CONNECTIONS
Spring 2013
Chuck Yeiser
A Country Day icon
The Arts Flourish A critical part of the curriculum
History of the 8th Grade Musical A finishing touch to the Middle School years
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Alumni and friends are some of Country Day’s best recruiters. Please give the form below to a prospective student. As a gesture of our gratitude for assisting in the recruitment process, the application fee will be waived when the student applies for admission to CCDS. Students who wish to use this fee waiver must have it completed by a CCDS alum, faculty or staff member, student, parent, or a friend of the School. The waiver must be attached to the application for admission prior to submission to the CCDS Admission Office. If the student is applying online, the waiver should be submitted by mail, email, or fax prior to completing the application. The fee waiver cannot be accepted for an application that has already been submitted to the Admission Office for the current or future academic year. Applications, testing dates, and deadlines for all grades and programs can be found at www.countryday.net/go/apply.
Alumni/Friend Fee Waiver Form Applicant’s Name: _________________________________________________________ Entering Grade: _____________ Alumni or Friend Name: _______________________________________________ Year of Graduation from CCDS: ______ Relationship to student applying to CCDS: ________________________________________________________________ Please submit to Cincinnati Country Day School, Admission Office, 6905 Given Road, Cincinnati, Ohio 45243-2898, fax (513) 527-7614, or admission@countryday.net.
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State Tennis: An All-Country Day Final
The state tennis tournament ended up being an all-Country Day final. Sophomore Asher Hirsch (above right and below left) is the Division II state singles champ and teammate junior Patrick Wildman (above left and below right) is runnerup. The CCDS tennis team (below) finished third in the state. Pictured are (l-r) Coach Greg Martin, Coach Brian Schubert, Chase Tholke, Will Cohen, Asher Hirsch, Abby Skwara, Ani Kosaraju, Shashank Jejurikar, Michael Barton, Patrick Wildman, Leonard Behrens, Head Coach Matt Dektas
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COUNTRY DAY CONNECTIONS
SPRING 2013
FEATURES
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CONTENTS
Chuck Yeiser
6
Message from the Head of School
22
7
Trustee Update
A Country Day icon
Trustee Reunion
The Arts Flourish
A look at the strong foundation of art at Country Day
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8
Student News 10
Athletic update
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Scholastic arts
Alumni in the Arts CCDS inspired many alumni to become artists
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History of the 8th Grade Musical A true rite of passage into the Upper School
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Alumni
Class Notes and reunions
Faculty News Recommended reading by faculty CountryDate
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Alumni News 52
In Memoriam
54
Alumni Business Luncheon
55
NYC Alumni Reception
56
Gordon R. Wright Tennis Complex Dedication
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Alumni Calendar
Connections Spring 2013 Volume 34, Issue 2 Connections is published by the Development Office of Country Day. Photos by contributing alumni, students, parents, faculty, and staff. Contributions are welcome: javensr@countryday.net 513 979-0234 Cincinnati Country Day School does not discriminate against any person in admission, employment or otherwise because of race, color, religion, national origin, disability, gender, or age in violation of existing state or federal law or regulations.
Front cover: Christina Agostino and Heman Duplechan perform in the 2012 eighth-grade musical “Once Upon a Mattress.� (Photo courtesy of Charlie Yardley) Back cover: Senior Cassie Sachs is out front on a fast break during an MVC contest. She eclipsed the 1,000 point mark for her career and was named the District 16 Player of the Year.
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HEAD OF SCHOOL Dear Members of the Country Day Community: Cincinnati Country Day School has always considered the arts an essential component of a well-rounded education, and the evidence supporting the arts academic impact mounts daily. At Country Day, we offer a rich arts curriculum that encourages our students to express themselves artistically and to think creatively. We know the less-linear cognitive skills will be necessary to succeed in a world that values imaginative and collaborative problemsolving. This issue of Connections captures some of the ways we have surrounded our students with opportunities to flourish through participation in both the visual and performing arts. This past March, Country Day lost a true patron of the arts. Former headmaster Charles F. “Chuck” Yeiser died peacefully following a brief illness. The outpouring from Chuck’s former students and colleagues was a testament to the influential role he played in the lives of so many. Chuck, a devotee of classical music, generously provided the Country Day faculty with tickets to the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra because he understood the enriching aspects of a concert experience. We will miss Chuck on many levels including his appreciation for the power of the arts. Please enjoy reading about Country Day’s curricular and extra-curricular arts programming captured in the following articles. Or even better, plan to attend one of the many performances or events that showcase our students’ talents. There is no more enjoyable way to observe our students in action. Sincerely,
Robert P. Macrae, Ed.D. Head of School
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COUNTRY DAY CONNECTIONS
BOARD OF TRUSTEES Christopher Bortz ’92 Kyle Brooks ’81 Marianne Castrucci Gary Cofer Richard Durand ’73 Julie Gentile Jon Hall Amy Hanson William Hardigg III ’96 Connie Hodson Lori Jeffries ’90 Shailesh Jejurikar Lucy Haverland Joffe ’90
Macy Kirkland Anne Maier Peter Niehoff ’05 Jeanne Parlin Charles Pettengill ’79 Steve Schwartz ’80 Robin Sheakley Todd Stegman Hemella Sweatt-Duplechan Charles Thomas III ’80 Calvin Tregre Jr. Gordon Wright ’85
Trustee Reunion
More than 40 current and former members of the Cincinnati Country Day Board of Trustees re-connected at the 2013 Trustee Reunion. Head of School Dr. Robert Macrae spoke about the current senior class and their college choices, as well as strong enrollment for the 201314 school year. He also updated the group about the Lower School and tennis facility capital projects.
Photos: Clockwise from upper left, Rick and Caroline Morris, Frannie and Rob Kreidler, Head of School Rob Macrae addresses the current and former Trustees.
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STUDENT NEWS
Five students win National Merit Scholarships 30% of senior class recognized
Holly Dayton
Sam Fossett
The National Merit Corporation recognized 18 Country Day seniors, comprising 30 percent of the class. Scholarship winners were Holly Dayton, Sam Hall, Edwin Sam, Sam Fossett, and Abby Skwara. Fossett and Skwara received school specific awards to Vanderbilt (Fossett) and The University of Chicago (Skwara). Finalists were Michael Barton, Caroline Gentile, Luke Hall, Anirudh Kosaraju, Julia Murphy,
Sam Hall
Edwin Sam
Cassidy Sachs, and John Willingham. Also recognized were semifinalist William Victor, and commended students Sarah Gamblin, Katherine Karnes, Anne Nesbitt, Sarah Portman, and Will Bernish. Students become semifinalists by achieving high scores on the Preliminary SAT/ National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test (PSAT/NMSQT). The 18
Abby Skwara
CCDS seniors scored in the top 1% and are among about 16,000 students named semifinalists nationwide. Approximately 1.5 million students took the PSAT last fall. Of the semifinalists nationwide, 15,000 become National Merit Finalists. In the spring, about 8,300 of the 15,000 finalists receive a college scholarship.
Project-based learning teaches first graders about Cincinnati Unit encompasses many disciplines Is this a history lesson, or math? Is it a research project or a class on public speaking? Is it a creative exercise in art or writing? The answer is Yes, Yes, and Yes! Country Day first graders combine many disciplines into a project that can only be described as fun — The Cincinnati Places project. Students begin the year learning about Native American cultures and early settlers who lived in our region. During the winter, they focus on significant places in Greater Cincinnati. They choose a place or landmark, research it, and from their work they create a book called “Rock and Roll with the City.” Students then build a model of their selection and give a report on it to other students and parents. Text under the photos taken from the book Rock and Roll with the City, by the first grade class.
The Cincinnati Observatory
Paul Brown Stadium
Yahna Yihad
Miles Roy
My Cincinnati place is the Cincinnati Observatory. The observatory has the oldest working telescope in the United States. It was founded by McKnight Mitchel Ormsby and opened on April 14, 1845. I chose the observatory because I like plants and stars.
My Cincinnati place is Paul Brown Stadium. Two facts I learned about Paul Brown Stadium are: PBS seats 65,535 people, and the stadium is 1,850,000 square feet in size. I chose PBS because I like football. It is my favorite sport.
Get all the Country Day news!
Academics, the Arts, Athletics, Service Learning, Lower, Middle, and Upper School The accomplishments of our students and teachers are too numerous to list in Connections. However, we maintain an up-to-date online archive of all of the news. You can access it at www.CountryDay.net/go/news
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COUNTRY DAY STUDENTS
Cum Laude Society Front row, left to right: Julia Murphy, Avery Maier, Cassidy Sachs, Caroline Gentile, Katherine Karnes, Holly Dayton Second row, left to right: Will Bernish, Hunter Behne, Edwin Sam, Luke Hall, John Willingham, Samuel Hall, Samuel Fossett The newest members of the Country Day Cum Laude Society were inducted during the annual banquet in March. The Cum Laude Society was founded at the Tome School in Maryland in 1906. The Cum Laude Society was developed to “recognize academic achievement in secondary schools for the purpose of promoting excellence, justice, and honor.” Each year the Cum Laude Society inducts 4,000 students from across the country. The Cum Laude Society has 344 school chapters worldwide, 24 of which are located in Ohio and nine of which are in the Greater Cincinnati region. Country Day is fortunate to have Cum Laude Society members among its faculty: Sarah Beyreis, Merle Black, Peter Fossett, Stephanie Luebbers, and CCDS Cum Laude Society Chapter President Brock Miller.
Seniors named candidates for Presidential Scholarship Seniors Holly Dayton and Katherine Karnes were named candidates for the United States Presidential Scholars Program, one of the nation’s highest honors for high school students. Holly and Katherine are among approximately 40 candidates from Ohio identified for the program because of exceptionally high scores on the SAT or ACT. Holly has advanced to semifinalist status. Six Country Day students have been recognized by the Presidential Scholars Commission in the last six years. In 2007, Colin McSwiggen, a graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, was named a Presidential Scholar. In 2008, Joshua Brown, a graduate of Brown University, was a candidate. In 2011, Colin’s brother Kevin, a student at Harvey Mudd College, was a candidate, and in 2012, Henry Pease, a student at Princeton University, was a semifinalist.
Holly Dayton
Katherine Karnes
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Winter athletic update Upper School The winter athletic season was filled with excitement. Country Day students and coaches received numerous accolades. It was an outstanding season on both the hardwood and in the swimming pool. The girls basketball team captured its first sectional championship in more than 10 years. The Indians were led by Cassie Sachs, who reached the 1,000 point plateau for her career. The varsity wrestling team was led by junior Omar Mustafa. His experience and leadership helped mentor freshmen Eric Christine and Will Brady. Christine placed third in the 113lb weight class at the MVC tournament and Brady placed second in the 152lb weight class. The gymnastics team continued to improve, defeating larger schools and scoring over 115 points at districts, the highest score in four years. They were led by sophomores Kaitlin Harden and Gusty Pohlman, who shared the Most Valuable Gymnast honors. Jennifer Gonzales won the Most Improved, and senior Amelia Drew earned the Coaches Award. The girls swimming team enjoyed another strong season sending two relays to the state meet. Sophomore newcomer Allie Wooden broke multiple school records and finished state runner-up in two events. In boys swimming, three seniors led the way: Alec Bunge, Alexandre Cabello, and Jacob Stafford. The championship season got off to a fast start with a second place finish at the MVC championships. Cabello led the way winning the MVC “Male Swimmer of the Meet” award. The team finished with an exciting district meet. The CCDS student body really showed their Blue and White pride by packing the stands at Lockland for the last game of the year as the boys basketball team captured the Miami Valley Conference Championship and Coach Howard Brownstein won his 500th game. Coach Brownstein is one of only three coaches in the history of Cincinnati High School boys basketball to win 500 games.
TEAM ACCOMPLISHMENTS
Girls Basketball - Sectional champions for first time in 10 years Boys Basketball – MVC Champions Boys Swimming – MVC Champions
MIAMI VALLEY CONFERENCE AWARDS
Howard Brownstein, Coach of the Year (boys basketball) John Snell, Coach of the Year (girls basketball) Cassie Sachs ’13, Player of the Year (girls basketball) Alexandre Cabello ’13, Swimmer of the Year (boys swimming) Allie Wooden ’15, Swimmer of the Year (girls swimming)
First Team
Cassie Sachs ’13 (girls basketball), JR Menifee ’14, Caleb Tregre ’15 (boys basketball) Allie Wooden ’15, Avery Maier ’13, Kira Hughes ’15, Celia Macrae ’15 (girls swimming) Alexandre Cabello ’13, Malcolm Doepke ’16 (boys swimming)
Second Team
Shelley Menifee ’14, Sydney Menifee ’14 (girls basketball) Matt Walton ’14, Wyatt Fletcher ’15 (boys basketball)
Honorable Mention
Caroline Blackburn ’13, Caroline Gentile ’13 (girls basketball) Trent Babb ’13, Darryn Jordan ’16 (boys basketball)
CITY, DISTRICT, & STATE HONORS
John Snell (Division IV City Coach of the Year, District 16 Coach of the Year) Howard Brownstein (Division IV City Coach of the Year, District 16 Coach of the Year) Avery Maier ’13, Allie Wooden ’15, Kira Hughes ’15, Celia Macrae ’15 (Qualified - state finals, 200 and 400 free relay. Broke the school record in both relays. (HM all-city) Allie Wooden ’15 (Broke four individual school records, finished as state runner-up in the 100 and 200 free, (All-city, all-state) Cassie Sachs ’13 (All-city, All SW district, District 16 Player of the Year, HM All Ohio, Played in city all-star game and North-South game) Sydney Menifee ’14, Caroline Blackburn ’13 (Special mention all-SW district, second team District 16, HM all-city) Caleb Tregre ’15 (first team all-city DII-IV, first team District 16, second team all SW District) JR Menifee ’14 (HM all-city, first team District 16, HM all-SW district) Matt Walton ’14 (second team District 16, HM all-city)
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COUNTRY DAY STUDENTS
Gymnastics team: Bottom: (l-r) Margaret Hodson, Chloe Williams, Kendall Smith, Elia Knott Middle: Gusty Pohlman, Ali Lusk, Jennifer Gonzales Top: Kelsey Bardach, Mayme Acklen, Amber Hardin Missing: Kaitlin Harden, Amelia Drew
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Winter athletic update Middle School This winter, Middle School athletes represented CCDS with pride. Boys Basketball: The seventh grade B-team coached by Thom Brannock had an excellent season. They played in both the MVC and the Cincinnati Youth Basketball League (CAYBL). They finished their CAYBL schedule in second place and were undefeated in the MVC. The boys entered the MVC tournament as the number one seed. They earned the MVC title with a 50-26 victory over CHCA. The eighth grade B-team, under coach Layton Gibson, finished with a 10-4 regular season record, earning a third seed in the post season tournament. They finished a great season with a close loss in the semifinals. The seventh and eighth grade A-team completed the season with a 16-2 record. The team earned a number two seed in the MVC tournament. In the championship game they faced Summit, who had defeated them earlier in the season. The Indians went on a 17-5 run in the second quarter and controlled the game for a 53-37 victory and the MVC title. Congratulations to Coach Greg Ross and the A-team boys!
