Peddie Chronicle Spring/Summer 2021

SPRING/SUMMER 2021

CHRONICLE

30 On with the Show

HOW COVID-19 CHANGED THE CLASSROOM

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Peddie Partnerships ALUMNI TEAM UP IN THE WORKPLACE

PEDDIE CHRONICLE SPRING/SUMMER 2021 VOL. 149, NO. 2

Editor: Carrie Harrington

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Developmental Crescendo STUDENTS BENEFIT FROM PEDDIE’S MUSIC PROGRAM IN UNIQUE WAYS

Director of Strategic Marketing and Communications: Wendi Patella P’17 ’20 Contributors: Beth Dial P’22 Mike Duffy ’63 Doug Mariboe ’69 P’10 ’14 Patricia O’Neill P’13 ’15 ’17 ’20 ’22 Marisa Procopio ’87 Megan Sweeney Art Director: Brandon Detherage Photographers: Andrea Kane Andrew Marvin

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Sports Hall of Fame

46 Class Notes

“Since meeting Nate Buda in Austen Colgate Dormitory, we now have a three-times-aweek reunion.”

— KURT BILDERBACK ’78

Printing: J.S. McCarthy Printers The Peddie Chronicle is published twice a year by the Office of Strategic Marketing and Communications for alumni, families and friends of the school.

The Peddie School 201 South Main Street Hightstown, NJ 08520-3349 Tel: (609) 944-7500 peddie.org/chronicle We welcome your input: editor@peddie.org

From the Head of School More than 80% of our students returned to campus for spring term, the remainder choosing to finish the school year remotely. Their homecoming infused the Peddie community with a sense of optimism, and signs of progress emerged. We were able to cheer on our spring athletes, attend live theatrical and musical performances, celebrate the groundbreaking for the expansion of the Swig Arts Center, and saw the return of treasured school traditions like Battle of the Heads, Baccalaureate and Commencement. In short, we made magic amid challenges.

Since COVID-19 came into our lives, we have provided the best version of Peddie that we can safely. I am so grateful for and inspired by our faculty and students, who continuously bring innovation, creativity and flexibility to their teaching and learning. You’ll read more about their extraordinary efforts in this issue’s cover story, “On with the show” (page 30).

Peddie continues to address diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) within our campus community, with an increased focus over the past year. After a nationwide search, Diku Rogers ’12 was named Peddie’s permanent DEI director. Diku knows Peddie both as a former student and a member of the English department faculty. Her unwavering commitment and tremendous emotional intelligence are helping her succeed in this work.

Arthur ’63 and Jo Brown have established The Honorable David B. Mitchell ’63 and Diane T. Mitchell Fund to support students and employees in their efforts to enhance diversity, equity and inclusion at Peddie. The endowed fund is the first of its kind for our school and all interested donors are invited to direct gifts to this fund if they are looking for ways to sustain our efforts.

This fall, we begin a pilot program for all-gender housing, an additional residential option that does not prescribe to a gender binary and its associations. We will also provide our community with educational programming and professional development to support our LGBTQ+ students and faculty.

I want to extend my heartfelt thanks to Elizabeth Silverman, who just completed a six-year term as chair of Peddie’s Board of Trustees. Elizabeth championed so many important initiatives and protected so many important Peddie values. She was especially focused on the quality of the student experience, support of the faculty and staff, and Peddie’s DEI efforts. Elizabeth led the successful recruitment of an increasingly diverse board. She has kept the strategic priorities in front of her and has been a focused, effective and gracious leader during unprecedented times.

I look forward to the coming weeks as we progress toward resuming an entirely in-person Peddie community for fall term. We will do our best to begin anew and hope for good luck as well.

Ala Viva!

Peter A. Quinn P’15 ’18 ’21

In a year of separation and isolation, the Class of 2021 stuck together. They never checked out, and they never gave up.

They found new ways to celebrate and connect. Rather than concentrating on what they lost, they focused on what they might be able to do. And together, they moved to a fabulous finish.

