ALUMNI MAGAZINE
THE MAGAZINE FOR ALUMNI OF LICK-WILMERDING HIGH SCHOOL | FALL 2014
Celebrating Georgiana Osipova: ยกFelicidades, profe!
Lick-WilmerdingLux Alumni Board Members 2014-2015 Philip Galante 1987, Co-President Alexander Hochman 1988, Co-President Marjorie Zaharin Albarran 1954 Frances Kawalkowski Bertetta 1936 Catharine Clark 1985 Adam Gasner 1988 Anthony Grant 1987 Jason Gullion 1987 Sita Brooks Hanlon 1996 Laura Jones 2000 Matthew Levy 2001 Wally MacDermid 1987 Angus MacDonald 1992 William Madison 2001 Frederick McCrea 1985 David Salazar 1994 Jennifer Schwartz 1989
LWHS Mission Statement A private school with public purpose, Lick-Wilmerding High School develops the head, heart, and hands of highly motivated students from all walks of life, inspiring them to become lifelong learners who contribute to the world with confidence and compassion.
Matthew Tolve 1998
Lick-Wilmerding Board of Trustees 2014-2015 Sam Fleischmann 1983, President Eric J. Temple, Head of School Charles Bullock Tom Chavez John Clawson Peter Engel Philip Galante 1987 Steven Guttmann Alexander Hochman 1988 Deirdre Hockett Wanda Holland Greene Pam Hommeyer Ritu Khanna Kathryn Kimball Wally MacDermid 1987 William Madison 2001 Frederick McCrea 1985 Tori Peterson Nicole Sheehan Tricia Stone Douglas Tom Irvenia Waters Golnar Yazdi
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ALUMNI MAGAZINE
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Georgiana Osipova
published by
The Lick-Wilmerding Alumni and Development Office lick-wilmerding high school
755 Ocean Avenue San Francisco, CA 94112 415-704-5591 E-mail: alumni@lwhs.org zoë foss
Development Associate 415-704-5591 zfoss@lwhs.org
Contents
Celebrating 40 years of Teaching
4 On Teaching Message from the Head of School, Eric J. Temple 6 Making the Future: Strategic Directions 2103-2018 The Lick-Wilmerding High School Strategic Plan 8 Graduation 2014
keena golden
The Fund for LWHS Manager 415-704-5592 kgolden@lwhs.org nancy kehoe
Director of Alumni & Development 415-704-5590 nkehoe@lwhs.org
11 Class of 2014 College Destinations
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Alumni Events
16 Celebrating Teaching Annie Barnes 1984, Ashley Emery 1952, Hovey Clark 1990, and Lacey Mamak 1998 & Dr. Amy Tiemann 22 Student Notables
miwa kozuki
Alumni Program Manager 415-704-5593 mkozuki@lwhs.org
36 Recently Published Alumni Authors
mila krush
46 Class Notes with an update from the Class of 1957 and a profile of Jalia Tucker 2001
Database Manager 415-704-5594 mkrush@lwhs.org
62 In Memoriam
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EDITOR: NANCY KEHOE PRINCIPLE PHOTOGRAPHY IN THIS ISSUE
63 Alumni Calendar of Events
Civic Engagement at LWHS
Barre Fong Zoë Foss Cindy Gold Erika Jones 1999 Tywen Kelly 2014 Eleanor Sananman
A look at the ways LWHS students and alumni are fulfilling the school’s mission
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“I knew that I was engaged in a worthy and important endeavor. I learned beside my students, and I reveled in the variety that each day presented...”
in the presence of their excellence. Indeed, out of the 102 employees at the school last year, 65 of them have worked at LWHS for five years or more. This stability is one indicator of a healthy school where we continue to grow and learn.
On Teaching
I
n this edition of the Lick-Wilmerding High School Alumni Magazine we turn our attention to the amazing educators
who have worked with our students for many years. Whether celebrating Georgiana Osipova’s forty years of teaching Spanish, or Steve Simon, Maurine Poppers, Oleg Osipoff, and Bev Boitano’s thirty years and more commitment to the school, we are humbled
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When you think about the uniqueness of the teaching profession, the longevity of the faculty is even more impressive. Teaching is unique in many ways, but perhaps most notable is that as a teacher you enter the profession with basically the same responsibilities you have when you leave. As a teacher you are responsible for your classroom and student learning, as well as upholding and nurturing the school’s mission in the larger community. These primary responsibilities do not change over the course of a teaching career. How then, do teachers feel a sense of advancement and growth?
MESSAGE FROM THE HEAD OF SCHOOL
The principal way we grow as a teacher is in our acquired knowledge, not just about our content area, but more importantly about our pedagogy. Though some may see the job as the same each year, in truth we are faced with new students each year who pose new pedagogical challenges as we seek ways to help them learn. We can learn about pedagogical techniques, but it is only through years of experience that a master teacher hones his or her skill in working with adolescents and understanding how to subtly change a lesson, or write a comment on a paper, or conference with a student that leads to a learning breakthrough. When asked by my parents many years ago why I went into teaching, I shared with them some of the complexities of the job that I found truly fascinating and endlessly challenging. The classroom is a place where the age-old tension between the individual and the whole (in this case all the other students in the classroom), is on full display. It is a profession that combines
psychology, organizational behavior, environmental science, design, sociology, history, and oh yes, your specific content knowledge in a defined time frame (a class period, a semester, a year). You know you only have so much time with your class, and there are skills you want them to master that will lead to their success later in life. At times, teachers see the fruit of their labors in an “aha” moment by a student or when a class works together to catapult each member toward greater understanding. However, learning is cumulative and teachers do not always know of the impact they have on students, so the skills a student learns may not flourish until many years later. This combined ability to sow the seeds for future success, while also recognizing the learning that is happening in the moment is a singular skill which great teachers master. Ultimately, for me, teaching allowed me to sleep well at night. I knew that at the end of each day I was engaged in
“As a teacher you are responsible for your classroom and student learning, as well as upholding and nurturing the school’s mission in the larger community. These primary responsibilities do not change over the course of a teaching career. How then, do teachers feel a sense of advancement and growth?”
a worthy and important endeavor. I learned beside my students, and I reveled in the variety that each day presented based on the personalities and the ways these young minds interacted differently on any given day. Please join me in celebrating the wonder of teaching and the appreciation we have for the adults in our community who have dedicated their lives to helping others learn.
Eric J. Temple, head of school
On the following two pages we have included a summary of the school’s strategic plan, Making the Future. The plan is the culmination of 18 months of work by the Board of Trustees and the LWHS community, and we hope you enjoy reading about our goals. As noted, the full plan is available via the school website: www.lwhs.org/ strategicplan
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STRATEGIC PLAN 2013-2018
making the future strategic directions 2013–2018 goals of the strategic plan Lick-Wilmerding High School’s focus for the next five years is to build upon its strengths and refine its curriculum, pedagogy, and practices to continue offering students opportunities to develop the skills and habits needed to navigate an increasingly complex and dynamic world. LWHS must also ensure that the facilities will support the school’s aspirations, and that the financial investment needed to build its learning community is sustainable and beneficial. This strategic plan is the result of the Board of Trustees’ and the Administration’s work together over the past sixteen months as well as conversations within the broader school community over the past several years. LWHS’ major goals for the next five years are to:
Advance teaching and learning with habits of mind. LWHS will implement schoolwide habits of mind to cultivate in students the skills and habits to build lives of consequence and fulfillment. Using the common language of habits of mind, LWHS will also work to advance the school’s leadership in promoting integrated thinking and to envision the future of civic engagement.
Sustain a vibrant learning community. Plan for a connected campus. LWHS will develop a long-range campus master plan to identify improvements that strengthen the connection of the campus to its educational goals.
LWHS will examine its admission, Flexible Tuition, financial, and fundraising policies and practices to be sure the school continues to build a unique learning community while also ensuring that its investment in access is sustainable.
LWHS MISSION
A private school with public purpose, Lick-Wilmerding High School develops the head, heart, and hands of highly motivated students from all walks of life, inspiring them to become lifelong learners who contribute to the world with confidence and compassion.
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Foster success. LWHS will leverage the strengths of its diversity to enhance the success of each student and the school community.
This strategic plan builds upon what founding Head of School George Merrill (1895–1939) called ‘Industrial Intelligence;’ that is, the need to educate students so they fully understand the world and are active participants in making the world, not just letting the world impose itself upon them.
Monitoring LWHS Progress Collecting and analyzing data to guide change and improvement are key elements in developing longterm institutional vitality and sustainability. The new position of Institutional Researcher will provide accurate data, both current and longitudinal, to inform decision-making and self-reflection. Additionally, through regular marketing and satisfaction surveys of key constituents, LWHS is able to track its improvements and assess the impact of an LWHS education. As Lick-Wilmerding High School enters its 119th year, its longstanding values and commitments remain evident. When the school opened its doors in the fall of 1895, across the bottom of the first Course Catalog is written, “These courses are subject to change, and criticism and suggestions are invited.” This spirit of partnering with the community to continually improve is part of LWHS’ founding principles and is reflected in the collaborative process used to determine its institutional focus for the next five years.
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letter from head of school eric temple On behalf of the Board of Trustees and the entire community, I am pleased to present to you Making the Future: Strategic Directions 2013– 2018, the culmination of sixteen months of data gathering, listening, and thought. Entering its 119th year, Lick-Wilmerding High School looks to the future from a position of considerable strength. LWHS is proud of its: • Nationally recognized “Head, Heart, Hands” curriculum that integrates the liberal arts and sciences, technical arts, visual arts, and performing arts, delivered by talented faculty. • Vibrant community of learners that mirrors the Bay Area and broadens the perspectives of each community member. • Caring and inclusive school community that welcomes and values highly motivated students from all walks of life. • Endowment support that increases financial access to an LWHS education. • Urban campus, with its accessibility via public transportation and nationally recognized for its innovative design. These qualities attract a deep and diverse pool of students from all over the Bay Area, offering LWHS the opportunity to craft a community of learners that embodies and fulfills its mission. Strategic planning enables LWHS to both identify new opportunities and nurture its current strengths. LWHS endeavors to raise up those characteristics that add power and resonance to the school while advancing the school’s mission to inspire students to become lifelong learners. I look forward to partnering with each of you to see to fruition the bold goals outlined here. I am confident that together we can succeed in Making the Future of LWHS one marked by a concrete embodiment of our mission.
More information available at: www.lwhs.org/strategicplan
Eric J. Temple Head of School
Left: Members of the Class of 2014 gather before processing into graduation. Below, left: Valedictorian Zane Latif
O
nce again, Davies Symphony Hall served as a spectacular setting to send the wonderful Class of 2014 on to their next chapter. One hundred and ten members strong, this talented, bright, witty, hard-working, and competitive class showed their spark and good humor throughout the ceremony. As evidenced in the college matriculation list, this class is headed off to new adventures in wonderful places, and we wish them all the best.
GRADUATION SPEAKERS 2014
Graduation: Congratulations Class of 2014!
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Class-Elected Speaker: Chase Hommeyer, introduced by faculty member Rebecca Hong Valedictorian: Zane Latif, introduced by faculty member Shaun Lopez Faculty Speaker: Suzy Shimek, introduced by faculty member Robin von Breton
GRADUATION 2014
Top, left: Amanda Landaverde takes a selfie with Board President Bill Mellin. Above: Izzy Fong, Eliana Greenberg, and Or Oppenheimer getting ready to process into graduation. Below, left: Faculty speaker Suzy Shimek (left) with Erin Merk. Suzy began her speech by asking Erin to lead everyone in a meditation similar to those done at weekly Community Meetings.
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GRADUATION 2014
Top, left: Clara Chan, Diana Chavez, and Matthew Cheong Top, right: Classelected speaker Chase Hommeyer Above: Jayraj Govender joyously walks to the stage to receive his diploma. Right: Adrian Arnold and Chelo Barton in their embellished caps and gowns.
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Amherst College (2)
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Babson College
San Francisco State University
Barnard College (2)
Scripps College
Boston University (2)
Spelman College
Brown University (4)
Stanford University (5)
California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo (3)
Syracuse University (2)
Carleton College
The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science & Art
Carnegie Mellon University (2)
Tufts University (2)
Case Western Reserve University
Tulane University (2)
Colorado College
College Destinations for the Class of 2014
C
ongratulations to the senior class on their graduation and stellar
acceptances to colleges and universities throughout the country. We can’t wait to hear about your adventures, studies, and fun, so please keep in touch. Listed below are the college choices for the Class of 2014. The number in parenthesis indicates the number of students planning to attend that school, when more than one.
University of British Columbia
Connecticut College
University of California at Berkeley (6)
Dartmouth College (2)
University of California at Davis
Dominican University of California
University of California at Los Angeles (2)
Georgetown University (2)
University of California at San Diego
Harvey Mudd College Indiana University at Bloomington Johns Hopkins University Lewis & Clark College (2) Massachusetts Institute of Technology (2) Middlebury College (4) New York University (7) Northeastern University (4) Northwestern University (5) Oberlin College Occidental College (3) Parsons The New School for Design Pitzer College Pomona College Princeton University
University of California at Santa Barbara (2) University of California at Santa Cruz (3) University of Michigan (3) University of Oregon (2) University of Pennsylvania University of San Francisco (2) University of Southern California University of Virginia Washington University in St. Louis Wesleyan University (2) Westmont College Whitman College Whittier College Willamette University Yale University
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GEORGIANA OSIPOVA REFLECTS ON HER LWHS CAREER LWHS is a creative place to work. If you enter the school and hold the probably mistaken belief that you are not particularly a creative individual, when you leave LWHS you will have an entirely different perspective. Every corner of the school envelops the students and teachers in the creative spirit, which remains a part of LWHS alumni over a lifetime. If you spend any time on campus, you will discover that LWHS is a community that is hard for students to leave at the end of the school day, and I find this to be true for me as a teacher.
Celebrating Georgiana Osipova: ¡Felicidades, profe!