MS boys A-team – MVC Champs Back row (l-r): Coach Greg Ross, Nicholas Krammer, Ian McInturf, Myles Jackson, Domenick Doane, Austin Eldridge. Trey Smith, Coach Tony Waite Front row: Matt Scheper, Christian Keese, Will Brooks, Justin Baker, JJ Wolf
Girls Basketball: The seventh and eighth grade B-team performed well during the winter season. Coach Brittany Woods was impressed with their hard work and daily improvement. They finished the season with wins over Cincinnati Christian, St. Bernard, Seven Hills, and North College Hill, earning the number three seed in the post season tournament where they made it to the semifinals. The seventh and eighth grade A-team completed one of the best regular seasons in recent history. Their final league record was 13-2. The girls formed strong bonds, which carried them through some tough games. It was a season Coach Brady Brandt and the girls will not soon forget. We look forward to the eighth graders having an immediate impact on the high school program. A group of seventh grade boys resurrected the wrestling team this season. Despite their small numbers, they earned many accolades: one first place and two second place individual finishes and the team placed second overall at the City Tournament. Coach Aja Smith looks forward to the return of this group. Swimming packed the lanes with 32 athletes, the largest team in history. The team, under Coach Andrea Rogers, won all their dual meets to secure a MVC title. They also placed eighth out of 17 teams at the City Championships and were first for all small schools. The seven teams ahead of CCDS were schools of 600 – 800 MS students. The swimmers started the season as 32 individuals and quickly became a team! The Gymnastics team, under Coach Steve Conner’s guidance, challenged many strong programs this season. The team concluded its season at the City Championships, achieving some of their highest scores of the year. They earned a fourth place team finish and an individual first place finish (balance beam). Great work ladies! The Fast program gives seventh and eighth graders an opportunity to grow athletically through fitness workouts, team challenges, and a weight room training. Each day, the seventh and eighth graders faced new challenges that can be applied to other sports. Congratulations to all the Middle School teams on their tremendous efforts and for demonstrating courage, compassion, integrity, responsibility, and respect during the winter season.
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COUNTRY DAY STUDENTS
Youth Sports The Country Day Youth Sports Program was created to provide students in grades kindergarten through sixth grade an opportunity to compete and learn athletic skills in a comfortable and safe environment. Students participate in a team sport and develop stronger athletic, social, emotional, and leadership skills. Participation also develops independence and confidence while students forge bonds and have fun with their peers. CCDS fielded 12 basketball teams— with over 100 students in grades two through six to participate in the Cincinnati Area Youth Basketball League (CAYBL). Three teams came in third, six came in second, and one finished first in their divisions. The fourth grade boys and fifth grade girls made it to the championship game. CCDS Youth Sports also offered a wrestling program for first through sixth graders under the tutelage of Middle School coach Aja Smith. The wrestlers competed in several weekend tournaments. Many wrestlers earned their first victories and placed high in their respective weight classes. Congratulations to all the young athletes. CCDS is proud of your growth, teamwork, and good sportsmanship. We also wish to thank the parents who volunteered to coach and support the youth sports program.
Photo ID (from top): Seventh grade boys B-team – MVC Champs Back row (l-r): Patrick Magarian, Jack Gardner, Coach Thom Brannock, Sam Schwartz, Blake Adkins Front row: Matthew Davis, Arys Anderson, Blake Lykins, Daniel Nesbitt. Fifth grade girls: Back row (l-r) – Coach Robin Brownstein, Jordan Perry, Lucy Martin, Liz Brock, Stephanie Gentile, Katie Briggs, Coach Brittany Woods Front row: Lilly Reisenfeld, Katie Brock, Natalie de Beer Fourth grade boys: Back row (l-r): Coach Mark Ross, Thomas Scheer, Michael Noack, Connor Paff, Aidan Ross, Rodney Adkins, Lane Foushee, Carson Smith, Coach Dan Smith Front row: Brian Foster, Cole Jeffries, Charlie Johnson
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Country Day students bring home national art medals Three Country Day students struck gold and silver in the national Scholastic Art & Writing Awards program. Casey Pfister ’14, won a gold medal, while Katie Barton ’14 and Grace Krammer ’15 earned silver medals. “They’re very prestigious awards,” said Carole Lichty-Smith, photography teacher and Upper School Fine Arts Chair. “Some past winners include people like Richard Avedon, Andy Warhol and Truman Capote.” The three winners were among eight CCDS regional winners whose work competed nationally. National winners were honored during an awards ceremony and related activities May 30-June 1 in New York City. National and regional winners shared what inspired them in their work.
Casey Pfister ’14 won gold for mixed
media that she dubbed, “Untitled.” She used magazine strips, sewing patterns, paint and glitter for her collage. Her inspiration: “I was having this girl looking into a mirror, and out of this mirror is coming a train. I saw the girl looking into the mirror and the train taking her back into the past and taking her through her emotions. We had to do a collage as part of the project, so when I was looking through magazine images, I was finding things that I liked. When I started to piece them together, that’s really what I saw.”
Katie Barton ’14 won a silver medal for a photo entitled, “Killing Watermelon.”
Her inspiration: “I wanted to take human actions and put them in the food. Basically, it’s a watermelon, and there’s a knife sticking in it with “blood” dripping out of it. I kind of wanted to experiment with different things like food coloring. It was the food and strong colors. I wanted to think out of the box and develop new things.”
Grace Krammer ’14 won silver for a photo entitled, “Deterioration.”
Her inspiration: “Mrs. Lichty-Smith assigned a food project and I forgot to bring in food for that day. The only food that she had in the studio was candy corn. It was the last class of the day, so there wasn’t any food in the cafeteria that I could find, so I just had to work with what I had. I found a mirror in the studio, and I was just messing around. A couple of them were broken and I asked myself, ‘Oh darn, what am I supposed to do with this?’ Then I was just, ‘Hey, I could break these each a little bit more and more.’ It all worked out.”
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COUNTRY DAY STUDENTS
Other regional winners:
Margaret Lazarus ’13, gold portfolio and two gold keys
Her inspiration: “My inspiration came from photographing my little siblings, (Gertrude ’26 and Sam ’22). I was able to make up a dark story about them. It was primarily for the AP last year, but they like dark. Any competition really likes dark, which I’m not really good at doing that. So, that was difficult coming up with an inspiration, but I had great models. It was called “Architecture of Loneliness” where I made them look like ghosts inhabiting a space, and I manipulated the photos.”
Sophie Weinstein ’13, gold portfolio for photos of an abandoned house
Her inspiration: “I was just inspired by the place. I knew I wanted to do a theme of abandonment and isolation, and I took a couple of pictures before I went to the house. Then, the house really inspired me to run with it. I went there twice and took a bunch of pictures. The story of the family who abandoned the house was really interesting to me.”
Mayme Acklen ’14, gold key for a photo of Kelsey Bardach holding a cake
Her inspiration: “We were doing a food project in photography, and I was just playing around in the lighting studio. I brought in a cake because it was pretty and we just played with it. I got it from above so she was holding the cake and then looking up, and I feel like that was kind of a different angle.”
Kelsey Bardach ’14, gold key for a photo
modeling careers. They knew what they were doing and kind of helped my image.” by Cindy Kranz
Regional winners
CCDS surpassed last year’s regional performance with two gold medal portfolios, 12 gold keys, 13 silver keys and 21 honorable mention winners. The gold winners competed nationally this spring. Congratulations to the following outstanding artists:
Gold Medal Portfolio Meg Lazarus '13 Sophie Weinstein '13
Gold Key Single Image Winners 1. Casey Pfister '14 2. Grace Krammer '15 3. Katie Barton '14 4. Kelsey Bardach '14 5. Laura Pariot ’13 (3 pieces) 6. Meg Lazarus ’13 (2 pieces) 7. Mayme Acklen '14
Silver Key Single Image Winners 1. Holly Adamson '15 2. Katie Barton ’14 (2 pieces)
of a yellow pepper cut open and sprinkled with blue sugar
3. Brian Burnett '13
Her inspiration: “We were doing a food shoot in class that week, so I wanted to bring in food that was really colorful. I was looking in the grocery store, and I just saw all these peppers. They looked really colorful. I started to cut one open and play with it and sticking things on it that are contrasting colors. So I put blue in it and there’s white sprinkles that kind of mimicked the seeds of the peppers.”
5. Abby McInturf '13
Laura Pariot ’13, three gold keys
3. Mayme Acklen '14
Her inspiration: “Two medals were something I did in the summer for Parsons Pre-College summer program. I built three architectural buildings with wire, mirror and this glass kind of texture. The second one was a perspective drawing of the model. The third one was photography. I took an image of my friend and her boyfriend. She had duct tape on her mouth, and they were both shirtless. Both she and her boyfriend are pursuing
4. Kelsey Bardach '14
4. Isabella Guttman '13 6. Charlotte Ward ’14 (3 pieces) 7. Hawkins Warner '13 8. Emily Polasko '13
Honorable Mention 1. Amelia Drew '13 2. Sabrina Finn '14
5. Meg Lazarus ’13 (3 pieces) 6. Abby McInturf ’13 (3 pieces) 7. Allison Mesh ’13 (2 pieces) 8. Sarah Mueller '14 9. Laura Pariot ’13 (2 pieces) 10. Lucy Patterson '14 11. Charlotte Ward '14
Clockwise from top: Grace Krammer “Deterioration,” Katie Barton “Killing Watermelon,” and Casey Pfister, “Untitled”
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FACULTY NEWS Rob Baker, Director of Technology and Greg Martin, Academic Dean representing CCDS technology. It has been a very busy and rewarding year. Last fall, Country Day rolled out the new Fujitsu hybrid tablet PC. The rollout featured the Windows 8 operating system, which had yet to be released to the consumer market. The Fujitsu hybrid features a slate screen that is fully detachable from its keyboard base. The screen unit, with a lightweight e-reader, retains full digital inking capabilities — the writing, sketching, and highlighting functions necessary for teaching and learning. Windows 8 complements the hybrid in many ways, including touchscreen display capabilities.
Fifth graders at the Microsoft 24-hour Education Global Skype Tour The CCDS faculty was also the feature of a Tablet Technology blog article by Greg Martin. The site features Country Day teachers Elvira Carrillo, Rob Baker, Jeremiah McCall, and Susie Lewis. At Transformative Technology Night, more than 60 educators from the area had an opportunity to sample technology tools used in our classrooms. Educators and parents attended interactive sessions led by Baker and Martin.
Rob Baker instructing students and parents at “Out of the Box Day” for the Fujitsu Hybrid Tablets. The Windows 8 operating system was rolled out to the consumer market in October 2012, and Country Day was invited to be part of the 24-hour Education Global Skype Tour with Microsoft. During that time, Anthony Salcito, Vice President of Worldwide Education at Microsoft Corporation, talked to students in 29 countries, from the United States to New Zealand to China. “Unlike many of the students I talked to, you guys have seen and used Windows 8,” Salcito said when addressing the Country Day fifth grade. Because of Country Day’s worldrenowned leadership position in education technology, Rob was invited as the Country Day representative to Microsoft’s Partners in Learning Global Forum in Prague. There he met with educators, business people and policy makers to discuss CCDS’s prowess with digital ink and tablets in the classroom. At this time, it was also announced that Country Day would become a Microsoft World Tour School: educators and executives from around the globe could visit Country Day and see the program in action. Microsoft has also sent two film crews to the school to create education videos.
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COUNTRY DAY FACULTY
Howard Brownstein, Upper School Math teacher In February, Howard Brownstein became only the 41st coach in Ohio high school athletic history to reach 500 career wins in any sport. Howard has coached for 32 years, 28 of those at Country Day. His teams have won 11 sectional titles, three district titles, and a regional title. His 1992 squad made it to the Division IV state final four.
Paula Butler, Upper School Science teacher Upper School chemistry teacher, Paula Butler, braved the windy city in January to be a co-presenter for an all-day POGIL Introductory Workshop sponsored by ISACS, the Independent Schools of the Central States. POGIL stands for “Process-Oriented Guided Inquiry Learning.” The workshop was designed to help instructors in grades seven through twelve who are seeking to incorporate guided inquiry into their classrooms. The session was well attended, with more than 30 participants from seven different Midwestern states. POGIL is a powerful teaching technique which encourages in-depth learning of content as well as critical thinking, communication, and teamwork skills.
Greg Martin addresses educators from the Cincinnati area at “Transformative Technology Night.”
Eldrich Carr, Upper School History teacher
In the spring 2013 edition of EDTECH, a magazine that shares technology insights with K-12 education leaders, Country Day was featured. Baker and Martin were interviewed about why Country Day immediately adopted the new Microsoft Windows 8, while many other schools took a wait-and-see approach.
Eldrich Carr graduated from Teachers College, Columbia University. He earned his M.A. in Private School Leadership from the Klingenstein Leadership Academy. This graduate degree is in addition to his M.Ed. from Boston University’s School of Education.
CCDS was also featured in an NBC/WLWT local Channel 5 feature on the proper use of technology for young children. Head of School Dr. Robert Macrae, Lower School Head Jennifer Aquino, and Rob Baker were prominently featured in the segment, which also included several students.
For more information on the Klingenstein Center at Teacher College Columbia University, visit http://www.klingenstein.org (Pictured - Eldrich and wife Liz at Country Date 2013)
Greg Faulhaber, Upper School Mathematics Department Chair Greg Faulhaber presented at the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics conference in Chicago. His presentation was on Graphical, Numerical, Algebraic, and written representations.
Mark Femia, Upper School Director of Drama and Vocal Music Mark Femia has completed his graduate work at Roosevelt University in Chicago, and now holds a Master of Arts degree in directing.
Jane Kairet, Upper School French
COUNTRYDATE, DATE IN THE CITY Thank you to the entire CCDS community for supporting CountryDate 2013, Date in the City. Nearly 300 attended the event, held for the first time at Paul Brown Stadium, under the backdrop of a picturesque Cincinnati skyline.
especially CCDS parents Tracy Ramirez ’88 and Lori Smith, co-chairs; Anne Maier, acquisitions chair; and Tracey Crellin, Amanda Kranias and Candice Peters, raffle co-chairs.