COLLEGE AND UNIVERSITY DESTINATIONS FOR

T H E C L A S S O F 2 02 1

New York University (7) Emory University (5) University of Miami (5) George Washington University (4) University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (4) University of Virginia (4) University of Pennsylvania (4) Carnegie Mellon University (3) Davidson College (3) Duke University (3) Fordham University (3) Johns Hopkins University (3) Northeastern University (3) Tufts University (3) United States Naval Academy (3) Boston University (2) Brown University (2) Colorado College (2) Columbia University (2) Muhlenberg College (2) Syracuse University (2) University of California, Berkeley (2) University of Richmond (2) University of Southern California (2) Wake Forest University (2) Yale University (2) Amherst College Bard College Bates College Baylor University Bentley University Boston College California Institute of Technology Chapman University Claremont McKenna College Colby College Colgate University Cornell University Drexel University

Eastman School of Music Elon University Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University Franklin & Marshall College Hamilton College Indiana University Kenyon College Lafayette College Lehigh University McGill University Mount St. Mary’s University Northern Vermont University Northwestern University Pitzer College Pomona College Purdue University Queen Mary University of London Rutgers University Smith College Temple University The University of Edinburgh Towson University University of Calgary University of California, Irvine University of California, Los Angeles University of California, Santa Cruz University of Detroit Mercy University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign University of Michigan University of Notre Dame University of Oregon University of Pittsburgh University of Waterloo Ursinus College Washington University in St. Louis Wesleyan University Wheaton College Whitman College William and Mary

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Silverman ends tenure as board chair Elizabeth S. Silverman P’03 ’10 has completed her sixyear tenure as chair of the Peddie Board of Trustees.

Head of School Peter Quinn said that part of Silverman’s legacy is her “full-on embrace and celebration of the diversity of perspectives and backgrounds for which we have for a long time said are important to us,” noting her efforts to bring inclusivity to the board and support for Peddie’s recent addition of all-gender campus housing.

Silverman took over the chairmanship in October 2015 following Christopher J. Acito ’85. She served as board chair as Peddie began a strategic planning process in earnest. The board approved the plan in 2017.

Quinn said Silverman brought great stability to the board during extraordinary times, including helping to steer Peddie through the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Without Elizabeth, it would not have gone as well,” said Quinn. “That is undeniable.”

Both Quinn and Silverman recalled last summer’s nationwide racial reckoning as a pivotal time for Peddie.

“Peter’s leadership and the support of the board’s executive committee got us through the heightened tension, led us to the hiring of a director of diversity, equity and inclusion, and to making the necessary changes to ensure that Peddie is a welcoming and inclusive community for all,” said Silverman.

A Peddie board member since 2010, Silverman served on the Committee on Trustees and Governance, which she co-chaired, and the Development Committee.

Before joining the board, Silverman was an active parent volunteer, serving as class chair for the Peddie Fund and chair of the Senior Parent Endowment Fund and Parent Fund.

Recently-elected board chair Douglas Davidson applauded Silverman’s “extraordinary ability to connect with people.”

“Elizabeth’s unique talent in bringing us together as

a board and in fostering strong relationships with Peter, the administration and faculty have enabled us to achieve many notable successes during her term,” he said.

Since the first group of charter trustees of The New Jersey Scientific and Classical Institute (later Peddie Institute, later The Peddie School) elected its first president, 19 men have served in the role. It was not until 2015 that the first woman, Silverman, held the top seat.

“Almost all of the changes that have taken place at Peddie during my tenure are due to the incredible leadership of Peter Quinn and his administrative team,” Silverman praised. “That said, I feel particularly good about my efforts in building a board that is both more representative of the Peddie community and, I think, more cohesive and with more camaraderie than the one I joined in 2011 or began to lead in 2015.”

Silverman will continue to serve on the board as an advisory trustee and chair emeritus.

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On Campus THE SHOW’S A DREAM Peddie saw a return to live performances this spring with Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” held on Wilson Field in early May, followed by the Freshman Musical, Roald Dahl’s “Matilda The Musical Jr.” The spring concert was held outdoors beside the Swig Arts Center while celebrating the groundbreaking for the building expansion.

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DANIEL BRELAND ’13 Breland returned to Peddie on May 1 to surprise students with an outdoor concert. The “My Truck” singer, featured on Keith Urban’s recent single, “Out of the Cage,” ended the performance with a rousing rendition of the “Ala Viva.”

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ARS LONGA, VITA BREVIS

Mike Duffy ‘63 remembers and interviews the only female teacher from his days at Peddie.

There’s something about Mary.

It’s not just her playful sense of humor.

It’s not just her obvious enthusiasm for life into her 80s.

Mary Yeakey’s 1962 Peddie yearbook photo.

It’s also very much about her unique place in the history of The Peddie School. For you see, Mary Linda Yeakey was the school’s only female faculty member between the first years of the 20th century until the early 1970s, after which Peddie transitioned from a prep school for boys and went fully coeducational, and then regularly began hiring female teachers.

