based paint, and PCB issues, an advisor to the criminal enforcement office’s inaugural Homeland Security program, an agency rulemaking expert, and more. Throughout his time with the EPA, he has been involved in legislation, rulemaking, and policy, communication, outreach, and training, program oversight and strategic planning. Jon’s particular area of specialization is enforcement of the nation’s chemical and pesticide laws. For several years he served as a regional criminal enforcement counsel and Special Assistant United States Attorney when he worked in the field with EPA’s special agents investigating and prosecuting violations of rules for toxic chemicals and pesticides. (The two hundred special agents with whom he works have full law enforcement powers. They can apply for warrants, make arrests, and carry firearms, and they oversee all statutes related to air, water, and hazardous wastes, which, when violated, are usually felonies punishable by fines and imprisonment.) Back at EPA’s Headquarters, Jon has reviewed referrals to the Department of Justice for legal, technical, and policy issues while strategizing with the DOJ prosecutors. He is one of the agency’s rule makers, guiding policy and programmatic activity, including helping the EPA to lead the way in everything from environmental justice to the new frontiers of biotechnology and nanotechnology. While it would seem that Jon’s role as an attorney-advisor with the EPA and
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all of the legislative, case support, and outreach responsibilities that are part in parcel with his job would keep him more than busy, he makes time for a cause he believes is critically important. Wanting to ensure that his daughters’ generation doesn’t lose a sense of urgency and keeps on improving the environment, Jon serves on the board of the New Yorkbased Children’s Environmental Literacy Foundation (CELF). CELF provides consulting services, training programs, and educational programs to schools in an effort to make sustainability education an integral part of the K-12 learning experience. What the organization does is help teachers learn what sustainability is, how they can modify their current curriculum in K-12th grade, to incorporate sustainability concepts without changing their core teaching. In math class, if you’re giving an example of addition and subtraction, instead of using something generic like widgets, we’ll talk about how many gallons of water are produced to create an acre of corn. We’ll talk about the environmental footprint of the school and how it can be minimized. The kids will go around the school looking for toilets and sinks that are running. They’ll look at the roof – can they do a rooftop garden? Can they recycle water? Interested in learning from an established successful program bringing students and educators together, Jon attended the 2012 SC3 (Student Climate and Conservation Congress) Summit in Shepherdstown, West Virginia. A joint program sponsored by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Green Schools Alliance, it’s a unique opportunity for 120 students from around the world to gather and learn about conservation and sustainability. The students return to their schools with a sustainability action
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• Jon with his family in Virginia.
plan and the goal of advancing their concepts in their home community.
Action coupled with urgency is just what Jon hopes to inspire in today’s younger generation. To what does Jon Jacobs owe his interest and dedication to both providing sustainable education programs and protecting our environment through policy creation and the enforcement of laws? It goes back first and foremost to his childhood years, going sailing on the Hudson River. He spent his summers on the water—the Hudson River and Long Island Sound—and joined the Hudson River Sloop Restoration as a member of the original crew of the Clearwater when it launched; he worked alongside the organization’s founder, the legendary Pete Seeger. While his time at Millbrook did not include community service at the
zoo, he clearly remembers the messages of environmental stewardship that were part of his Millbrook education, in the classes he took with Seward Highley and in the everyday actions of other faculty and students. Today Jon is carrying on—in his professional life and as a volunteer—the Millbrook tradition of environmental stewardship. By his example he passes on that tradition to his children and their generation, raising their level of environmental literacy through the implementation of children’s educational activities. Through his long-time dedication to defining policy and pursuing justice, he also inspires the growing number of young professionals who want a career that not only provides a paycheck but makes a difference in the health of our planet on a daily basis. A hustler on the soccer field and a strong student in the classroom, Jon Jacobs has gone on to make Millbrook proud, proud of the change he is affecting in the world.
Tom Lovejoy ’59 Deep Green: The Life of a Conservation Biologist Millbrook was the first boarding school that Tom Lovejoy visited in the fall of his 8th grade year. He saw the zoo and right then and there knew that Millbrook was where he wanted to be.
When Tom arrived as a III former in 1955, he instantly became entwined with a powerful, passionate, and inspiring teacher in Frank Trevor. He was not prepared for the impact Mr. Trevor would
actually have on him in the classroom, but after only three weeks of school, Tom knew he was going to be a biologist. After Millbrook launched Tom in 1959, he went on to earn his B.S. and Ph.D in biology from Yale. While volunteering in the bird division at the Peabody Museum, Tom connected with Phil Humphrey, a curator of vertebrate zoology at the Smithsonian, and eventually traveled with him to the Amazon in 1965, with the support of the Rockefeller Foundation, to begin work on his PhD. That is how Tom got started in the Amazon at a time when there was one road, three million people, and about two other biologists working there.
And so, did I think at the time I was doing my PhD or when I was a student at Millbrook that I’d be doing the kinds of things I’m doing today. Of course not. But I’m so grateful for the background because that’s what put me in a position to make a difference.
• 1989, Tom in the Amazon.
Dr. Lovejoy is now an internationally recognized champion for the conservation of biological diversity—also commonly referred to as biodiversity, a term he is credited with establishing in 1980. Tom’s career has been rooted in public service and is considered a model for scientists interested in translating biological research into environmental conservation. Tom conceived and
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continues in its 35th year. As he says, “My heart beats according to the samba.” In 1973 Tom joined The World Wildlife Fund to manage their conservation grants, and he was swept up in the challenge of making positive changes in international conservation of the environment. As executive vice president, he helped the WWF grow into a global network in most European countries, Australia and Brazil, with affiliates in other countries. If he was not already busy enough, in 1982 Tom co-founded the public television series Nature and served as its principal advisor for many years. In 1987 he was appointed assistant secretary for environmental and external affairs at the Smithsonian, and in 1988 Capitol Hill discovered there was an official at the Smithsonian who knew about the environment. By January of 1989, Tom was taking Al Gore, Tim Worth, John Heinz and Ben Bradley (who was then executive editor the Washington Post) down to the Amazon and working with the Brazilians to see if there was something the U.S. could do to make a difference about deforestation in the Amazon. He then served on the first President Bush’s Council of Advisors in Science and Technology, where they talked about topics like climate change very early on.
• 1970s, Tom in the Amazon.
• 1990s, Tom at Camp 41 in Brazil.
designed the enormous ecological experiment in Brazil known as the Minimum Critical Size of Ecosystems, the largest experiment in landscape ecology. It looks at what happens when you break up a forest into fragments—and which is better, one big protected area or many small ones that add up to the same size. This study offered a large-scale
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perspective on the ecology of the tropics that had not been considered previously. As a result of Tom’s work, the world was alerted to the problems of tropical deforestation, the special demands on tropical conservation, and the importance of Amazonia as a cradle of biodiversity. Even now, Tom is always on his way to Brazil, as his research program
In 1993 the U.S. Secretary of the Interior appointed Tom as his science advisor, and one year later he served as scientific advisor to the executive director of the United Nations Environment Programme, a position he held through 1997. In 1998 he became chief biodiversity advisor for the World Bank before joining the Heinz Center for Science, Economics and the Environment, an environmental policy think tank whose most important contributions have been two lengthy reports on the state of the nation’s
ecosystems, the second of which was published in 2008. Living on the interface of science and public policy, Tom remains the biodiversity chair and keeps an office at the Heinz Center, which is only three blocks from the White House. What pays his salary these days is George Mason University, where he teaches a seminar in the spring on problems in conservation and conservation biology. The other part of his job description is working with the dean and the provost to help them build their environmental and science programs. They are exploring a dual masters degree with the University of Brasilia, and George Mason also recently launched an undergraduate program of study in partnership with the Smithsonian. Students spend an entire semester getting practical experience at the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute, learning from prominent researchers and educators.
Here’s what I would say to young people who are looking at the environmental challenge today and wanting to make a difference: first of all, you really can make a difference. And second, no matter how gloomy a situation looks, nothing’s over till it’s over. Tom has been the recipient of numerous awards including the Grand Cross of the Order of Scientific Merit, the John & Alice Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement, the BBVA
• Tom at the Heinz Center in 2009. Tom with Al Gore in 2006.
Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award for Ecology and Conservation Biology, and the National Geographic Conservation Fellowship. Most recently Tom was awarded the 2012 Blue Planet Prize in Tokyo for being “the first scientist to academically clarify how humans are causing habitat fragmentation and pushing biological diversity towards crisis.” In recognition of this prize, Former President Bill Clinton wrote the following about Tom, “Your career has been a precious gift to our planet and to all life that inhabits it. You have not only elevated awareness of our environmental challenges, but offered practical solutions as well. I’m proud to have signed the Tropical Forest Conservation Act of 1998, putting into practice the ‘debt for nature swap’ mechanism you developed to finance international conservation efforts. And finally, while acknowledging the urgent need for a global commitment to sustainability, you have been unwavering in your optimism that we can solve anything if we all work together.”
• 1997, at the Rio +5 Forum
It is no surprise, then, that Tom is referred to as “the Planet Doctor” by many of his colleagues and admirers. The late founder of our zoo would be
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so pleased with his disciple and all of Tom’s efforts to educate his fellow human beings to be stewards of our planet. Tom’s association with Millbrook has been indelibly linked for the past 58 years. When he was a Yale undergraduate, Tom would return to campus and assist the Trevors in the biology lab and at the zoo. He was elected to the board of trustees in 1971, and he remains active as an honorary trustee today. His daughter, Kata, graduated from Millbrook in 1986, and we hope that Tom may be a grandfather of a Millbrook student in the very near future. That grandchild will surely come to share in the passion that Frank Trevor instilled in Tom, a passion that continues to grow at Millbrook.
• Tom joined classmates for their 50th reunion in 2009.
Dennis Collins ’52 For the Love of Land and Open Spaces As a boy growing up in a small house in south Millbrook, Dennis Collins was exposed to the rudimentary concept of land conservancy. His father was the Master of the Millbrook Hunt and, in Collins’ words, “If you’re going to hunt with hounds, you need the land to do that.” A member of the Millbrook School class of 1952, Dennis received a diploma from Cornell University, interrupted by a stint in the United States Army, and moved to Buffalo to begin a career in the insurance industry. Insurance took him from Buffalo to Hartford to Norfolk, Connecticut, where he lived for twenty years. The property Dennis and his wife owned in Norfolk backed up to land that had been permanently preserved. With a bubbling stream and a number of ponds,
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the property was a beautiful refuge for many creatures, including nesting Canada geese, which were extremely rare at that time. Acting on both his understanding of the importance of the protection of natural habitats and his experience with the Millbrook Hunt, Dennis began to truly question the shape of land, its use, and how to best protect it. In 1980-81, Mr. Collins took a formal step into the world of land conservancy when he created his own volunteer-based land trust organization in Norfolk with the purpose of answering those questions. The following year, Dennis relocated to Wyomissing, Pennsylvania to take a paid position at the Berks County Conservancy before moving on to the Wildlife Conservancy in Emmaus, Pennsylvania,
• A young Dennis and Farnie Collins in Millbrook.
the principal environmental organization in the Lehigh Valley from 1973 on. Of the almost 50,000 acres of land preserved by these two organizations, Dennis was personally involved in the preservation of at least 40,000 acres, but his work involved so much more. In addition to land preservation, the functions of these conservancies, and many others like them, include finding space for community gardens, sponsoring beautification programs for communities, and educating the local populations about the land and the need to preserve what they can.
artful negotiation skills, he tries to share his long-term vision with these property owners, to encourage them to see beyond the financials. Part of the process involves funneling money to the farmers from county, state, and federal government programs to take a little of the sting away from choosing to not recognize the profits on the sale of that particular parcel of land.
• Dennis looks out over land protected through his work with land trusts.
Another primary function of land conservancies involves negotiations with landowners on behalf of conservation groups regarding the attachment of permanent restrictions to their lands; these restrictions detail exactly how the land may be used. Known as easements, the restrictions may be donated to the land trust or, in many cases, they may be purchased with monies that are acquired through fundraising efforts or made available through local, state, or federal programs. The available funds often don’t amount to a whole lot, so the trusts must be choosy about which landowners they approach. In some cases, landowners will voluntarily approach a land trust to make a contribution to the conservancy. Most often these donations or easements are tax deductible, and depending on the situation, can help to offset the lost real estate value of the land. One thing to note about the conservancies is that they get nothing in return for the service they perform. They operate under Internal Revenue Service tax law as 501(c)(3)s, charitable organizations. Their mission is to enlist the landowners to gather the easements and to attempt to enforce those easements when the properties
change hands. Currently, there are over 1,700 land trust and land conservancy organizations in the United States supported by an overarching group called the Land Trust Alliance (LTA). These groups are responsible for the preservation of more than 47 million acres of property around the country, according to the LTA’s 2010 National Land Census Report. The largest of these trusts is the Nature Conservancy. While the groups with which Dennis has been affiliated have focused on the preservation of farms and landscapes, the Nature Conservancy has more of a scientific focus, concentrating on the species that live on particular lands and the biomass in general. What fuels Dennis’s desire to continue to try to preserve the lands of this nation? In his words, “I do what I do because promises are promises…but they can be retracted. My business has always been to get beyond the promise, to make it perpetual.” It’s one thing for a farmer to promise to keep the farm in the family, but in too many instances skyrocketing property taxes and deeppocketed land developers shatter the promise. Suddenly a large farm is now a housing development. With Dennis’s
Dennis alludes to the fact that if it weren’t for Millbrook School, and more specifically Frank Trevor, whom he calls “the most charismatic man I ever met,” he wouldn’t be working in this field. He continues his involvement with the Norfolk Land Trust. He serves on the national committee of the LTA pursuing more effective methods for dealing with the federal and state governments. He is on the advisory board of the Litchfield Hills Greenprint Collaborative, whose focus is on creating a strategic regional partnership of land trusts to protect air and water, farms, natural habitats, and the beauty of rural communities in the northwest Connecticut area. His determination ensures that there will be wide open spaces for future generations to enjoy!