The live auction was conducted by local auctioneer Susan Johnson. The evening also included a super silent auction, as well as an after party featuring disc jockey “Hey Mr. D.J.” Raffle winners were: Lynn and Wendell Morris, grand prize; Lee Ann Bertsch, second prize; and Jennifer Aquino; third prize. Volunteers spent countless hours working to make Date in the City a success, and we would like to thank everyone involved,
CO-CHAIRS TRACY RAMIREZ & LORI SMITH
Jane Kairet will again serve as a table leader at the French Advanced Placement grading exam.
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Peter ’05 and Betsy Niehoff ’05, and Anne Maier
Cindy Barton, Troy Blackburn, and Theresa Hirschauer
On the Nightstand Recommended reading by faculty... Molly Murray Petre
Kathleen Bagnoli
“Lucky Eyes and a High Heart” by Nancy Cardozo
“Defending Jacob” by William Landay
“The Little Way of Ruthie Leming: A Southern Girl, a Small Town, and the Secret of a Good Life” by Rod Dreher
“Left to Tell” by Immaculee Ilibagiza
“The Greater Journey” by David McCullough
“Pete the Cat and His Four Groovy Buttons” by Eric Litwin
“The Complete Stories” by Flannery O’Connor
“1-2-3 Magic: Effective Discipline for Children 2-12” by Thomas Phelan
Team Leader, Grade 5, English
Early Childhood House
“Gone Girl” by Gillian Flynn
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Chuck Yeiser ’39
TEACHER, COACH, AND HEADMASTER Charles “Chuck” Yeiser, Cincinnati Country Day’s seventh headmaster will be remembered as the leader who ushered in our era of academic excellence and inclusion. “In asking myself what were the two most important improvements during my years, I would say unequivocally that they were co-educating the entire school and racially integrating the faculty and study body,” Chuck wrote for a history of the school’s first 75 years. Girls were admitted into the Upper School in 1973. Two years later, Country Day had its first two female graduates. When he retired in 1977, the Board of Trustees wrote: “The Cincinnati Country Day School owes as much to Chuck Yeiser as any individual in its history. He has been associated with the school for a total of fifty years – essentially, the life of the school itself.”
“ He had great integrity, which was a main focus of his teaching life. He was always giving credit to others and not to himself... ” Ted Jones ’53 Chuck (CCDS Class of 1939) returned to Country Day in 1946 starting as a teacher and coach. He went on to be named Middle School Head, assistant headmaster and, finally, headmaster from 1971-77. He had played football, basketball and baseball at CCDS, and later coached over a 30-year period, coaching a baseball team to state semi-finalist status. He also led a vibrant life beyond the school. He was a philanthropist, classical
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music lover, accomplished tennis and badminton player, huge baseball fan who loved the Reds, a bicyclist and avid fly fisherman. Mr. Yeiser passed away in March at his Indian Hill home at age 92. Cincinnati Country Day will hold a celebration of Mr. Yeiser’s life and career at 3 p.m. Oct. 19 (Homecoming and Reunion Weekend) in the John Whitman Keeler Theater. Dr. Ted Jones ’53 best knew Mr. Yeiser as his teacher and coach. He first was Jones’s eighth-grade English teacher. “He was a very serious person. He was very strict. He was accurate in his teaching and demanding, as well, that we do all of our homework and get it in on time.” “He had great integrity, which was a main focus of his teaching life,” Jones said. “He was always giving credit to others and not to himself. He did not ever want to take the limelight.”
“I remember Mr. Yeiser saying, ‘Did you do another water color?’ He was interested in what I was doing in the art room. It wasn’t about how we were all going to do on some test we were going to take Saturday morning over at Indian Hill High School.” One of the last teachers hired by Mr. Yeiser was Bob Plummer, who arrived at Country Day in 1974 to teach math. Mr. Yeiser was the head of the entire school, as well as the Upper School, comprised of grades 7-12 at that time. He often held faculty meetings and an annual faculty picnic at his home where teachers played volleyball. “He thought of himself as a member of the faculty,” Plummer said. “He was as down-to-earth of a person as I’ve ever met.”
Chuck had an affinity for Jones’s class (the largest up to that point with 15 graduates). He frequently attended class reunions. “He was extremely proud of the Class of 1953,” Jones said. “He always said, right to his dying day, that it was the Class of 1953 that made Country Day School because we stuck together. It was the first class where no students went off to boarding school.” One Sunday morning around 1962, when Jones was in medical school, he and a handful of classmates held an impromptu reunion. They put two canoes in the Little Miami River at Morrow and bought a case of beer. “It was a very hot day. As we were going down the river, we started drinking beer around 12:30 in the afternoon. We were having a great time and paddling, and just beyond the Miami Boat Club, we saw from a distance that there was a guy out there fly fishing. “Damned if it wasn’t Chuck Yeiser as we got closer. Here we are all half inebriated, his old students out there. That was an embarrassing time for all of us. Of course, he was delighted to see us coming along the river in our canoes. I’ll never forget that.” Another student, James Jared Taylor ’77, recalled that Mr. Yeiser cared about students of all abilities. Taylor wasn’t particularly good at standardized testtaking, but Mr. Yeiser recognized he was darned good at art.
Ted Jones ’53 and John Miller ’53 hoist Mr. Yeiser during a picnic following his retirement in 1977. Becoming headmaster was not likely his career goal or his idea. Mr. Yeiser had proven himself a capable educator and administrator, so when a headmaster left for another job, the Board of Trustees asked if he’d take the position. Devoted to Country Day, Mr. Yeiser agreed. “Chuck saw the need and stepped in,” Plummer said. “He was not a natural administrator. He was much more of a teacher and coach. The school was his passion, but not administration.”
Photo of Chuck Yeiser used with permission from the Cincinnati Enquirer.
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When Mr. Yeiser reflected on his years as headmaster, he wrote, “Perhaps the hardest decision I had to make as headmaster was to retire when I did at the age of fifty-six after a relatively short term of only six years.”
An excerpt from John Raushenbush’s introduction of Chuck Yeiser’s 2004 induction into the CCDS Athletic Hall of Fame:
Plans were in the works to expand the school during the next five years, which he endorsed, but he didn’t think he was the right person to lead that project. He felt it would be better to bring in a new, younger person who had experience beyond Country Day. John Raushenbush was his successor. Collectively, the Yeiser and Raushenbush years were considered the period when CCDS earned its reputation as the top independent school in Cincinnati. After retiring, Mr. Yeiser spent several years working for an agency that recruited teachers for independent schools. “My sense was he simply wanted to slow down and have more control of his time, but still make a different set of contributions to independent education,” said Raushenbush, who was Head of School from 1977-94. Mr. Yeiser and Raushenbush became good friends, brought together not as much by their link as headmasters, but by their common interests outside of school. They both liked to bike, fly fish, play racquet sports and contract bridge. Because they were good friends, Mr. Yeiser felt comfortable giving his successor advice, and Raushenbush felt comfortable receiving it, even asking for his guidance. They didn’t always agree. “He and I had a series of discussions about whether it was a good idea to put lights on the football field. He believed it would be an excellent step forward. I resisted because I didn’t think the school needed to spend the money it had for athletics in that way,” Raushenbush said.
Coach Yeiser with the Jr. Varsity basketball team, circa 1960 Mr. Yeiser was so certain of his stance that he donated the money for the lights. “That’s why we have lights, and I will be quick to acknowledge that Friday nights under the lights became a very important part of the program.” Besides helping fund athletic facility improvements, Mr. Yeiser and his wife, Mary, also gave significant financial support to the school for scholarships to young people whose families couldn’t afford the tuition, Raushenbush said. Head of School Dr. Robert Macrae first met the former headmaster when he attended Macrae’s installation in 2004. “He is such a legendary figure. You hope as a head of school that you can, in a small way, continue the legacy that he created.” “Mr. Yeiser was a powerful force, both as a faculty member and then as head of school,“ Macrae said. “He was such a joy to talk to. We would go out fairly frequently with John Raushenbush. We would laugh about just what it is to be a head, whether it’d be some of the mistakes we’ve made or some of the pickles we’d get ourselves into.” “He had a great sense of humor. He loved to laugh. He loved to talk about his baseball days. If I were to guess, and I knew him late in his life, his favorite moments were on the baseball field and his interactions with children. He would really sparkle when he would talk about his interactions with the children,” Macrae said.
Chuck with Kevin Thesing at the dedication of the Upper School and Theater in 2001
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“Chuck’s passing represents the end of an era,” he said. “He was part of the troika of Yeiser, Bill Hopple and Lee Pattison. They were part of ‘The Greatest Generation’
When I mentioned to Chuck that I had been asked to speak in his behalf, he replied that I was the perfect choice since I was the only person he knew long-winded enough to do him justice. As I recalled the many hours we have spent together and the hundreds of conversations we have had, my thoughts jumped back to the day I entered the office that had been his and was now mine. There on my new desk was a note he had left behind which read: “John, welcome. I have asked ISACS to postpone the once every seven years school evaluation due this past year so that you could have the pleasure of doing it.” Those of you who have been through this process know just how much pleasure that means. Soon thereafter, he stuck his head through my office door simulating interest in how things were going, but really wanting to inform me that I was hired only because it was firmly believed that Marcia would make all the important decisions and keep me out of trouble. It wasn’t long before I fully understood that Chuck’s wonderful wife, Mary, had done just that for him. Our friendship was to survive these initial salvos, especially because I discovered that Chuck and I had one obsession in common that could not be categorized as schoolwork and was not under the auspices of our wives: we were not only avid competitors in fly-fishing, contract bridge, biking, and racquet sports, but we were truly enthusiastic sports spectators and the worst kind of grandstand quarterbacks. Does this qualify me to speak about his contributions to Country Day athletics? I hope so. that Tom Brokaw wrote about in his book. They’ve all passed since I’ve been here. It was an incredible era for Country Day and an incredibly important time in the history of the school.”
by Cindy Kranz
Chuck Yeiser, right with former Head of School John Raushenbush, and current Head of School Rob Macrae at the 2004 Alumni Luncheon.
Bill Hopple Jr. ’39 at Chuck’s retirement picnic.
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THE ARTS FLOURISH An essential part of the curriculum This year marks the 50th anniversary of the founding of the visual art department at Cincinnati Country Day School. The program was started in 1962-63 by a group of students led by William Messer ’66 and Upper School teacher Phyllis Pierce. When Messer arrived at Country Day, he found no art department. He got the sense that art wasn’t a priority like academics, and sports. “The visual arts just weren’t there. They weren’t on the walls. I don’t know why that provoked me to sort of shake the rafters,” he said. Pierce was teaching another subject when she was drafted to teach art. She had taught art at another school. Unused space under a stage was used for classes.
“We value the important role the arts play in giving our children a well-rounded education. It is an integral part of the learning landscape that helps students develop their creative and cognitive skills. While art initiatives are disappearing at some schools, we believe they are essential in helping our students find their voices and grow into confident and accomplished individuals.”
Dr. Robert Macrae, Head of School
“We had about 20 or 30 art students. Phyllis Pierce taught everything from working in clay to painting and drawing. She worked hard. She was dedicated. The students cared about her, and she cared about them, and it made a difference in a lot of lives,” said Messer, who has remained active in the arts, particularly photography, throughout his life as an artist, critic, curator and educator.
As a result, the arts are flourishing at Country Day. The visual arts department has emerged as one of the pre-eminent programs in the city with many students winning top regional and national honors. With a nod to the importance and successes of all of the arts programs, we take a look at how the arts have impacted students even beyond Cincinnati Country Day School. Connections visits with seven alumni who have immersed themselves professionally in the arts.
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The fine art department includes a range of drawing, painting, collage, mixed-media, printmaking and clay instruction, as well as computer graphics and photography classes. Advanced Placement and Honors classes also have been added.
The eighth-grade musical has been a staple since 1988. It’s proven to effectively feed the Upper School with students who discovered their acting chops during the musical.
In the years since then, the arts at Country Day have been through peaks and valleys, in terms of emphasis, equipment and supplies. Because Country Day was long a boys’ school, some sensed there was more interest in sports than the arts.
Now she said it’s not unusual for a boy to run from a baseball game to the Keeler Theater to play the drums in the Jazz Band or a girl to pull off her lacrosse cleats as she explains her collage during Evening of the Arts.
Upper School students are required to take two credit hours in the fine arts for graduation.
Country Day has state-of-the-art photography equipment thanks to a sizeable grant from the Peter Niehoff ’05 family. The idea was to create a model photo curriculum in collaboration with the University of Cincinnati.
“Art was so nourishing to me. I’m so glad that there was a Phyllis Pierce, and there was an administration that said, ‘OK, let’s have art.’ Thank goodness.”
When Upper School English teacher Pat Dunn arrived in 1985, she observed that the school’s emphasis was purely on academics. She saw that emphasis shift to a healthy balance of academics and athletics.
Did You Know?
As part of the largest capital campaign in the school’s history, an arts center was included in a new 100,000-square-foot Upper School facility completed in 2000.
Ulysses Marin, Middle School art teacher “In this day and age, you have to be well-rounded. It cannot simply be the 3 R’s as we know them. While we’re trying to prepare kids for an increasingly advanced society, as far as technology and information, the creativity piece is just as big. I’ve seen study after study and article after article about how the jobs of the future are going to require more creativity.”
Mark Femia, Upper School director of drama and vocal music
The Upper School has a class in Improvisation, a tool used in business settings and retreats to encourage workers to think spontaneously and outside the box to boost creativity and production. The class helps prepare students to think on their feet. “Creating with glass” is the latest addition to the visual arts curriculum, in collaboration with Brazee Street Studios. In addition, the school has a new glass club. CCDS has won numerous Cappies (theater awards) and Scholastic Art and Writing awards. Our literary magazine, InWords, has garnered national recognition from the National Council of Teachers of English, and a photography initiative, Focus, brought together public and private school photographers from around the country, meriting a Leading Edge Award for Curriculum Innovation by the National Association of Independent Schools.
“After a couple of years, people began to see the visual arts as something you could actually study and build skills in. It wasn’t just fun and games. It was very academically driven. We’re considered in a way that we were not in the old days. It took a good long while for people to realize we were serious. They had hired us to do a job, and we decided to do it well.”
“Prior to the new building and new emphasis on arts facilities, the arts were very much a secondclass citizen in the Upper School. It’s almost like the movie, ‘Field of Dreams.’ If you build it, they will come. The Upper School and its significant arts facilities was a commitment and it was filled.”