T
he 2013-2014 school year marked a significant milestone at Lick-Wilmerding High School: Georgiana
Osipova’s 40th year teaching at the school. Georgiana—or profe, as she is affectionately called and known by the hundreds of students she has taught—delights her classes with her boundless energy and her commitment to the craft of teaching and her students. We are so fortunate that Georgiana has chosen to spend these 40 years at LWHS, and we look forward to more! Included here are some wonderful memories and anecdotes from colleagues and alumni from 1984 to 2010.
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Once the year gets started, there are meaningful community presentations on a weekly basis and faculty presentations that leave me excited and reflective about teaching Spanish and teaching in general in the 21st century. The internet has opened up a world of possibilities for the language teacher and educator. Additionally, I am surrounded by a great group of World Languages faculty who work tirelessly to make class interesting and meaningful for our students. Personally, I get energized every time I lead a group of students to Spain or Mexico. In the future we look forward to trips to Costa Rica and I look forward to our department finding the perfect homestaycommunity service project so that our Spanish students will equally
Memories from Colleagues and Alumni increase their cultural competency and language skills. Lastly, my students are the real motivators. They influenced me to take dance classes at Rhythm and Motion in the Mission some eight years ago after watching the fall and spring dance performances (some 48 dances every performance!) and my dance teachers (all professionals) continuously motivate me to persist with my passion for dance. In the Spanish classroom, my students’ obvious desire to know Spanish is what motivates me to support them in every possible manner. It is personally illuminating to turn class time over to the students whether they are performing impromptu skits, comparing surreal painters and photographers, or speaking about Latin American heroes, all with such authority that it is magical to observe. The students are very supportive of one another, and for this reason, generations of students have attained excellent fluency and analytical skills during their four years of language studies with the World Languages faculty. I grew up in Santa Cruz, California, in a home where my mother and her sisters loved to sing and play Spanish and Mexican music. My mother and her sisters would gather around the baby grand piano and play and sing Mariachi music, tangos, and steamy Latin music. Although Spanish was only spoken for the purpose of hiding
There is really no limit to what Georgiana Osipova is willing to do to help her students, and her students are inspired to push themselves to reach their highest potential. She works tirelessly in the pursuit of excellence and has helped thousands of students to become proficient in the language about which she is so passionate and to immerse themselves in the culture of the people who speak it. She also models what it means to be a lifelong learner, constantly seeking out new materials, ideas, and activities. Many students will remember her most for leading carefully planned trips abroad and sharing in the students’ adventures and discoveries.
—LUKE ALESSANDRONI, CURRENT FAULTY MEMBER AND GEORGIANA’S WORLD LANGUAGES COLLEAGUE I took Spanish from Profe for two years and in those two years, I learned so much more Spanish than most of my collegiate peers learned in 4+ years of high school. Her teaching technique was perfected—we had so many opportunities to write, read, and listen in Spanish (and only Spanish) that our understanding of the language, vocabulary and skills improved drastically. We were able to learn Spanish also not just through exercises but through stories, culture, and history. We read some of the strangest stories I’ve ever heard (Ramo de Azul anyone?), but the class also introduced me to some of the best music (Juanes, Cecilia Cruz) and some of my favorite movies (Pan’s Labrynth, Motorcycle Diaries, Volver). I’m forever grateful for the skills I learned as I am able to use my Spanish to this day! Gracias, Profe, por todo lo que me enseñaba!
—MIA DIVECHA 2009 Profe instilled in me a beautiful Castillano accent.
- ALLEGRA BANDY 1994
adult matters from my cousins and me, I was all caught up in the beauty and romance of this music and the Spanish language, and I suppose this early cultural exposure contributed to my later academic interest in Spanish. Other high school students and I did volunteer work in Watsonville and Salinas, tutoring the farm workers’ children in English. Usually we ended up taking groups of kids into town to buy them fast food and new clothing. That experience also tied me to the Spanish-speaking community and their struggles during the César Chávez years. When I think about how it was that I decided to become a teacher, I believe the seed was planted when I used to visit my aunt’s English and Art classes during my elementary school vacations. She was a phenomenal English and Art teacher in the San Jose public school system and I used to tag along with her and her students on their field trips, seeing first-hand the importance of experiential learning. I studied both Spanish and French in high school and must have impressed my teachers because they awarded me departmental honors in Foreign Language upon graduation, an honor which took me by surprise, and probably pointed me in
the linguistics direction. At UC Berkeley, I greatly enjoyed my Spanish literature courses. I studied under a stellar group of legendary professors, José Fernández Montesinos, John K. Walsh, and Luis Monguió, to name a few of my favorites. We were a close-knit group of undergrads and professors and my love for Spanish literature and language grew exponentially. I have never forgotten the legacy they bestowed on me. After volunteering to teach Spanish classes in the Berkeley public schools through the local YWCA on Bancroft Avenue, I decided that maybe I could make Spanish accessible to high school students by introducing language learners to literature as early as Spanish 1. My interest in Peninsular and Latin American literature is what landed me the job at LWHS. I had a great interview discussing Lope de Vega and Calderón de la Barca with Dr. Janet Schwartz, who was the Assistant Head of School at LWHS in 1974; she was also a Cal alumna. After getting a Secondary Teaching Credential at Cal, I tried to get a Bay Area teaching job, but public school principals in the East Bay were looking to fill the Spanish positions with male heritage speakers at that particular time (that’s what
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they told me in the interviews). Nevertheless, I had several job offers outside the Bay Area, and decided to teach in a Junior-Senior High School in the San Luis Obispo area. Several of us used to ride our bikes to work and it turned out that we all had ties to the Bay Area; so, we would carpool up here every couple of months. San Luis Obispo and Berkeley could not have been more different in those years. But I had two great years teaching Spanish to both junior and senior high students, a very close-knit community with football homecomings and a hardworking group of college-bound kids. I learned a lot about teaching those two years, and my rigorous instruction made an impact on them as well. I recall there were lots of tears shed on both sides when I made the decision to return to the Bay Area. I have many fond memories of my students, from the classroom, Jellis Block, and our trips abroad: Buenos Aires and Río de Janeiro, Oaxaca, and many trips to Spain; from losing a rather shy student, John, on the Madrid subway on my first trip (!); to a great Jellis Block trip with Global Exchange to Salinas to meet and interview immigrant planters who had formed their own cooperative; to fantastic discussions in Spanish 3H. One recent memory was during the 2014 Jellis Block, when my advisees, some Spanish students, presented English lessons to newly arrived immigrants who wanted
Back in the ‘80s, Lick was a smaller school. For those of us taking Spanish, Profesora Osipova was the only teacher we had for all four years. Considering that our class size was never bigger than fifteen, we got to know Profesora very, very well and vice-versa. We’d always try to get Profesora off topic, which wasn’t difficult to do, but she kept the conversation going in Spanish. In hindsight, I can’t help but wonder if it was a wellplaned strategy on Profesora’s part to get us all comfortable vocally rather than exclusively focusing on grammar and vocabulary. Either way, it worked as even the least studious students in the class (ok, me) easily got a 4 on the Spanish AP. To this day, my accent and vocabulary more than get me by in Spanish speaking countries, and I owe that all to Profesora. Just as important though, whenever my Class of ‘88 Spanish class friends (Tracy Carlson, Nicole LaBorde, Justin Grover, etc.) get together, stories from room four, which used to be Profesora’s classroom, are told with much laughter and fondness. Felicitaciones Profesora! Te Queremos!
—ALEX HOCHMAN 1988 Profe’s class was the defining moment in my study of the Spanish language. Her class was the hardest Spanish class I had ever taken and while I certainly complained my way through the seemingly endless pages of homework, by the end of the year, much to my amazement, I could speak Spanish. Thanks to the many in-class discussions and presentations I did on topics ranging from the reaches of Spanish colonization to the nuances of magical realism, I felt comfortable expressing complex ideas. Profe’s class not only solidified my love of the Spanish language but also sparked my interest in Spanish and Hispanic culture. Through the rest of high school and college, I sought out opportunities to improve my speaking skills, learn about immigration issues and travel abroad. Eight years after my first class with Profe, I have been fortunate enough to have traveled to Chile, Costa Rica, Mexico, Spain, and Argentina. Additionally I have gotten to work as an ESL teacher, volunteer at a Latino day-laborer organization, and understand some of my favorite foreign films in their original language. I am so thankful for Profe’s class and am excited to continue using and learning Spanish.
—SARAH BINDMAN 2009 I struggled with Honors Spanish junior year and needed a little extra help. So we agreed to trade some babysitting for help with those pesky subjunctives. Of course Profe and Mr. O had adorable children, so it was an easy trade for me. Profe invited me into their home, made me lunch, and drilled those subjunctives into my head! Teaching was/is her passion, and I am grateful for all the help she gave me. I’m not fluent, but I definitely am able to use my Spanish almost every day at work which is really helpful. And another memory… one weekend my senior year, I was at the school for some reason. I rode my bike there, and as I was riding home down Ocean Avenue, I was forced into the streetcar tracks by a very bad driver. Bikes and tracks… not a good combination. I went down hard, messed up my knee and hit my head. (Yes, I was wearing a helmet!) I hobbled to the sidewalk and limped back up the hill to the school. I found Profe who helped clean me up and gave me and my poor bike a ride home. I’ll never forget Profe and Mr. O’s trusty brown VW Vanagon.
—JENNIFER SCHWARTZ 1989 My favorite time with Profe was my senior year, when we were paired up with a group of ninth graders for the freshman retreat. All that time of knowing Profe as an excitable, energetic Spanish teacher, I assumed she just loved the subject. But getting to know her outside the classroom I realized that she loved the students!
—LIESL SPITZ 2007
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to prepare for job interviews and other situations that one encounters in a new country. I was doubtful that my advisees could put lessons together after meeting on only two occasions. The regular teaching staff of Arriba Juntos and I were left enthralled by the innovative lessons, energy, teaching skills and the great interest these young future teachers generated for the Arriba Juntos clients. A classroom memory is when Maya, a student from a few years ago, came to me to tell me of her interest in Spanish, film, and dance and how she had seen a Spanish movie in her film class that might be useful. Well, that year, due to her organizational work and input, I showed two extra movies in Spanish 2A, Valentín and Carlos Saura’s Tango, and students researched the history behind both movies. I am very grateful to Maya for bringing her particular interests to my attention. I wish to encourage all my future students to make suggestions of this kind.
CELEBRATING TEACHING: GEORGIANA’S 40TH YEAR
Although my mom is from Chile and I spoke Spanish all my life, Ms. Osipova taught me how to read and write Spanish at the age of 16! It’s strange that I was almost illiterate yet a fluent speaker when I met her. When I graduated, I was a fluent reader and writer!
—FRANCIS TAPON 1988 Georgiana Osipova continually encourages students to stretch themselves beyond what they think they are capable of to propel them toward an everdeepening mastery of language, vocabulary, and analytical acumen. A purveyor of words that marvel and delight the senses, a spirited explorer of learning, and a consummate grammarian, Georgiana fuels students’ fluency and equips them for a lifetime of appreciation for the access that language provides to literature, ideas, and culture. In my particular case, she provided me with the tools to express myself confidently in faraway lands and to make enduring connections with people from España to Perú and México. My journey from high school to college, to living abroad and even my daily conversations with my husband have been continually enriched by everything I have learned from this teacher. Every word that has ever inspired a native Spanish speaker to commend my vocabulary has been a word I learned in her class. Alboroto, carencia, indagar, y mucho más! I still have my pages and pages of worksheets on the subjunctive in case I ever need to refer back to them. I find myself searching my visual memory for them whenever I get stuck on a particular phrase and whether or not to use the subjunctive.
—LARALYN BERGSTEDT 1992 AND CURRENT FACULTY MEMBER I took Spanish with Señora Osipova for 4 years. She was a fun, engaging, and kind teacher who used interesting and interactive techniques to help us learn to speak Spanish. We played fun games that loosened us up and got us talking and laughing in Spanish. We even wrote and acted out Cinderella in class. Today, I am a fluent Spanish speaker, and I attribute my interest in the language and Spanish-speaking cultures to her teaching. Señora Osipova was not just a great teacher… she also was a good friend. Mil gracias por todo.
Ms. Osipova, endearingly known by the simple title of “Profe,” is without a doubt the best teacher I have ever had. I had a feeling that many professors would come close to Profe, but never quite compare, when I set out to study Romance Languages at Dartmouth College. Now a graduate, I can say for a fact that that feeling was right. Profe is completely unique. I have never met anyone with such boundless enthusiasm for a subject. Profe has been at LWHS for 40 years, but comes to class with such exuberance that you would think that she had only been teaching for 40 days. Profe teaches Spanish, but really Profe could teach anything. The infectious energy she brings to class each day, combined with the devout tutorship that she reserves for each and every one of her students, makes for an unbeatable combination. A born role model, advisor, and masterful teacher, I am so lucky to have had this extraordinary mentor in my life.
—OLIVIA EVANS 2010
As a student you don’t always see your teachers as regular people with lives outside of school. It’s only looking back at my yearbooks that I can see through her pictures that Georgiana Osipova went through some big life changes during those four years I spent at LWHS. She met fellow teacher Mr. Osipoff. She got married. And then she had a baby, all from 1980-1984. I believe she was still Señora Cortez when she decided to chaperone a group of us on a trip to Spain. It’s kind of crazy to think what a big responsibility that must have been for a young teacher and not everything went smoothly. Our flight was overbooked, and we almost didn’t make it on the plane. But it turned into an amazing trip, and I’m grateful that she was willing to do something that brave. We went to a lot of museums and there was one piece of art that I particularly remember, Las Meninas by Diego Velázquez, painted in 1656. (It’s currently in the Museo del Prado in Madrid, so I’m guessing that’s where I saw it too.) I was lucky enough to see the painting that would end up being the topic of the comprehension portion of the Spanish Advanced Placement test I took the next year. Sometimes I wonder what Señora Cortez did during the week we all did a family homestay and she was finally free from all that responsibility. Did she go out and party with the locals? I sure hope so. I didn’t really have a facility for languages, but I had a great teacher and even though I’m coming up on my 30th high school reunion, I still remember much of what I learned in my Spanish classes. Congratulations to Georgina Osipova on her 40 years teaching at LWHS! (And if anyone has any pictures of that trip to Spain that you could send me, I’d love to see them. Send them to zgeek3-mc@yahoo.com.) —ZOE MCLAUGHLIN 1984
—CHRISTIAN SMITH 1984
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ON TEACHING:
Annie Maguire Barnes 1984
I
have so many lofty motivations for teaching: to harness
students’ innate curiosity to develop their critical thinking, to equip them with the academic and interpersonal skills to make a difference in the world, to help students know themselves better and become more reflective human beings, capable of making sound and considered decisions. Yes, yes, yes—all of that is always in the mix of my motivations. But at a more basic and immediate level, what has kept me returning to the classroom at the end of summer for sixteen years is that for me, being a teacher is really fun and deeply satisfying. And having had other jobs, I can say there is really nothing like it.