Farnie Collins ’53 While Farnie Collins has not dedicated his professional career to land conservation, he grew up valuing the open space and the great natural habitats in Millbrook. As the population in this rural area started to increase, the pressure to develop some of this land increased, too. While acknowledging that development could not be halted, Farnie and other local landowners have believed in the importance preserving the natural appeal of the Millbrook landscape. Out of this mindset, the Dutchess Land Conservancy was born. Their mission: to encourage sound, well-planned growth balanced with the conservation of our important natural
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resources and working landscapes to ensure healthy and vibrant communities for the benefit of all generations. It was 1985, and Chauncey Stillman, a neighbor to the north of Millbrook School, became aware of the fact that there were two farms, Van Benschoten Farm and Sheldon Farm, immediately to the north of school property on Bangall Amenia Road, upon which a developer had options to build significant housing. This alarming news motivated Chauncey, Farnie, and others to seek a solution in land conservancy by creating an organization that would seek strategies for maintaining the land use for agriculture and equine activities. The group approached George Weymouth, chairman of the very successful Brandywine Conservancy in Chadd’s Ford, Pennsylvania, for advice and then started the legal work to create the Dutchess Land Conservancy (DLC).
• Dennis and Farnie today in Millbrook.
as North Dutchess Properties, whose mission was to acquire properties in order to place DLC easements on them. These properties were resold with the easements attached and thus the quality of the land was maintained. A significant number of these pieces of land were located along Bangall-Amenia Road directly behind the school’s campus. These endeavors proved to
be successful, and the Dutchess Land Conservancy has been a key factor in maintaining and preserving many pieces of land in this area since 1990. Thanks to Farnie Collins and other committed members of the Conservancy, there are now in excess of 30,000 acres in this part of Dutchess County that are protected under a variety of easements into perpetuity.
Dr. Oakleigh Thorne II ’47
orchestra to editing The Silo to chairing bird banding and heading the zoo. In the classroom Frank Trevor supported Oak’s interest in the natural world and brought textbook lessons to life during science classes at Millbrook, when he would take his students into the field or bring the natural world right into the classroom.
This same group of individuals created a parallel organization, known
An Environmental Educator, Conservationist, and Bird Bander Extraordinaire Dr. Oakleigh Thorne, II spent his childhood in a house surrounded by 80 acres of nature. He would spend his days freely exploring the woods, streams, and lake on the property, searching for bird nests, catching turtles, and chasing fireflies. He was learning that to respect our Earth, children must have an early
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awareness of the natural world. It is this lesson that has fueled his life’s work and the legacy of Thorne Nature Experience, which was originally founded as the Thorne Ecological Institute in 1954. When he was a young student at Millbrook, Oak was involved in a number of activities – from playing drums in the
Following his graduation from Millbrook, Oak went on to Yale University, where he earned his degree in biology in 1951. While earning his masters degree in conservation at Yale (which was conferred in 1953), Oak met professor Paul B. Sears who mentored Oak through a project to save the Sunken Forest on Fire Island. Oak wrote the first grant to pass through a tiny,
newly-formed organization that had just received its non-profit status, The Nature Conservancy. He received the grant, and went on to save the Sunken Forest, which is now part of the Fire Island National Seashore. With this success, Oak learned that he could make a real difference with his life and that one’s actions can save land and change the world. In 1954, Oak founded Thorne Ecological Institute, now known as Thorne Nature Experience, when he was a graduate student in biology at the University of Colorado. The organization primarily educated business, government, and professional leaders about the principles of ecology and how they relate to economics, helping them to solve challenging environmental problems. To aid in this effort, Thorne held the Seminars on Environmental Arts and Sciences (SEAS) in Aspen from 19671984. It was through SEAS that Thorne led the nation’s first Environmental Impact Study (EIS) to determine how to develop a mine on public land near Berthoud Pass with as little impact as possible – something now widely regulated by the Federal government through the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). During the 1960’s and 70’s Thorne also played a leading role in the creation of many respected environmental organizations we know today, such as The Colorado Field Office of The Nature Conservancy, the Aspen Center for Environmental Studies (ACES), The Keystone Science Center, the Audubon Society of Greater Denver, the Colorado Open Space Coordination Council, Balarat and Calwood Outdoor Education Centers, and the Colorado Environmental Coalition. He also founded Thorne Films, an educational film company that produced more than 800 titles over two decades. He accomplished these feats in an era
• Oak, very recently, with a male Yellow-headed Blackbird.
when there was very little concern for the environment, and the word “ecology” had to be explained to most people. It was 1957 when Thorne held its first summer camps for youth. Dr. Thorne has been and remains a leader in connecting kids to nature and has streamlined his programming to focus on what has always been a core competence, environmental education for Boulder and Denver metro area youth. The success of Thorne’s natural science programming has led to the development of Project BEAR (Building Environmental Awareness and Respect), and permanent teaching facilities at Sombrero Marsh in Boulder and Waterton Canyon in Littleton. Through summer camps and field trips at these facilities and in-school programs, Thorne connects more than 7,000 youth to nature each year. He continues to teach “Birds and Bird Banding” in a club for children ages 11 to 15, meeting twice a month from January though May. Each year Oak and his students band more than 1,000 birds as part of ongoing scientific research conducted by the USGS North American Bird Banding Laboratory.
Today, in addition to his work at Thorne, Oak serves on the External Board of the Yale Institute for Biospheric Studies and is on the Leadership Council for the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies. He is also on the Advisory Board for the American Music Research Center, as well as the Science and Technology Committee for the Conference on World Affairs, both at the University of Colorado. When Oak created Thorne Ecological Institute more than five decades ago, he knew then, as we do now, that it is important to reach people when they are young, it is essential to provide a means for them to connect to nature, and that we must inspire them to make a difference in our world. Through the Thorne Nature Experience, Oak continues to embody the principles upon which Millbrook was founded: respect, integrity, service to others, environmental stewardship, and respect.
Written in collaboration by the Thorne Nature Experience and Robert Anthony ’65
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Green, Gray and Blue, Through and Through
In Their Own Words Students and alumni share their thoughts on stewardship of the natural world & how “community” is the fabric of their lives Laurel Stine, Class of 2014 Leading by Doing Perhaps it all started when I decided that dressing up as a bunny or a dinosaur was the closest I could ever get to actually becoming a real animal. Onlookers saw it as fantasy play-acting, but this act was real to me. Looking back now, most of the movies, books and other forms of media that I enjoyed as a child were infused with the ideas of loving and protecting nature. Everything I watched or read involved animals, and if there were no animals, then it wouldn’t catch my attention. This childhood experience was the beginning of the evolution of my environmental activism, which I proudly share today. Environmental stewardship, beyond the notion of caring for the creatures of this world, first became top of mind for me in the sixth grade when I watched the then newly released The Inconvenient Truth with my parents. This moving documentary by Al Gore explained global warming and the effect it will have on the future of our planet. Almost brought to tears, I was scared and felt terribly alone. The feeling of loneliness came from the fact that the rest of my classmates, and even some of my teachers, were unaware of the devastation we were causing. In hopes of enlightening those around me, I bought the book, marked it up, and brought it to school to read aloud to my friends. Although my request for
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a mandatory all-school viewing of The Inconvenient Truth was denied, I did mange to reach out to a group of kids who would help me raise awareness and promote environmental stewardship in a way that would make the entire school take notice. In the spring of my sixth grade year, I originated an ecologically forward fundraiser with my friends; we called it Envirotrees. Our goal was to raise money to purchase trees for a vacant plot of grass that was located right behind our school. Once we received approval from the principal, we started to plan to raise enough money to buy at least two trees.
Knowing that incentives would work well to inspire the students, we created a competition between classes to see which class could raise the most money in one week; the winner would be the holder of a giant stuffed duck for the week. This project was an enormous success, and the school was able to raise over $900. Thanks to the kindness and generosity of the local nursery, we were able to purchase seven trees with our funds! The Envirotrees fundraiser taught me that passion and hard work can go a long way towards getting others interested in making a difference. This foundation
propelled me forward to continue to engage in my avocation of environmental stewardship, and when it came to choosing a boarding school, I knew Millbrook would be a great fit. When I first arrived as a IIIrd former, I was truly amazed by the school’s effort to reduce its impact on the environment. Uncertain where I should jump in and overwhelmed by all of the new experiences, I thought it would be a good idea to start with one activity and move from there. My community service, thankfully, was the zoo, and my first animal was the fox. It was just my luck to have entrusted to me my favorite animal right at the start. The rest of the year I spent familiarizing myself with the zoo and its animals, while making sure that my roommates didn’t throw away anything that could be recycled. During my IVth form year I decided to take advantage of other opportunities on campus that involved environmental stewardship. The options included: continuing to work at the zoo and applying to be a curator, SCAPE (students concerned about planet earth), and the Environmental Council. Leading into this year, my Vth form year, I decided to join SCAPE, and I applied and was accepted to be a zoo curator. Currently, I am also involved in the Carbon Neutral Committee and recycling as well, activities I didn’t actually sign up for but became associated with through happenstance. I have this thing about picking through trashcans. Whenever I pass one, I often take a glance inside to see if there are any misplaced water bottles. I have also started making notes about where on campus recycling bins need to be more available. For example, I suggested that additional recycling bins needed to be added in the student post office. Every night when students opened their packages or mail, they were
throwing away the letters or boxes in the trash rather than recycling them. Even though there was a paper recycling bin in the post office, its capacity was way too small. The trash can next to it, however, was gigantic. I took my concern to SCAPE and started working very closely with Mrs. Meigs, the head of SCAPE, to see what could be done. She directed me to Mrs. Clizbe, the head of recycling, who really helped communicate the issue to the recycling community service and then to maintenance to try and make the fix. Now every time I walk in the post office and see the full large paper recycling bin, I can’t help but smile, even if no else seems to notice. I’ve taken on that sort of project on many other spots on campus, too, like putting a bottle recycling bin in the squash center. If it was not for the support I received from Mrs. Meigs or Mrs. Clizbe, however, my ideas might not have been translated into action, and I would have continued with the frustration of digging recyclables out of the trash, an extra step that not many others bother to take.
already in place. Science is another passion of mine, and I hope to be able to combine the two to make a beneficial difference in the natural world. This is not unexpected, I suppose. What else would others expect from the kid who digs through trash to find water bottles and spends her own money to purchase a composter for her family? This is what I am comfortable doing in a world that seems to forget sometimes that the most beautiful feelings come from giving a hand to something that doesn’t even have one to reach out.
Elizabeth Celaya, Class of 1998 An Alumna Committed to the Responsible Restoration of Our Urban Fabric Often, when people hear the words “sustainability” or “green,” they think of things like water quality, air pollution, and energy consumption. When I think
As for my future, it’s impossible to know exactly what adventures lie ahead, but I will always continue to take extra steps for our planet.