“When I arrived, the program in music, art and theater was not as important to the school as the athletic program ... It did become better during those years and gained pretty much an equal footing with the sports program.”
John Raushenbush, Headmaster from 1977-94
Louise Hausman, Upper School art teacher who arrived in 1996
Dick Schwab ’67, retired Head of the Middle School
Student work displayed at Winter Evening of the Arts in December 2012.
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ALUMNI IN THE ARTS ROB SHETTERLY ’65 “AMERICANS WHO TELL THE TRUTH.” Rob Shetterly fully intended to paint only 50 portraits for his project, “Americans Who Tell the Truth.” But he blew through the stop sign and has created nearly 200 paintings in the last 11 years. The acrylic portraits on wooden panels travel all over the United States, mostly to colleges, schools, libraries and museums. Shetterly follows along, speaking about the subjects of his paintings and the issues that mobilized them. Quotes from each subject are etched into the panels. “They’re portraits of both historical and contemporary people whom I consider to be our best citizens,” said Shetterly, who lives on the coast of Maine. Before the project, Shetterly was busy making and selling art for a living. Then, an international event altered his course and unleashed his political activism. “It started with absolute outrage that we were being taken into the Iraq war. The government was lying to the people to create a war and I was thinking, ‘I’ve got to use what I do best, which is paint, to be a better citizen of this country.’” Instead of focusing on his anger at the government, Shetterly said he decided to surround himself with people he admires and use them as a basis for talking about what it means to really uphold the values of the country. “I was determined to find something positive to do that would increase dialogue and enable people to really think about our own history and the ethics of democracy.” “This is not a partisan thing. Democrats have done this as much as Republicans. It was the fact that this was happening in a democracy, and we were being so manipulated by our own government.” Shetterly’s first portrait, Walt Whitman, was completed in January 2002. His collection contains historical icons, such as Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks. Now, he’s painting almost all contemporary people, which he said is more controversial. And yes, some people get riled up about his work. “I don’t shy away from controversial issues. To be consistent, I have to approach all of these issues, not just
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the ones that are more comfortable for people to talk about. I’ve painted a lot of people from West Virginia and Kentucky around issues of mountaintop removal coal mining. I painted people around climate change, tough issues that a lot of people don’t want to confront.
BIOGRAPHY Rob Shetterly ’65 Residence: Brooksville, Maine
“I didn’t do this to be well-liked. I did it because I thought it was necessary. The kind of discussions that the portraits and the quotes stimulate are discussions I think we really desperately need to be having in the country and as citizens of the world.”
Profession: Artist, writer, political activist through art
“ I was determined to find something positive to do that would increase dialogue and enable people to really think about our own history and the ethics of democracy.”
If he wasn’t an artist: “Because of the art, I spend an awful lot of time teaching. I’m a Woodrow Wilson Visiting Fellow. I spend a lot of time in colleges all over the country in residencies. I actually love teaching. My guess is, whatever I did, it would involve some kind of teaching … I can’t imagine actually being anything but an artist, at least as the primary thing.”
Rob Shetterly ’65 His selections of the famous and not so famous are subjective, but the common thread is the truth of our Declaration of Independence and Constitution, Shetterly said.
Education: Bachelor of Arts in English literature at Harvard University
Advice to today’s seniors: Do not allow yourself to be limited in life choices by what the culture seems to want you to be, learning the job skills, the professions and the ideas that fit into the current status quo. The status quo is incompatible with sustainable life on this planet. We need young people coming out of school who are imaginative, critical thinkers and can imagine a very different way of living on this planet than we have lived in the past. Closely examine what you’ve been taught and whether it provides you a way into an ethical and sustainable future instead of just a way of making money. See his work: www. americanswhotellthetruth.org
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“Since we wrote those documents, there has been an enormous divide between what we said and what we actually do. The most obvious thing is where we talked about liberty, justice and freedom and inalienable rights, and we only gave them to rich white men. Since then, the real struggle in this country, in my opinion, has been to live up to its own ideal to provide freedoms and equality to everyone and not just people of some privilege.” When Shetterly graduated from Country Day, becoming an artist was not on his radar. That changed after taking a drawing class at Harvard. The university didn’t offer an art major then, so he pursued art on his own. “I was living off the grid in the woods of Maine with no electricity and no plumbing and raising a family that way and reading ‘Little House on the Prairie,’ getting advice about how to live. My alternative income those days was digging clams, working on a scallop boat and working in a fish factory. I was doing whatever I could to bring in a little bit of money while I taught myself how to draw and paint.” Today, when he’s not painting, he loves hiking, kayaking, bird watching and movies. More than any of those leisure pastimes, he loves gardening. Passionate about raising local food, he gardens all summer and has a greenhouse for gardening during the winter. Shetterly doesn’t know how long he’ll continue “Americans Who Tell the Truth.” He’s still excited about it, so there’s no end in sight. Eventually, he’ll donate his portraits to an institution that will continue to show them and use them for education. “When I started the project I’m doing now, I didn’t want to do it. I had a life. I had a career. I was paying the bills, I was raising a family on art, and it meant that I was going to give all of that up. I had no idea how I was going to survive, because I knew I wasn’t going to sell these paintings. “This was so important to me that I left that behind and took a huge leap in my life to try to do something I thought was more significant and, amazingly, people have embraced it all over this country.” He survives now by being paid to talk about his art, rather than by selling art. “I was expecting to do a few paintings and stack them in my basement and nobody would care, but I’d feel better. Instead, I have an enormous educational project that keeps me traveling all of the time and speaking about issues that, 11 years ago, I didn’t know anything about.”
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The overriding issues of our day are so important, he said, that they’ve changed his sense of what his obligations are as an artist. “I was a surrealist. I was making mysterious, ambiguous, confusing paintings for most people. I thought that was my obligation — mysterious narratives that I hoped prompted people to have questions about what it means to be alive. Now, because of the urgency of today’s issues, he can’t imagine doing anything else. “When I look at my four-year-old grandson, I think, ‘What would he be asking me in another 20 years? Granddad, what were you doing about climate change? What were you doing about social inequality?’ and I’ve got to have something to say.” by Cindy Kranz
Rob Shetterly with Nancy Carlsson-Paige, the subject of his painting on the following page, upper right hand corner.
Americans Who Tell the Truth
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JAMES JARED TAYLOR ’77 “IF I CAN GET A B.A. DOING THAT, I’M IN.” It might be surprising that an artist as accomplished as James Jared Taylor still occasionally messes up or his work doesn’t meet his expectations. “In fact, I think the landfill here has a lot of my stuff,” the high school art teacher joked. “And, I tell my students that. That’s all part of the process. You just keep going.” Over his career, the Desert Springs, Calif. artist and Chaparral High School art teacher has dabbled in different media, from caste bronze to water colors to drawing to printmaking. “That’s what happens after you do this for 40 years. You get involved in different types of media,” Taylor said. “Right now, I’m primarily doing some contemporary landscape paintings, which are acrylic on canvas. I’ve really been working in that direction with these landscapes for about 15 years.” Taylor is finishing a large series of contemporary landscape paintings based on El Camino de Santiago (The Way of St. James), a pilgrimage route that he’s walked the past two summers. “I literally walked 500 miles across Spain last summer. No cars. No buses. Nothing. I just went from town-to-town along this
Project,” which are large and small scale sculptures made in structural steel with frosted glass and mirrors. When sunlight hits the sculpture at various times of the day, it produces different shadows. “If I could give them a label, they would be neo-constructivist sculptures. They kind of resemble a lot of work that was done in Germany and the Soviet Union and in Holland in the 1930s when artists were using some, back then, modern materials in their artwork. I’ve kind of revisited that.” Taylor, whose art is displayed coast-tocoast, is not wedded to a favorite medium. “One of my favorite things to do is welding. I love welded structures. If there’s anything I got really good at, it’s joining metals,” he said, laughing. “I have work all over the country and all over the world that have been forged and welded - sculptures and furniture. Metal has been my focus. It’s what I’m probably best at, because that’s what I worked the most.” He has attributed his love for art to his parents, especially his dad, James, and his family’s many trips to the Cincinnati Art Museum and Contemporary Art Center. From a young age, Taylor meandered through the Cincinnati Art Museum, admiring paintings and sculptures.
“The rigorous nature of discussion and critical thinking was at Country Day from the get-go.”
He recalled seeing a bronze torso study by Auguste Rhoden, the French sculptor. “I looked at that and thought, ‘Wow! I would really love to create something like that.’ Within the week, I fired about a half dozen little terracotta torsos in the kiln at Country Day. It was the start to my work, primarily working in sculpture.”
James Jared Taylor ’77
“I see this undergrad, and he’s out in this big outdoor work yard with overhead hoists and cranes to lift metal and steel pieces. He pulls a cigar out of his mouth and he lights a blowtorch and starts cutting this piece of steel and I looked at that and I said, ‘If I can get a B.A. doing that, I’m in.’’’
rather famous route. I did a lot of water colors along the way, so I’m working on larger paintings, similar to the ones at Country Day but a little more involved.” He’s also worked on a series of outdoor sculptures called, “The Intermodulation
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Taylor was a freshman when he decided to become an artist. “It was something that just struck my soul. I enjoyed it. It took me to a different world, and I knew it would take me on some great adventures. I’ve done a lot of fun things.” On a college visit to the Kansas City Art Institute, where he earned his undergraduate degree, he and his dad walked through the sculpture department.
Continued on page 30
BIOGRAPHY James Jared Taylor ’77 Residence: Desert Hot Springs, Calif. Profession: Sculptor, artist, art teacher at Chaparral High School, Temecula, Calif., where he’s teaching Beginning 3-Dimensional Art, Advanced Placement Art and Advanced Placement Portfolio Education: Bachelor of Fine Arts, Kansas City Art Institute; Master of Fine Arts, Rutgers University – Mason Gross School of the Arts If he wasn’t an artist: “I’ve never really thought about another profession. However, I have always liked music and history. It would be fun to be a guitarist in a studio in LA or NY. I also have contemplated getting my credential to teach history/art history in the California public schools.” Advice to today’s seniors: “If you want to work with horses, go work with horses. If you want to paint, go paint. Focus on one thing that you really like to do, and keep it simple. If you really want to pursue something in the arts, focus on creating art. Keep it simple. Your goal is to create art.” See his art: www. jamesjaredtaylorarts. com, facebook.com/ jamesjaredtaylorarts and Greenwich House Gallery, 2124 Madison Road, Cincinnati
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When Taylor is not creating art or teaching, he’s hard at work at his serious hobby. “In fact, it might be too serious,” said Taylor, who is a jazz musician. He dabbled with guitar playing most of his life. About 1999, he got a sweet paycheck for an art installation, so he rewarded himself by buying an expensive Gibson guitar and started learning again. He plays in one big band now, but he’s played in about two or three big bands previously. He also plays in some smaller ensembles around California. “I have about one or two gigs a months, which is kind of fun.”
“Wow! I would really love to create something like that.’ Within the week, I fired about a half dozen little terracotta torsos in the kiln at Country Day. It was the start to my work, primarily working in sculpture.” James Jared Taylor ’77
When he visits Cincinnati, he always schedules his trips around Monday night so he can sit in with musicians during Jam Session Night at the Blue Wisp Jazz Club downtown. Taylor is a big fan of the late Freddy Green, the rhythm guitar player for the Count Basie Orchestra. “I’ve always tried to emulate his style.”
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Along with the influence Country Day had on his art aspirations, Taylor draws from his school experience in his own teaching. He recalled English classes with Charlie Goetz, who taught English and drama in the ’70s. “When we wrote something or discussed something, we sat in a circle. I do the same thing in my own classes. “The rigorous nature of discussion and critical thinking was at Country Day from the get-go. I think that rigorous academic training that I had has helped me tremendously all the way through life. It’s made me a lifelong learner. I’m a big reader. I did things because they were interesting.” It might also be surprising that Taylor doesn’t have any art projects on his bucket list. “Art is kind of the vehicle that gets me fascinated with certain cultures and places. My bucket list is to get rid of a lot of things in life and get a backpack and just wander,” Taylor said. “I’ve spent the last two summers just wandering in Europe and just living out of a backpack. People say. ‘That’s what you do in your 20s.’ Well, you know, when you’re in your 50s, that’s kind of cool, too.” - by Cindy Kranz
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MISSY GREENBERG ’80 THE SHOW STILL GOES ON! Missy (Schwartz) Greenberg’s love for the stage was sealed as early as fifth grade when she appeared as a canary in a pointe ballet recital at Country Day. Wearing a yellow leotard and feathered cap, she was supposed to emerge from the woods, execute her solo and return. But she heard the sound of applause, the sound that means love. “I never went back into the woods. I stayed on the stage,” Greenberg said. “My Mom (Betsy) and Dad (Marvin H. Schwartz ’51) and grandmother (Ruth Klein) couldn’t stop laughing.” Decades later, Greenberg ’80 still basks in the limelight of the stage and has per-
“I saw my first show when I was 3 years old, so I’ve always loved the theater, and I’ve loved musical theater,” Greenberg said. “I started dancing when I was 4.” Missy Greenberg ’80 formed all over the country. She’s been immersed in theater from the get-go. “I saw my first show when I was 3 years old, so I’ve always loved the theater, and I’ve loved musical theater,” Greenberg said. “I started dancing when I was 4.” Country Day’s theater offerings were limited when she attended school, so she got her theater fix at the Jewish Community Center, where she sang and danced in their musicals.
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Before graduating from high school, Greenberg spent part of her summers in choral and dance programs at the College-Conservatory of Music at the University of Cincinnati and attended summer performing arts camps in Steamboat Springs, Colo. and the Catskill Mountains in New York.
Missy (Schwartz) Greenberg ’80
Her family lived on the West Coast while she attended college on the East Coast. Her freshman summer, she did a production of “The Music Man” at San Diego State. That job led to working for the Lawrence Welk Dinner Theater, where she performed seven weeks in “Fiddler on the Roof” and six weeks in “Brigadoon.”
Profession: Actress, theater producer. She’s executive assistant to Broadway producer Stuart Oken at Elephant Eye Theatrical in Chicago. She also owns her own company, MSG Productions.
Upon graduation from The Boston Conservancy, Greenberg returned to California instead of going to New York. She had put roots down and made friends, so she decided to head west.
Education: Bachelor of Fine Arts in Musical Theater at The Boston Conservatory.