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Part of the enjoyment for me comes from the pleasant surprises that punctuate the school year. Sometimes those surprises are the funny things students say, not always intentionally, which charm me and help create a positive learning community with a sense of shared humor and memory in the classroom. Witnessing a student emerge into a skilled writer is a satisfying and delightful surprise, one that is often marked by tears of joy when the result of their work is an amazing essay that succeeds in the goal of authentic communication. Even when the surprises are less than pleasant, I enjoy embracing a challenging situation and trying to make something positive come from it. One school I taught in had a “Senior Dog Day” tradition where pet pooches accompanied students to classes, with the not-so-subtle intent of making class time less than productive for that one spring day. Seeing the canine companions in my classroom—there were about eight of these four-legged new students—I could tell the dogs were less than happy with the situation, as they fought with their own doggy anxiety to establish their place in this new pack. I challenged my honors history students to calm themselves down enough to quiet the dogs—all of which eventually lied down at the foot of their masters, and we did get some work done. We ended the class by critiquing the somewhat silly ritual, after one poor dog, Daisy, threw up, no doubt induced by the nervousness of being in an unfamiliar and somewhat
CELEBRATING TEACHING
threatening environment. A sort of slight satisfaction came as Daisy’s guardian, a student named Sarah, had to clean up the mess that she had helped create as her classmates all agreed that this was clearly not a reason to call on the facilities department.
work across differences, learn the hard lessons of responsibility, arrive at a shared understanding of important ideas and issues, and experience empathy. Every year as a teacher, I get to see some of that happen. For me, no other work is quite so satisfying.
The very act of teaching gives me hope that people can come together to solve problems,
Annie teaches history at Wildwood School.
“The very act of teaching gives me hope that people can come together to solve problems, work across differences, learn the hard lessons of responsibility, and arrive at a shared understanding of important ideas and issues...”
ON TEACHING AND TEACHERS:
Remembrance from Ashley Emery 1952
I
came to Lick-Wilmerding High School in 1950.
I had never heard of the school and I have no idea where my parents had heard of the “California School of Mechanical Arts” and the “Wilmerding School of Industrial Arts,” but certainly the fact that there was no tuition was an attraction. For some reason I could not matriculate in 1949 and spent my freshman year at St. Peters, a not-too-far away all-boys Catholic school, well known for being the school of last resort for problem students in the San Francisco schools.
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CELEBRATING TEACHING
LWHS was an eye opener with every student seriously interested in school.
need to clearly understand the fundamentals and even the academic classes made a point of highlighting the My graduating class consisted of practical value of the course. 34 guys and three girls. In fact, Mr. Berlin in three dimensional the three girls were all there geometry (or maybe it was were for the classes of 1951-1955. called descriptive geometry) This was perplexing since the showed how architects could Lux school for girls was only use the concepts. He also had a block away and considering a file cabinet with every test closing (it closed in 1952). The that we could look through amazing feature of LWHS was to prepare for the exams. As that “shop” was required every he said, those who reviewed term. Shop classes consisted of those files probably learned machine shop, sheet metal shop, more from the review than from wood shop, mechanical drawing, class. Mr. Tibbets, who taught and architectural drawing and chemistry, organic chemistry, surveying. and mineralogy, would drive to far-away Nevada—remember Every shop class started the that rationing had ended just a same way—a focus on the short time before—and return fundamentals. Mr. Thomsen and drop “rocks” on our desks in machine shop required us Monday morning. to use a square and a file to convert a blob of iron into a Every teacher was challenged to rectangular parallelepiped make their class understandable before you could use a machine. and worthwhile to the students. I never got to use any machine. While it is easy to imagine the Mr. Sparrowe, a pattern maker difficulties that shop teachers with a most exotic collection had with the generally fumbled of hard woods, started off with fingered college prep students, sharpening chisels and hand think about the math, physics, saws. With Mr. Pratt in sheet English and Spanish teachers metal shop it was learning to trying to make their topics solder with acid core and with relevant to the students majoring Mr. Sleeper it was sharpening in shop. I recall some of the ink pens and drawing ink lines shop students questioning of constant thickness and Mrs. Stewart as to why they density. It was very much the had to diagram sentences and same in the academic subjects. conjugate verbs. I also remember Every teacher emphasized the her cogent responses.
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Sixty-two years after graduating, I can still visualize almost every LWHS teacher I had the good fortune to have and to recreate the feelings that I had in class. In geometry, taught from Euclid’s axioms, the proof that parallel lines can never meet certainly didn’t grab my attention—isn’t it obvious—but I still recall the fascination that many of us had when introduced to sines, cosines and tangents. Think of what kind of teacher it takes to elicit such a response. Although my first career goals were not to be a teacher, I believe that the lasting impression of my teachers at LWHS was a dominant force in my decision to teach. Ashley is a professor at The University of Washington.
“... school life has given me a reason and motivation to learn new material and find compelling ways in which to share what I have learned. Through teaching, I use my own ‘can-do confidence’— as it was instilled in me at LWHS—to empower students to find their own. ”
CELEBRATING TEACHING
CELEBRATING TEACHING:
Hovey Clark 1990
I
have spent the last 19 years teaching at Woodside Priory in Portola
Valley. I began my work as a full-time Spanish teacher. In subsequent years, I crossed over into other departments—Science, Technology, and Art—eventually settling in areas related to environmental science and sustainability.
I am now the Priory’s Sustainability Coordinator, a position that allows me to move academic ideas into practice as we attempt to improve the efficiency of school operations. In this capacity, I monitor the school’s resource use, sustainable purchasing policy, and ecological impact, with the aim of integrating health and wellness, environmental concerns, and cost effectiveness into school operations. Additionally, I teach a woodworking elective (Thank you, Mr. Sichi!), the AP Environmental Science class, an Ecological Design and Sustainability class, and run the school’s organic farm—which I created by fundraising and coordinating help from alumni and friends of the school. Indeed, I get to wear a lot of hats. That said, I have to be honest here. I’m not a farmer, engineer, or permaculture specialist. But, the thing that I love about teaching—the value that comes right out
of the LWHS playbook—is that teaching gives me an inspiration and context for lifelong learning. Though I graduated from high school and college with no formal degrees or credits in the areas in which I teach, school life has given me a reason and motivation to learn new material and find compelling ways in which to share what I have learned. Through teaching, I use my own ‘can-do confidence’—as it was instilled in me at LWHS—to empower students to find their own.
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CELEBRATING TEACHING
CELEBRATING TEACHING:
A Student-Teacher Relationship Comes Full Circle BY LACEY MAMAK 1998
I
t’s not uncommon for students to keep in touch with their
teachers as they grow into adulthood, but the friendship between Lacey Mamak 1998 and former Lick-Wilmerding High School science teacher Dr. Amy Tiemann has grown into a decade-long professional collaboration.
After leaving LWHS in 1998 and moving to North Carolina, Amy reinvented herself as a writer. When she finished a draft of her young adult novel High Water in 2003, she approached Lacey, then working as a freelance editor. “Since I was publishing it independently, I could choose any editor I wanted, and it was a wonderful opportunity to work with someone I knew so well,” Amy says. Lacey found the new working relationship with “Dr. T.” quite natural. “Amy had always respected her students’ contributions to the classroom, so being her editor wasn’t a huge shift.”
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Lacey has since edited two more of Amy’s books, the awardwinning Mojo Mom: Nurturing Your Self While Raising a Family—which was republished by a major publishing house in 2009—and the anthology Courageous Parents, Confident Kids: Letting Go So You Both Can Grow. They are currently hard at work editing Amy’s latest book, Doing Right by Our Kids: Protecting Child Safety Lacey found the new at All Levels, co-authored with Kidpower founder Irene van der working relationship with “Dr. T.” quite Zande.
natural. “Amy had Collaborating on Doing Right by always respected her students’ contributions Our Kids, a guide to child safety to the classroom, so and abuse prevention at home being her editor wasn’t and in community organizations, a huge shift.” is a full-circle moment for both Amy and Lacey. As a student in Amy’s “Brain and Behavior” psychology class in 1997, Lacey told Amy about a new book Lacey was reading, the personal safety manual The Gift of Fear by Gavin de Becker. “This powerful book recommendation from Lacey reminded me that learning was a two-way street, and a good idea coming from a student was something to value and run with,” Amy remembers.
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She taught lessons based on the book to Lacey’s class and assigned the entire book to the following year’s Brain and Behavior class. Lacey and Amy both credit LWHS for developing their interest in personal self-defense strategies. “When I was a sophomore, the school held a long workshop by Andre Salvage and other selfdefense trainers. That day changed the way I moved through the world,” Lacey says. “I realized it was possible to predict and prevent violence.” Amy says her interest in the psychology of self-defense developed in great part from teaching at LWHS, “working with students who were living in the city, traveling the world, and navigating relationships for the first time.” She now teaches personal safety skills to children and teens as the codirector of the nonprofit Kidpower North Carolina.
Amy and Lacey will both be busy working on Doing Right by Our Kids for the next year. Starting this fall, the book will be released online at DoingRightByOurKids.com in a serial subscription format before a print edition is published in fall 2015. They find it fitting that Gavin de Becker is being asked to write the book’s foreword.
2013-2014 Milestones: Faculty & Staff Years of Service at LWHS 10
YEARS
Lacey thinks the collaboration was “meant to be.” “When I edited High Water, I was freelancing full time. But over the years I’ve had other jobs, gone to grad school, and now I’m an instruction librarian at a community college—a job I love,” Lacey says. “But whenever Amy has had a new book for me to edit, the timing has always worked out. I feel like we’re on an adventure together.” Given Amy’s diverse interests, the path to adventure could lead to many places. In addition to being a writer and Kidpower educator, she’s a media producer who, together with her husband, owns a professional music recording studio. And she’s considering a run for elected office in the future. (To keep up with Amy, visit her website at www.AmyTiemann.com.) “At LWHS,” Amy says, “I used to joke with my students that if I ever needed a job in the future, I would work for one of them. It is even better to work with a LickWilmerding graduate.” When Doing Right by Our Kids is published in its final form next year, Amy and Lacey plan to celebrate with their own long-overdue reunion. “We’ve been working remotely this whole time,” Lacey says. “It will be great to reconnect in person!”
Christine Godinez Director of Student Inclusion, Leadership, and Civic Engagement Anton Krukowski Biology, Psychology Teacher Nate Lundy 1995 Admissions, History Teacher Tamara Pellicier English Teacher Amy Pitsker French Teacher Jennifer Selvin English Teacher
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20
YEARS
Robin von Breton English, Journalism Teacher
Lissa Crider Librarian Thelonious Johnson English Teacher
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Luke Alessandroni Spanish Teacher Goranka Poljak-Hoy Architecture Teacher
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Steve Simon Math Teacher Maurine Poppers Director of Counseling
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Georgiana Osipova Spanish Teacher FALL 2014
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Student Notables COMPILED BY REBECCA GREEN 2014
C
AMERON DIXON 2017 received A Better Chance Young Leaders Award for his essay regarding leadership and diversity. This award is granted to two middle school scholars per grade nationally who demonstrate both academic excellence and leadership within their schools. The award grants national recognition and a the products of this project were monetary prize to all winners. sold in a workout studio) and they
KATE CHALOEMTIRANA 2016, EVA LAXO 2016, and COURTNEY PETERSON 2016 are hoping to get LWHS students involved with reaching out to business owners all over the world to help and educate them about micro financing. They raised over $500 for KIVA last year (from two henna fundraisers and a building project;
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Top: Head of School Eric Temple shows off plan on continuing their work this his new henna tattoo in support of the KIVA year. Their goals include setting up more elaborate fundraisers and fundraiser. raising more awareness around the Above: Courtney Peterson 2016 working school and the larger community. at one of the henna fundraisers. JADE SPARKS 2014 and ZACK KATZ 2015 won a Youth Making Ripples Citizen Science Award for their film Ripples. The film has been selected by MARLISCO
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STUDENT NOTABLES
(Marine Litter in European Seas—Social Awareness and Co-Responsibility) and debuted at select film festivals in March throughout the European Union. View this student film at www. lwhs.org/alumnivideos. MARLISCO is a European organization that is dedicated to increasing awareness about waste production and marine litter in the ocean. Their main focus is to identify solutions to reduce human impacts on our oceans.
KIRAN SRIDHAR 2015 was named a Distinguished Finalist for the 2014 Prudential Spirit of Community Award, a nationwide program that honors youth for outstanding acts of volunteerism, for his work to end hunger in San Francisco and the nation. Kiran founded “Waste No Food” in 2010, a nonprofit that connects
Right: Amelia RoskinFrazee 2015 (third from left) with fellow student ambassadors at the GLSEN Respect Awards ceremony.
restaurants with unused food that would otherwise be thrown out with organizations that feed the hungry. He has helped provide over 60,000 meals through a network of 42 food donors and participating organizations that feed the hungry.