If I had my way, everyone would reach into a garbage can once a day to pick out a bottle or a piece of paper. We can compensate for carelessness, and we can wash our hands. In college I hope to continue pursuing my passion for environmental stewardship or establish programs where they are not
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Green, Gray and Blue, Through and Through
In Their Own Words of sustainability and green, I think of buildings, streets, and congested urban environments. For the past ten years, I have worked for Hudson River Housing, a nonprofit community development organization based in Poughkeepsie, New York. Our work is wide and varied—from operating homeless shelters to preparing first time homebuyers to managing affordable rental units for special needs populations. We also engage in neighborhood revitalization and community planning, and that is the aspect of our work that most engages me—diving into how a community is built, how it grows and shrinks, what effect history has had on its landscape, and most importantly, how we steward the intangible quality that makes a place, so that can last into the future. Millbrook taught me a lot about understanding a place. When I think back on my time there, two experiences stand out vividly. One is Mr. Hardy’s Aesthetics class. I can remember both the luxury of filling a journal with creative thoughts and the risk and intensity of putting oneself onto a blank page. From that time on, I have always carried with me a notebook of some kind or another, filling it with ideas and sketches and plans. The second memory is of sitting on the chapel steps, reading aloud to my classmates an essay written for Ms. Havard’s English class. This particular essay was an exercise in creative nonfiction, and mine was a recounting of a trip to the Southwest, my imaginings of all the people who had traveled before me to that place, and how and why they got there. It’s only in retrospect that I see the connection between these experiences at Millbrook and my long-held love of architecture, maps, and the history of obscure places. It is assumed that people make a place what it is, but I love what buildings can tell me about the people of a place. We’ve all heard the
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expression “if walls could talk.” They can talk, and they have a lot to say. We have a responsibility to preserve the history that is contained in the physical infrastructure of our communities and, in the process, contribute to making our communities more sustainable places. In an urban context one of the highest forms of sustainability is repurposing of structures. Recycling existing buildings not only prevents a huge source of pollution that comes of demolition and new construction, but it also prevents a loss within our urban fabric. In the case of Hudson River Housing, we are taking the prevention of the loss of our urban fabric quite literally, with the adaptive reuse of the Poughkeepsie Underwear Factory, a National Historic Register building that sits adjacent to the city’s once bustling, long struggling, Main Street. This three-story brick mill building was constructed in 1874 and became the Poughkeepsie Underwear Company in 1902. In its heyday it employed 175 people, producing over 60,000 garments annually, which were sold around the world and even won top prize at the Galveston Cotton Carnival and Exposition in 1910. Having long been dormant, Hudson River Housing envisions a new use for the building as a community hub in the heart of downtown Poughkeepsie. The building will become a center of desirable, mixed-income housing, and a source of learning, capacity building, and living wage jobs, created out of the remains of vacant, blighted buildings and land. The repurposed factory will fuse housing, job production, and a strengthening of the existing community infrastructure to respond to the growing need to preserve and better utilize our downtowns. It will bring people and enterprise back to this neighborhood, create a beacon in the community that will enhance civic pride, engage residents in community
transformation, and catalyze economic development in the neighborhood and in the City of Poughkeepsie. The restoration of the Poughkeepsie Underwear Factory is part of a larger, three-block, neighborhood-scale redevelopment project that also includes new infill construction of housing on vacant lots and the rehabilitation of rental and for-sale foreclosed properties. Another vacant lot will be repurposed as public green space, modeled on historic references to the impeccable landscaping of the Poughkeepsie Underwear Factory in its heyday. Throughout the neighborhood, community connections with the adjacent Fall Kill Creek, an urban waterway that has become polluted and disused, will be enhanced by creating active, vibrant spaces along its length and installing green infrastructure, such as permeable paving and rain gardens, to steward the creek. The new families that come to live in the neighborhood, along with existing residents and the general public, will be able to take full advantage of a restored commercial space on the first floor of the Poughkeepsie Underwear Factory, which is part of a proposed partnership with the Poughkeepsie Farm Project to develop a community kitchen, café, and market space. Throughout the project green building and energy-efficient systems will be used. All facilities will be built and operate according to Enterprise Green Communities and NeighborWorks America Green Organization Designation standards. When complete, the project will be a truly outstanding showcase of neighborhood partnership and innovation that will have a catalytic effect on Poughkeepsie’s downtown. Research shows us that cities are the wave of the future. The urban population is expected to increase exponentially in coming decades, and people are seeking a
return to community ties and to walkable, diverse places. Preserving and better using our downtowns is part of the yin and yang of life anywhere, but especially in the Hudson Valley. Vibrant downtowns mean that open spaces can be preserved, rather than turned into strip malls. Affordable, quality housing in town centers means we can avoid subdividing farms to create acres of single-family homes. Linking shopping, education, recreation, housing, and jobs in compact areas means less driving, better health for residents, and stronger community ties. When I was at Millbrook, I never imagined I’d be working on a project like this. A Dutchess County resident and a day student, the thought of staying right here and working in places I thought I knew, didn’t enter my mind—until I realized I didn’t really know these places at all. It is sometimes scary to think that choices I make will leave a permanent mark on a place. A footnote in the history of this neighborhood, however brief, will exist because of a vision that I had, and that I gave voice to. But Mr. Hardy’s Aesthetics class taught me the value of introspection and reflection, and Ms. Havard’s English class taught me the value of sharing my thoughts with others.
our communities, neighborhoods, and buildings, rather than tear them down.
Edward (Ted) N. Sailer, CHMM, LEP, Class of 1975 The Evolution of a Green Career It was the fall of 1971 when I was introduced to Millbrook School. The first and second annual Earth Day celebrations had come and gone. I had spent a good part of a previous summer studying marine biology on a boat off of Sandy Hook, New Jersey and had seen what we were doing to our environment. I was fascinated by the natural environment and the newly emerging environmental movement itself. When I learned about all that Millbrook had to offer, I knew where I wanted to go to prep school. It was unquestionably Millbrook. After all, what other school could offer a zoo, an observatory, bird banding, an outstanding science curriculum, hundreds and hundreds of acres of unspoiled countryside, and such a dedicated faculty? Once at Millbrook the following fall, I began to realize how much more it had to offer.
The lessons learned from a solid education, community service, and the concept of Non Sibi Sed Cunctis have all contributed to my success in an almost 35-year career in the environmental field. By the time I graduated from Millbrook, I knew that the environmental field was for me and declared my major as Environmental Science from my first day at college. My career started at the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection as an environmental engineer regulating the hundreds of landfills that were then operating in the state. The agency was in its infancy, and there were serious environmental issues to be dealt with. Toxic chemicals were leaching from landfills into our groundwater and rivers, New York City’s sewage sludge was being illegally dumped in Raritan Bay,
Millbrook taught me the curiosity to explore, the courage to commit, and the confidence to believe that I have something to offer to the world. As I work towards turning a vision into reality, I hope that I am creating something meaningful and important, something that will inspire others to learn about and save
• Millbrook classmates and colleagues, from left to right: Jim Sailer ‘76, Stuart (Clem) Clement ‘75, and Ted Sailer ‘75.
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In Their Own Words from marinas to chemical plants to Fortune 100 manufacturing facilities through the northeast.
• Ted (middle) was honored with the Green Circle Award from the Connecticut Dept. of Environmental Protection.
and medical waste was washing up on the beaches; the list was endless. For six years I spent much of my time in court, as an expert witness, closing landfills and chemical dumps that were a serious threat to the environment and human health. Many of those sites were eventually placed on the EPA’s Superfund List and are still being cleaned up today. I moved on to private industry and became the manager of environmental affairs for several commercial hazardous waste treatment facilities for a few years before helping to start an environmental consulting firm with my brother, Jim ’76 and Stuart (Clem) Clement ’75. Yes, both Jim and Clem had also chosen environmental careers after graduating from Millbrook! In 1990, I started my own environmental consulting firm, Sailer Environmental, Inc., and Clem is working with me today. At SEI, we conduct environmental assessments and investigations of real property and design and oversee the remediation of pollutants in soil and groundwater for commercial and industrial clients. We also prepare permit applications and environmental compliance plans for industries ranging
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Helping small and medium size industrial clients get into compliance and stay in compliance is where my true interest lies today. All too often, I have watched well-meaning companies receive significant fines for failing to keep their compliance systems up to date. In many cases, the facility’s personnel are simply overwhelmed trying to keep up with the paperwork needed to document their environmental compliance while trying to run their business. Last year, I and several partners, with experience in computer programming and environmental law, started a new company, ProEnvironmentWare, Inc., to develop an affordable web-based environmental compliance system for small and mediumsized industrial facilities. The result is ProComplianceWare, which effectively keeps companies in compliance using cloud-based technology at price that they can afford. Hopefully, both industry and the environment will benefit from our efforts.
• In the 1908s, working with a zooie
Throughout the years it has been rewarding to clean up contaminated properties and to help industry understand and comply with ever evolving environmental regulations. But what has been most rewarding is watching the enormous positive change in society’s attitude toward our environment since the environmental movement began in earnest in 1970. The environmental field has been, and will continue to be, the right career for me.
Jonathan Meigs, Class of 1965 A Life Entwined with the Trevor Zoo: Forty-one Years of Unpredictable Adventures There are two fundamental questions for those of us who work in zoos. Is it appropriate to keep animals in captivity in zoos? And, What can we learn from animals in zoos that we can’t learn in some other way? When I came to work at the Trevor Zoo in 1972, I had not articulated those questions, but they were there. In the beginning, however, I was trying to answer the question, Did I think
the students cared enough about the zoo to make it worth keeping it going? All three questions turn out to be closely related. Without really understanding the first two, I plunged into figuring out the answer to the third and realized immediately that there was an energy amongst the students at the zoo that was hard to find elsewhere on campus. At least part of that energy was generated by the fact that the zoo offered hands-on learning outside the classroom. I became hooked because the students were hooked. By now I have spent over forty years at the Trevor Zoo, and I have grappled with the first two questions. Consider what we can learn from animals in zoos. The answer lies in the magic of the live animal, and all of us in zoos are under its spell. Frank Trevor was certainly under that spell, and it was his greatest joy to share that magic with others. Everyone who knew Frank remembers him with a cheetah on a leash, a red-tailed hawk on his arm, or some lesserknown beast peeking out of his coat pocket. Although I pretend not to have favorites amongst our animals, I certainly have been mesmerized by animals like Storko, the Maguari stork, Avis, the red-tailed hawk, Mama Lemur, our first female black-andwhite ruffed lemur, and Horatio, our first river otter. And it is these very personal relationships with non-human species that draw in our students. Part of the magic is produced when one recognizes that animals are remarkable creatures with senses and perceptions that we can barely imagine. Another part comes from recognizing that animals are unpredictable and can be humbling. Working with animals is a delicate dance that may go to pieces in an instant. I’ve come to recognize that the element of surprise is essential to the way I organize my life and the way I want to teach. I want things to be different and unpredictable,
an adventure. That’s what keeps me going. How is it going to turn out? Will it work? Zoos turn out to be the perfect place to work for those of us who enjoy living life with less predictable outcomes. I want all of our students to appreciate this characteristic of zoos. We are not offering a traditional science course with cookbook labs. Every time we set up a new exhibit, we are guessing at the outcome. Over time, our guessing gets more educated, but the outcome is still uncertain. Years ago, we created a joint exhibit with the emus and wallabies, and we anticipated compatibility problems. We had to provide a safe space for the wallabies. What we didn’t expect was that, a year later, our big birds with little brains would be able to pick out a new wallaby and begin the chase all over again. We’ve kept otters in the same space for thirtyfive years. This year, we brought in a new male, and he became the first otter to scale the fence between the small and large enclosure. We’ve kept foxes in the same enclosure for twenty years. A tree went down, smashed the fence, and the foxes got out. We caught the foxes and fixed the fence, at which point the foxes proceeded to climb over the fence that had previously always contained them.
Surprises keep the adrenalin flowing. Puzzles keep the mind working. Getting inside the animal mind. That’s the challenge. I recently addressed the school community and described my epiphany regarding understanding animals. One summer, when I was in college, I worked collecting marine invertebrates. I was paired up with Paul, a big bear of a man who could find just about anything. One of
• 1984, with Storko
our quarry was Arenicola cristata, a large marine lugworm. Paul was a champion at finding this fast digging worm, and every time he caught one, he said the same thing, “If you are going to catch an Arenicola, you have to think like an Arenicola.” Most people would not take it as a compliment to be told that they think like a worm. But for me, in this simple exercise of digging marine worms on a sand flat, I had been handed an essential piece of wisdom. Whether you are talking about animals or people, put yourself in the other being’s shoes. It is your only hope for understanding them. This isn’t just about empathy. It is about getting inside other beings and figuring out what makes them tick. This business of “thinking like an Arenicola” is critical when it comes to catching animals. Earlier this year, one of our students managed to allow a fox to escape during feeding time. We quickly
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In Their Own Words sounded the emergency bell and created human walls to try to corral the animal into a corner where we could catch him. My instructions were simple. Stay equidistant from each other because he will notice even a slightly larger gap. If the fox tries to get by you, block it with your body. Two weeks later, we needed to lock up the red wolves in their house, and we needed another human wall. This time, my final instruction was different. If the wolf tries to get by you, let it go. It’s a wolf. With everyone “thinking like an Arenicola,” we succeeded in corralling both the fox and the wolves. But there was another interesting takeaway message. With each event our students had to stay past the end of the community service period and then arrive late for their next class. The message? With regard to animals, one rarely gets to dictate the schedule. What are some other examples of opportunities that we offer? We recently enlisted a small third former to crawl into a wolf burrow with a safety line attached to his leg and pull out six tiny wolf pups so that the veterinarian could inspect them. We’ve had students in a dance class study the movements of the white-naped cranes for a dance based on animal movements. And there is a senior studying the healing process of a broken leg bone in a wolf pup and presenting his findings in the CES (Culminating Experience for Seniors) festival in May. What we teach at the zoo is real. We want our students to be in tune with the environment, that is, the natural world. I worry about them all lost in their screens—computers, cell phones, iPads, ThinkPads. The list is long. Perhaps you are aware of a piece going around the internet which shows a series of pictures of people staring at screens while theoretically doing things together. They are in pairs or groups, at restaurants, museums, beaches, etc., but all are
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• 1990, with a black and white ruffed lemur
staring at their individual screens. At the end of the picture series is the following quotation from Albert Einstein. “I fear the day when the technology overlaps with our humanity. The world will only have a generation of idiots.” We offer the zoo as a critically important alternative. But the Trevor Zoo is not, and never has been, just a hands-on opportunity for high school students to work with animals. Frank Trevor was emphasizing the importance of the natural world as soon as he arrived at Millbrook, and the Trevor Zoo today has continued in and expanded on
that tradition. When the zoo earned AZA accreditation again in 2011, the visiting team made this comment, “This organization is probably one of the most effective in AZA at communicating and promoting the message of conservation to the next generation.” We are proud of that praise. We have worked hard through both our actions and our graphics to promote green practices that will help protect a planet in peril. We begin our conservation message right at the new green zoo parking lot. Built on the site of the old hockey rink, it is planted with trees, shrubs, and no-mow
grass and has permeable pavers (Drivable Grass) pitched to a bio-swale. The result is that water leaving the parking lot (and entering the nearby stream) has been biologically filtered. The parking lot is connected by a unique footbridge (designed by Larry Neufeld ’67) to a path (made out of another permeable material called Flexi-Pave) that winds up through the woods by the stream past the Mill to the zoo. The end result is that, by the time our visitors enter the zoo, they have already had a short walk in a natural environment and have been introduced to the concept of low impact construction and landscaping. And all of this happens in a space that had essentially been lost but has now been reclaimed. We also now begin our work with students right at the beginning—the beginning of their time at Millbrook. A year ago, we began requiring all IIIrd formers to spend a third of the year working at the zoo. This programmatic change was not without its risks. The zoo staff initiated the idea, but even we were apprehensive about having to train new groups of students in the winter and again in the spring. And we worried that the whole plan might backfire; maybe we would turn off the entire 3rd form. But that didn’t happen. We opened this year with the largest group of students at the zoo in history. My initial thought was that we were simply helping to accommodate a larger student body. It turns out that of the 55 students on the zoo community service roster, 18 were IVth formers, most of whom were returning students. It seems that we succeeded in tapping kids who, without the mandatory exposure, would never have considered the zoo. And that, of course, was our goal. So what about my last unanswered question? Is it appropriate to keep animals in captivity in zoos? I have always said that animals in zoos must be thought of as ambassadors for their wild counterparts.