“I’m sorry that I didn’t give myself a chance to go to New York. I went to California, started working in the theater, got an agent and gave myself six months to get a job in the business. That didn’t happen, so when I reflect on it, I gave up too soon,” she said. “When you’re a true actor, you never know where your next paycheck’s coming from. So, you have to have a backup. That’s why most actors have to become waiters. I think it’s wise to go to college and get a degree, so you have something to fall back on.” Greenberg went to work for Lorimar Home Video, which had its home on the MGM lot in Los Angeles. She was production coordinator for their home video division during the fitness video heyday of Jane Fonda, who was on their label. But marriage (1988), a move to Boston, then to suburban Chicago and two children later, left little time for theater, even at the amateur level. When her children were 4 and 2, she returned at the community theater level and later started to produce other community theater shows. This would lead to a professional gig bringing shows from New York to Chicago through her company, MSG Productions. Greenberg is proud to be the first producer to have brought Seth Rudetsky’s “Deconstructing Broadway” to Chicago. He is host of “Seth’s Big Fat Broadway” on Sirius/XM radio’s On Broadway. She has also produced YouTube sensation “Miranda Sings,” a classically-trained singer who created a character named Miranda who sings off key.
BIOGRAPHY
Residence: Northbrook, Ill.
If she wasn’t an actress/theater producer: “I have no idea. I would definitely be involved with the arts, somehow, or creative in some way, shape or form.” Advice to today’s seniors: “Follow your dreams, and if you have the love, drive and passion, go for it. You have to believe in yourself.” And another show she’s brought to Chicago is “Jim Caruso’s Cast Party,” a New York-based open mic night for anyone who wants to sing. “I’m really proud of that. Nobody else has done that.” In 2007, single again and with her children grown, Greenberg joined Elephant Eye Theatrical, where she’s a liaison between outside investors, producers and theatrical general management companies. The company is developing several big projects that haven’t been announced, but she continues to work on their “Addams Family,” which has gone global. Greenberg is also a proud associate of The Broadway Dreams Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to presenting training, mentoring and career opportunities in musical theater to performing arts students, regardless of their ability to pay. Although Elephant Eye is a full-time job, Greenberg can still be found on stage. Her favorite role was playing Peter in “Peter Pan,” a production by Footlighters, a local Chicago theater company. “I got to fly, and I just did it four summers ago. I was 46.”
Greenberg thrives in the theater, but she acknowledged that her passion is often a wild roller coaster ride of highs and lows. “You have to have a very thick outer layer of skin. Anybody who wants to make it in the theater has to have that passion and drive, and know that you’re going to be told ‘no’ many, many times. Rejection is hard. The first time around, when I went for ‘Peter Pan,’ I knew my director wanted a man, and she cast a man. I was devastated.” But like her appearance at the Country Day ballet recital, Greenberg has no plans to leave the stage. “Theater is in my blood. It’s my lifeline. I cannot imagine my life without it.” She is rehearsing now for “Thoroughly Modern Millie.” And at age 50, Greenberg said, “I can kick my leg up just as high as anybody.” The show still goes on! by Cindy Kranz
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ALAN LIGHT ’84 HOW IT SHOULD BE Alan Light has hung out with Prince, given advice to Bono and written a book with Gregg Allman. As one of the country’s leading music journalists, Light routinely crosses paths with music legends, but there are some elusive musicians he’d like to meet. “I’ve never interviewed Bob Dylan, who is probably the single artist most important to me,” Light said. “I’ve only spoken to Bruce Springsteen on the telephone and suppose it would be good to actually sit with him someday.”
“The emphasis on writing at Country Day was obviously important to my development...” Alan Light ’84 Light is the author of two books and a frequent contributor to The New York Times and Rolling Stone. He’s a columnist for msn.com and a member of The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame nominating committee. Light’s most recent achievement is his book, “The Holy or the Broken: Leonard Cohen, Jeff Buckley, and the Unlikely Ascent of ‘Hallelujah.’” Long unknown, the song is now one of the most performed rock songs in history, from “Shrek” to “American Idol,” from weddings to funerals. The impetus for the book came when Light attended a Yom Kippur service where the choir sang “Hallelujah.” The song moved people to tears. It was 2010, the same year that Justin Timberlake sang the song at the Hope for Haiti Telethon and k.d. lang sang it to open the Winter Olympics in Canada. “There’s a trajectory around this song that is unlike anything else that I can think of,” Light said. There are now more than 360 different recordings of the song, which has become a modern standard. “Hallelujah” was first recorded in 1984,
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and Cohen’s record company turned it down. The song later came out on an independent label, but it didn’t take off. “It took 10 to 15 to 20 years for the song to gain this momentum. All of a sudden, it’s everywhere,” Light said. About the same time, Light was signed to co-write Gregg Allman’s memoir, “My Cross to Bear.” “This was somebody who has always been a very reluctant interview and not a life of the party kind of rock star … He was very committed to it and gave up the stories that he wanted to give up and really was very open about all kinds of things in his life.” The book hit No. 2 on The New York Times bestseller list, and they recently sold the movie rights. Light reached this level of success as senior writer at Rolling Stone for about five years. He then was editor-in-chief for VIBE, a hip hop version of Rolling Stone, and Spin, which focused on alternative rock. He’ll never recover from interviewing Prince, who hadn’t done an interview in five years. Light had written a review of a show, and Prince’s team thought he might be the guy to do the interview. “We went a year and a half kind of flirting, is really the only word I can say. They’d fly me out, we’d hang out, we’d talk. This isn’t an interview. We’d just hang out. Eventually, we did the piece, and that was very exciting.” Another career highlight came when he was scheduled to accompany Bono and U2 to a few concerts for a Spin article. The set list was turned upside down when the terrorist attacks occurred. He spent several days with U2 as it performed their first shows after Sept. 11. Light witnessed a moment in history as the band raised its own bar in response to grief-stricken fans. They asked themselves, “What do we do with this moment? What are the people coming to these shows looking for? People are afraid to go out of their house and there’s a certain thing that we have … What are they coming to us for?” Light watched band members go through each song, line by line, figuring out how to best speak to their fans. By the time U2 got to New York City, six weeks after Sept. 11, their work had been perfected. “I have never seen a more powerful rock and roll show in my life, and I love them, but they’re not my favorite band. It was a miracle watching those
BIOGRAPHY Alan Light ’84 Residence: New York City Profession: Music journalist Education: Bachelor of Arts in American studies with a concentration in American music, Yale University If he wasn’t a music journalist: “I never spent too much time thinking about it. I’d happily switch over to covering baseball. That would be the next obvious thing to do.” Advice to today’s seniors: “Study the stuff that you love and learn the most about what you’re most interested in … If you can find that passion, if you can identify what that overriding interest is, go as deep into it as you can.” shows and watching people in tears, out for the first time. I took my best friend and he was like, ‘That healed my heart. Now I can function again.’ It was that kind of power.” The life of a music journalist isn’t all glitzy, given the challenges in the music and publishing industries. “There are fewer places to write. The places that are there have fewer pages. The fewer pages are filled by more expectation from staff doing more of the work. There’s not a lot floating around.” And so, Light spends time piecing together different projects, including his work on “Live From the Artists Den,” a concert series on public television. He’s also in meetings for more book projects. He’d like to try telling a music story through film. At a young age, Light knew his life would revolve around writing about music. “Music was always the only thing that I really believed in,” said Light, who was 10 when he attended his first concert — Elton John. Light played piano when he was young, but stopped soon after he got to
Country Day where sports and other extracurricular activities won him over. “Now, I live vicariously through my 10-year-old’s fever for his guitar playing.” His career goal was jump-started by his mother, Janet, who was a Cincinnati Enquirer dance critic for years. “Since music was always the thing that was most important to me, some version of that was always what I wanted to do and pretty much all I’ve done,” he said. “I do live in fear of waking up one day and not wanting to do this anymore, because I have no other marketable skills.” CCDS also had a hand in his career path. “The emphasis on writing at Country Day was obviously important to my development, as was the chance to write for The Scroll and to take on other kinds of projects that let me explore writing about music. There were lots of great teachers. Dick Davidson was the one who really lit me up and made me work at writing, and at reading.” In his spare time, Light is chairman of the Housing Works Bookstore Café, which gives 100 percent of its proceeds to Housing Works, the nation’s leading community-based HIV/AIDS services provider. Through the store, he’s helped organize a benefit music series, drawing artists from The Black Keys to Lyle Lovett. He remains a devoted baseball fan and still follows the Reds. “I spend time keeping up with that, and of course treasure as much time playing ball with my son as I can get. Doing stuff with him fills up most of my spare time, which is how it should be.” by Cindy Kranz
Photo courtesy of Mary Ellen Matthews
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JESSICA DESSNER ’91 LIFE IS A BALANCE Jessica Dessner’s eclectic resume includes artist, choreographer/dancer and poet. She owes it all to one person. “I wouldn't be a dancer, an artist, if it weren't for my mother (Sally). She drove me down to CCM day after day, despite her demanding schedule as the head of a nursing program,” Dessner said. Dessner ’91 entered the professional ballet program at the College-Conservatory of Music when she was 7. She knew she wanted to be a dancer from the moment she started dancing there. “The Cincinnati Ballet Company was using CCM's studios at the time, so from a very young, formative age, I was surrounded by these incredible professional ballet dancers,” Dessner said. She danced at CCM until she left for New York, where she majored in dance at Barnard College. She joined a Butoh company, Poppo and the GoGo Boys, while she was in college. Butoh is a contemporary Japanese dance form. After graduating, Dessner continued to dance and choreograph professionally in New York and Europe for many years. But her passion extended to other art forms, as well. “My interest in writing poetry was piqued in a class at Columbia taught by the great New York School poet Kenneth Koch, a Cincinnati native,” she said. In 2006, she took a hiatus from dancing to study poetry at The New School, where she got her Master of Fine Arts. In graduate school, her poetry was often described as falling into the New York School lineage. “So, I could say Frank O'Hara is my poetic grandfather.” Dessner draws inspiration for her poems from a daily practice of journaling, which she’s always done. “There are lines stolen from eavesdropping in on strangers' conversations, misread headlines and quotes lifted from other writers. The job of the poet is to know everything, which is a relief, really, because if I was only culling from my own range of experience, my life and work would become too selfcentered.” During her break from dancing to study poetry, she discovered she could make hyper-realist drawings with colored pencils. The drawings are based on photographs she takes with an old pointand-shoot Olympus. “I have no training in either medium, which has led to some artful mistakes and discoveries,” Dessner said.
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“Now, life is a balance of working in all three forms. Periods of time pass where I draw, dance or write more intensively, depending on upcoming shows or commissions.” While musically-talented brothers, Aaron ’94 and Bruce Dessner ’94 are in the limelight as members of the indie rock band The National, their older sister’s life has been anything but boring.
“I loved music class in Lower School with Miss (Ann) Gatch and art classes throughout all those years at CCD, especially with Mrs. (Joyce) Applegate and Chris Hayward.” Jessica Dessner ’91 Some career highlights, so far: dancing naked in the fountain of the Guggenheim for the Francesco Clemente opening (Lauren Hutton was taking pictures of her the entire time); dancing for 6,000 people with Sufjan Stevens in Prospect Park, wearing wild costumes by Rihanna's costume designer, Adam Selman; reading poems at St. Mark's Poetry Project, the backbone of the New York poetry scene for decades; and creating drawings for a couple of Sufjan-related albums. With such a busy schedule, it’s difficult for her to find spare time. “Attempts to relax
Biography Name: Jessica Dessner ’91 Residence: Brooklyn, N.Y. Profession: Artist, choreographer/dancer, poet Education: Bachelor of Arts in dance, Barnard College/ Columbia University, New York City; Master of Fine Arts in poetry, The New School, New York City If she wasn’t a creative artist: “Impossible to imagine. I’ve only ever had a mind and body for making art.” Advice to today’s seniors: “Do the work. Delight in the process.” See her work: Google her to find videos and images, as well as poems on online zines. always find their way back into my work. Most of the photos I draw were shot on vacation, where poems often begin.” Like all professions, an artist’s world is filled with successes and challenges. Her favorite part about being an artist? “The daily practice of making something, the cycles of research and meditation, experimenting and failing, until finally coming up with something that surprises me. “The mystery of artistic surprise, how it never fails to emerge if I just do my work, this is surely the greatest benefit of being an artist. Also, the genius of the people I've met and come to know and work with over the years. My brothers and I are part of an incredible community of artists, musicians and dancers, all working and living together.” And the challenges? “The moment something I've been working on enters the public eye requires detachment on so many levels. It’s such a trick to master the ego in these situations.” She’s grateful to Cincinnati Country Day School, which provided her with an early foundation in the arts.
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Shoe Tree 2012 Colored pencil, nail polish, acrylic, graphite, ink, gouache on paper
“I loved music class in Lower School with Miss (Ann) Gatch and art classes throughout all those years at CCD, especially with Mrs. (Joyce) Applegate and Chris Hayward. I most certainly wouldn't be the artist I am today without having had them lead the way.” Knowing how valuable that CCDS experience was, Dessner is saddened by the state of the arts in many schools today. She was working in Detroit recently and met some local children. “When I pressed them about their favorite topics in school, they couldn't come up with any, so I asked, ‘What about art class?’ They said, ‘We don't have art.’ Art class had been cut. Devastating.” by Cindy Kranz
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Yellow Fever 2012 Colored pencil, gouache on paper
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ROB PATTERSON ’02 THE “AHA MOMENT” Rob Patterson ’02 clearly remembers the “aha moment” when he knew he and the clarinet would be inseparable.
the clarinet and the trumpet. I wasn’t particularly drawn to the clarinet right away.”
Patterson and his mom, Carol, attended a Northern Kentucky Symphony Orchestra concert when he was in ninth grade. Richie Hawley, then the principal clarinet with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, played the Copland Clarinet Concerto.
Patterson started private clarinet lessons with then band director Rob Harper. He still wasn’t committed to the clarinet until seventh grade.
“I heard him play that concert, and I was just completely blown away, and I decided that was what I had to do. I had to go study with him,” Patterson said. “That’s when it really took off because he was and continues to be a fantastic teacher. I was just very lucky he was in Cincinnati.” Ironically, Patterson is now the principal clarinet for the Charlottesville (Va.) & University Symphony Orchestra. He played the Copland Concerto there in April. Patterson, who lives in Washington, D.C., has emerged as an accomplished and gifted clarinetist, both as a performer and lecturer in music at the University of Virginia, Charlottesville. He’s also on the faculty of Sewanee Summer Music Festival at Sewanee: The University of the South, Sewanee, Tenn., and is principal clarinet in the Lyrique-enmer, Festival de Belle-Ile in France during the summer. “Everything I do is classical in the traditional sense,” said Patterson who gravitates toward chamber music. “What I really enjoy doing is finding new pieces that have been recently written and bringing them to life for audience members.” When he’s not teaching, he plays different venues, including the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. He’s part of several musical groups, including The VERGE Ensemble, a contemporary music ensemble in residence at the Corcoran Gallery in Washington, D.C. “Being a musician means you have many different jobs … It’s sort of a hodge podge,” Patterson said. Cincinnati Country Day had a role in Patterson’s career choice. He started playing clarinet in the fifth-grade band. “I gradually warmed up to it. In fifth grade, you have to choose band or choir and I had a horrible singing voice, so I thought I’d do band, and it was between
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In his early high school years, he practiced one to two hours a day. Later, as he prepared for college auditions, his daily average practice time was two to three hours. As accomplished as he’s become, he still practices.