AMELIA ROSKIN-FRAZEE 2015 was runner up for GLSEN’s (Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network) Student Advocate of the Year Award for her efforts to ensure safe learning environments for students of all sexual orientations. She created the “Make it Safe Project” in 2011, which is an organization that donates book bundles related to sexual orientation and gender expression to K-12 schools, Gay Straight Alliance (GSA) clubs, and LGBTQ-inclusive youth
homeless shelters. The website makeitsafeproject.org is also a safe space for LGBTQ youth to share stories and support. This year, Amelia won a Silver Medal in the 2014 Scholastic Art & Writing Award for Journalism for a piece called “Behind a Keyboard”, about the bullying and cyber-bullying of LGBTQ youth.
MALAYA SADLER 2014 won the San Francisco Public Library’s “We Are All Poets” contest, receiving the title of Youth Poet Laureate of San Francisco for her poem I Speak on Behalf of the Collective.
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STUDENT NOTABLES
This year, three LWHS students placed in the Architectural Foundation of San Francisco’s High School Design Competition. Congratulations to: • MOSS BRENNER-BRYANT 2015, tied for second place in “Best Design, Overall Superiority” • OR OPPENHEIMER 2014 placed second in “Best Model” • JACOB BINDMAN 2015 placed second in “Best Graphic Presentation Describing Design Solution”
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CLIO GEVIRTZ 2015 received a merit award for Cinematic Arts in the YoungArts 2014 Competition, receiving access to regional programs for distinguished young artists.
CHELO BARTON 2014 was part of the Ocean Exploration Trust’s Honors Research Program. She spent six weeks studying Oceanography at the University of Rhode Island in the summer of 2013, and two weeks in October 2013 working on a Scientific Research Vessel in Puerto Rico. While studying at URI, Chelo became licensed to use an
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Above: The 2014 Architectural Foundation of San Francisco High School Design competition winners. Above, right: Stop, a sculpture created by Maya Pollack 2014, that was on display at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Gallery.
underwater mapping software called Fledermaus, and spent three weeks with a team downloading multi-beam sonar data from the waters surrounding Puerto Rico. In October, the maps were used to determine geologically interesting areas to send down the ROV, and then worked to log data collected from the ocean floor daily. In addition, she collected air quality data to send to NASA every day, examined coral samples from the ocean floor, and helped prepare the cords and ropes of the ROV for its deployment.
MAYA POLLACK 2014 worked for Yerba Buena Center for the Arts as a Young Artist at Work. She created a piece called Stop that was displayed within the
STUDENT NOTABLES
gallery called Room for Big Ideas. She says the piece “addresses the dehumanizing effects of stop and frisk practices, while confronting the viewer with their own fears that are based on stereotypes.” The piece was displayed among those of other Young Artists at Work as part of an event open to the public called Visions of an Abolitionist Future, which allowed participants to view a culmination of art displays and performances meant to raise awareness about social injustice and potential solutions in local and global communities. Stop is on display at the RYSE Youth Center, along with other artwork created by her peers.
LWOW, THE LICK-WILMERDING ORGANIZATION OF WOMEN CLUB, put on a production called Girl Talk, which was a collection of original anonymously submitted monologues written by students, and then performed by other students. The event was wellattended, and brought a lot of
Above: Muses, an all female a cappella group, performing at Girl Talk. Right: Image of a bee from filming Beyond Honey. the issues that women in our community grapple with to the surface. In addition, the club leaders decided to make their Facebook page public so they could share interesting articles and have discussions about gender, feminism, and sexism online. The decision brought many individuals who hadn’t previously attended the club meetings or been interested in conversations related to gender and feminism into the conversation, and into a realm of being thoughtful about these matters. The page has become an open forum for discussion and an exchange of ideas that leads to thought-provoking conversations and questions.
In the Globalization class, 2014 classmates TOBY HARRIS, TYWEN KELLY, ANDIE VON ESCHEN, and MOLLY DICKE researched the recent disappearance of honey bees (CCD). They created a documentary, Beyond Honey, that was made available online for the student body, and sold honey from Toby’s bee hives to raise money (which was donated to research at UC Davis). Watch the documentary at www.lwhs.org/alumnivideos.
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Senior Awards Anne Murray Ladd Award Rebecca Green Jeannette Gaehwiler Award David Allen and Jade Sparks Female Scholar/Athlete Toby Harris CHARLES RYAN 2014 participated in NASA’s teen program NOVAS (NASA Opportunities in Visualization, Art, and Science) over the past couple of years. The program employs students year-round and gives students opportunities to research, use various digital media, participate in hands-on activities related to NASA missions, meet professors, scientists, and other experts, and explore the connection between art and science. Charles came away from the program with an acute understanding of the “profound codependence between art and science.” He believes that “with the art produced by science we are able to expose and interest people in a field that most artificially deem as ‘boring.’”
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JACOB BINDMAN 2015 has worked at the Ferry Building for several years as the Assistant Market Chef for the Center for Urban Education about Sustainable Agriculture (CUESA), a nonprofit organization that strives to educate urban consumers about sustainable agriculture and connect them with local farmers. CUESA has managed the Farmers Market held at the Ferry Building since 1999. Jacob recently played a role in the creation of a summer camp offered to kids aged 9-12 called Bay Leaf Kitchen. The camp was created specifically to provide opportunities for low-income youth. It consists of three days of learning to cook at the Ferry Building as well as an overnight at a local farm. Jacob is currently working closely
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Male Scholar/Athlete Corey Robinson Female Athlete of the Year Molly Dicke
with the kids as a camp counselor, where his motto is “taste some of everything!” as well as helping with the organization of the camp as the Unit Coordinator and Operational Director.
Male Athlete of the Year Bryson Lee Carrie Howland Award Rebecca Green and Corey Robinson Head of School Award for Civic Engagement Julianne Sison
RY STOREY-FISHER 2014 and SARAH KOCH 2014 started the LWHS Outings Club last year, leading students on night hikes through the city at Ocean Beach, the Presidio, and Sutro Forest, day hikes through Land’s End, Tennessee Valley, and Point Reyes, an all-seniors camping trip at Rob Hill Campground, and a three-night backpacking trip in Henry Coe State Park. The two actively tried to recruit students who hadn’t been involved in backpacking and camping before, and provided encouragement for the experts and new students who participated.
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In April, the two drove to Idyllwild in Southern California to get their Wilderness First Responder (WFR) certifications, the industry-standard wilderness medical certification that is required for many jobs in the outdoor industry. WFR certification took 30 hours of pre-course studying and a five-day intensive training period that included lessons teaching techniques like proper splinting, simulations of emergency situations, and more. The two passed the final exam with the two highest scores out of the entire class. This summer Ry hiked 370 miles in 17 days along the majority of the Pacific Crest Trail by himself, meeting companions along the way with whom he would hike. He hiked up to 30 miles a day. Sarah embarked on a solo hike on the John Muir trail this summer.
Opposite, far left: Charles Ryan 2014 (front middle) after working at the annual Teen Science Night, his last NASA NOVAS event at the California Academy of Sciences this past summer. Opposite, left: Jacob Bindman 2015 at the Farmers Market in the Ferry Building. Above, left: Ry StoreyFisher and Sarah Koch, both class of 2014, receiving their Wilderness First Responder (WFR) certifications. Above: Tano Brock’s first album Bandit can be found online on iTunes and Spotify. Above, right: Taft Weber-Kilpack 2016 in one of her handmade caps.
TANO BROCK 2014, who has been creating music his whole life, recently released his first album called Bandit with thirteen songs, featuring GLENNA ROBERTS 2014 and EVAN KOLM 2014. The album is a culmination of two years of work, and is available online and on iTunes, Spotify, and his website. It has quickly gained popularity within the LWHS community and greater San Francisco area. He continues to collaborate with classmates JACK GORLIN, GLENNA ROBERTS, EVAN CHAN, other LWHS students, and San Francisco musicians as a part of their group Space Among Many. Space Among Many records, produces, and films covers and original work that are posted on YouTube, where they have more than 800 subscribers.
During the winter of her 8th grade year, TAFT WEBERKILPACK 2016 created an Etsy craft shop called “Making Tembo”, and has since been creating various crafts and articles of clothing to sell online and at craft fairs. In addition, she has a blog with how-to’s and images of her work. She plans to expand in the future by creating and solidifying her brand, and becoming a regular vendor at craft fairs. Learn more on her blog makingtembo.blogspot.com
Congratuations to ALEXANDER SHEEHAN 2014, whose boat won the 2014 US Rowing Youth National Championship in the men’s open weight four-man boat category! Alexander has been rowing competitively with Pacific Rowing Club throughout high school.
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STUDENT NOTABLES
Amazing Season for Girls Varsity Basketball BY KK NARITA 2016
T
he varsity girls basketball team was unstoppable this season in the Bay Area
Conference (BCL) West League. The team concluded an undefeated season with a victorious championship game against International High School. This eight-person team set records all season. They were the first girls team to win the famous Oracle game in January against rival University High School, as well as the first LickWilmerding High School team to win the BCL championship game in 30 years. They made it all the way to the quarter finals in the North Coast Sectional (NCS), playing much bigger and tougher schools. Skill was bountiful on this varsity team. The bar was set so high that only eight people made the team: two freshmen, Maya Burris and Ayshianna Basallo; one sophomore, Sydni Green; three juniors, Julia Thompson, Michele Gee, and Sabrina Larsen; and the two senior captains, Aki Shurelds and Toby Harris.
Top: Aki Shurelds 2014 goes for the shot against University High School at Oracle Arena. Above: BCL League Champions, the 2014 LWHS Varsity Girls Basketball Team.
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Shurelds and Harris couldn’t be prouder of the team. Their final year turned out to be the best season of their careers; Shurelds scored her thousandth career point in the game against Salesian High School. The championship win was a dream come true for Harris and Shurelds, who had been doing all the superstitious rituals in the book in order to get this win. Aki said she would just picture all of the fans coming onto the court in her mind and having it actually happen was unreal. Both captains agreed that it was an incredible season to end on because of all of the records they broke. The regular season is played in the BCL West League with schools like International, University, and Marin Academy. At the championship game, over a third of the student body and many parents came out to support; the energy was high. Even at regular league games, enthusiastic LWHS students and parents were present. The captains said, “We
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are so thankful for everyone who came out and supported us. It really made the difference.” After the historic win, the crowd stormed the court to celebrate the first championship victory in 30 years. Coming out of a terrific season in the BCL and NCS, where they would play schools who had student bodies of 500 to 600, would prove to be difficult. On February 26, the girls played a home game against Fortuna High School. They beat Fortuna and went on to the next round of the NCS playoffs. Their success brought them to the Salesian gym on March 1, and this ended up being a difficult game. After the loss to Salesian, the team’s season came to a close, but the girls on the team still remain close. Assistant head coach Nate Lundy 1995 said that this year, the girls came into the season with a competitive spirit that he had never seen before, and that spirit was maintained, which gave them a competitive edge. Lundy said, “I told the girls we were not going to lose another game this year, and we won nine league games in a row, which is just truly incredible.” The girls varsity team was beyond memorable this season. They set record after record; they made history as the first girl’s team to win the Oracle game vs. rival school UHS. The season may be over for this team, but their victories will remain forever in LWHS history.
Below: Coach Jeff Gardiner with Andie von Eschen 2014, Julia Thompson 2015 and Molly Dicke 2014 at the state championship meet. Right: Bryson Lee 2014 and Jacob Shaw 2016 after the BCL Singles Championship match.
Athletics: What a Year! FALL HIGHLIGHTS
WINTER HIGHLIGHTS
SPRING HIGHLIGHTS
• LWHS captured the BCL League Championship in Girls Tennis.
• Varsity Girls Basketball Team went undefeated in league competition.
• Boys Tennis won the BCL League Championship, for the first time since 1966.
• CATHERINE PEABODY 2016 won the BCL Singles Championship and LUPE JACOBSON 2014 and JULIA POLLAK 2015 won the BCL Girls Doubles Championship.
• Varsity Girls Basketball won the BCL Championship for the first time since 1980.
• BRYSON LEE 2014 defeated JACOB SHAW 2016 for the BCL Singles Championship.
• The Varsity Girls also defeated University for the first time in Girls • LWHS won the BCL in Girls Basketball at Oracle and Boys Junior Varsity Arena. and Varsity Cross Country. • In Wrestling, NATHAN • In addition, the Girls WERTHEIMER 2015 and Cross Country Team won ALEJANDRO SANTANA the North Coast Section 2014 won the BCL Championship. Individual Championships in their weight class.
• The Varsity Girls won the BCL Track Championship and came in second in the North Coast Section Championships. • Varsity Boys Baseball Team defeated Stuart Hall (undefeated) in the BCL Tournament Championship 9-7.
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Top left: The LWHS Boys Cross Country team at the starting line at the BCL Championship meet. Middle, left: The 2014 LWHS Boys Baseball team at the BCL Tournament. Middle, right: Jacob Shaw 2016 digs deep to keep the ball in play. Bottom, left: Team spirit as demonstrated by the 2014 Boys Tennis Team. Bottom, right: Teammates Isa Canlas 2015, Joelle Park 2015, and Glenna Roberts 2014 after a match.
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ALUMNI EVENTS
Left: Classmates Mario Sawaya and Maria Hasbun 2004 visiting with architecture teacher Goranka Poljak-Hoy at the annual Holiday Party. Below left: Recent graduates connecting with seniors at the annual College-Age lunch on campus in January.
Alumni Events
T
The 2013-2014 academic year was chock-full of alumni
events as usual. REUNION 2013 was held in October, and the Tumbleweed Wanderers regaled the audience with their amazing tunes. November brought our annual trip to NEW YORK CITY, where Head of School Eric Temple had dinner with a dozen of our alumni supporters there.
The ANNUAL HOLIDAY PARTY took place once again at Mr. Smith’s bar and had the best turnout in its history. That night the CLASSES OF 2008 and 1998 held their 5th and 15th reunions, respectively. The COLLEGE-AGE LUNCH was held on campus in early January, and this event, too, had the best turn-out its had in its short history, with members of the classes of 2010-2013 meeting up with each other as well as the senior class and current LWHS faculty and staff. Alumni cheered on the girls and boys basketball teams at the annual LWHS VS. UHS competition at Oracle Arena in Oakland. TIGERS HELPING TIGERS—connecting alumni to students—was held in February, and TIGERS HELPING TIGERS—connecting alumni to one another—took place at at the Salesforce offices in downtown San Francisco in June. It was a terrific year of alumni activity; please check out the calendar at the back of the magazine and plan to join us for events this year!