It is the wild animal that we are obliged to protect through the education of our students and our zoo visitors. And for those animals that we confine in captivity, we must do everything in our power to provide them with a healthy, enriched and stimulating environment. When our husbandry falls short, we not only short-change our charges, but we short-change ourselves. The modern zoo is a critical educational institution in a world where people are increasingly ignorant of the natural world. We must understand our planet and all of its inhabitants if we are going to successfully manage our future. Zoos can help bring us to that understanding.
Dr. Thomas Lovejoy, Class of 1959 Becoming Responsible Citizens Much like any 13 year-old, when I visited Millbrook I hadn’t the slightest clue what I might like to become. I was, however, totally taken by the zoo and announced that Millbrook was where I wanted to go. Luckily, I was admitted. I certainly had no idea of either becoming a scientist or of being involved in environmental stewardship. In fact, when I learned biology was required and had to be taken the first or second year, I actually said I would take it the first year and get it over with.
• Tom with Caesar the Cheetah in 1957
Within weeks Frank Trevor had worked his spell. His course was essentially a biodiversity course, although the phrase did not exist back then. We started with blue green algae in the fall and worked through the Plant and Animal Kingdoms to mammals in the spring, with all other parts of biology hung on along the way. So just shy of my 15th birthday I understood the outline of life on Earth, and basically I have never been able to get enough ever since. Seeing a species new to me is always a thrill. At the zoo we all learned the ultimate lesson in responsibility: namely that the animal(s) we cared for were completely dependent on our doing our job. That is an important key benefit (but hardly the only one) of the new requirement that every student spend time at the zoo.
• With Frank Trevor and the zoo squad in 1956. Tom is front row, 5th from the right.
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In Their Own Words some time on conservation. So before I even knew it, I was headed for the career I have since pursued. That the zoo and environmental stewardship survived Frank Trevor’s departure seems pretty remarkable in one sense. But maybe there were just too many alumni like myself who couldn’t imagine Millbrook without them. So the question of their future at the school never arose. In all the long years I served on the board of trustees, there was never a whisper of such a suggestion. And when my classmate, Don Abbott, became headmaster, they just became bedrock.
• With ring-tailed lemurs in the 1980s
The latter 1950s were a time when endangered species were few. We knew, of course, what had happened to the American bison herds and to the Passenger Pigeon. Frank Trevor’s biology course featured birds of prey during the week we studied birds, and we had to learn their food habits as well as how to identify them, but also understood how they were subject to irrational persecution. Far from stodgy book learning, Frank’s teaching also got us outdoors frequently interacting with nature. We learned the value of conservation and the value of environmental stewardship in that more classic sense. Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring was serialized in the New Yorker and published in 1962, an early indication that environment was more than just traditional conservation. By then I was on my way to becoming a scientist, and all my mentors reinforced the message. Dillon Ripley, the Director of the Peabody Museum of Natural History, said any biologist with a conscience should spend
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Looking at all of that today, especially as someone who knows the environmental challenges facing the world in spades, it is indeed hard to imagine a proper education without environmental stewardship. During my time we all had to take a course in civics, and while there were few if any who reveled in the subject, it certainly has been valuable to us as engaged citizens.
The point is not to turn everyone into scientists or environmental practitioners of various sorts, but rather to enable us all to be responsible citizens because there is probably no walk of life that doesn’t have implications for the environment. Just about my favorite example is the story of the New York City watershed, famous for the quality of its water to the point it would win in blind tastings against specialty waters like Evian. Some 30 years later the watershed had deteriorated to the point that the Environmental
• Looking out over the clear cut jungle in Brazil
Protection Agency was going to require the city to build an eight billion dollar water treatment plant. Eventually a different option was pursued that resulted in restoration of the watershed ecosystem: a permanent fix at 10% the cost. That is a classic story of the value of ecosystem services, but the point here is that the advocate for the solution was Constantine Sidamon-Eristoff ’48, who pursued a career in the law and public office but had a sense of the environment going back to his Millbrook education. I had known the story of the watershed, but given Connie’s modesty, I only discovered he was responsible for fixing the watershed problem when I read his obituary. When I tell that story (as most recently as last week) I say we both had the same biology teacher (Frank Trevor, of course), but that is a discredit both to Frank and Ed Pulling’s understanding of the importance of the zoo at Millbrook and to the tradition of environmental stewardship at the school, which both transcends those individuals and is stronger than ever today. And it fails to recognize the role that Jono Meigs, in particular (but others as well), played in institutionalizing the zoo and integrating it more fully into the classroom. “Across the pond” it may be, but it is integral to the enlightened citizenry a Millbrook education provides.
Stay Connected Visit our website for daily news about academic programs, athletic competitions, arts events and gallery openings, and so much more. The website is also rich with video showcasing current students – explore and learn more about what’s happening at Millbrook today.
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Our website provides direct links to all of our social channels: www.millbrook.org/getsocial.
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Millbrook Alumni
Gath e r in g s Boston Los Angeles Nantucket New York City Portland San Francisco Washington, D.C.
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Alumni Winter Games
Alumni returned for some friendly competition on the ice during this year’s Winter Weekend.
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Los Angeles 1. M ax Busselle ’88, host Carrie Treadwell ’90, and Joanna Fowler Hutchinson ’91
Boston
David Everts ’75 with Julie Rosenberg ’91
2. H eadmaster Drew Casertano with Justin McDermott ’01 and Michelle Silva 3. M olly Bergen ’02, Jack Choate ’97, Caitlin Coble, and Alice Bergen ’05 3
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Nantucket 1. Allie Cavanaugh ’08, Nancy Cavanaugh P ’08, ’04, ’03, Kealin Maloney ’08 2. Ali Lyons and Heather Marshall Lyons ’74 3. Director of Parent Programs Barbara Gatski with Kealin Maloney ’08
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Astrid Cybele Mollier ’84 came to campus in September to speak to III formers about her film, How I Became an Elephant.
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1. Mimi Anthony ’08, John Oliphant ’01, and Ceci Weaver ’08 2. Patrick Mahon ’99, Gordon Pennoyer ’99, and Ross Jagar ’00 3. John Nugent P ’13, Jon Downs ’98, and Matt Marsallo ’98 4. Sheena Jones ’03 and friend, Eliza Cantlay ’03, and Cam Hardy P ’13, ’08, ’92
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1. Olivia Audia ’07 and friend 2. Scott Talley ’86 and Toms Royal ’86 3. Garrett Meigs ’00 and Trevor McWilliams ’01 3
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San Francisco 1. Robert Anthony ’65, Lauren Drever ’98, and Galen Drever ’01
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2. Charlie Gulick ’01, Drew Casertano, Noah Drever ’02, and Maxwell Drever P ’05, ’02, ’01, ’98 3. Claire Manny ’10, Elizabeth Wilmerding, and Robert Anthony ’65
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Washington, D.c.
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1. B en Klein ’09, Andrew Hughes ’10, Stephen O’Connor ’12, Robert Anthony ’65, Gavin Bennett ’06, Peter Smith ’06 2. A ndrew Hughes ’10 and Stephen O’Connor ’12 3. J ohn Squire P ’95 with Robert Anthony ’65 4. B en Wentworth ’93 5. J im Cannon ’71, Lucy Cannon, and Simon Sidamon-Eristoff ’76 6. P eter Smith ’06, Dana Klein ’07, Leland Smith ’03, Gordon Pennoyer ’99, Carly McWilliams ’05, Cindy McWilliams
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Class Notes Class of ’40 James Buckley ’40 - July 23, 2012 Congressman Bob Turner’s bill, To Name The Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge Visitor Center In Honor of Senator James L. Buckley, was passed in the U.S. House of Representatives. Senator Buckley played a central role in the creation of the Gateway National Recreation Area, a more than 26,000-acre area spanning three boroughs and stretching all the way to Sandy Hook, New Jersey, which houses the Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge and its visitor center that will be named in his honor. Along with fellow New York Senator Jacob Javits, Senator Buckley had the vision to create a national wildlife refuge in an urban area accessible to the millions of people in New York City as well as the millions of other residents of the New York metropolitan area. Now, 40 years later, that vision has turned into the gold standard for urban park space with more than eight million annual visitors. More than 325 species of birds stop over at Gateway as part of the Atlantic flyaway, which stretches from the north of Canada to the Caribbean. With the increasing development of urban space, these refuges provide a safe haven for these birds along their migratory path. On top of that, Gateway offers unique pieces of history for its visitors ranging from the historic aircraft at Hangar B at Floyd Bennett Field to America’s oldest lighthouse established in 1767 in Sandy Hook, New Jersey.
year greeting he received from classmate Ed Lawrence and his wife, Milli, who are living in Greenwich, New York. As for Dave, he and his wife, Meredith, celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary in June 2012, and they are grateful for all the peaks and valleys they have encountered along the way. They have been living in a congenial continuing care retirement community since 2008.
Class of ’52 Clay Alexander ’52 – Our apologies to Dr. Clay Alexander, who was inadvertently left off of the list of veterans in the last issue of “Millbrook: A Celebration of Service.” Dr. Clay Alexander ’52 (Captain) served as a doctor in Japan, working on wounded Vietnam soldiers who were airlifted there.
Class of ’56 John Frank ’56 serves as a board member at the Norman Rockwell Museum, working closely with board chair Tom Pulling, son of Millbrook Founding Headmaster Edward Pulling. It was through John’s efforts that the wonderful exhibit The Art of Persuasion was brought to the Millbrook’s Warner Gallery in September of 2012. The exhibit featured posters that were designed between 1917 and 1919 and were influenced by World War I. Martin V. B. Morris ’56 is still pulling (by hand) lobster and crab traps in Biscayne Bay, Miami, Florida. Retirement, however, looms!
Class of ’45 David “Dave” Babbott ’45 has been in touch with a few classmates recently. He passed on the news that Peter Herman is currently residing in Salem, Oregon, and that Peter still feels the awe that he had for Ed Pulling and the apprecation for the faculty who helped him along his way. Dave enjoyed the end-of-
Class of ’58 55th Reunion David Alexander ’58 – Our apologies to David Alexander, who was inadvertently left off of the list of veterans in the last issue of “Millbrook: A Celebration of Service.” David Alexander ’58
served in the Army’s Military Police and the K-9 corp (stationed in Louisiana). Egbert Leigh ’58 - Egbert recalls that not every Millbrook experience was completely agreeable, but he feels that he owes the school a lot. He was able to enter Princeton without any change of workload and became a biologist because of the inspiring biology teacher at Millbrook. His French teacher provided a good grounding in that language and some love of literature, while the math program enabled him to major in mathematics at Princeton (more useful to a career in biology than you might think). He maintains that the beauty of the school’s site and its surroundings was, and remains, beyond the common.
Class of ’59 Anthony Knowles ’59, former Governor of Alaska, received an Honorary Doctor of Laws degree from the University of Alaska, Anchorage. Thomas Lovejoy ’59 shared the sad news that his former wife, Charlotte “Mopsy” Seymour Lovejoy P ’86, passed away on April 2, 2013 at her home in Arlington, Virginia. Tom and Charlotte have three daughters, Elizabeth (Washington D.C.), Katherine Lovejoy Petty ’86 (Annapolis, Maryland), and Anne Jenkins (Arlington, Virginia), and five beloved granddaughters. Mopsy was a graduate of Smith College and subsequently earned a Bachelor of Science in Zoology from George Washington University. With a verve for life and a passion for nature, she was an ardent scuba diver and conservationist, with a particular love of lemurs. Steve Twining ’59 has recently been recognized as one who has gone above and beyond to serve his community and has been chosen as Chair Emeritus of the Hillside Federation. Steve has been a vocal advocate for his community and the surrounding Santa Monica Mountains hillsides for decades, serving for 10 of the last 20 years as president of Roscomare Valley Association,
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Class Notes as vice president, president, and chairman of the Hillside Federation, as president and president emeritus of the Bel-Air/ Beverly Crest Neighborhood Council, and as a valued and knowledgeable member of the Bel-Air/ Beverly Crest Neighborhood Council Planning and Land Use Committee since its inception. Over the years Steve has, and continues to, serve on many other organizations and committees, has testified at countless hearings, written numerous letters, and advocated effectively for the protection of the hillsides. He has been unanimously and deservingly chosen as only the eighth Chair Emeritus in the Hillside Federation’s 60-year history.