“I practice more than ever,” he said, laughing. “The more you play, the more you learn how much more practicing you need to do. It’s like the more you know, the more you realize you don’t know.” Rob Patterson ’02 “I practice more than ever,” he said, laughing. “The more you play, the more you learn how much more practicing you need to do. It’s like the more you know, the more you realize you don’t know.” Patterson now spends about four hours a day practicing. When he has rehearsals for a performance and practice, he spends six to eight hours playing the musical instrument.
BIOGRAPHY Rob W. Patterson ’02 Residence: Washington, D.C. Profession: Clarinetist and lecturer in music at the University of Virginia, Charlottesville; principal clarinet, Charlottesville & University Symphony Orchestra Education: Bachelor of Music, Curtis Institute of Music, Philadelphia; Master of Music, University of Southern California, Los Angeles If he wasn’t a clarinetist: Patterson would be a chef or highly proficient in foreign languages. He developed a passion for Spanish at Country Day, where he also studied French. Those positive foreign language experiences at the school have helped him as a professional musician who travels frequently. Advice to today’s seniors: “Follow your passion, but always keep your eyes open for other possibilities. You never know where life is going to lead you.” Hear him play: www.robwpatterson.com He does lay the clarinet down to travel, cook and read. “Recently I’ve started working out at the gym. I’ve been struck by the parallels between practicing an instrument and athletics - just the discipline it takes and the coordination.” He’s discovered there’s more to the clarinet than music. Playing an instrument challenges you to grow as a person because you have to develop a sense of personal discipline, he said. “You have to become very good at time management, and you have to be very
intelligent about the way you practice. There’s not enough time in the day for you to just blindly play things over and over again. It teaches you to become efficient and to really think about what you’re doing and how you’re doing it. “Those are skills that I find help me in everyday life. I try and teach that, as well, at the University of Virginia to my students, some of whom are not music majors. They’re just doing it because they love it and because they learn so much about everything else in life from playing music.” His career goals aren’t particularly lofty. He just wants to push himself to be the best clarinet player he can be. “I’m really pretty happy doing what I’m doing, because I do a lot of different things that make for an interesting career.” Besides performing and teaching at the college level, Patterson teaches advanced high school students and adults. He coaches chamber music and orchestral sectional. He recorded his first CD, called “Gumbo,” which received the 2011 “Best Classical Recording of the Year,” from the Washington Area Music Association. “My goals are, in all of those aspects, to raise the level over time and continue to get better at what I do, and, of course, to keep enjoying it.” by Cindy Kranz
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DIGGY LLOYD ’06
NOTHING CLICKED UNTIL PHOTOGRAPHY Diggy Lloyd ’06 pictures the world through a different lens. As a professional photographer, she has amassed an eclectic portfolio of work, ranging from snapping stars at Sundance Film Festival to a drive-through guy at Burger King. “Every photo shoot is interesting,” said Lloyd, AKA Megan Hunt and Ducky. “As a photographer, I am able to connect with many different types of people, which may be my favorite part of the job. “My other favorite part is traveling. I love exploring cities and cultures. I learn so much from walking the streets and taking pictures. I get lost in another world.”
“I wouldn’t be doing any of this today if it weren’t for Mrs. L. (US Art Chair, Carole LichtySmith) She also encouraged me to be true to myself, and to keep pushing the boundaries of photography.” Diggy Lloyd ’06 Lloyd, who lives in Brooklyn, N.Y., has had work published in L’Official, Paper Magazine, MTV, Black Book, along with
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lots of music and fashion blogs. Her photos have been exhibited in New York, Mexico, The Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia; Chicago and London. “I try to make photographs that are honest. I like creating images in the moment. Taking photographs is very instinctual. You can’t think about it too much. You just have to listen to your gut and be committed to making a picture that you like. With every picture I try to always listen and not second guess my instinct. The more you listen, the more you master the moment.” Although she’s shot photos from New York Fashion Week to Cabo Polonio, a hamlet in Uruguay with no electricity or running water, her favorite subjects are close to her heart – her family, especially her sister. “I love them so much, and they are my biggest inspiration,” Lloyd said. “I always have a camera in my sister’s face. She sometimes gets sick of it.” Lloyd learned photography in Photo I at Cincinnati Country Day. She knew she wanted to be a photographer after she printed her first picture in the darkroom. “I think it was a picture of rocks. It was horrible, but I loved it.” Her teacher, Carole Lichty-Smith, was an influence in Lloyd’s career path. Lloyd remembers getting a Photo I assignment called, “Artist Presentations.” Students had to research a photographer and give a presentation on their body of work. “Mrs. L would assign photographers to students whose work she thought resembled theirs,” Lloyd said. “My presentation was on David LaChapelle. I remember doing the assignment, and thinking, ‘Wow! You can actually do stuff like this!’ I was blown away. I had never seen anything like it before.” As a child, Lloyd was enamored of the arts. She participated in theater and wanted to be a fashion designer, spending her summers at sewing camp. “But nothing really clicked until I found photography. It was a medium I never explored before, and once I discovered it, it was all that I wanted to do - all the time,” she said. “I wouldn’t be doing any of this today if it weren’t for Mrs. L. She also encouraged me to be true to myself, and to keep pushing the boundaries of photography.”
BIOGRAPHY Diggy Lloyd ’06 (AKA Megan Hunt and Ducky) Residence: Brooklyn, N.Y. Profession: Photographer Education: Bachelor of Fine Arts, Parsons the New School for Design, New York City If she wasn’t a photographer: “I really do like interior design, but I think I might have to go with Rock Star!” Advice to today’s seniors: “Do what you LOVE!” See her photos: www.diggylloyd.com or diggylloyd.tumblr.com Lloyd uses different kinds of cameras, depending on the picture that she’s trying to make. “For my personal work, I still like to use film. For work, I use digital because the turnaround time is so fast.” A Mamiya 7 II is one of her favorites. She also still uses a little Pentax 35mm that she used at CCD. “That thing is a rock. I’m also a huge fan of the 5D Mark II and III. Overall, I am a big Canon fan.” She likes shooting both color and black and white film. “Both serve their own purpose. I’m a huge sucker for a black and white photograph. I am not really sure why. Color doesn’t interest me much. It is just not the way I view the world. “Black and white strips the photograph down to bare essentials. Sometimes, I think color can be a crutch, which isn’t a bad thing. Some images really work in color and not in black and white, and vice versa. I find myself focusing on different things, depending on if I am shooting black and white or color.” When she’s not snapping photos, Lloyd is either DJ’ing or eating at her boyfriend’s restaurant. Continued on page 44
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Lloyd fondly recalled her time at Cincinnati Country Day. “I had an amazing experience at Country Day. I formed some life-long friends, and I still connect with Mrs. L on a regular basis. I was able to be 100% myself at CCD, and was always encouraged to do what I want to do.” Meanwhile, Lichty-Smith remembers Lloyd as part of a small group of Advanced Placement students who requested an open photo lab on Friday nights. LichtySmith agreed as long as they showed up. “I would say the majority of Friday nights, that little group came and we turned the music up loud. We’d order pizza and they worked and critiqued. It was so much fun. I absolutely loved it,” Lichty-Smith said. Two years ago, Lichty-Smith discovered on Facebook that Lloyd was having an exhibit opening in New York. She surprised her former student there. “I was really impressed with her growth, with her work. She’s matured. Her work is becoming very sophisticated. She’s pushing the boundaries, which I think is essential for any working artist,” LichtySmith said. “I was also struck by how many Country Day graduates attended the opening. I think there were about 10 or 12 alums at her opening, which was pretty cool.” by Cindy Kranz
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8
th GRADE MUSICAL HISTORY OF THE EIGHTH Danny and Sandy. Annie and Daddy Warbucks. Peter Pan and Wendy. For 26 years, Country Day students have made those characters, and more, come alive through the annual eighth-grade musical. The musical has become a highlight of the eighth-grade year, an event both revered and feared by students who take the stage with varying degrees of confidence. “It really grew out of the concept of having an arts thrust built into the school day and looking for ways to make the eighth grade a special year,” said Dick Schwab ’67, former Middle School head who was instrumental in starting the musical. “You want to make every year special. Just like there are elements to the senior year that don’t exist in other years.” Schwab arrived in 1986 to become head of a newly-configured Middle School. At the time, middle schoolers were part of the Upper School. “You can imagine how thrilled the then eighth graders were to suddenly be clawed back from the Upper School and now in a program with sixth graders,” Schwab said. “One of the things that helped us immensely change that dynamic was creating a program that really gave the eighth grade kind of a rite of passage and a kingpin status. That eighth-grade musical was a great vehicle for giving them a spotlight that was unique and beloved.” In the new Middle School, Schwab created an arts or elective band, which was a break from the traditional curriculum. Classes included theater and dance. The musical was built from the arts band so eighth graders rehearsed during the school day, rather than have play practice compete with sports for their time after school. “I had a love of the theater, and I had seen what a great experience it had been for kids. And, I had this incredibly energetic individual in Lois Rust that, to a large extent, had been untapped.” Students graduate to the Upper School, but Rust has been the one constant. She has directed and produced all of the plays since they debuted with “Grease” in 1988. In the early years, she triple cast plays, but that became too hectic and was abandoned. The first musicals were performed in the Middle School commons. “It was great for plays. All of the eighth-grade musicals were there, and it was wonderful,” Rust
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said. “We had lights. We had microphones. It was a perfect little space for the eighthgrade musical to begin. Then, we built Keeler Theater. This changed everything.” Members of the Class of 2005 performed Annie Jr. in 2001. It was the first eighthgrade musical or performance of any kind in Keeler. The theater accommodates 514 people, a space so large that body mics were needed. More technical equipment was rented in order to offer a top-notch production. General admission gave way to a reserved ticket system created for Annie. “The shows were always good, and the kids were always good, and they all enjoyed it, but you’re really able to have some pretty spectacular production numbers when you have a space like that, and a stage and a wooden floor that you can dance on,” Rust said.
“...It stretches them and gets them a little bit out of their comfort zone. The public speaking aspects of it are immense.” Dick Schwab ’67 Of course, Schwab took a special interest in “Annie.” His chocolate Labrador, Humphrey, played the role of Annie’s dog, Sandy. “I would be with Humphrey stage right in the wings. I would give old Humphrey a shove, and he would walk out on stage.” After Annie sang to the dog, Schwab was stage left to get the dog’s attention and beckon him off stage. Rust referred to the 2006 production of “High School Musical” as “the big one.”
“High School Musical” was huge. We were one of the first schools in the nation to get the rights to do it. We were in The Enquirer twice about ‘High School Musical.’ The kids were interviewed, and it was very exciting. For that musical, we sat 500 people. People came from all over the city because it was in The Enquirer, and everyone wanted to see it.” All eighth graders participate in the musical. They can be in the cast or crew, working lights, body mics, sound, props, costumes, makeup and more. When students sign up, they’re asked if they have any special talents, such as gymnastics or playing an instrument. “In ‘Guys and Dolls,’ we had the Havana Jazz Band. That was really cool,” Rust said. “They put a little pit band together and that one scene where they’re in Havana, they had the band playing.” Students audition for roles in the play. “Everyone knows going into this, it’s a musical,” she said. “When you’re a lead, whoever sings it, gets it.” She credited her entourage of Glenn Lindahl, scene designer and master carpenter; choir teacher Stephanie Wietmarschen and legions of parents for making the musicals sing. The eighth-grade musical is a wonderful example of every student getting their moment on stage, Schwab said. “It’s getting into an area that most of them have never been before. It stretches them and pushes them a little bit out of their comfort zone. The public speaking aspects of it are immense,” he said. What Rust likes most about the musical is that everyone learns the importance of teamwork. “They learn each other’s strengths, and it’s exciting to maybe not even know that someone can sing. We’ve had parents who did not know that their children could sing. “It’s very heart-felt when you see your child up there. You see them singing and acting and dancing and you go, ‘Oh my gosh, I can’t believe that’s my kid.’’’ The benefits of being involved in the eighth-grade musical are infinite. As Rust said: “If you can be an eighth grader and do the body mics, if you can be an eighth grader and memorize all those lines and get up there and sing all by yourself to live music, if you can do that as an eighth grader, you know what? You can do anything.” by Cindy Kranz
Photos: Background, High School Musical with Cole Clark and Aimee Ward and Gabby Richardson on the piano, Clockwise from top left: Bye-Bye Birdie, (2008) Annie Nesbitt and Michael Barton; Bugsy Malone (2002) Ibby Tarshis and Andrew Cone; Guys and Dolls (2007) Richard Herndon and Timmy Macrae, with Michael Morgan in the background; Honk Jr. (2003) Rene’ Peters.