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Top, right: 2nd Annual Tigers Helping Tigers Event was held in February. These alumni shared their career paths and stories with more than 80 current students. Above: Recent graduates enjoy the annual LWHS basketball games vs. University High School, played at Oracle Arena in Oakland. Above, right: Recent graduates at the annual College-Age Lunch on campus in January. Right: Alumni from the Classes of 1957 to 2008 had dinner with Head of School Eric Temple (seated, center) in New York City last November.
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Right: Head of School Eric Temple with presenters Rebeca Mauleón, Nathan Chan 2011, and Samuel Carl Adams 2004. Below, right: Nathan Chan and Samuel Carl Adams engaged in a conversation during the Q&A session.
THE event 2014
O
n Friday, April 25, LWHS parents, students, alumni, faculty, and friends gathered in the Ehrer Theatre to hear
presentations and music by current parent Rebeca Mauleón and two alumni: Samuel Carl Adams 2004 and Nathan Chan 2011.
Each of the three guests gave a 20-minute presentation, then all of them sat down with LWHS Head of School Eric Temple for questions. Topics included education, musical influences and mentors, and the role of technology in music. Rebeca, Sam, and Nathan kept the audience entertained and inspired, and they earned a standing ovation at the end of the program. The evening concluded with a reception in the Ann Maisel Café, where audience members had the opportunity to mingle and meet the performers. THE Event raised more than $48,000 to update audio equipment for the theatre and café.
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Reunion 2013
Top: Members of the Class of 1988 celebrate their 25th reunion. Above: Classmates Jack Houng and Lori Seid 1988. Left: Alex Hochman 1988, coordinator of the 25th reunion, with his daughter Sophie, Class of 2018. Below, left: Nato Green 1993 and his family.
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ALUMNI EVENTS
Right: Ale Allen Klene 1993 with her husband. Below, left: Golden Tigers connecting at the annual luncheon. Below, right: Jeremy Lyon 2009 and Zak Mandel-Romann 2009 of the Tumbleweed Wanderers band singing at a special assembly for current students during Reunion Weekend. Bottom, right: Jason Gullion 1987 with his wife. Bottom: Children of alumni having fun and sporting their henna and face painting.
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ALUMNI AUTHORS
Alumni Authors Feel-Free Home Study Course Joseph Browning 1980 Joseph has written an online Home Study Course Book/PDF through his business Feel-Free Processes. The work of FeelFree examines our feelings and our ability to directly and consciously manage our feelings, especially the more challenging ones such as sadness, anger, and shame. To learn more and access a free sample see feelfreeprocesses. com. The 61-page PDF course/ book features insights, examples, and exercises that can be downloaded and saved/ utilized by the reader. It will soon be featured on Amazon Ebooks.
flip camera all while recording live. Qountr is unique in the sense that it’s based off of geographic location. Qountr allows users to keep themselves up-todate & informed on the events happening all over the world by simply dropping a Qpin on the map or by searching a location on the map.
California Screaming Nathan Heller 2002 Nathan is a staff writer at The New Yorker. His piece, “California Screaming” from July 7 can be found at www.newyorker.com/ magazine/2014/07/07/californiascreaming. This is the most recent of a few pieces he has written on tech and its Bay Area culture.
Qountr App Stephanie Chung 2013 Stephanie spent the summer as a Marketing Intern for Qountr in Hollywood, CA. Qountr is a free social media video app that removes limitations that have once been placed on mobile video and changes social experiences with better ways to share and connect. Qountr offers users the ability to filter, edit, zoom in/out, use flash and
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Portland Review) look at contemporary life through the specifics of loss, love, illness, and fear, with a measure of happiness thrown in. Reviewers have noted: “It is a joy to go from story to story, to get inside the minds of these varied characters, to live inside their social and familial anxiety,” and “Taken together, the stories are a report on American life today, so well does Moulthrop render a variety of characters’ situations and language.”
To Tell You the Truth: Stories Robert Moulthrop 1957 Robert Moulthrop’s debut book of short stories To Tell You The Truth is now available on Amazon. These 11 stories (most previously published in such literary journals as Confrontation, Reed, and
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Hike Your Own Hike: 7 Life Lessons from Backpacking Across America Francis Tapon 1988 Hike Your Own Hike is about hiking the entire Appalachian Trail and sharing seven key lessons that you can apply to your everyday life. It’s filled with practical ideas, as well as fun anecdotes from the trail.
ALUMNI AUTHORS
The Hidden Europe Francis Tapon 1988 Whereas Hike Your Own Hike focuses more on personal development, The Hidden Europe is much more about the journey. Although each chapter ends with a one-page summary of the practical lessons you can learn from an Eastern European country, it’s really a travelogue on steroids.
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Left: Students in conversation during Walk with a Purpose Below, left: Luke Alessandroni’s advising group during Jellis Block
Civic Engagement at Lick-Wilmerding
T
he Lick-Wilmerding High School mission statement makes clear the school’s goals and commitment to civic engagement and public purpose: “A private school with
public purpose, Lick-Wilmerding High School develops the head, heart, and hands of highly motivated students from all walks of life, inspiring them to become lifelong learners who contribute to the world with confidence and compassion.” Public purpose… students from all walks of life… contribute to the world… these words in our mission statement serve as our practice and our aspiration for admitting a student body of engaged kids from all over the Bay Area, and helping them develop and/or hone the skills and interests needed to make the world a better place.
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In this edition of the Alumni Magazine, we are sharing several of the programs created in the school’s Center for Civic Engagement: Walk with a Purpose, The Pact, and the Public Purpose Program. Each of these three initiatives relates back to the school’s mission in powerful and important ways. Walk with a Purpose is a student-led program where everyone in the school participates in workshops, courageous conversations, and presentations about social inequities in communities. The Pact is a program focused on supporting and mentoring boys of color and works in coordination with middle school students at San Francisco Day School. The Public Purpose Program is the newest initiative— replacing what some alumni remember as Jellis Block—with a four-year cycle of weaving public purpose and service opportunities into the student experience. The leaders of these three programs, Christine Godinez, Nate Lundy 1995, and Alan Wesson, have shared the following goals and descriptions for each initiative.
CIVIC ENGAGEMENT AT LWHS
Walk with a Purpose: Christine Godinez
W
here are we walking?� is the usual question I get from freshmen during our annual Walk with a Purpose Program. The name was created by a group of Lick-Wilmerding High School students who attended the Student Diversity Leadership Conference in 2010. Their hope was that all students would walk away from the program feeling empowered to make a difference in their communities. Walk with a Purpose was created out of the need to address social inequities that exist in the world today. The overarching goal of the program is to develop a larger awareness of diversity in all its forms and to introduce the cycle of oppression as a way to think about how oppression can affect us all. Walk with a Purpose (WWP) is in its fourth year at LWHS and has gone through a series of different models. In our first year, WWP spanned over two days allowing students to tackle issues of racism and participate
in affinity groups. Over the last few years, students have also engaged in conversations around class and privilege, attended workshops led by LWHS faculty and staff and hosted guest speakers such as Ariel Luckey and Michael Benitez. The program continues to evolve every year as a new group of students takes on the challenge of designing a meaningful program. Every year LWHS sends a group of students to NAIS’s Student Diversity Leadership Conference (SDLC) and The White Privilege Conference (WPC). Upon returning from these conferences, students are required to spend the following year designing the Walk with a Purpose Program. This past year a group of 10 students met regularly for more than eight months to research and write curriculum on sexism. They
Top: Michael Benitez, Dean of Diversity at University of Puget Sound, was the guest speaker at the spring 2014 Walk with a Purpose program. Above: Mentors from The Pact support their mentees at a San Francisco Day Basketball game.
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WWP REFLECTION FROM BENJAMIN COHN 2008 “It was a great experience to return as an alumnus and help with an event like Walk with a Purpose. For one, there was nothing to this extent that took place during my time at LickWilmerding High School, but I couldn’t agree more that the issues and topics of WWP are important and demand attention. I graduated from LWHS happy with my experience and proud to have come from that community, and there is nothing better than coming back six years later to see that the school has not settled but continues to move in the right direction. I led a workshop demonstrating the Cycle of Oppression—Stereotypes, Prejudice, Discrimination, Oppression, and Internalized Oppression—through the analysis of hip hop music and lyrics. It was a special feeling to reframe the conversation in terms of hip hop. It helped me connect to the kids differently than I would normally, and we got to view a complicated theme in terms that we all understood. I think these types of discussions can be very valuable for students to be aware of, whether they actively participate in the moment or reflect after the fact.”
were responsible for planning all activities and ultimately facilitating the curriculum to 9th and 10th graders. Although the task of developing WWP often seems daunting, it has been an honor to lead students in this process, watch them grow as leaders, and grin with joy after a successful program year after year. Diversity work is never ending, and as Angela Davis once said, “When one commits oneself to the struggle, it must be for a lifetime.”
Public Purpose Program: Alan Wesson
D
uring my first year at Lick-Wilmerding High School, I led a workshop in the Center entitled, “How Busy Are You?” The primary goal of the workshop was to posit that with better time management, students can find time to volunteer. At the beginning of the workshop, while students wrote out their daily schedules on long sheets of butcher paper, I watched in horror as each open hour was filled with responsibility upon responsibility. I attempted
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to follow this schedulesharing exercise with a spirited presentation on time management; unsurprisingly, the students were not convinced.
Organization for Women (LWOW) club partnering with Casa de las Madres, to the Varsity Boys Soccer team connecting with Street Soccer USA.
With students’ packed schedules in mind, Christine Godinez and I have aimed over the past two years to integrate public purpose into the already existing student experience. We launched initiatives to get student clubs and sports teams out in the community while also planning a monthly calendar of open sign-up volunteer opportunities. Over the past couple of years we have seen a surge in student volunteering, from the Lick-Wilmerding
Nevertheless, the Center’s programming has even more room for improvement, specifically in being able to provide the space and time necessary for preproject preparation, consistent follow-through, and thorough reflection. The Public Purpose Program, developed by a group of LWHS faculty and staff, seeks to address this area of growth by providing a guided, yet flexible and independent, point of entry into civic engagement for LWHS students.
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CIVIC ENGAGEMENT AT LWHS
The Pact: Nate Lundy
The group grew by two mentors, Will (2015) and Andres (2016), who now work with our newest mentee Miguel. This brings our group up to 15 young men. The 2013–2014 school year was an eventful one for The Pact, having an all-group activity every month. Events included a Giants’ game, Andres’ (2016) dance performance, Julian’s (2015) play Bollywood Sleeping Beauty, the making of twominute video biographies with Dr. Juan Carlos Arauz, bowling
T
he Pact, a group formed in 2012, is a partnership between Lick-Wilmerding High School members of Ad Ingenium Faciendum (AIF) and boys of color from San Francisco Day School. The Pact completed another successful year of bonding and growing as brothers. These young men work together as mentors and mentees to develop lasting bonds that serve as a support system and guidance as each of these young men of color navigate the world of the independent school they and their families have chosen to attend.
The Public Purpose Program is a four-year sequence that will roll out over the next two years. The underclassmen portion will involve freshmen participating in a workshop series designed to initiate conversation around civic engagement and its personal and communal importance, while sophomores will be out in the community fulfilling a required number of volunteer hours. Upperclassmen will explore civic engagement through particular classes, independent projects, and internships. At every grade level, students will be presented with opportunities to weave public purpose into their lives.
at Presidio Bowl, Carnaval, TGIF at LWHS, and hanging out at lunch in the SF Day cafeteria. They had a busy and wonderful school year. The Pact will be adding another four mentors for the 2014–2015 school year; yet another sign of the need for this program. The confidence and leadership that is being developed by these young men every day is enhancing their independent school experiences.
THE PACT REFLECTION FROM JULIAN HOLMES 2015 “The Pact has been a great experience for me as a young man of color who has gone through the trials and challenges of a private school environment where you don’t see a lot of students who look like you. The Pact has been the perfect opportunity to pass my wisdom down onto the younger guys so they can succeed in anything they do.”
the program over the next few years of its launch and implementation, hopefully ushering in a time when busyness will no longer be an obstacle to strong student involvement in our communities.
Right: Robert Sanborn’s advising group wood carving for their Jellis Block project.
A true mark of the Public Purpose Program’s success will be our students looking at their daily schedules and seeing public purpose embedded in their arts, sports, academics, and activities. As the inaugural Service Learning and Public Purpose Program Director, I am excited to help shape
Christine Godinez is the Director of Student Inclusion, Leadership, and Civic Engagement. Alan Wesson is the Service Learning and Public Purpose Program Director. A member of the LWHS Class of 1995, Nate Lundy worked in various capacities at LWHS over the past ten years: Assistant Director of Admissions, Assistant Director of Athletics, Coach, History Teacher, Advisor, and Mentor for The Pact Program. He is currently the Dean of Student Life at Live Oak School.
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As far as I can tell friendship means continuing to be present in another’s life in a way that’s meaningful. With someone in prison it means keeping the spark of the connection going: sending letters; answering the phone; and, when possible, visiting.
All three are serving sentences of Life Without Parole. Two are in the south: I’ve been in touch with George Cameron for about 20 years; he’s been in the infirmary in an Alabama prison since 2008; Michael McKinney is in prison in Florida; he’s been in solitary confinement for the last 18 years, and is only now working his way into General Population. Both are serving sentences of Life Without Parole. I have a letters-back-and-forth relationship with these men. George came into my life through a Good Friday prayer service at my church in New York City; Michael found me as a result of an essay I wrote about visiting prison that was published in the magazine Quaker Life. And then there’s John Purugganan.