Class of ’61 Seth Morton ’61 - After 20 years in corporate finance and banking and another 20 years selling software applications to financial institutions, Seth has settled in at New York Life selling insurance in CT, NY, NJ, MA and NH. He is having great fun in life and work. Paul Solomon ’61 and his wife, Kathy, are proud grandparents once again with the birth of their second grandchild, Noah Gregory Solomon, who was born on April 18th weighing just over 7 lb.
Class of ’63 50th Reunion Fred Davis ’63 and his wife Mary McGowan Davis have been living in Paris since 2006, where he is a member of the Paris Bar. Mary was for 15 years or so a judge on the Supreme Court in New York. Since stepping down, she teaches and trains judges in spots around the world including Afghanistan (a total of 9 months), Iraq, Congo, Rwanda, and a few others. Fred is now a member of the Paris Bar and tries cases there more or less like he did for 30+ years in New York. Their older son, Sam, is a successful composer (a show he composed got a good review in the Times recently), and their younger son, Ben, and daughter, Eliza, are both lawyers in San Diego and Chicago respectively. Fred and Mary are thinking of staying in Paris for another three years or so, and then maybe they will move back to the U.S. Herb Shultz ’63 and his wife, Cynthia Russell, live in Schenectady, NY, and are involved with lots of community not-for-profit organizations. Herb worked in banking and then in the investment management world for many years. They are blessed with good health, two married sons, and two grandchildren.
Class of ’64 Raymond Pfeiffer ’64 and his wife, Yelisa, live May until November on the Punts Islands on the Canadian side of the Thousand Islands in the St. Lawrence River. Raymond retired in 2010, and they now both relish sailing and boating of all kinds, as they are fully engaged by island life and wildlife (including visitors) during the warm months. They are also delighted to announce the birth of their first grandchild, Ivy Lea Pfeiffer, born in Sitka, Alaska, to Raymond’s son, Caven Pfeiffer, and his wife, Camilla Willet-Rabin Pfeiffer. Caven is a shipwright and ship’s carpenter, a fisherman of salmon and halibut, and a master of the classic fishing vessel, “The Sword.” Camilla is a highly versatile and qualified RN and travel nurse. Equally good news to share is the marriage of Raymond’s daughter, Mariah Dawson Pfeiffer, to Andrew Groat, the nephew of Millbrook graduate Steve Groat ’64. They were married on September 30, 2012 at the Grindstone Island United Methodist Church in the Thousand Islands. Wedding guests were taken to and from the island by boat, and the reception was held at The Antique Boat Museum in Clayton, NY. Mariah counsels students at the University of Syracuse, and her husband is an investment counselor.
Class of 1965
Class of 1962 Peter Dunn ’62 was hired by the Information Technology Engineering Corporation (ITEC) as a senior systems engineer supporting Raytheon’s Global Positioning System (GPS) initiatives. As a Captain, USNR (ret.), he supports the NROTC candidate screening process in Denver. As associate staff of The Navigators military ministry, he continues to lead Bible studies at Buckley Air Force Base. He also facilitates the Preparedness-For-Life Workshop, helping people to get ready for tumultuous times ahead. Their daughter had her first child in May of 2012. As of last year, he also had one son in college and one at home!
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Reed Erskine ’65 – During the summer of 2011, Reed and his wife sailed their boat, Cayenne, across the Atlantic to Lisbon via the Azores. During the winter of 2011-12, they lived aboard a boat in Morocco. Summer 2012 found them cruising the Mediterranean, the coast of Spain, and the Balearic Islands. They are currently wintering over in Sardinia and will resume sailing eastbound in the Mediterranean. They hope to keep cruising until the knees or the bank account give out!
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Class Notes Class of ’66 Douglas Emerick ’66 is retiring after a long career in public education in Washington state. After working as a one-room school teacher on remote islands in the San Juans and then as a special education teacher, he spent several years as a central office administrator and principal. More recently, he returned to the classroom to teach English and math to fifth graders. Doug and his wife, Pam, split their time between Bainbridge and Orcas Islands. Peter P. Hazzard ’66 - After 30 years at Lawrence Academy, Peter retired on October 5, 2012. He left the Boston area and moved to the shore of Lake Norman in North Carolina about 15 miles north of Charlotte, where he is still actively working as a professional musician and composer/arranger/conductor and running a small music publishing company. His wife, Licia, is still teaching high school Family and Consumer Science (Home Ec) in nearby Concord, NC. They love the area and are very happy to be away from the New England winters. Four of their seven children are married, and they have seven wonderful grandchildren at this point, ranging in age from 18 to 2 ½. Peter enjoyed seeing Artinian, Delano, and Ray Oneglia at the class’s 45th reunion in June 2011, and
he hopes that more classmates will join in the 50th reunion celebration in 2016. Peter wants others to know that classmate and class agent Chuck Rutter is also down in North Carolina, and they were able to get together with Chuck and his wife, Ginny, not too long ago. If you plan a trip near the Charlotte area, Peter asks that you please get in touch.
Class of ’68 Ted Chapin ’68 was named one of Broadway’s 50 most powerful people in 2013. Ted continues to work on hits like Cinderella on Broadway and The King and I at the Vivian Beaumont and remains head of the Rodgers & Hammerstein Organization. He was elected Chairman of the American Theater Wing in 2008 and served in that position for the maximum allowed four years. He handed over the reins to William Ivey Long in August of 2012 and will remain as Co-Vice Chair at the Wing along with Peter Schneider.
Class of ’69 Dr. Robert “Rob” Bierregaard, Jr. ’69 has been busy tagging ospreys on Fishers Island, a project that was initiated more than
a decade ago by Bob and his colleague, Mark Martell, of the Minnesota Audubon. Since 2000, more than 150 ospreys have been tagged with tiny one-ounce transmitters, carried like a backpack by the ospreys. The transmitters provide data about where the ospreys are foraging around Fishers Island and their long-range migratory route to and from their winter home in South America. Bob has been studying the osprey population since he graduated from Millbrook in 1969. He makes a trip to Fishers Island in late April or early May and briefly traps the osprey in order to attach the transmitter. The data that can be tracked daily via Google Earth downloads provides much useful information to ornithologists and researchers who specialize in protecting and studying this raptor.
Class of ’72 Woody Lynn ’72 and his wife, Hope, celebrated the wedding of their daughter, Margot Reynolds Lynn to Zachary Adam Davis. They were married in September at the Old Whaling Church in Edgartown, Massachusetts. Margot is a marketing manager at Digitas, an advertising agency that is part of the Publicis Groupe, the French advertising and public relations
Class of ’67
Class of ’70
Larry Neufeld ’67 recently worked on a stone bridge commission at Chateau LaCoste near Aix en Provence, France. Chateau LaCoste is a 400-acre vineyard and sculpture park that includes sculpture by Alexander Caler, Andy Goldsworthy, Louise Bourgeois, and Richard Serra and architecture by Tadeo Ando, Frank Gehry, and Jean Nouvel. It was a great handson project for Larry, and he will be working on completing a second double arch bridge in the spring of 2013. For those interested, this is a world class destination and worth a visit for anyone traveling in Provence.
General Eric Crabtree ’70 – A raising of the flag ceremony was held this fall at Millbrook School in recognition of General Crabtree’s retirement from the U.S. Army. His special retirement flag was raised and flown on Pulling Quad before being returned to the Army to be sent to its next destination.
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Class Notes firm. Her husband is an investment banking associate at Credit Suisse, where he advises energy companies on mergers and acquisitions and on raising capital.
Class of ’76 Shelley Townsend Graham ’76 - Shelley’s eldest child, Nicholas Graham, was married in November 2012 to Amy Lachapelle. First Lieutenant Graham is currently stationed in Afghanistan as an air support officer for the U. S. Marines.
Class of ’77 George W. Cutting III ’77 asks his fellow Millbrook alumni to please visit his art gallery in person or via his gallery website: www.crackinthewallgallery.com. He says that life is good in Silt, Colorado, and he enjoyed the opportunity to visit with Cindy McWilliams when she had traveled to Colorado in the fall of 2012.
Class of ’78 Bruce Herdman ’78 has spent 35 years in a variety of technical, commercial, regulatory, lobbying, and leadership roles in domestic
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(Canada), cross-border (Canada-U.S. & U.S.-Canada) and international natural resource sectors (crude oil and Alberta bitumen, natural gas and natural gas liquids, power generation, CO2 mitigation, forestry, agriculture, bio-refining, etc.) Over the years he has worked for TransCanada PipeLines, EarthTech, Ian Murray & Company, and Herdman Energy International. Currently at Enbridge Inc., Bruce is a director of Joint Venture Asset Management & Gas Planning. His responsibilities include oversight of Enbridge’s investments in major natural gas pipelines and natural gas liquids extraction facilities as well as new business development in the natural gas arena.
Class of ’82 Heidi A. Peschel ’82 visited campus in September 2012 and saw former classmate Sabrina Ackerman Bluestone, who is a current Millbrook parent of Harrison ’15 and Liesje ’16. Heidi and her daughter, Andrea, have recently relocated from Solvang, California back to Kent, Connecticut. Heidi is excited to soon open her very own fine art “boutique gallery,” Platform 8, exhibiting a kaleidescope of photographic images of contemporary art within the walls of a quaint and historic
1890’s baggage train car. Heidi looks forward to reconnecting more frequently with Millbrook and the local alumni, now that she is back in the area.
Class of ’84 Frank Neville ’84 is chief of staff at George Mason University and supports the university president in pursuing the university’s strategic objectives. Prior to joining Mason in June 2012, Frank was vice president of Global Communications and Public Affairs at Thunderbird School of Global Management, where he was responsible for the school’s global reputation and rankings while overseeing the school’s advisory boards and managing a diverse global outreach and business development portfolio. Prior to joining Thunderbird in 2004, Frank was a career diplomat with the United States Department of State. During his 15 years in the State Department, he served in Taipei, Chengdu, Guatemala City, and Beijing. At the time of his resignation from the Department of State, he was the Foreign Service’s most decorated officer under 40 years of age. In addition to his service at the State Department, Frank also worked in the Secretary of Defense’s Office of Chinese
Class of ’82
Class of ’86
Andres Viteri ’82 says, “Life is going GREAT.” As of February of 2013, his triplets were 2 years and 3 months old, and the oldest was 4 years and 5 months old. His wife, Carla, is a Super Mom. Andres would like to hear from classmates and Allen Randolph ’83, and wishes everyone a very good year.
Charlie Wheelock ’86 is living in Portland, Oregon and loving life. He and his wife are the owners of Woodblock Chocolate, a bean to bar chocolate manufacturer. “We are chocolate makers, and we are proud to be part of the American craft chocolate revolution.”
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Class Notes Affairs and served on a Pearson Fellowship, first with the City of Nogales, Arizona and then in the Office of the Governor of Arizona, Janet Napolitano.
annual list released in August 2012. The website allows students to assign scores to their professors, much like professors grade them.
Class of ’85
Class of ’87
Paul Simons ’85 was named chief executive officer at Ditto Trade. As of January 2013, the 24-year wealth management executive is leading the premier social investing firm. Paul and his wife, Karen, have a son, Henry, who will be a Millbrook student this coming fall.
Will Richardson ’87 published in September of 2012 his fourth TED Book, Why school? How education must change when learning and information are everywhere.
Class of ’86 Dave Dunn ’86 is living with his wife, Kelly, and their three children (ages 11, 9, and 5) in Fayetteville, NY. Along with his brother, Dave recently developed and released a word game app similar to Words with Friends and Scrabble, but more fun. You can visit www. word-skill.com for information, and if you try it out, you can invite Dave to a game (ddunn@webucator.com). Kevin Raiford ’86 is a business and marketing professor at the College of Southern Nevada. He was the third highestrated professor on ratemyprofessors.com’s
Class of ’90 Carrie Treadwell ’90, pictured here with her best friend since their Millbrook days and sisterin-law, Carrie Treadwell, hosted a Millbrook School alumni reception with Headmaster Drew Casertano, Assistant Head for External Affairs Bob Anthony ’65, and Director of the Annual Fund Cindy McWilliams on February 11, 2013 at her home in Los Angeles, California. There was a great gathering of Millbrook alumni in attendance.
Class of ’91 Chris Kelly ’91 is currently living in Charlottesville, Virginia with his wife and two children. Clare Terni ’95, too, lives in Charlottesville, Virginia, where she is completing her PhD at the University of Virginia. Chris, Clare, and Director of Alumni & Constituent Relations Cindy McWilliams enjoyed dinner together at Chris’s restaurant, Maya, in April of 2012. Gregg Osofsky ’91 has been back in Pine Plains, New York since 2009, where he was working with his family on expanding Hammertown Barn. Around the same time Gregg met partner Brooke Lehman, and together they founded The Watershed Center, a mentoring organization that
Don Kerr ’64 at the High Desert Museum
provides seminars, workshops, professional consultations, and holistic retreats on issues related to ecology, healthy living, and sustainable communities. Greg and Brooke are currently awaiting a permit from Town of Northeast, which is where they hope to find a home for The Watershed Center on a 73-acre farm at the base of the Taconic Hills near the Connecticut border. Once the permit is acquired, they would recycle all the existing buildings and barns on the property and upgrade the residential structures to accommodate the small retreat and support staff for the center. Rufus Wainwright ’91 debuted his opera–Prima Donna–at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in February 2012, having opened it originally at the Palace Theatre in Manchester, England, in 2009. In April 2012, Rufus produced his seventh studio album, Out of the Game, in which one song, Montauk, is sung to his one-year-old daughter, Viva Katherine Wainwright Cohen. Rufus and fiancé Jorn Weisbrodt were married in August 2012 on Long Island, New York.