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Among Lois Poe Rust’s most prized possessions are the books of photos and students’ memories from every eighthgrade musical – one book for every production since the first in 1988. Susie Lewis, Middle School math teacher, has spent countless hours taking photos and collecting comments from the students for Rust. Each year, Lewis places them in a book, along with a play program. The comments weave a story of the students’ love for Rust, as well as respect for her dedication and theatrical talent. They also shine light on the metamorphic effect the musical has on students - from the gut-wrenching terror of standing on stage to the exhilarating feeling of accomplishment. SE (1988) Here are some sample comments from past productions:
GREA CLASS OF 1992
and I handle it, but I had a great time “At first I wasn’t sure if I could g. ctin dire t grea & ort nks for the supp feel that I did a good job. Tha 3) t Cas dy, (San - Love always, Paige Heimann I had It was also very hard, because “It was great to be in Grease. in ed pen hap that lem prob only to act over and over again. The janitor locked me out the and , ging chan was I n Grease was whe ly n I got him, walked very slow from the stage. The janitor, whe , ever How !”) boy ent, pati ing me “be back to unlock the doors (tell ff Sant (Jeff Geo nks! Tha fun. real was other than that, the play Florczyk, Cast 1)
2) AN (199 P R E T PE OF 1997 CLASS
GUYS AND DOLLS (1989) CLASS OF 1993 “Thanks! This will alw ays be a fond memo ry, forever.” Debbie Walker (Miss Adelaide) “You’re great and ful l of energy, and both of those qualities helped us to make ou r play spectacular.” - Abby Hawkins (Hot Box Club Girl) “This is the result of seven years of your teaching me. Was I worth your while? I’ll never forget it. It was the first play I was in that I had no stage fright. I loved having 7 roles. P.S. Thanks for everythin g.” - Jason Hartford ( Lt. Brannigan, Joey Biltmore, Gene ral B. Cartwright, Dru nk, Male Cuban Dancer)
12) ONCE UPON A MATTRESS (20 CLASS OF 2017
lay. in the p me help g d a in h k I a t. rt for m felt importan my hea I with all merica, u A o y to k e n a m a th e-up) c k y I a ll e a c “I re Asperi (m time sin a t n rs n the fi A e For th again. d letting other irate an n ! Thanks p a o a e to e v , b a n h fu ing me hope I tt I . le g r n fo o S much neers you very Bloody Bucca ullins) “Thank e erling (M th G g n in o s s a s J u f o .” e Pirate y r fou in a pla inging th e s b d e to v e lo chanc rog. I (Grog) y part, G - Nick Senter y and m .” it la r p e nd e b th ed rough a s remem “I enjoy to be as ill alway d e w w d o n ll a were a March ey) ause we Vollmer (Stark ate bec n ir a p D a g !” bein anks “I loved nted. Th s we wa rowdy a
“Thank you so much Mrs. Rust. Without you th believe you can ere would be no teach 2 classes play. I can’t and raise 3 sons make this wond and still have tim erful play happ e to en.” Ben Schneid er (Oliver Starbu cks staff) “I just wanted to say thanks for the show. I enjoy was a great expe ed running the rience. Thanks lights. It a lot!! - Kurt Sm ith (light technic ian)
e play. you have put into the 8th grad “Thank you for all of the work es, nerv our with us ing help acting, to You were amazing. From the favorite parts my of one n bee has It y. ectl everything was done perf ything!” - Grace Pettengill of 8th grade. Thank you for ever ut teacher that knows her stuff abo “I love you and you are the best theater.” - Duke Steiner wouldn’t your help with the musical! It “Thank you so much for all of and hed cras you. We would have have been the same without accept an amazing teacher and you burned without you. You are ate rpor inco to tried them. You ideas from anybody that has with the musical. You helped so much everybody in every part of the e to still hop I her. teac zing ama an such musical. Thank you for being man in high school too.” - Kaylin Hoff be able to work with you a bit
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COUNTRY DAY FEATURE
ANNIE (2001) CLASS OF 200 5
Chris Bortz ’92 was the male lead, “Danny,” in the first eighth-grade musical, “Grease,” in 1988. The role helped prepare him for an even larger stage – Cincinnati city councilman from 2005-11. Bortz, CEO of Towne Construction, a commercial and residential construction business, and a Country Day Trustee, shared his memories of the play. I remember that eighth-grade musical like it was yesterday. It was wall-to-wall fun, and I still regard that time as among the most joyous of my youth and a highlight of my time at CCD. Three times more girls than boys elected to be a part of the musical, despite Mrs. Rust's best efforts to recruit the awkward lot of adolescent boys that populate eighth grade. Lois is never one to let a little thing like that stand in her way, so she decided to have three full casts of girls (three sets of Pink Ladies, three Rizzos, three Sandys) and one set of T-Birds with the handful of boys brave enough or foolish to try out for the show. Of course, that meant the boys were constantly rehearsing with the three casts of girls. Rehearsing all those scenes with all those girls put me in the middle of teenage heaven, and I developed wild crushes on most of them (though I was far too awkward and shy to do anything about it). Three casts of girls also meant the one cast of boys had to put on six showsone afternoon matinee and one evening opening/closing night blowout. At that age and at that time, six shows felt like a long Broadway run. I was absolutely terrified before every show and giddy
with relief after every final bow. The three weeks of final dress rehearsals and performances amounted to an adrenaline rush of epic proportions, especially for a group of barely-teenagers. Making matters even more dangerously emotional and hormonal, I could barely carry a tune despite my best efforts and the choir teacher's desperate tutorials. By the sixth show, my voice was cracking so badly the audience laughed at my screeching solos. I couldn't help but laugh right along with them. I did continue plays in Upper School, though given the sports schedule I was only able to participate in the winter show, which at that time was always (painfully) a musical. I never learned to sing that well, but had a blast every time. Especially when I got to play real "character" parts. The sixth-grade musical, “Oliver!” was the first bite of the theater bug for me, and eighth grade’s “Grease” sunk it in deep. I loved the theater; the rehearsals, the sheer terror of the performances, the great relief at the end, the camaraderie of the cast and crew, and the adrenaline rush through it all. I continued acting in college (though was finally able to fully abandon singing in front of people, a
great gift to the world), and was even able to major in theater. I was lucky enough to spend a year abroad in London studying Shakespeare. I never seriously considered a career in theater, but it was a wonderful time while it lasted. What did the eighth-grade musical mean to me? Having a lead role in a musical at that age was life-changing. I discovered a pinch of confidence that continued to grow and ballooned into full-blown teenage arrogance before life finally began to humble me a bit at a time. And I learned to laugh at myself, a critical skill especially at that age when any social misstep can spiral a young teen into total despair. I learned to confront the paralyzing fear I had of being in front of a crowd. The fear never really subsided, but the tools I picked up to deal with it made it possible for me to pursue a brief stint in local politics. Confronting that fear became a driving force in my life, and maybe still is. In all, that silly eightgrade musical was a potent and invaluable learning experience that impacted the trajectory of my life in surprising and lasting ways. That may sound overstated, but it is absolutely true.
Photo: (l-r) Zach Paul (Kenickie), Susan Young Arnold (Rizzo), Chris Bortz (Danny), and Helen Kranbuhl Parsons (Sandy).
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ALUMNI NEWS CLASS NOTES 1949
Marshall Terry writes: I published my 12th book entitled “Loving U” about my experiences at S.M.U. I retired in 2007, after 52 years of teaching at S.M.U.
1964
Bill Walker writes: It might be of interest to at least some of my classmates that while I am continuing to practice law with the Miami, Florida office of White & Case, LLP, I have recently been ordained as a priest of the Episcopal Church and I am serving as Assistant Rector of St. Thomas Episcopal Parish in Coral Gables, Florida.
1965
News about Buck Niehoff: Buck Niehoff has published a memoir, “Winning Cincinnati,” about his experiences with the Republican Party in Cincinnati that covers the years of 1988-2008 when he served as Chair of the Hamilton County GOP. The book also explores the powerful role that Hamilton County plays in every Presidential campaign as well as providing an insider’s view on the candidates, journalists and aides.
1973
News about Stephen Havlovic: Dr. Stephen J. Havlovic was appointed Dean of the Faculty of Management for Laurentian University. The appointment begins July 1, 2013. He is currently Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs at Alfred State College of the State University of New York (SUNY). “We are extremely pleased to have found a candidate of Dr. Havlovic’s stature to fill this key role in the Laurentian organization,” said Laurentian University President and Vice-Chancellor Dominic Giroux. “His range of experience will be an enormous asset as we steer the Faculty of Management toward accreditation from the AACSB (Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business) in the years ahead.” Charlie Feuss writes: I moved from Minneapolis to Chapel Hill NC last year to join Kilpatrick Townsend, an international business law firm, as counsel in its Raleigh office. Linda, my wife of 32 years, is the General Counsel of Bayer Crop Science in Research
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COUNTRY DAY ALUMNI
Triangle Park. Son Chas graduated from the University of Wisconsin last June and daughter Anne is graduating from Wake Forest in May. All is well.
1974
News about Andrew Stone: Andrew Stone was featured in an article by the Santa Fe New Mexican this fall. Andrew is the developer of Twitterlator, an app that helps people post tweets on their Twitter account and read other posts from their iPhone. It also allows the user to upload photos and manage multiple Twitter accounts. He has sold over a million units of the software.
1981
News about George Callard: George was made executive vice president and general counsel of the Weather Channel Company in June 2012. He lives in Atlanta with his wife Laura and two daughters, Lydia, 5 and Mary Claire 4.
1986
1979
Don Worsham writes: Slope side reunion - 1979 graduates Jonathan Lemkin and Don Worsham recently met on the slopes of California’s Mammoth Mountain ski area. Jonathan, a Hollywood film writer, reconnected with Don, who has been living and working in Nepal for the past four years, with the help of fellow classmate Mike Hays. Both Worsham and Lemkin live in Southern California and maintain regular contact with Columbus Ohio’s Hays. Additionally Don works for a nonprofit research group that provides qualitative and quantitative studies in Nepal, Kashmir, Pakistan and other areas of Asia usually in assistance to the U.N. or other global GOs and NGOs. They just ended a multiyear, longitudinal study on the importance of religious ritual to encamped refugees for Governmental Organizations and NonGovernmental Organizations. Beginning one on sex trade / trafficking between Himalayan villages and the Gulf States for UNHRC. Don is Director and a PhD sociologist and religion specialist who is simple enough to live in a tent most of the time with his wife and two of his three children, his oldest at University. The group also builds schools, clinics and hostels in very remote areas of the above noted regions.
CJ Mitchell writes: CJ Mitchell was named Navy Reserve Force Master Chief effective October 2013. From the Navy Reserve Public Affairs press release, “Master Chief Mitchell is a tremendous leader whose diverse operational and staff assignments make him uniquely qualified to serve as the Navy Reserve’s next force master chief,” said Vice Adm. Robin Braun, Chief of Navy Reserve. “A dynamic and inspirational leader, he’ll be an outstanding advocate for our Sailors and their families. The Navy Reserve Force Master Chief is responsible for advising the Chief of Navy Reserve on matters affecting the morale, retention, Sailor development, and general wellbeing of over 53,000 enlisted personnel of the Navy Reserve. The Force Master Chief is also charged with ensuring active communications throughout the force, instilling a sense of heritage, and actively promoting Navy core values to all Sailors.”
1988
News about Matt Strauss: Matt is now the Real Estate Development and Marketing Manager for the Madisonville Community Urban Redevelopment Corporation.
Alumni Spotlight
1998 - J.R. Foster and Dave Hornberger form a strategic partnership Two Cincinnati Country Day alumni are on the fast track as business partners and owners of Robert Louis Group, one of the only minority-owned commercial real estate brokerages in the nation.
Ironically, Foster and Hornberger didn’t connect in high school. “We became really good friends after college. It’s surprising that we weren’t great friends in high school,” Foster said.
J.R. Foster and Dave Hornberger, both ’98, formed a strategic partnership this year with Colliers International in Greater Cincinnati. Colliers, a leading global commercial real estate services organization, lends resources and credibility to the startup company.
After college, Hornberger saw an update from Foster in Country Day’s Connections magazine. Foster wrote that he wanted to go into business, and it spoke exactly to what Hornberger wanted to do. The two met over dinner and hatched plans for some business ventures, which included a long-term goal of forming a real estate firm.
“By utilizing more than 5,000 Colliers’ commercial real estate advisors worldwide, we’re really going to propel our initial growth to service the contracts we ultimately win,” Hornberger said. Colliers has chosen to take an active role in building an inclusive business
“I approached Dave with an idea to launch one of the only minority certified full-service commercial estate brokerages in the country...” J.R. Foster environment, and the formation of a strategic partnership with Robert Louis Group “proves their commitment to helping grow a diverse company like ours,” Foster said. “Our strategic partnership also helps to differentiate Robert Louis Group and Colliers International in the marketplace and move the commercial real estate industry forward,” Foster said. “We represent an innovative way of delivering real estate solutions when we’re working with Colliers around the country.”
“We came to the conclusion that forming a strategic partnership with larger international commercial real estate firms was going to be our best path to servicing the clients that we’re targeting, which are corporations, government agencies and nonprofits,” Hornberger said.
Their first venture was Digital AGE (Avant-Garde Expressions), a multi-media flat screen advertising firm. After a couple of years, and a successful multimedia venture behind them, they turned their attention to their long-term plan of commercial real estate brokerage and finance.
J.R. Foster and Dave Hornberger They formed Emerging Capital Partners in 2005. Their primary focus was securing “It allows us to have feet on the ground in every major market,” Foster said. purchase and refinance debt for clients’ commercial real estate needs. In the future, the two want to see Robert Meanwhile, Foster said, “Having worked Louis Group become a sustainable, for several of the top real estate firms, I respected real estate firm. As business grows, they’ll add employees and offices noticed that there were very few blacks on a national basis. in the commercial real estate industry, so I approached Dave with an idea to launch one of the only minority certified A frequently asked question: Who is full-service commercial estate brokerages Robert Louis? It’s their middle names. James Robert and David Louis. Foster is in the country, which would help us fill a CEO/managing partner, and Hornberger is major gap in the market. It’s a function of the lack of minorities and the lack of VP/managing partner. women inside the commercial real estate industry, as a whole. The industry is a very They recently took the McQuaig’s Personality Test to determine their white male-dominated industry.” strengths and weaknesses as individuals Eight years later, Emerging Capital and business partners. “It came out that Partners was rolled under the umbrella we are extremely compatible from a of their new full-service real estate partnership basis,” Foster said. brokerage, Robert Louis Group. Today, Hornberger added: “What was upsetting Robert Louis Group is a Minority Certified Business Enterprise (MBE). Foster was the fact that the personality test said my ego was bigger than his, which was has majority and operational control, one of the requirements to become mind-blowing.” MBE-certified, which opens doors to The two bring different strengths to the opportunities they wouldn’t have realized as a majority firm competing against table. Foster has spent his entire career in commercial real estate, gaining experience larger companies. to launch a company one day. He’s the big With a goal of targeting Fortune 1000 picture, strategic growth planning guy, while Hornberger is the detail guy who companies and government agencies, the two did their homework and met with brings Foster’s ideas into play. Hornberger said, “I’m a little more conservative in various corporations. Many expressed interest in a company like Robert Louis my thinking, but without his ideas we Group, but wondered how the two would wouldn’t be where we are today.” be able to handle national and global real by Cindy Kranz estate needs by themselves.
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CLASS NOTES 1997
Marjorie Vollmer Smyth writes: Marjorie Vollmer Smyth and her husband Ryan Smyth welcomed their third son in less than three years. Oliver Philip Smyth, lucky number 3, was born Nov. 26, 2012.
2000
Greg Vollmer and Christina Lawrence Vollmer write: Our son, Gregory Joseph Vollmer Jr. (“Jock”) was born Jan. 9, 2013.
Park, Ohio.