“You’re In Prison,” which was published in The Sun magazine. His writing moved me deeply, and I wrote him a letter. He answered. We’ve been communicating ever since. Good old-fashioned letters are the main method of communication with all inmates. Some write; a few write well. John is a superb writer. He writes on an old Smith-Corona portable electric typewriter with a carbon ribbon that gets used until all that’s left on the page are ghost-word impactimprints. I write on my computer, then print and send. After a bit of back and forth with John, he sent me the first pages of a novel he was working on: an LA noir called Blood Parable. I asked him where it came from. He told me it was the novelization of one of his seven screenplays. I’ve read them all. He is a terrific and imaginative writer, understands the form and structure of film, and writes incredibly good dialogue. I’ve been working with him to get one of his screenplays optioned. He plans to use any money he receives to establish a writing center for ghetto kids in LA.
John is in the California State Prison-Los Angeles County facility in Lancaster, up in the southern high desert near Andrews AFB. He’s serving a sentence of Life Without Parole for a murder he committed while high on crack cocaine. He wrote about it in the context of his life in prison in his October 2006 essay
I’ve visited him in prison a number of times: You wait outside the prison in your car; after 7:30 you’re given a numbered form
Friendship BY ROBERT MOULTHROP 1957
I
am in contact with three men in prison, and I’m not sure why.
A spiritual call? A logical next step? I’m open to suggestions. One possibility: My back-and-forth with these men means my level of gratitude for my life as a resident in the free world is very high.
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CIVIC ENGAGEMENT AT LWHS
and allowed into the parking lot; after 8:30 you’re allowed into the waiting room to wait for your name to be called (sometimes in numerical order); you take off your belt, shoes, turn out your pockets; you carry nothing inside but a Ziploc bag with dollar bills for the vending machines, your ID, and half the form; an outside area between the two fences and the guard tower; then inside and a walk to the cell block to wait, have another guard take down all the information, surrender your ID, and make ultraviolet sure that your wrist has been stamped with the stamp of the day. Then the key turns, the visiting room door is opened, and you and everyone else visiting that day are passed through, and then locked inside. Your ID stays with the outside guard; your numbered form stays with the guard in the visiting room; all you’re left with are the dollars bills in the Ziploc bag, and the desire to get to the vending machines while the good stuff is still there. John and I spend the visiting days, Saturday and Sunday, sitting next to each other at a vinyl table facing front (for the guards’ TV cameras). We drink sodas, eat cheeseburgers and avocados and popcorn from the vending machines, and talk. John is funny, honest, up on most news; he enjoys hearing about my life in the free world. And he’s willing to share some measure of what
life inside is like; his essay “My Cellies” (published in the online zine qarrtsiluni) was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. And he’s associate editor of a stunning collection of essays written by men and women serving Life Without Parole. It’s called Too Cruel, Not Unusual Enough; the subtitle should be Death Without Parole. If you and I were out to dinner, or having drinks, and John was able to join us, you’d find him excellent company. He has a great sense of humor, is a highly acute observer of human nature, and is unfailingly pleasant. He’s the kind of person you’d want in your lifeboat in a difficult situation—a smart problem-solver who is able to think things through. And he has very strong opinions about film directors, movies, actors, and editors. Isn’t a friend someone with whom you can be your total self? Someone you trust with your innermost secrets? Someone you can talk with about anything? Someone who will tell you when you’re writing isn’t as good as it could be? Or when you haven’t really thought a problem all the way through? Then John and I are friends. And insofar as I can, I try to have his back: write letters to Sacramento about bad prison policy or abuse, for instance; or find a way to help him buy new shoes (his family has pretty much abandoned him).
Relating to someone else a long time ago, a friend advised me that if I was going to extend the palm of friendship, it meant making a longterm commitment. We all know about fair weather friends. I’ve had my share of those. Amazing how many people vanish into the woodwork when calamity strikes (in my case, getting fired). It’s all right: the tarnish on those friendships would probably have removed them sooner or later anyway. As far as I can tell friendship means continuing to be present in another’s life in a way that’s meaningful. With someone in prison it means keeping the spark of the connection going: sending letters; answering the phone; and, when possible, visiting. My return? A letter that I will carry to the coffee house for a special read, and re-read. An “attaboy” or “do better” on a story. And a true sense that my world has expanded to include a life so totally different that my own life is made immeasurably richer.
Robert Moulthrop lives and works in New York City. A successful writer, Robert’s fiction has won awards from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts, San Jose Studies, WordRunner’s e-Chapbook, Literal Latte, and the Cartaret Writers Association. His plays have won awards from the New York International Fringe Festival. His latest play, Sextet for Lovers, was part of New York’s Abingdon Theatre 2014 “First Look” series. To view some of John Purugganan’s work, visit qarrtsiluni.com/tag/johnpurugganan. Listen to a reading of the essay “My Cellies” by Robert Moulthroup on this website. Too Cruel, Not Unusual Enough is available on Amazon.
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Far, left: Jackson using his drip torch. Left: Jackson Barnett
Habitat for Humanity, where we built twelve sustainable houses for the local low-income community, and led up to four hundred volunteers in various construction tasks.
My Gap Year with AmeriCorps BY JACKSON BARNETT 2013
D
uring my rather uninspired second semester senior performance at Lick-
Wilmerding High School, I decided to take a gap year and do the AmeriCorps National Civilian Community Corps before attending college. My goal was not only to recuperate from four years of demanding academic and athletic rigor, but also to strive for self-improvement.
and I’ve had a chance to grow from each of my different projects. For round one, my team of ten built trails in the Chiricahua National Monument in Southeast Arizona. This included hiking nine miles into our worksite and deadlifting, breaking, and exploding boulders up to fifteen-hundred pounds to rebuild an 80 year-old retaining wall destroyed by flash flooding. For two months, we slept in tents during below freezing nights and lived without running water, electricity, or cell phone service. (Don’t even get me started on how many showers we’d take per week.) Living there definitely changed the way I look at luxuries that we take for granted daily.
AmeriCorps sounded perfect for this: it would give me the chance to work and live alongside people with different backgrounds from all over the country, doing four different service projects across the Southwest region. Now, I’m a My second round project was in little more than three fourths San Antonio, Texas working for into my ten-month commitment,
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Next, we worked for the Forest Service in Nederland, Colorado as wild land firefighters. Of the five hundred plus people in AmeriCorps Southwest, forty were selected for fire management teams, those with the physical and mental fortitude to work on the most rigorous projects. In Nederland, my team burned two thousand prescription piles for fire mitigation, fell and bucked trees using chainsaws and crosscut saws, and were called on to fight the 3.6 acre Peewink Fire in Boulder County. This round was easily the most strenuous, involving hiking over ten miles a day in treacherous and heavily inclined terrain at very high altitude, with 45-pound fire packs, all after doing an hour of Physical Training. I’m now in Granby, CO for round four, doing fire mitigation, and on-call to be deployed to fight large fires in the Southwest and Pacific Northwest, since it’s high fire season. My experience at AmeriCorps has tested and strengthened my work ethic, discipline, empathy, and worldly knowledge. I’ve had lots of time for reflection on my life goals, and have grown and learned so much. Jackson completed his AmeriCorps program and is now attending Middlebury College.
CIVIC ENGAGEMENT AT LWHS
“I don’t know where this work will take me, but I look forward to finding out.” which he has ever worked. Rafael is also the Board Co-Chair of the San Francisco LGBT Community Center and is on the board of Livable City, whose mission is to “create a balanced transportation system and promote complementary land use that supports a safer, healthier and more accessible San Francisco for everyone.”
ALUMNUS CIVIC ENGAGEMENT SPOTLIGHT:
Rafael Mandelman 1992 BY ZOË FOSS
R
afael Mandelman has been passionate about public service from a young age. While attending
Lick-Wilmerding High School, he was a member of the Junior Statesmen of America club and had an internship with the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. After LWHS, he attended Yale College, Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, and UC Berkeley’s Boalt School of Law. When he returned to live in San Francisco, Rafael continued to pursue his passion for local government while developing his career as an attorney. He has been a Commissioner for the San Francisco Board of Appeals and Building Inspection Commission, the Vice-Chair for the Democratic County Central Committee, and the president of the Harvey Milk LGBT, Noe Valley, and District 8 Democratic Clubs. In 2012 he ran for a position on the City College of San Francisco Board of Trustees. He was the only non-incumbent to win in that race. He still serves on the board and says that working to save City College during its recent period of struggles has been one of the most interesting projects on
Today, Rafael is an attorney in a private practice where he represents public agencies, such as local governments or institutions. He has years of experience working on such issues as affordable housing, municipal budgeting, land use, environmental protection, and development. Rafael says that his legal work and volunteer or elected roles complement each other in many ways. He is able to better serve as a board member because of his professional work with public agencies; as an attorney, he benefits from the experience of having been on the other side of the table and receiving advice on issues of public law. Rafael plans to continue to participate in government and community issues for as long as possible. He says, “I don’t know where this work will take me, but I look forward to finding out.”
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1954X JOE SUTTLE and Laurie Suttle were reunited in marriage on March 15, 2014, in a private ceremony at Mount Hermon Christian Conference Center near Felton, CA. They honeymooned in Fairbanks, AK, for the Aurora Borealis. The couple resides in Hercules, CA, where Joe continues to work as a telecommunications/ computer engineer and trainer, and enjoys the wonders of grandparenting.
Class Notes
1959
1951 SAM MIHARA has released a new DVD and CD version of the presentation that he has given in schools around the country: Memories of Heart Mountain. The DVD includes video and over 70 charts in PowerPoint presentation format which tell the story of what Sam, his family, and many others experienced during the World War II imprisonment of Japanese Americans. Copies of the DVD and CD can be ordered through his website www.sammihara.com.
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After retiring from teaching science for 34+ years, ROBERT FERBER has been spending his time working on community service projects through his local San Jose chapter of the Lions International Club. As a result of all of his hands-on work and contributions, Robert was elected to serve in leadership positions as both the second and the first vice district governor and finally as the governor for the 2012-2013 Lions year. His district covered all of Santa Clara, Santa Cruz, Monterey, and San Benito Counties. Robert was installed as governor in Busan, Korea, following which he and his wife of 48 years, Lois, toured Korea and then experienced a 3,000 mile trip through China. Following his term as governor,
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Top: Robert Ferber 1959 at Shibaozhai Temple in China. Above: Heinrich Deubner 1960 with his wife Marlene and sons, Nikolas and Christoph, on his birthday in 2012.
Robert transferred the office powers to the new governor in Hamburg, Germany. This time, Robert and Lois took a river cruise from Budapest to Amsterdam. Currently, Robert is raising money for his Lions District to purchase several Pediavision Cameras for their mobile screening unit, The A.J. Robinson vehicle, since the Lions Club’s major focus is being “Knights of the Blind.” These cameras will enable volunteer Lions to assist area communities in identifying persons of all ages and languages who have vision issues but may not be aware of them.
CLASS NOTES
1962 ROBERT (BOB) KLEIN reports that he is still playing with trains (private railroad car charters). More importantly, he would like to congratulate all LWHS alumni who managed to make it to age 70 this year and says, “whoda thunkit!” C.DELL LINDSTROM and his wife Both of Robert and Lois’ children, a son and a daughter, are doing well. They enjoy visiting their grandchildren and watching their grandsons play soccer. Their oldest grandchild just started college last year in Michigan.
1960 PETER BECKH has been semiretired for about a year and lives in a lakeside community near Auburn, CA. Peter has been helping care for his wife’s parents and enjoying the surroundings. He has one grandchild, which provides him much joy.
HEINRICH DEUBNER sends his greetings all the way from Karlsruhe, Germany. Unfortunately he was not able to make it to the reunion this year, but hopes that he will be able to visit California again in the near future.
Above: C. Dell Lindstrom 1962 and his wife displayed their restored San Francisco Fire Department chief’s car at the 2014 Firefighter Olympics on July 19.
are enjoying their granddaughter’s and grandson’s athletic (swim and lacrosse) and cultural (band and orchestra) events. He currently serves as a docent for the Nevada State Railroad Museum. Dell also enjoys displaying his restored San Francisco Fire Department Chief’s Car at various car shows and fire department activities. His car was recently displayed at the 2014 Firefighter Olympics hosted by the City of San Francisco and the San Francisco Fire Department. Dell and his wife are planning a trip next year to the East Coast, which will hopefully include a reunion of members of the US Army Japan Band, in which he served.
1963 RUSSELL BRESLAUER received the Jefferson Award for Public Service in April by KPIX, the local CBS affiliate, for his work within the senior citizen community. The Jefferson Award is a national public service award with three different categories (Community,
School, Work), and Russell was recognized in the Community category for his efforts in teaching line and folk dancing to senior citizens in San Francisco. The San Francisco Parks & Recreation Department also recognized Russell for winning this award. Watch the news piece on Russell and his award by searching for his name on www.sanfracisco.cbslocal. com.
1964 After graduating from LWHS, JOEL WINE attended Michigan State University and majored in Hotel/Restaurant Management. Over the years, Joel worked in many different areas of the hospitality industry (flight kitchen in Los Angeles for American Airlines, food director of Lewis & Clark College in Portland, OR, and food director of Burlingame Hospital and Medical Center). Joel eventually migrated to the restaurant area and managed to have his own restaurants in Memphis, TN, and Atlanta, GA, where he currently resides. Joel tried to retire and make time for his children (three boys and two girls) and visit his seven grandsons (ironically no granddaughters). Joel says he was driving himself crazy, which is why he took on another venture, Domaine Wines. Domaine Wines is a wine import business, focusing on wines from Italy, Spain, France, and South
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CLASS NOTES
Left: Richard Nutting 1965 at a choral concert he directed, accompanied by his wife Carol.
Africa. Joel says, “now I can finally drink on the job!” He would also love to hear from all of his classmates.
1965 RICHARD NUTTING shared this story: “A few years ago I was in the waiting area for arrivals at SFO when I noticed a young man wearing what appeared to be a Lick-Wilmerding High School jacket on. I went over to him and asked if that stood for LickWilmerding and he said yes. I shared with him that I was a 1965 graduate. His mother, standing nearby, immediately asked if I was a doctor, and she sounded
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disappointed to hear I was a public school teacher—middle level at that. I didn’t have the heart to tell her that I also hold a PhD from Arizona State in school evaluation and improvement and travel throughout Colorado and neighboring states to evaluate and help improve the education of thousands of students. I’m proud of my connection with LWHS, and look forward to our class reunion in 2015.”