Class of ’92 Wing Goodale ’92, deputy director at the Biodiversity Research Institute, hired Bruce
John Goodell ’91 hunting with a goshawk
Class of ’91 John Goodell ’91 works at the High Desert Museum in Bend, Oregon. The museum was founded by Don Kerr ’64 whose son, Hodge, was also in Millbrook’s class of ’91. At the museum John is responsible for all natural history-related exhibits and programs, including the living collection of native wildlife. John loves the broader connection to Millbrook falconers and biologists - a sort of cohort that Millbrook produced including Don, Pete Jenny ’70, Rob Bierregaard, PhD ’69, RFK Jr ’72, and others who had a passion, via Frank Trevor, for raptors and animals. Members of this cohort have made some substantial contributions.
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Class Notes Rinker, PhD, former science department chair at Millbrook, to work as a science director at the environmental institute in Maine. Wing has interests in ecological research and policy. The Biodiversity Research Institute assesses emerging threats to wildlife and ecosystems through collaborative research and uses scientific findings to advance environmental awareness and inform decision makers. Adrianna Weaver Vargo ’92 had this to say before reunion weekend – “Has it already been 21 years?!! Yikes! Unfortunately I won’t be able to make it [to the reunion]. It’s near to impossible to leave a working farm in June. If anyone is ever in Virginia - our door is open. We manage a 75-acre certified organic farm for a non-profit called Local Food Hub. Hope you all have a wonderful time, and, most of, all I hope that everyone is healthy and happy in their lives!”
Class of ’93 20th Reunion Robin Taylor Dzul ’93 and her husband, Javier, recently celebrated Dzul Dance’s 10th anniversary. Dzul had special performances at the Baruch Performing Arts Center for three dates in early February of 2013, and they premiered Mexico Maya at the Gerald Lynch Theater at John Jay College in early May.
Class of ’94 Justin H. Riedell ’94 reports living and working in Geneva, Switzerland, for JP Morgan.
Class of ’95 Sierra Bailey ’95 married Adam Fujawa in October 2012 in Austin, TX. They are currently living in Texas, where Sierra continues to run her jewelry company, Manic Trout.
Class of ’96 Kirsten Bonanza ’96 is in the process of launching a game that she designed. It’s called the Waste Not Game and helps players rethink the waste cycle, challenging players to rethink trash as a potential resource. Her interest in design lies in educating for sustainability and system thinking, and she believes that we can achieve a sustainable future more easily by giving people the experience of how a large system (Earth) works in a playful environment. You can view more information about her game online at Indiegogo.com. Eli Klein ’96 was featured on WNYE TV in January 2013 in an interview with Christina Lee and Sue Robinson. Eli spoke about contemporary Chinese art, a market he knows
well, as he continues to own the Eli Klein Fine Art Gallery in New York City. Vincent Sorriento ’96 continues to teach math and coach boys varsity hockey at Millbrook. Oldest son Anthony was 7 in May. Sophia is 5, Rocco is 3, and Mia Grace was born February 29, 2012. Vinnie, wife Caitlin, and their children are living in Shilkret House.
Class of ’97 Calder Greenwood ’97 - Calder’s sculptures were featured in an exhibit of “Street Art” that opened in January 2013 in Los Angeles. Tim Healy ’97 and his wife welcomed their second daughter, Bridget May, on April 15th. Tim and his family will be moving from Worcester Academy this summer, as Tim has accepted a new position as Campus Life Director at IMG Academy in Bradenton, Florida.
Class of ’98 Jonathan R. Downs ’98 continues as Millbrook’s director of admission during a record year for applications. His wife, Erin, teaches VI form English, VI form Honors English, and a IV form Human
Class of ’91 Dylan Jeannotte ’91 visited campus recently with his growing family. He met his lovely wife, Esther, in Spain, and they are now living in Eastchester, New York with their three children. They are raising their children to be bilingual, and the family travels to Spain annually so that the children can visit with relatives and be immersed in the language and culture there.
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Class of ’92 Eleni Stefanopoulos ’92 re-joined the Millbrook School faculty in 2012 as a Spanish teacher. She is living in Rhinebeck, New York with her husband, Yannis, and two young daughters, Iliana and Christina, ages 3 and 22 months respectively.
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Class Notes Development class. Jon and Erin have also been keeping busy with son, Atticus, who was born May 25, 2012.
Class of ’99 Andrea (Tehan) Carnes ’99 married an awesome guy named Josh last August 11th on Crescent Beach in Andrea’s hometown, Shelter Island, New York. Josh and Andrea are finishing their second year at the StoneleighBurnham School in Greenfield, Massachusetts, where she works as the director of the Academic Center, as a middle school math and science teacher, as well as a houseparent and cross country and basketball coach. Andrea absolutely loves being a member of a boarding school community again! Josh is a U.S. Army veteran who is currently a full-time student working towards his college degree, thanks to the Post 9/11 GI Bill. Andrea is a newly minted class agent and looks forward to speaking with many of her classmates in the near future. She also hopes that everyone is planning and saving up now to make it to the Class of 1999’s 15th(!) reunion in June of 2014. Sarah Schoonmaker ’99 - After completing a BSBA degree in Finance at the University of Denver, a BA in philosophy at the University of Colorado-Denver, a master’s in divinity degree
at Denver Seminary, and an MA degree in philosophy at California State University-Los Angeles, Sarah is currently pursuing a one-year research master’s degree in philosophy at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland. She plans to apply to PhD programs in philosophy for 2014 entry. Aside from academic pursuits, she worked in the mortgage industry at Pulte Homes in Englewood, Colorado and also worked as a real estate agent in the Denver, Colorado. This upcoming August, she is looking forward to returning to beautiful weather in Los Angeles, California to find work while awaiting the result of PhD applications and formulating backup career plans.
She continues her work as an epidemiologist and public health specialist working for Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute.
Class of ’00
Hugh Murphy ’01 has recently published a book based on his successful Tumblr blog, T-Rex Trying. Hugh is living in Los Angeles with his wife, Sarah, and will be graduating from the USC School of Dentistry in May of 2014.
Mrs. Frances Green GP ’00, ’98 reports that Justin ’00 and Sunnie Craighill Salvia ’00 live nearby with their two boys, ages 1 and 5 years old. Anthony (Andy) Craighill ’98 and his wife, Marta, were expecting their third little boy in December. Ralph Salvia ’97 and Trish are in Pennsylvania. Marc Salvia ’01 is in Annapolis, and there have been many great family parties. Erin Stuckey ’00 has finished her paper on her research work in Switzerland and currently calls Washington D.C. her home.
Class of ’01 Mike Madill ’01 plays for the Las Vegas Wranglers. This is his fourth season with Las Vegas. He played at St. Lawrence with goalie Mike McKenna from 2002-05. Mike represented Texas at the 2007 ECHL AllStar Game as a member of the American Conference team. He attended NHL training camp in Calgary in 2007. Mike set a career high in games played (72) and points (26) in 2008-09 in Las Vegas.
Class of ’02 Priscilla J. Bonnell ’02 graduated from Colorado College in 2007 and has settled out west. She is currently running her own business, Manure Movers, LLC, in Fort Collins, Colorado.
Class of ’99
Class of ’98 Class of ’95 Clare Terni ’95 is working on completing her PhD at the Unviersity of Virginia and currently lives in Charlottesville. She and Chris Kelly ’91, both from Millerton, NY, enjoyed dinner with Director of Alumni & Constituent Relations Cindy McWilliams last April at Chris’s restaurant, Maya.
Nicole (Fiacco) Gagnon ’98 and her husband, Oli, are living in Dana Point, California. Nicole is working for the St. Regis Hotel and has been in touch with classmate Ray Mancuso, who lives nearby with his family. Nicole and Oli recently hosted Cindy McWilliams when she was on the west coast meeting with alumni and friends of the school.
David Guy Levy and Morgan Conrad ’99 - Two years ago former classmates David Guy Levy and Morgan Conrad joined forces to create an independent movie. Released in 2012, the movie quickly became the number one horror film on iTunes. In addition it’s already on track to be one of the most profitable titles for IFC Films, who snatched up the film’s rights after seeing the movie at the 2012 Screamfest film festival. David is currently working as an executive producer on his next film, London Fields, with Kate Beckinsale while also writing another film in the suspense/thriller genre. Morgan is back to his more familiar terrain of private equity but is not opposed to stepping up in the film industry again. “I had a good time working with David, and it was fun to go to the opening of the film at the IFC Center in Manhattan. Additionally, it was great to see old classmates show support by posting links to the site or writing reviews online for us. The Millbrook alumni support has been tremendous.”
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Class Notes Molly Ogden ’02 is in her fourth year of living in Germany and teaching at the Frankfurt International School. She currently works with 20 children from 14 different countries, speaking 14 different languages at home. Six are completely new to English. When not teaching, Molly is traveling – whether to explore the Black Forest in Southern Germany, to bike around Lake Constance on the border of Switzerland, Germany, and Austria, to walk the cobblestone streets in Verona, Italy, or to visit with family back in the U.S. – and loving her adventures. Jessica Simmons ’02 is now a director with EdVillage (www.edvillage.org). Her job is centered around the designing and launching of international school leadership (principal training) programs as well as the on-going operational and organizational support for partner schools to ensure they are consistently delivering the highest quality education to those who have traditionally been left outside of the system. She also recently completed a Masters of Social Change Leadership at Penn and is moving back to Denver, Colorado. She will also be spending time each month in San Francisco along with travel to sites in Chile, India, and South Africa.
Class of ’03 10th Reunion Eliza Cantlay ’03 has recently changed the name of her home-organizing business to Simplicana (www.simplicana.com). She is doing great, is organizing like a fiend, and has recently moved from New Jersey to Kansas. She and boyfriend Brad have settled in Overland Park, Kansas, after Brad was awarded a promotion with AMC Theaters. Brian Pecchia ’03 finished his Doctorate in Physical Therapy in 2011 and completed an Orthopedic Residency in 2012. He was recently married to his Marist College sweetheart, Jessica (Fitch) Pecchia, on December 16th. Brian currently works for Millbrook Physical Therapy treating mostly orthopedic and sport injuries including Millbrook School athletes. He is also an assistant coach of the Marist College Hockey Team. Rodney Smyth ’03 has been enjoying his summers as a wandering falafel salesman. He recently moved to Colorado where he is involved in the green farming movement. Paul Stuckey ’03 began his college career at RIT as a mechanical engineer. After getting bored with that venture, he moved into optical physics at Union College and
graduated in 2009. After college, Paul moved to Burlington, Vermont, where he worked for a couple of years for an electronic medical records company as a technical consultant. Ready to shake the long winters, he moved to Tampa, Florida, following work and friends (Charlie Hettinger ’04), and has been working as a business analyst for the past year plus. He recently purchased his first house in Tampa and is currently busy remodeling. He and his better half, Jen, will be posting a few pictures on Facebook.
Class of ’05 Caragh Fisher ’05 currently lives in New York City and works as a public relations manager at Food Network. She works on promotions for talent and show launches across both Food Network and the Cooking Channel. Felicity Sparks ’05 is a First Lieutenant in the Army, flying the UH-60 Blackhawk helicopter. She is stationed in El Paso, Texas.
Class of ’07 Kristina Blundon ’07 is currently a resident faculty member and director of community service at Emma Willard in Troy, New York, after graduating from St.
Class of ’05 Class of ’01 Sang Park ’01 has been working as a statistician at Capital One since finishing his graduate studies in 2008. He and his wife, Lynde, live with their chocolate lab, whom they love to spoil.
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First Lt. Andrew S. Williamson A.S. ’05 is currently stationed at NAS Kingsville, Texas, where he has been working to complete the Strike Fighter training syllabus, with an anticipated completion date of October 2012. He is also working to qualify as a naval aviator. Andrew was promoted to First Lieutenant in April of 2011, and has now been selected for Captain. He anticipates pinning on the rank in April of 2013. As things progress, he will be sure to send further updates.
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Class Notes Lawrence with a major in sociology and global studies. No stranger to service, Kristina has volunteered over the years with the Susan G. Komen Foundation, Habitat for Humanity, and Safe Passage, and this year she orchestrated a volunteer program for Emma Willard School on the Martin Luther King Jr. Day of Service. She arranged to have 350 students and 77 faculty members volunteer to work with 28 organizations in and around the Capital District in New York. Bobby Hottensen ’07 has moved to San Juan del Sur, Nicaragua with friends Matt Greenberg and Brendan DeBlois. The trio is opening a micro-brewery. San Juan del Sur is a very popular surfing destination, and Nicaragua has just been named the #3 place to visit in the world by The New York Times. The boys are hoping to catch both the tourist wave as well as the rapidly growing craft beer market.