Pam Long writes: Alexander Cameron Long was born Dec. 1, 2012 to Pamela (Koncius) and Creighton Long ’01. Alex was 8 pounds, 6 oz. and 21 inches long. The happy family is living in Terrace
2004
News about Danielle Schneider: Danielle ran in the Boston Marathon and fortunately had finished the race and was with family when the bombs exploded. They have started a fund in an effort to help those affected and to date have raised more than $10,000. News about Michael Morarity: Michael is a partner in a men’s clothing design and manufacturing company in Chicago, Stock Manufacturing Co. A video about his company is imbedded in a Kickstarter webpage. Kickstarter promotes creative new businesses, to view the video go to www.kickstarter.com. To learn more about Stock go to www. stockmfg.com.
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COUNTRY DAY ALUMNI
News about Cody Pomeranz:
2006
News about John Graves: John Graves won National Selection Regatta in single scull. Top Sculler in USA; heading for World Cups in Britain and Switzerland. Kevin Dunn writes: Had a great time in London, was able to travel to Scotland (sleeper train from London to Inverness and then 900 miles (fast miles) on some stunning roads, Austria and Paris. I will be running with the bulls in Spain in July.
2008 2001
2011
Alumni from the class of 2008, John Rabiner, Greg Magarian, Brooke Heinichen and Brigid Dunn, reunited in Washington, D.C. this Aprll.
Cody Pomeranz was named one of the 26 Most Impressive Students At Yale right now by the Business Insider. He has his own biweekly video interview segment on Yale’s broadcast TV station. He contributes to The Huffington Post and worked on the Obama campaign doing speechwriting. Cody participated in the Senior Seminar this year.
In Memoriam Mike Anders passed away Jan. 4, 2013. Mike was a former faculty member and is survived by his daughters Ariel ’04 and Aubrey ’06. Thomas Carruthers IV ’46 passed away Nov. 11, 2012. He is survived by sons Thomas ’72 and John ’74. He was preceded in death by his wife Pat in 1999. Kroger Pettengill ’40 passed away Mar. 12, 2013. He is survived by his wife Kay and sons Thomas ’67 and Charles “Chip” ’79, daughter-in-law Lisa Raushenbush Pettengill ’85 and grandchildren Grace ’17, John ’18 and Sam ’21.
2009 Amanda Meixner received her Bachelor of Business Administration with a major in Marketing from USC in May 2013.
2010
News about Joey Fritz: Joey was awarded The Samuel Walley Brown Scholarship from Amherst College. The scholarship, established by Samuel Walley Brown of the class of 1866, is awarded to that member of the junior class who, in the estimation of the Trustees, ranks highest in his/her class in character, class leadership, scholarship and athletic ability. Joey is having another winning season with Amherst tennis team He finished the regular season winning six in a row and posted a 9-2 mark in 2012-13. He was also named to the NESCAC’s all conference first team.
Peter J. Seybolt '52 passed away August 6, 2012. He is survived by his wife, Cynthia Taylor Seybolt, his children, Taylor Seybolt and Amy Seybolt Tomasi, their spouses and five grandchildren. Jim Stoehr Jr. passed away Feb. 12, 2013. He is survived by his wife, Margot, sons James ’76, Thomas ’77, and daughter Katherine Mohrlang ’80, grandchildren James H. Stoehr, IV ’03, Sydney Stoehr ’05 and Madeline Stoehr ’09. Joan Thompson passed away on Feb. 19, 2013. She is survived by her husband Gary and son Gregory ’87. Charles “Chuck” Yeiser ’39 passed away Mar. 6, 2013. He is survived by his children Charles ’63, Henry ’66, Margaret “Poppy” Hawkins ’67 and Ellen ’69, granddaughters Emily Stahl and Abigail Bliss ’93, great grandchildren Grady Stahl ’25 and Teagan Hughes Stahl ’28. Chuck was preceded in death by his wife Mary in 1997.
Senior Seminars The Senior Seminar program was organized this year by Dr. Jane Kairet and a group of Upper School faculty. Recent alumni return to campus to share with current Upper School students their experiences in college. Alumni that participated in Senior Seminar included:
Jordi Alonso ’10 (Kenyon College ’14) - Jordi advised
about the role of practical experience in doing the job you imagine getting after college. His session was entitled Reading like an Editor: Selecting submissions and copy-editing for professional literary journals.
Kathryn Black ’11 (Colgate University ’15) - Kathryn
presented on the many opportunities to do cutting edge research as an undergraduate, especially in the sciences.
Matt Eichel ’09 (Colgate University ’13) - Matt spoke
about having your voice heard on campus. He discussed how to establish a radio show and explained what happens behind the scenes. He shared his experiences as a music DJ, sports talk show host, and political talk show host on the Colgate University radio station, WRCU.
Kate Flexter ’10 (University of Southern California ’14) - Kate talked about breaking into the film community at USC.
Grant Hesser ’11 (Ohio University ’15) and Max Victor ’09 (Kelley School of Business, Indiana University ’13) - Both of
these alums had experiences in the world of finance. Max Victor interned at Moelis & Company in New York City doing corporate advisory. Moelis is an investment bank that advises companies worldwide on merger & acquisitions, capital raises, and strategic alternatives. Their team works with the CFO and treasury department of a company to value other businesses and help advise on decisions that have a large impact on the firm. For his senior project, Grant shadowed a VP of Finance at Merrill Lynch in Cincinnati. He was invited back for the summer to build computerized financial models. The summer after, Grant worked for UBS in Global Wealth Management doing the same thing. Grant talked about the value of gathering contacts early. He also works with a student-run investment club where he dealt with clients worried about market uncertainties during the summer of 2011 after the downgrading of the U.S. credit rating.
Ilana Habib ’11 (Massachusetts Institute of Technology ’15) - Ilana discussed her
involvement in the arts as a non-art major at MIT.
Jordan Komnick ’11 (Miami University ’15) - Jordan spoke
about her summer at the Air Force Research Lab in Dayton with the program Summer At the Edge. This was a 10-week full-time internship where students are put into teams and asked to work on various projects as “proof of concepts” for the Air Force. Her project involved creating an interface for accessing OpenSim (which is a virtual world similar to Second Life) on Android devices.
Cody Pomeranz ’11 (Yale University ’15) - Cody spoke
about his time as an intern for the Communications Department at Obama for America Pennsylvania. He read Pennsylvania newspapers and collected news clips from pertinent articles and editorials. He also wrote speeches, press call scripts, press conference remarks, memos, op-eds, statements, LTEs, etc., for a range of local and national politicians.
Baldur Tangvald ’11 (Cinematic Studies, University of Southern California ’15)
- Baldur spoke about gaining real world experience in the video game industry. He also talked about volunteering at the major game conventions – including E3 and the Game Developer’s Conference— and participating in the Global Game Jam game design projects.
Kate Taylor ’11 (University of St. Andrews, Scotland ’15) - Kate described her experience at the University of St. Andrews in the UK and the wonders of study abroad.
Senior Seminar participants: (l-r) Front: Kate Flexter, Kathryn Black, Kate Taylor, Baldur Tangvald, Jordan Komnick. Back row: Ilana Habib, Jordi Alonso, Grant Hesser, Max Victor, Cody Pomeranz, and Matt Eichel
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ALUMNI NEWS Alumni Business Lunch
Over 70 CCDS alumni and friends gathered at the Moerlein Lager House on the Banks in downtown Cincinnati April 25 for the annual Alumni Business Lunch. Last year we were lucky to have another alumnus, Michael Strauss ’90, speak about the international debt crises. This year we were happy to have Alan Light ’84 speak about his career as a leading music journalist. He is the author of several books and a frequent contributor to Rolling Stone and The New York Times. Alan shared many stories of his life spent interviewing the leading rock musicians of our time. Just a few among the alumni enjoying the presentation were Ted Jones ’53, Richard Fleischer ’62, Bob Buechner ’65, Buck Niehoff ’65, Pam Long ’01, Dave Hornberger ’98, Matt Kite ’83, Asia Nunez ’04, Wendy Wilson ’83, Rob Zimmerman ’98, Erin Head ’93 and Jeffrey Heinichen ’70. Photos from top: (l-r) Dr. Irwin Light, Alan Light ’84, and Mrs. Janet Light Middle left: Alan Light ’84 Lauren Hannan-Hudson ’84 Middle right: Asia Nunez ’04, Lizzie Birckhead ’06, James Kuley Bottom: Rob Roy ’84, Susan Abrahamson Routh ’84, Art Richard ’83, Ric Stewart ’86, Alan Light ’84, Tanya CarterHarris ’84
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COUNTRY DAY ALUMNI
NYC Alumni Reception
The alumni reception was held April 17, 2013 at Housing Works Bookstore Café in New York City. Over 30 alumni joined Head of School Rob Macrae, Director of Development Eric Foushee, and Alumni Director Paula Brock, for drinks and appetizers. Among those attending were Alan Light ’84, Andy Lerner ’84 Scott Kelley ’79, Carolyn Weiss ’82, Diggy Lloyd ’06, Evelyn Owhor ’03, Lee Strasser ’07, Andrew Cone ’07, Stephen Lento ’07, and Nick Senter ’97. The Housing Works Bookstore Café is a nonprofit that supports those homeless and fighting AIDS.
Photos from top: (l-r) Sally Dwyer ’05, Evelyn Owhor ’03, Erin Kapor ’06, Claire Bechhold ’06, Alice Podore ’06 and Ducky Lloyd ’06 Middle left: Leslie Neblett ’82, Nick Senter ’97, Carolyn Weiss ’82 Middle right: Eric Foushee, CCDS Director of Development and Alan Light ’84 Bottom left: Stephen Lento ’07, Kevin Koller, Dan Dagen ’83 Bottom right: Andrew Cone ’07, Lee Strasser ’07 and Courtney Chapel ’07
55
TENNIS COMPLEX DEDICATED
The Wright family: Gordon ’85, Maggie ’19, Jack ’21, and Susan.
The Gordon R. Wright Tennis Complex was formally dedicated in May. The complex honors Wright, a legendary Country Day tennis coach who is credited with starting the school’s tennis dynasty. Gordon W. Wright spoke on behalf of his father, who was unable to attend. Other speakers included Head of School Dr. Robert Macrae and Athletic Director Theresa Hirschauer. Of the sports at Country Day, tennis has had the longest and most glorious history, but the courts had aged and needed replacing. To honor Country Day’s commitment to tennis and its impact on the school, a capital campaign was launched. Thanks to our generous donors, we have added seven new tennis courts, a pavilion and improved seating for spectators. Along with the school’s competitive tennis program, the courts will be used for physical education, intramural programs and community play. Gordon R. Wright ’44 was an Upper School chemistry teacher from 1957-91. His other real passion was coaching varsity tennis for 24 years. His players won multiple state and league championships, but one of his greatest accomplishments was coaching the state singles and doubles champions in 1971. After the ceremony, the boys varsity tennis team played Seven Hills on the new courts. The team upheld Wright’s winning tradition, defeating Seven Hills, 3-2.
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COUNTRY DAY ALUMNI
THE TYSOE FAMILY PAVILION
ALUMNI CALENDAR 2013 SAVE THE DATE! Senior Send Off
2013 Sunday, August 4 CCDS Dining Terrace 2-4 p.m.
Homecoming/Reunion Weekend Oct. 18-20, 2013 Celebrating reunions for the years ending in ’8 and ’3 Classes of 2003 and 2008 will be held over Thanksgiving Friday, Oct. 18
Alumni Reception 5:30-7 p.m. CCDS Campus
CCDS Homecoming Game against Summit Country Day 7 p.m.
Saturday, Oct. 19
Distinguished Alumnus/Athletic Hall of Fame Luncheon 11:30 a.m. CCDS Dining Terrace
Chuck Yeiser ’39 Memorial Celebration
3 p.m. JOIN THE John Whitman Keeler Theater COUNTRY DAY ALUMNI CCDS Upper School
Private Class Reunions to be held in the evening
SITE.
www.countryday.net/go/LinkedIn
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ALUMNI COUNCIL Members Ben Hardigg ’96, President Prithvi Bhaskar ’00 Jody Brant ’87 David Briggs ’83 Ronita Farria Dean ’01 J.R. Foster ’98 Dave Hornberger ’98 Lucy Haverland Joffe ’90 Tom Langlois ’77 Steve Lazarus ’81 Cadence Moore ’01 Holly Oblinger Mott ’95 Bree Murdock ’90 Anne Oblinger ’04 Alex Parlin ’97 Arthur Richard ’83 Marjorie Vollmer Smyth ’97 Matt Strauss ’88 Chalky Thomas ’80 Gordon Wright ’85 Tyler Wright ’01
Stay Connected
Now it is easier than ever to stay up-to-date with CCDS. Whether reading The Scroll, following your favorite athletic team, or reminiscing with a faculty member, you are only a click away. www.countryday.net/go/facebook Join the official Country Day Facebook site. www.countryday.net/go/twitter For the Country Day main site. www.countryday.net/go/Hirsch For everything athletic. addresschanges@countryday.net or alumniaddresschanges@countryday.net Join our broadcast email list.
www.countryday.net Visit the CCDS website for anything CCDS-related like recent news, art events, athletic schedules, calendars and much more! www.countryday.net/go/LinkedIn Join the Country Day Alumni LinkedIn site www.countryday.net/go/YouTube Watch over 30 videos. www.countryday.net/go/Scroll The Scroll, now online, is updated regularly. www.GoodAlum.com A free search engine that allows you to support your favorite school - simply by searching. Founder and President Ben Hardigg ’96.
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COUNTRY DAY ALUMNI
HERBERT M. DAVISON SOCIETY
Providing for CCDS in your estate plans FOUR WAYS TO MAKE A BEQUEST General bequest:
1 2 3
4
Contingent bequest:
Specific Bequest:
An outright bequest that is a gift of a certain item to a particular beneficiary. This is usually a gift of a stated sum of money.
Residuary bequest:
An outright bequest of the rest, residue, and remainder of your estate after all other bequests, debts, and taxes have been paid. A bequest made on the condition that a certain event must occur before distributuion to the beneficiary. You should discuss these various strategies with your estate planning attorney as you prepare to create or update your estate plans. Contact Eric Foushee, Director of Development 513-979-0285 fousheee@countryday.net
6905 Given Road Cincinnati, OH 45243-2989 Address Service Requested Parents of alumni: If this publication is addressed to your son or daughter who no longer maintains a permanent address at your home, please notify CCDS of his or her new mailing address by emailing the change to alumniaddresschanges@countryday.net
Non-profit Org. U.S. Postage Paid Cincinnati, OH Permit No. 871