1966 PATRICK PENDLETON writes, “life itself is a wonderous miracle— my goal at this point, is to wring all the joy and fun I can from it.”
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When WES ASHFORD turned 65 last year, instead of retiring from Stanford as a clinical professor of psychiatry and the director of War Related Illness and Injury Student Center at the VA Palo Alto Health Care System (he plays Dr. House for the VA), Wes joined Masters Swimming (www.usms.org). Wes was on the LWHS swim team and held all of the records except breast stroke when he was a senior. He was later an All-American at Cal. After getting back into shape, Wes made the national Top Ten List for the 2014 Short Course season in the 400 and 800 freestyle. Wes says, “it looks like work and workouts instead of retiring for the foreseeable future. There is too much to do to retire-with a wonderful wife, four children, and four grandchildren. Retirement looks like it would actually be more work!”
1969 ANDY WEILL shares that his son, ABRAHAM WEILL 2013, has finished his freshman year on the Dean’s List at Lewis & Clark College. Andy is the reunion coordinator for his class’ upcoming 45th Reunion and asks, “my goodness, has it really been that long?”
CLASS NOTES
Left: Thirteen members of the Class of 1957 at their recent lunch gathering at the Basque Cultural Center.
‘moved on’ but keep in touch with those who haven’t, yet. We are a group of old acquaintances who have become closer friends over the years and enjoy who we are today, warts and all, and there are more warts than there used to be.
The Lick-Wilmerding High School Class of 1957: An Update BY KENNETH SPROUL 1957
T
he Class of 1957 was, and is, unique having been the first
class to graduate from the Ocean Avenue school after spending the first three years at the “Old Lick” at 17th and Utah. We moved the school, installed plumbing and fixtures and hauled the old to the new. There were 40 in our graduating class, but we include any who were part of our class, regardless of graduation, for reunions and lunches. Average turnout is 10-15 depending on the game plan. This year we did a lunch and tour of North Beach dives and had a bocce tourney to keep the trophy current; the court was built by several classmates. We have had great five-year reunions for the last 30+ years and have informal lunches and get-togethers three or four times a year. We had our 50th at the Alta Mira Hotel in Sausalito, the site of our prom, and our 55th at a class member’s house for dinner with an al fresco winery lunch the next day. We are fortunate to have a classmate with a winery, Stony Hill, and have had several reunions there in a setting that challenges description; it was also the site of our senior sneak back in ’57. The memories of the old school are so different than what the Ocean Avenue campus is today that it makes us aware that time and tide are catching up. Our class is growing smaller, but we cherish long friendships and the camaraderie of the past and present. We miss those who are not able to be with us or have
What are alumni from 1957 doing that would interest current Lick students and recent graduates? Still looking for the answers, but the answers and the questions keep changing. We have had careers, families, travels and lots of life experiences that we share with each other but they are our songs of the past that may mean little to others. We are still active in many ways and emptying the bucket as fast as we can. We could send info about… how excited we are to have discovered a new app, but as oldsters we prefer what we can see and experience personally rather than some alternative universe of electronic ‘reality’ that feeds you information that isn’t. From the Class of 1957, a bit of advice: Today is not the future, the past is. George Orwell, “Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past”. Beware of Doublespeak. Of course, this may be some, but… .
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four trips to Belgium to give lectures and seminars in Louvainla-Neuve, where the university is located. In June 2014, Walter became the series editor of Brill’s Studies on Art, Art History, and Intellectual History.
1971 It’s been a busy year for WALTER MELION. He is currently the Audrey Lumsden-Kouvel/Andrew W. Mellon Foundation/National Endowment for the Humanities fellow at the Newberry Library in Chicago, where he is writing a book on the Jesuit emblematist Jan David, who was one of the order’s foremost image theorists. After his fellowship, Walter will travel to the Netherlands as a BrillScaliger fellow at the University of Leiden. He is also the recipient of the Franqui Distinguished Visiting Professorship at the Catholic University of Louvain in Belgium. In this capacity, Walter will make
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1974 MIKE COHEN has been keeping busy scuba diving in exotic locales (Phillipines, Galapagos, Palau, Fiji). He works full time as a physician in Sacramento and is looking forward to seeing the survivors of the Class of 1974 at their class reunion.
Top, left: Walter Melion 1971 (right) and his husband, Dr. John Clum. Top, right: Steve Wozniak 1981 pictured with his recent achievements. ORRIN DAVIS reports that his first Above: Celebrating the 25th wedding grandchild, Moshe Chaim Davis, anniversary of Calvin turned two. Moshe’s new sibling Yuen 1981 to his wife (and Orrin’s second grandchild) Cari with the luau dance, the hukilau. will be arriving soon. From left to right: David Baird, Chris Seibel, Gil Leong, David Egert, and Calvin Yuen.
1975
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1981 STEVE WOZNIAK had another active year on the water, winning the International Game Fish Association’s Top Male Saltwater Angler and Top Overall Angler at the IGFA awards dinner in April. Steve set over 20 fishing world records in the 2013 season to take home these trophies.
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DAVID BAIRD reports that in June 2014, Calvin Yuen celebrated his 25th wedding anniversary with his wife Cari at a party that included himself along with LWHS classmates CHRIS SIEBEL, DAVID EGERT, and GILBERT LEONG. The festivities included authentic hula dancing with Cari and their daughter Caitlin. David served as emcee, as he was the one who introduced Calvin to Cari in Hawaii in 1986.
1982 SARAH KLIBAN welcomed a 10.5 lbs., 22” long baby boy named Ben in February 2013. Now a toddler, he is the size of a 3 year old. Sarah plans to steer him towards basketball or soccer! Sarah has been working in casting and recently cast Blue Jasmine and Fruitvale Station. Her acting career is also moving along, and Sarah can be seen in HBO’s Hemingway and Gellhorn. Sarah teaches acting at the Academy of Art and The
Above, left: Sarah Kliban 1982 in HBO’s Hemingway & Gelhorn. Above, right: Ben, son of Sarah Kliban 1982, born in February 2013. Above, far right: Human interface device designed and built by Dr. Christopher Luzzio 1982 that allows a person with severe MS who can move only one finger to control an electronic book. Right: Dr. Christopher Luzzio 1982 in his shop next to a milling machine.
Art Institute. She also teaches narration at Voice One and coaches actors privately. Sarah is staying busy and trying to keep the careers going while being a mom.
DR. CHRISTOPHER LUZZIO is an associate professor in Neurology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and specializes in the treatment of multiple sclerosis (MS). He practices within the UW Hospital, Medical School, and Medical Foundation. He also has an affiliate appointment in the Department of Mechanical Engineering. Since 2003, Dr. Luzzio has volunteered as a mentor for mechanical engineering senior design students and graduate students. The focus of the student projects has been assistive technology and medical related devices. Dr. Luzzio is a member of UW-CREATe, which is an ensemble of UW faculty and healthcare specialist who have a
common interest in developing assistive technology for disabled individuals. One of his recent projects was to design and build a human interface device that allows a person with severe MS who can move only one finger to control an electronic book.
ROBIN HAUSER REYNOLDS is directing and producing her second documentary film, CODE: Debugging the Gender Gap, about the dearth of American female and minority computer science engineers.
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other LWHS alumni. Their current location is always posted on their website www.sailingtotem.com. If Behan and her family are in your neighborhood, please get in touch!
ALEX HOCHMAN was recently
As a result, Adam stepped down as the president of the LWHS Alumni Board, although he still plans on being active on the board. Robin’s first film, Running for Jim, which premiered in 2013, was about the University High School cross country coach, Jim Tracy, and his battle with Lou Gehrig’s disease. Running for Jim was just released on DVD in September. Robin keeps in touch with GRIFF TOWLE and JOHN BAKER and had a fun time catching up with WILLIAM ABERNATHY in May.
1988 2014 was a busy year professionally for ADAM GASNER. He was appointed under the Criminal Justice Act (CJA) to represent indigent defendants in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California. He is also the incoming president of the Criminal Trial Lawyers Association of Northern California.
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BEHAN FRAVEL GIFFORD wonders if it was the LWHSsponsored day kayaking on the Bay that hooked her on living afloat? Behan has been living on a sailboat and voyaging since 2008, and she can’t imagine another life. Travels have taken her and her family (husband and three children) from Puget Sound, WA, south through the San Francisco Bay to Mexico, across the Pacific, and now in Southeast Asia. Behan says that raising children as salty nomads can be occasionally challenging, but that it’s been an incredible life living closer to nature, to their ideals, and with rich time together as a family. Later this year, Behan and her family will be on the Malay peninsula, making plans to cross the Indian Ocean in 2015. Behan shares that it would be a pleasure to meet up with
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Above, far left: Robin Hauser Reynolds 1982 Above, left: Movie poster for Running for Jim. Above: Adam Gasner 1988
promoted to senior director of the USF Career Services Center. In his new role, he oversees both the career development and the employer relations sides of the office. Alex continues to pen a monthly restaurant review for the San Francisco Examiner and goes out of his way to write about spots that Michael Bauer won’t touch. On the LWHS front, Alex is the new co-president of the Alumni Board and had a great time this past year organizing another Alumni Career Day the school, featuring fellow classmates JEFF TUCKER and JIM MITCHELL. Most exciting, Alex’s daughter SOPHIE HOCHMAN is a member of the LWHS class of 2018 and started her freshman year in August.
1991 JULIAN KATZ and his wife Danielle welcomed their third daughter, Lila Eva Katz, on March 21, 2014. Julian and his family live in Brooklyn and he is the senior vice president, group executive producer at BBDO.
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SHANNON KUHNS FULLER reports that her daughter, EVAN FULLER, has joined the LWHS Class of 2018. She and her husband GLEN FULLER are thrilled that Evan is following in their footsteps and that she’ll even have a few of the teachers they had! Shannon says not to worry— Evan is much more diligent a student than she and her husband ever were! Evan’s decision to attend was an LWHS alumni affair—Shannon and Glen solicited input from their fellow classmates. They would like to thank everyone who chimed in about their experience. Shannon commented, “it really helped clarify to us why LWHS is such a special place.”
1992 Based in San Francisco, CHELSEA ENG is still working professionally in Argentine Tango and has
Above, left: Clockwise from top left: Julian Katz 1991, Rosie Katz, Georgia Katz, and Lila Katz (born March 21) Above, right: Chelsea Eng 1992 performing in Tanghetto show at Teatro ND/Buenos Aires in March 2014.
become intrigued with dance-forcamera filmmaking. In March of 2014, on her 19th trip to Argentina, she was invited to present her original choreography and dance an improvisation in a show by electrotango band Tanghetto at the Teatro ND in Buenos Aires. A collaborative project for which she received a Theatre Bay Area CA$H grant in Dance will be performed in San Francisco in the months ahead. Over the course of the past year, Chelsea has been venturing into training in voiceover and on-camera acting. She sends her gratitude to the LWHS faculty, and love and hugs to the Class of 1992. She would like to connect with fellow LWHS alumni (in San Francisco and New York) working professionally in dance/music/ film/theater/voiceover, as well as writing and editing. Contact her at TangoChelsea.com. After graduation, NATALIE KNEYTAL KIMHI returned home to
Israel. After completing military service and university, Natalie married. She has three children (ages 14, 10, and 7). Natalie is the director of public affairs at the Supreme Court of Israel. She invites any LWHS alumni that may be traveling to Israel/Middle East to contact her.
1993 In July, ROBYN ERMAN, his wife, and two boys (ages 6 and 4) moved to Grover Beach. They are happy to be living the San Luis Obispo life and to be close to San Francisco for the first time in ten years. Robyn works as a solar installer with SolarCity, who is hiring like crazy all over California and other states as well. Alumni, let Robyn know if you are interested in putting your LWHS shop skills to work in the solar industry!
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came full circle with their six-year old son Javier, who attended Coach Smith’s Tiger Basketball Camp and loved it! Noe, who is almost five years old, also enjoyed her summer. She just started Transitional Kindergarten this fall.
KARBO TAM works at La Clinica de La Raza as an OBGYN for the underserved population in Oakland. She lives with her two year old daughter and husband in Rockridge.
1996 SITA BROOKS HANLON travelled to Seattle to visit RACHEL OPPENHEIM 1995 in July to share stories of motherhood (and baklava) and introduce their little ones to each other. Sita and her husband Jim welcomed Judah on January 1, 2014. Rachel, her husband Christian Woods, and daughter Eillis welcomed Otis on April 17, 2014.
1994 LOGAN LAVAIL announced the birth of daughter Lena Wren LeVail, who was born palindromically on 4/11/14 at 2:22PM, weighing 6 lbs., 6 oz. Coincidentally, Lena shares her initials with the Lick-WilmerdingLux Alumni Association.
NATALYA LVOFF LEVSKY shared that her baby girl Karina Lvoff Levsky was born in San Francisco on June 24, 2014. She joins big brothers Victor (4 years old) and Zack (2 years old).
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1995 ERICKA MORENO SHOEMAKER has celebrated a lot of anniversaries this year. She just celebrated her third anniversary at Gen7 Schools, highlighted by completing her second LEED Gold certified school project. She and her husband Damion celebrated their eighth wedding anniversary in July. This summer the family
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Top, left: Logan LaVail 1994 announces the birth of his second daughter, Lena. Above, top: Rachel Oppenheim 1995 and Sita Brooks Hanlon 1996 get together in Seattle with their families. Above: Shana Lopes 1997 and her husband, David Moisl, with their son Damian.
1997 SHANA LOPES and her husband welcomed their son Damian into the world this past February. Starting this fall, Shana is the next Jane and Morgan Whitney fellow in the Department of Photographs at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
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Nearly 30 percent of the U.S. population is African-American, Hispanic, American Indian, Native Hawaiian or Alaskan Native, yet only about 9 percent of all U.S. physicians are from these racial and ethnic groups. Meantime, racial and ethnic disparities in care continue to plague the U.S. health care system, according to a federal report.