Class of ’08 5th Reunion Anna Corey ’08 has recently moved to Brooklyn and is interning part time for designer Alexander Wang. The other half of her time she is working for a professor at
Class of ’06 Ashley Offt Casale ’06 reports that her baby boy Gabriel Nashville is keeping her very busy!
her textile start-up. She will complete her undergraduate degree in apparel design at RISD in the spring of 2013. Nicholas Farrell ’08 began his job in Los Angeles in July 2012 at The Wall Street Journal. He is working in the advertising department. Devin Hardy ’08 was named NESCAC AllAcademic Athlete for the second consecutive year at Bowdoin. She was named a Sarah and James Bowdoin Scholar this past fall. Studentathletes must be at least in their second year, compete at the varsity level, and maintain a cumulative grade point average of at least 3.35 in order to be honored. Jane Maglaque ’08 graduated from Mount Holyoke (a semester early) after writing a senior project and enjoying four years on the Five College Sailing Team, ending as Mt. Holyoke captain her senior year. After graduation Jane was immediately employed by Saks Fifth Avenue, working in their corporate office in the Public Relations and Special Events Department. She is involved with all 45 Saks locations throughout the United States, working with the press and coordinating events throughout the stores. Jane is looking forward to visiting her sister, Erin, this summer at Oxford University, where she in the last stages
of writing her dissertation and earning her PhD. Abby Magovern ’08 attended the College of Charleston after graduating from Millbrook, and she pursued her interest in a pre-med curriculum. Following her sophomore year in college, Abby was accepted to medical school in Dublin, Ireland at the Royal College of Surgeons School of Medicine. She is currently finishing her third year of a fiveyear curriculum. She expects to return to the U.S. in the future for her internship and residency training. Lucy Von Reusner ’08 graduated from Cornell University in 2012 and is currently living in Boston and working in “corporate sustainability.” She works for Green Century Funds, an investment firm specializing in “green” funds and investment opportunities. Previously she spent time interning with Conservation International and Green Peace.
Class of ’09 Hillary Kane ’09, now in her senior year at Washington College, spent her 2012 spring semester in South Africa as a member of a joint semester program with Rhodes.
Class of ’09 Charlotte E. M. Pink ’09 participated in the Childreach International Program last summer. The charity group began their climb up Mt. Kilimanjaro in Tanzania on August 24, 2012 and reached the summit on August 30. The group raised $3,500 with the generous help of sponsors.
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Class Notes Class of ’10 Nell Burdis ’10 is currently a junior at Boston University where she plays field hockey and lacrosse. Nell earned her first American East Defensive Player of the Week award in lacrosse this March. In games against Dartmouth and Notre Dame, Nell led BU with eight ground balls and three caused turnovers. Burdis also turned her defense into offense in the Notre Dame game when, after she caused a turnover, she retrieved the ground ball and ran down the field for an unassisted goal, the first of her career. Andrew Hughes ’10 is currently finishing up his junior year at George Washington University pursuing a B.B.A. concentrating in international business and finance. He recently accepted an offer to intern at ICAP’s summer financial analyst program in New York for the summer of 2013; the internship will focus on equity derivatives and SWAP contracts. ICAP is a London-based interdealer broker that middle-mans trades between buyers and sellers at investment banks. Andrew enjoys living in Washington D.C. since graduating from Millbrook. He finds plenty of great opportunities in the heart of the nation’s capital, and he also appreciates the large number of Millbrook alumni with whom he can network.
Tate Lavitt ’10, a student at Cornell University, assisted with research at the Museum of Natural History over the winter, and he is currently assisting on a research paper with the University of Connecticut on a new species of moss.
Class of ’11 Louise Steele-Norton ’11 is completing her sophomore year at Utica College. A two-sport college athlete, Louise is having a stellar year as a Pioneer. In December of 2012, Louise was named Empire 8 North Atlantic Region Conference Player of the Year for field hockey. This followed her being named as a 2012 Longstreth/National Field Hockey Coaches Association Division III First-Team All-American. Her recordbreaking season included setting a new Empire 8 record for goals in a season (27) and goals per game (1.35) and tied the single-season conference record with seven game-winning goals. By the end of the 2012 field hockey season, Louise had scored 87 career points, which ranks her fourth in alltime program history at Utica. She needs only two more points next year to move into third and just 23 points to become the highest scorer in Utica’s history.
Class of ’12 Kevin Altidor ’12, a freshman at St. Michael’s College, was named to the NE-10 All Rookie Team. Kevin was tied for the NE-10 lead in goals among first-years with 10. He finished fourth on the team with 15 points, and he notched game-winning points against the State University of New York at Canton and the University of New England. Winston Boney ’12 recently returned to Ghana with a friend from Hotchkiss to volunteer at a school in Kumasi. The school is run by Light of the Children, a Ghanaian organization devoted to children who have been infected and affected by HIV. Winston and her friend are working on a project preventing deforestation in Kumasi, and their efforts toward stewardship have been written up in a Kumasi newspaper. They have documented their trip wonderfully on their blog: http://girlsdoghana.tumblr.com. Aldin Medunjanin ’12 was selected as Liberty League Rookie of the Week in soccer at Skidmore College for the week ending December 16, 2012. He also plays on Skidmore’s varsity basketball team.
Class of ’10 Adi Fracchia ’10 was awarded an Emerson Foundation Summer Research Grant (August 2012) to assist Professor in Fine Arts John McEnroe in conducting one of only three officially sanctioned U.S. excavations in Greece. Adi is working to draft a topographical map of the ancient village of Gournia, located on Crete, as a continuation of the work done by a fellow Hamilton student in 2011. She is also working with American School of Classical Studies scholar Matt Buell. Adi will deliver an on-campus lecture on her research in the coming fall semester, and her group plans to present their initial findings to the general meeting of the Archaeological Institute of America and publish their completed report in the Journal of the Institute of Aegean Prehistory.
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Class of ’12 Winston Boney in Ghana with Belinda, a girl she has sponsored for many years.
Alumni/AE
Class Notes TJ Sanders ’12 has collected CAA Rookie of the Week honors four times this season as a freshman at Penn State. He leads the Nittany Lions with 28 goals this season as of April 9th. TJ leads the nation in freshman scoring, and could very well be the No. 1 freshman player in the country in the NCAA rankings. TJ posted three All-American seasons at Millbrook and led the Mustangs to multiple championships under coaches Dave Mullen and Tom Spinella. Tori Trovato ’12 earned the title of SUNY Athletic Conference Softball Player of the Week for the week ending April 7, 2013. A freshman at SUNY Oswego, Tori is a biology major and a two-sport varsity athlete, playing ice hockey and softball. She has been enjoying much success, and Oswego’s softball team has enjoyed success due to Tori’s terrific efforts on the field. As of April, Tori was leading the team with her batting average of .444, her slugging percentage of .722, and her on-base percentage of .483.
Engagements Wixon Greenwood ’96 and Sibyl Fenwick ’96 were engaged in December 2012. Their wedding will take place on October 12, 2013 in Montecedo, California.
Page Hallock ’03 is engaged to Greg Fincke. They plan to be married in August, 2013. Amanda Horne ’05 is engaged to be married to Kyle Patrick Halloran on July 13, 2013.
Marriages Jordon Topor ’04 married Missy Saban on August 5, 2012. They are living in Montreal, Quebec.
In Memoriam We offer our most heartfelt condolences to the families of all Millbrook alumni, parents, past parents, and friends who have passed away recently.
Class of 1936 C. Parker Wood ’36 died on Oct 24th, 2010. His daughter, Wendy, noted, “He loved Millbrook and always remembered his days there with great fondness. He adored Mr. Pulling.”
Class of 1938 Clement Edward Gardiner ’38 died on Saturday May 19, 2012 in Frederick, MD. He
joined the USNR in July of 1940 and entered active duty in June 1942 after graduating from Princeton University. He served as chief engineer of LST 961 in the Pacific theater during World War II. Upon returning to civilian life, Mr. Gardiner was an instructor in English at Clemson University, managing editor of Eastern Breeder magazine, and a DJ at radio station WFMD. He also raised beef cattle on the family farm near Thurmont, and from 1953 to 1963, he worked at Fairchild Aircraft in Hagerstown where he became chief, Engineering Reliability and Specifications. In 1963 he worked at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in the Test and Evaluation Division; he then joined the Potomac Edison Co. from where he retired in 1983 as director of public affairs. From 1987 to 1993 he was a principal at Carnahan, Felton, Gardiner, Inc., public affairs consultants. He is survived by his wife Harriet, four sons, three grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.
Class of 1942 William J. Blake ’42 died May 30, 2012 after a long illness. He was 87 years old. He practiced medicine in central Massachusetts for over 45 years. He received his college degree during World War II when a “hurryup” war-related program enabled him to
Class of ’12
Class of ’12
Mikkel Joehnk ’12 played ice hockey for Rungsted IK this year, just outside of Copenhagen, Denmark. Mikkel and his team captured their first Danish Division 1 Championship with a 2-1 victory in the fifth and final game of their championship series against the defending champion team, Gentofte. Mikkel returned to the U.S. this spring and will seek a spot on a tier 1 junior hockey team in the U.S. or Canada before planning to begin college in the fall of 2014.
Ken O’Friel ’12 and Penn Sednaoui ’12, former teammates and Division II champions at Millbrook, faced off on the lacrosse field as college players this spring. On April 20th, Connecticut College played Bates College in a NESCAC lacrosse game. Penn is a freshman at Connecticut College, and Ken is attending Bates. Although Penn’s team came out victorious, it was all smiles when they got together after the game.
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Class Notes complete his college degree in only two years at Yale University in 1942. He joined the US Army after completing medical school and his residency. He served in a Mobile Army Surgical Hospital unit (MASH) as part of a team that developed and deployed the first artificial kidney, a device that saved countless lives from renal failure due to battle trauma. Following his Korean service he entered private practice in Wisconsin, and later in Maryland, as a pathologist and county coroner. He began practicing medicine in Massachusetts in 1963 as chief of pathology at Worcester’s Hahnemann Hospital. He was also a member of adjunct faculty for the U Mass Medical School in Worcester for many years, where he taught virology and bacteriology to aspiring students of pathology. He later moved to general practice in Holden, a job he loved, and continued there until he retired due to illness in 2009 at the age of 84. He is survived by three sons, by his eight grandchildren and four great-grandchildren, and by his sister. Lawrence E. Tuttle ’42 died September 6, 2012 at the Lahey Clinic Medical Center in Peabody. Upon graduation from Brooks School, he enlisted in the US Navy; after completing his service, he earned a bachelor’s degree from Yale and later a master’s degree in education
from Harvard. After serving again with the US Navy during the Korean conflict, Mr. Tuttle began a lifelong career in secondary school education at Avon Old Farms School in Avon, CT. After moving from Avon Old Farms to St. George’s School in Middletown, RI, he joined the faculty of Brooks School, in North Andover, MA, in 1954. Leaving in 1959 to assume the headmaster’s post at Vermont Academy in Saxtons River, VT, he returned to Brooks in 1965 and remained there in teaching and administrative posts until 1983, earning the title Master Emeritus for distinguished service to the school. Relocating to South Woodstock, CT, Mr. Tuttle worked in the development offices of The Rectory School, Pomfret, CT; The Gordon School, East Providence, RI; and Old Sturbridge Village, Sturbridge, MA, before retiring in the early 1990s. Mr. Tuttle is survived by his wife of sixty-four years, Elizabeth Davis Tuttle, his five children and their spouses, a sister, a half-sister, eight grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren. William N. Wallace ’42 died on August 11, 2012. After serving in World War II, he graduated from Yale in 1945. He had a life long career as a sports reporter, working for the World-Telegram in New York, the New York Herald Tribune, and from 1963- 2007,
for The New York Times. He wrote about football, baseball, yachting, and boxing. In addition to his wife, William is survived by five daughters, a sister, and five grandchildren.
Class of 1943 Eric Van Cortlandt Stevenson ’43 - Eric died on January 31, 2013. From Millbrook he went to Yale College, then Yale Law School. He served in the U.S. Navy from 1944-46, and, as a reservist, he was recalled into service during the Korean War at the rank of lieutenant. He began his legal career with the National Labor Relations Board in Washington and later served as special assistant to the Assistant Secretary of Labor for Labor Relations. After the Korean War he engaged in the general practice of law with the firm of Sussler & Stevenson in Stonington, CT. Mr. Stevenson’s long and wide-ranging career included positions in real estate financing, labor relations, research and policy analysis on international affairs and fair housing, and the practice of law. He retired in 2010 as deputy director of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Office of Multifamily Development, which insures loans on apartment buildings and health care facilities nationwide.
Sierra Bailey ’95 married Adam Fujawa on October 11, 2012 in Austin, Texas.
Charlie Shultz ’93 married Sarah Cahill on August 25, 2012 in Old Saybrook, Connecticut.
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Andrea Tehan ’99 married Josh Carnes on August 11, 2012 on Shelter Beach in Crescent Island, New York.
Matthew F. Oneglia ’02 married Taylor O’Brien in Cohasset, Massachusetts on September 29, 2012. They were classmates at Skidmore College. Millbrook friends in attendance were Yann Benjamin ’02 and Wes Oakford ’02.
Alumni/AE
Class Notes As a volunteer, Eric served on the board and later as board chairman of Woodley House, a private non-profit providing housing and services for the mentally ill and was named the organization’s Person of the Year during the 1980’s. He was also a volunteer attorney for the Washington Legal Clinic for the Homeless and a director of Cornerstone, a non-profit that arranges housing for the homeless and mentally ill. Surviving Mr. Stevenson are his wife, Judith Herrick Stevenson, and five children, six grandchildren, and one step-grandchild.