Jalia Tucker 2001 Receives AMA Foundation Minority Scholars Award
T
he American Medical Association (AMA) Foundation honored Jalia Tucker with a Minority Scholars Award at the AMA’s annual meeting in Chicago, on June 7.
Jalia was one of only ten medical students in the country selected to receive this award, which was given in recognition of her academic achievement and commitment to the elimination of health care disparities. As an AMA Foundation Minority Scholar, she will receive a $10,000 scholarship.
Jalia earned her Master of Public Health degree from Drexel University in Philadelphia and has also co-authored a variety of medical publications. She is currently a second year medical student and is involved with a research project at Rush University in Chicago, focusing on the analysis of inpatient cognitive based smoking cessation intervention. The AMA Foundation’s Minority Scholars Awards are given in partnership with the AMA Minority Affairs Section, with support from Pfizer, Inc. The AMA Foundation, a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt foundation, is dedicated to improving public health by raising funds and providing philanthropic support to high-impact health and medical scholarship programs.
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TANYA ZIMBARDO, who is assistant curator of Media Arts at SFMOMA, co-curated the offsite iteration of the museum’s biennial award exhibition honoring the 2012 SECA Art Award winners, which are local artists Zarouhie Abdalian, Josh Faught, Jonn Herschend, and David Wilson. The exhibition was on view in the Fall of 2013, and the locations of the four public commissions ranged from the Neptune Society Columbarium to a eucalyptus grove in the Presidio. For more info, visit: www.sfmoma.org/ secaaward
1998 In April, JOSH HANER won the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for Feature Photography for his series of photos that documented
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the recovery of Jeff Bauman, a survivor of the Boston Marathon bombing. View the photos at www.nytimes.com/ beyondthefinishline. Josh lives in Brooklyn, NY, and is a staff photographer and the senior editor for photo technology at The New York Times. As for a head, heart, hands shout-out, Josh has created a live streaming backpack that photographers at The New York Times take with them to breaking news and special events that allow them to stream their photos and automatically publish them to nytimes.com.
MIKE KHAVUL and his wife recently welcomed a daughter Leah to their family. He loves spending time with her and watching her learn and grow. While attending Baby Rhyme
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Time with her, Mike and his wife occasionally run into KYLE WILLIS MARKAL and her son. After Above, left: Josh Haner teaching middle school for the 1998 with parents Doug past five years in Portland and Haner and Bonnie Tank in the New York San Francisco, Mike has joined the Times newsroom for LWHS History Department this fall the Pulitzer Prize to teach Modern World History to announcement. Photo sophomores.
by Richard Perry/The New York Times. Above, right: Leah, daughter of Mike Khavul 1998
In 2013, after almost seven years working in the library of the Minnesota Legislature, LACEY MAMAK joined the library faculty at Normandale Community College in Bloomington, MN. As her classmates may remember, Lacey has always wanted to be an academic librarian since her LWHS days and even did an independent study with Lissa Crider in the McCullough Library. Over the last 11 years, Lacey has edited several books written by former LWHS science teacher, Dr. Amy Tiemann. Lacey is currently editing Amy’s latest manuscript, Doing Right by
CLASS NOTES
Our Kids, which she is co-writing with Irene van der Zande. Find out more about the project at DoingRightByOurKids.com. In personal news, on August 1, 2013, Lacey legally married Alison Nowak, her partner of over a decade. They had the privilege of being married by the then Mayor of Minneapolis, R.T. Rybak, just an hour after marriage equality went into effect in Minnesota. Lacey writes that “this was an unforgettable experience.�
1999 JEFF BLAIR and his brother STEVEN BLAIR 2004 just celebrated the 3rd anniversary of founding their company AethLabs in San Francisco. Jeff and Steven design and manufacture air quality monitors that are used around the world to measure particulate matter for health and climate research.
Above: Margot Seeto 2000 trimming and wrapping canes on a vineyard in Marlborough, New Zealand.
2000
2005
On January 11, 2014, BECKY BERRY and her husband welcomed a beautiful baby boy named Will to their family. No one who went to high school with Becky will be surprised that she named him after a Giant.
In May, ERIC WOO started working in investor relations at Dolby Laboratories.
MARGOT SEETO has been on working holiday for the past two years in Australia and New Zealand. Her recent gigs have included working on vineyards, the garlic harvest, a pack house, and Willing Workers on Organic Farms.
2004 TIFFANY NG is based in Copenhagen, Denmark, with partial residences in Gothenburg, Sweden, and Lisbon, Portugal, as she looks to continue expanding her venture, Silver.Spoon, a gastronomic brand experience agency. Meanwhile, she is in the process of completing her Master Degree in Law (LL.M) at the University of Copenhagen. Feel free to reach out to her if you are ever in Europe. For more info, visit www.facebook.com/ SilverSpoonHQ.
PRIYA BHANU just graduated from the University of Michigan Law School, where she focused on international law and spent a semester in Geneva, Switzerland, doing human rights work. Priya recently moved back to the Bay Area for the first time in almost ten years. She is working for a federal judge in San Jose, CA, for the next year. Afterwards Priya will head back to Washington, DC, to join a law firm there. She is looking forward to enjoying this next year in the Bay Area and would love to reconnect with old friends and classmates! For the past year PHILIP LONSDALE has served as the volunteer president of Far Out West Garden, a collaboration between friends and neighbors, that has led to the creation of a vibrant community garden and outdoor classroom. They are a San Francisco Parks Alliance Park Partner and have been commended by District 4 Supervisor Katy Tang. The garden has hosted, among a variety of programs, students from Sunset Youth Services and Lick-Wilmerding Aim High.
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DANISE OLAGUE moved to Hanover, NH, to be the service and education coordinator at the Tucker Foundation at Dartmouth College. She is excited to mentor college students and experience her first real winter!
2006 In response to the question of how LWHS alumni are currently using one of the many HeadHeart-Hand skills they learned in school, PAUL BROOKS writes that ever since he took woodshop with Mr. Sichi, he has continued to work on projects in his free time. He says, “keeping my hands busy during the evenings and weekends helps me to keep my head clear and focused during the day.”
2007 CHIAH CONNOLLY-INGRAM just graduated from San Francisco State University with an undergraduate degree in Cinema and a minor in Race and Resistance. She is currently working at Children’s Day School in San Francisco.
JESSE MARSHALL moved last year to the Rust Belt town of Troy, NY, to help start a network of cooperative social enterprises. He recruited classmate and management
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consultant MICHAEL TESHIMA as a founding board member. Michael is providing invaluable strategic planning (and moral) support. Check out margination. org to learn more!
Above, left: “Makers Mark Token” of woodworker Paul Brooks 2006 that he adds to finished pieces as a signature. It is based on the shop mark he developed This past June, BRANDON for Mr. Sichi’s class at ROSEN and his LWHS LWHS (Token: Lasersweetheart LEAH SIMKE 2010 inscribed on Alder). were married in his backyard. Above: Based on The ceremony was officiated by a design from a former LWHS math teacher Mike woodworking magazine, Paul Brooks McGarry, and live music was 2006 created this provided by none other than veneer table lamp NATHAN CHAN 2011. Coach (Frame: Oak and Eliot Smith, while in attendance, Mahogony; Shade: was unfortunately unable to Maple Veneer; Finish: lead the rest of the attendees Shellac). in the LWHS cheer. Brandon is Right: Chiah Connollycontinuing the fourth year of his Ingram 2007 on her PhD in chemistry at The Scripps graduation day. Research Institute in La Jolla, CA, and Leah has just recently started her PhD studies in the same laboratory. They look forward to beginning the next phase of their lives together and have LWHS to thank for it all!
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2008 BENJAMIN COHN was awarded a 2014-2015 Fulbright ScholarshipmtvU Award to Ghana. mtvU award projects center around research on an aspect of international musical culture and these projects should also focus on contemporary or popular music as a cultural force for expression. Benjamin will be living in the capital city, Accra, for nine
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months, where he will study the roles that music play in Ghanaian society and history from a politicaleconomist perspective. With the help of local musicians, Benjamin also plans to set up a music program in Accra that is based around access to music education. He will be blogging about his experiences in Ghana for the State Department and mtvU.
JOCELYN CHAN is beginning her final year of the two-year MSc in Historic Preservation program at the University of Pennsylvania. In May she received the Charles E. Peterson award. She spent the summer working at the archaeological site at Gordion, Turkey and doing architectural conservation field school in Wyoming and Colorado.
Above: Brandon Rosen 2007 and Leah Simke 2010 on their special day—one of the couple’s favorite wedding photos. Above, right: Mia Divecha 2009 visiting Sarah Bindman 2009 in Seattle in July, 2014. Right: Mia Divecha 2009 is working on her PhD in Chemical Engineering at the University of Minnesota.
After living in New York for over a year, CAROLINE WONG moved back to California and lives in Los Angeles. She works as a product planner for televised sales segments for NBC Universal and other networks. Caroline also leads the editorital development of her online publication, Tastevin Magazine. www.tastevinmag. com.
2009 MIA DIVECHA started her PhD in Chemical Engineering at the University of Minnesota. She was awarded the Ted H. Davis Fellowship, which funds an outstanding graduate student in Chemical Engineering. Mia writes that she and SARAH BINDMAN both visited each other in their respective cities. Sarah came to Minneapolis in March and Mia went out to Seattle in July. Mia says, “for good friends, distance is nothing!”
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2010 SARAH KING graduated from Claremont McKenna College and is headed to the University of Edinburgh in the fall for a year-long MSc Global Health and Public Policy program. Sarah also made an appearance at the 2014 NCAA DIII Women’s Basketball Tournament.
graduated from Stanford University. She graduated with honors, receiving a Bachelor of Science in Science, Technology, and Society with a minor in Economics. In June, Sarah volunteered for a week at Camp Kesem, which is a camp for children with parents who have cancer. In mid-July, she traveled to Peru with her family
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2011 NATHAN CHAN graduated
SARAH ROACH recently
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to visit Machu Pichu. In August, Sarah attended the Beyonce/ Jay-Z concert with her father and Outside Lands with her LWHS friends. At the end of the summer, Sarah started her new position as a System Integration Analyst at Accenture Consulting.
from Columbia University this past year and will be starting his Masters at The Julliard School in New York City. He is currently working on a documentary project entitled Nathan Chan: Breaking the Wall with Shearwater Films. He is very excited about the opportunity to tell his story of why he loves the cello so much and where he sees himself and his music
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Left: Sarah Roach 2010 (left) and Hilary Anderson 2010 attending Stanford University’s Senior Dinner on the Quad to celebrate graduation. Right: Members of the Class of 2009 enjoy the Giants vs. the Nationals baseball game. Left to right: Mia Marshall, Stuart Johnson, Daniel Watson, Laurie Russell, Nik Youngsmith, and Eva Hicks
going in the future. Nathan writes that one of the most interesting things about the documentary is that it strives to showcase how creative musical ideas can connect audiences with music in a way made possible by a 21st century musician. Nathan is continuing his musical career with a performance of Elgar’s Cello Concerto with the Reno Philharmonic in November. View the trailer to the documentary at vimeo.com/98262914
ARIELLA SIMKE just returned from four months in Udaipur in Rajasthan, India, where she worked with an NGO called Foster Care India. Foster Care India is working to create the first foster care system in the country. Ariella got to experience what it’s like to work at an NGO and the challenges that come along with it. Throughout this time she also got to stay with
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an Indian family and learn Hindi. Ariella attended more weddings than most people go to in a lifetime and struggled through three spicy meals a day. This summer, she also got to celebrate the marriage of her sister LEAH SIMKE 2010 to LWHS alumnus, BRANDON ROSEN 2007. This fall Ariella will be continuing at Northeastern University, where she studies marine biology and environmental affairs. She also plans to complete her Dive Master SCUBA certification so that she can begin teaching people how to dive!
2013 JACKSON CLAWSON is a member of the band The St. Valentinez. The band recently came out with their first full length album! Jackson says the group brands themselves as future soul, a hybrid of authentic, instrument-based funk with modern R&B, hip hop and rock. The album is called Bullet with the Butterfly Wings and is available to purchase by searching for the band on iTunes. The band’s website is thestvalentinez.com.
Providing for LWHS: C. David Brown 1987
“I
was fortunate to attend an excellent grade school, high
school, and college. I have tried to contribute to Lick-Wilmerding High School every year because of its significant role in my educational and personal development. I had my first opportunities at LWHS to take initiative in choosing my educational path, such as enrolling in advanced courses taught by superb faculty.
I’ll never forget the willingness of some teachers who saw potential in me to set aside time, even personal time, to support my learning and achievement. Likewise, I have great memories of all the friendships I formed during those years. Many institutions and organizations have been important to me, and I have supported them financially, but LWHS is one of the few I decided to include in my estate plan. In large part that is because of the great influence it had on my life. Although my kids will never attend LWHS (we live in Pennsylvania), I want to do what I can to ensure that the school will always be available to benefit others as it did me.” If you have made provisions for Lick-Wilmerding High School in your estate planning, or if you have questions about planned giving, please contact Nancy Kehoe, Director of Alumni & Development: 415-704-5590 or nkehoe@lwhs.org.
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1929 Ross Benn
1938 William Williams
1955 Terry Powell
1957 Michael Vincent
1963 Peter Bernstein
In Memoriam
1963 Andy Hauer
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1967 Donald Fowler
1979 Leonard Raznick
1991
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Jennifer Kent
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Alumni Events Calendar 2014-2015 OCTOBER 24 & 25
FEBRUARY 25
Reunion Weekend
Boston Reception
NOVEMBER 10
MARCH 19
New York City Reception
Los Angeles Reception
DECEMBER 18
APRIL 17
Annual Holiday Party in San Francisco
Third-Annual THE event at LWHS
JANUARY 7
JUNE 2
Annual Lunch at LWHS for College-Age Alumni (Classes of 2011-2014)
Tigers Helping Tigers Networking Event in San Francisco
FEBRUARY 6 Tigers Helping Tigers Networking Event at LWHS with Current Students
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ALUMNI MAGAZINE
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