Class of 1945 Jim Bulkley ’45 passed away on March 13, 2013, leaving his wife Kit, son Jim, daughter Katharine, and son-in-law Ross. Jim graduated from Princeton University in 1949 and then earned a law degree from the University of Michigan in 1955. He also served in the U.S. Navy toward the end of World War II and was seconded to the Pentagon as an intelligence officer. It was while he was living in Washington D.C. that he met his wife, Kit. Jim and Kit moved to Aspen, Colorado in 1966, where Jim practiced law and enjoyed skiing and the outdoors. In remembrance, Kit shared
with Jim’s many friends a great photo of Jim sitting on the rear bumper of a car, putting on his ski boots, ready for a day on the slopes.
Class of 1951 Edward “Ned” S. Gregory, III ’51 died on September 14, 2012. Ed served on active duty in the army from 1955 - 1975. His army career focused on ballistic missile readiness with assignments in Panama, Vietnam, and the United States. After military retirement, Ed began a second career, this time focusing on emergency medical response readiness in Leavenworth, Kansas, and Colorado Springs, Colorado. Ed retired in 1996 and moved to DeSoto, Texas. Here he served as membership vice-president of the Greater Dallas Military Officers’ Association of America and as commissioner on the DeSoto Texas Civil Service Commission. Ed is survived by his wife, Patricia, two stepdaughters and one brother, Huson (Millbrook class of ’58).
Class of 1957 John Elden Bowman ’57 died May 9, 2012. He graduated from Denison University
Max Kennedy ’06 and Erin Schroth ’07 were married at the Flagler Memorial Chapel on July 21, 2012. In attendance were several Millbrook graduates and faculty members. Some of the alumni included Mark Barry ’05, Jung-Eun Kim ’07, Lindsey Sloan ’07, Patrick Moore ’06 and Pardis Zahedi ’07. Max and Erin are currently residing in Manhattan.
and was the president and owner of John Bowman Chevrolet, Inc. for 28 years. Along with his dealership, he supported Clarkston SCAMP, Easter Seals, Clarkston Area Youth Assistance, Angels’ Place, The American Red Cross, Clarkston Area Schools, community youth sports teams and music programs. He is survived by his wife, Sharon, three children, two grandchildren, and a brother. Benjamin S. Clark ’57 a pro-bono human rights lawyer died April 26, 2012, in Albany, NY. After attending Hamilton College, he became a reporter, and was working at the Bernardsville (NJ) News when he was called up by the Army and served as a clerk-typist based at La Plata, MD. After his tour of duty, he returned to journalism, working as the editorial manager of the Mt. Kisco office of the White Plains Reporter Dispatch, until 1970. He eventually ended up working for the City of Rensselaer as a rehabilitation specialist, then with the New Office of Real Property Tax Service in several Adirondack communities, before retiring in 2007. In the midst of work, he enrolled in Western New England University School of Law and graduated in 2002. He and a college classmate specialized in pro-bono legal work for the disadvantaged. Ben leaves his sisters and their families.
Tim Healy ’97 and his wife Mary-Ellen welcomed their second daughter, Bridget May, on April 15, 2013. At 21” and 7.5 lbs., she joins older sister Meredith in the family.
Loukas Zoumas ’97 and Mary O’Connell Zoumas ’98 were thrilled to welcome their daughter, Aspasia Elizabeth Zoumas. “Eliza” was born at on January 31, 2013, weighing 7 lbs., 2 oz., and measuring 19.5 inches long.
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Class Notes Class of 1962
recently worked as a financial advisor for Morgan Keegan. Steve was an avid fisherman and horseman. He served as the Master of the Aiken Hounds, trained with the Olympic Equestrian Team, and enjoyed a long distinguished career designing and managing steeplechase racecourses throughout the United States. Mr. Groat served on the board of many non-profit organizations, most recently, STAR Riding, a therapeutic riding program. In 2005 he and his wife founded the Aiken Bluegrass Festival, which serves as a fundraiser for STAR and has brought world class Bluegrass musicians to Aiken.
William M. Howdon, Jr. ’62 died on March 2, 2012. He is survived by his son, Nathan Howdon, his brother, A. Leslie Shay, and his brother’s two children, Allison Shay and Dixon Shay III.
Class of 1963 David Montgomery ’63 of Athens, NY, died Friday, June 1, 2012 at his home. He was a graduate of Hobart and William Smith College in Geneva, NY. David was a Vietnam veteran, who frequently traveled to Western Europe, an antique dealer, a sculptor, a wild orchid enthusiast, a kayaker and an animal lover. A gentle man and a gentleman, he will be deeply missed by his wife, Bonnie, and his family and friends.
Class of 1990 Alexandra Wise ’90 died in New York City on August 9, 2012. A memorial service took place at Riverside Memorial Chapel, and she was laid to rest at Ahavath Shalom Cemetery in Great Barrington, MA. Ali is survived by her mother, her sister, and her nephew. She will be remembered as a talented athlete and photographer, but most of all, she will be cherished as the most devoted friend, a woman able to contribute a sense of joy to every situation because she had a contagious positive spirit.
Class of 1964 Stephen Pitcher Groat ’64, of Aiken, South Carolina, died on December 11, 2012. He is survived by his wife of 44 years, Jeannie, his three daughters (among them, Ann Groat ’93), six grandchildren, and numerous nieces and nephews. He graduated from Hiram College and most
Jonathan Downs ’98 and his wife, Erin, welcomed son Atticus Jeremy Downs on May 25, 2012. He weighed 7 lbs., 12 oz., and measured 21 inches long.
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Former Parents and Friends Joseph Reginal Corcoran, grandfather of Dana Foote ’13 died Oct. 15, 2012 at 89 years of age. He is survived by a son, two daughters, nine grandchildren, and many nieces and nephews. Lisa deKooning, parent of Isabel ’07 and Lucy ’13, died on November 23, 2012 at her home on St. John’s in the U.S. Virgin Islands. She is survived by her three daughters. William W. Ellsworth, husband of Trish Ellsworth, father of Eliza Ellsworth ’12, uncle of Duncan Harvey ’14 and Alex Harvey ’10, died on October 12, 2012. Survivors include his parents, his wife, Patricia, one daughter, Eliza, and one son, Harry, a sister and a brother. Robert J. Feitelson, GP’11’13 father of current faculty member Todd Feitelson, and grandfather to Emma ’13 and Jonah Feitelson ’11, died on November 17, 2012. Norma Flender, mother of Charles Flender ’85, died at age 81 on June 14, 2012. Norma was dedicated to helping young musicians careers and was tireless in her generosity and efforts supporting this cause. She is survived by her son, her
Jarod Chace Mussington ’01 and his wife, Jennifer, are the proud parents of Jarod Chace Mussington, Jr., born December 3, 2012.
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Pamela McCarthy Parsons ’03 and husband Steve Parsons welcomed baby girl Emma Catherine on February 12th, 2013.
Alumni/AE
Class Notes daughter, four grandchildren, a brother, and an extended family. Gwynn Hubbell, mother of Eliot ’07 and Christopher Hubbell, died on October 25, 2012. Frederick J. Kaiser, father of Lisa Yuodsnukis ’81, died at age 75 on March 17, 2012, in Falmouth, ME. Surviving Fred are his wife, two daughters, four grandchildren, and many loving in-laws, nieces and nephews, and lifelong friends. Fay LaPrade, mother of Virginia LaPrade ’80, died at her home in Landgrove, VT on October 4, 2012 at the age of 76. She is survived by her husband, Byrd, her daughter, two grandchildren, and several nieces and nephews. Charlotte Deering McCormick, mother of Blair Collins ’88, died August 9, 2012 at age 67. She is survived by her two daughters and their spouses and five grandchildren. She was a life long philanthropist supporting causes in education, American Indian healthcare, the military, and helping underrepresented voices be heard in politics. Francis J .McNamara, Jr., father of John A. McNamara ’78, died on June 8, 2012 in Vero Beach, FL at the age of 84. He was a prominent Connecticut trial lawyer and
philanthropist. Mr. McNamara is survived by his wife of 26 years, Lois Magner, as well as his six children, three stepchildren and 20 grandchildren. Barbara Scott Meyer, mother of Scott Meyer ’73 and Ted Meyer ’61, died suddenly on September 1, 2012, at the age of 92. She was an active member in local community groups, including the Millbrook Hunt and Millbrook Pony Club, for over 50 years. She was also on the board of trustees at the Sharon Hospital and was a founding member of the Housitanic Audubon Society. She is survived by four children and five grandchildren. Francine Quevillon, mother of Monelle Quevillon ’99, died on July 2, 2012. Sidney Homer Stires, grandparent of Georgia Wright ’13 and Sidney Wright ’16, died in Venice, Italy on October 4th, 2012. He is survived by his four children, as well as 14 grandchildren, his sister and her children, and by his sister in law and her son. Laura Thorn, mother of Kalynda Klementis ’03, died on August 11 2012. Lucy Van Stirum, grandmother of Tristan Van Stirum ’01 and Mariana Van Stirum ’04, died on February 10, 2013 in Millbrook, NY.
Eric Van Cortlandt Stevenson ’43 - Eric died on January 31, 2013.
Mike Wallace, father of the late Peter Wallace ’60, died in April 2012 at the age of 93. He was a reporter for CBS who became famous for his broadcasts for 60 Minutes.
Past Faculty News Rita McBride is the Head of School at Mayfield High School in California. “I continue to recall my years [at Millbrook] (1979-1995) with fondness. Just FYI, Matthew ’93 and his wife, Kathryn, are doing well, and granddaughters Ava and Maren keep us all busy!” Brian Mitchell and his wife, Alison, joyfully announce the birth of their son, Grayson Whittmann Mitchell, born January 28, 2013, weighing 7 lbs., 4 oz., and measuring 21 in. An art exhibit of the work of Woldemar Neufeld, deceased father of Laurence Neufeld ’67, was recently on display at the Gregory James Gallery in New Milford, CT. The Millbrook School library recently received as a gift a book of his work and his life as an artist. He worked as a faculty member at Millbrook School, and son Larry is responsible for many of the recent construction projects at the zoo, including the Grace Murphy ’12 Memorial Bridge.
Lori Lutton, wife of Bram ’91, with Bridget Meigs ’96 at Bill Hardy’s art show opening last fall at Belmont High School.
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Class Notes Bruce Rinker is working with Wing Goodale ’93 at his environmental institute in Maine. Sylvia Roberts died on November 7, 2012. She was at home in Florida surrounded by her family. Sis was an outstanding, inspiring colleague for the time that she served as Science Department chair at Millbrook. She was also a dear friend to many. As an indication of her vitality and inspiration as an educator, she came to Millbrook on a NYSAIS evaluation team, fell in love with the school, and interrupted her retirement to join our faculty. Her career in education was long and distinguished before her arrival here, including serving on the faculty at Horace Mann. She was also a devoted mother, step mother and grandmother to her and her husband Hal’s extended family. While at Millbrook, Sis was a tireless collaborator in the Human Development program, with the zoo faculty, and with her colleagues. She was active in her church in Garrison, NY, running the Sunday School and serving with Hal on the vestry. Mentor to
countless students, consummate colleague and friend, she will truly be missed. (remembrance written by Cam Hardy)
Current Faculty and Staff Ed and Emily Allen celebrated the birth of their daughter, Codie Patricia, on April 21, 2012. Larry Atlas has taken over as director of the health services while Eileen Jeffreys was on sabbatical for the 2012-2013 school year.
Rayan Ferguson and wife Doreen are the proud parents of their newborn son, Adam, born on June 27, 2012. Bill and Cam Hardy celebrated the birth of their grandson, Dillon Gains, on February 11, 2012. Bill was also the featured artist for an exhibit entitled Ten Thousand Miles - Notes on a Road Trip, at Belmont Hill School in September 2012. Eileen Jeffreys’ father, Thomas Jeffreys, passed away on May 26, 2012.
Frank Billington celebrated his marriage to Debbie Sorrento in September 2012.
Gordie ’76 MacKenzie and wife Wendy
Elizabeth Duhoski and Thomas F. Morrison, III married in Lake Placid, New York in August 2012.
Cora, from Millbrook School on May 27, 2012.
Melanie Farrington and husband Guy celebrated the birth of their third granddaughter, Rylee Sky, on August 1, 2012, and the marriage of their son, Joseph, to Amanda Fiore on March 29, 2012.
February 29, 2012.
celebrated the graduation of their daughter,
Vinnie’96 & Caitlyn Sorriento celebrated the birth of their daughter, Mia Grace on
Somerset Waters and wife Wieska celebrated the birth of their granddaughter, Elya Waters, on December 20, 2012.
The next issue of Millbrook will focus on curiosity. Have you been or are you just now pursuing a passion in your life? Do you have a hobby, an interest, or a professional pursuit that began as a curiosity and has blossomed? We would love to share your experiences with other Millbrook alumni! Please get in touch with Director of Communications Michelle Blayney at mblayney@millbrook.org.
Alumni photos are welcome! Digital photos, saved as 300 dpi .jpg files, are accepted, as well as print photos. To submit a photo, e-mail it to mblaney@millbrook.org or mail it to Millbrook School, 131 Millbrook School Road, Millbrook, NY 12545. Photos will be returned upon request. Only acceptable photos will be published.
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131 Millbrook School Road, Millbrook, NY 12545 Address Service Required
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