But back in the fall of 1961, Mary Yeakey — a 24-yearold Michigan native hired to teach Latin at Peddie — instantly became the lone female on the otherwise all-male faculty of an all-boys school. Fascinating for her, yes. But also, at times, pretty nutty.

“My two years at Peddie were mind-expanding for me,” recalled Yeakey.

And that’s putting it mildly.

“This was a defining part of my life. It helped make me who I am today,” said Yeakey during two genial, wide-ranging phone conversations from her longtime home in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Yeakey reflected on her time at Peddie, as well as her life before and after those two years in Hightstown.

“I was an only child. No brothers. But at Peddie, I got to know a whole range of boys and men.”

Mary Yeakey’s hiring at Peddie? She called it “a fluke.”

She was a couple of years out of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, where she earned a B.A. and M.A. in Latin, followed by one hectic year teaching Latin in a Grand Rapids, Michigan, high school. Out in New Jersey, Peddie found itself in a sudden bind after (according to Yeakey) a newly hired male Latin

teacher, Southern gentleman Samuel Burwell Barnett Carleton of New Orleans, alerted the school that he might be drafted into military service.

Assistant Headmaster Ben Roman What to do? decided to hire Yeakey for the teaching position. He was friends with the president of Kalamazoo College, a respected liberal arts college in Yeakey’s Michigan hometown. And Yeakey’s family knew the college boss, who interviewed her and then recommended her to Roman, who interviewed and hired Yeakey.

History Note: Both Peddie and Kalamazoo College were then long affiliated with the American Baptist church, though neither has any religious affiliation today.

And then? According to Yeakey, Carleton got his deferment and was not drafted.

Oops.

Peddie wound up with two new Latin teachers in the fall of 1961. And the school had its first female faculty member in many, many decades.

“They didn’t know what to do with me. I was a woman. So, they pieced together a job for me,” remembered Yeakey. “I taught Latin to juniors, and I taught English to seventh graders (in the Junior School) because I’d minored in English at Michigan.”

And she also filled in for the regular librarian, Gladys Walker White, on Wednesday afternoons at the Annenberg Library.

As for the 16 and 17-year-old Latin students? “At that age, they were either in love with me or they thought I was a b****,” joked Yeakey, who confirmed that “it took a sense of humor” to deal with antsy adolescent students in an all-boys school.

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And because she was also an imposing 5-foot-11 in height, well, Yeakey had zero problems controlling the classroom: “Being tall is the one thing that kind of gave me an edge. I could arch an eyebrow. And they might think, ‘She can grab me and shake me.’”

But the 12-year-old seventh-graders in her English class were a tad more rambunctious and challenging.

“After a short while, I decided to change things up and teach from the back of the classroom. That put the kibosh on their antics. They had to turn around to look at me. And you could see them thinking, ‘Oh my gosh, she’s onto us!’”

If the Peddie students could sometimes be simultaneously delightful and confounding, Mary Yeakey found her fellow faculty members – all those men – to be somewhat similar.

“They were horrified, but they were kind to me. And they were generally friendly. But I was very careful not to challenge them,” said Yeakey. “Plus, I was teaching Latin. They didn’t think that mattered anyway.”

During her two years in Hightstown – living off campus in nearby apartments – Yeakey did develop friendships and brief romantic relationships with two single Peddie teachers.

“They both wanted to marry me,” said Yeakey, who seemed to be rolling her eyes through the telephone lines. “I thought, I can’t do this. I’m still in my 20s.

I really hadn’t seen the world enough.”

After her second year at Peddie, Yeakey said she was contacted by and took a position with a posh day school on Long Island, where she also taught Latin to students “who all had French governesses and were always prepared.” But after a serious power outage struck New York and other parts of the East Coast and Canada in November 1965, Yeakey was slightly freaked out.

“It was the height of the Cold War. And I’m thinking, is this how it ends? And here I am, trapped on this island. I can’t even get back to my family in Michigan.”

Former Peddie Latin teacher Mary Yeakey has raised more than 50 award-winning standard poodle show dogs.

After the lights finally came back on and she’d calmed down, Yeakey decided to head for wide-open spaces and then found herself teaching at the Holland Hall School in Tulsa, Oklahoma, from 1966 to the late 1970s. Happily so, until a particularly annoying new headmaster showed up.

“He was a jackass. And I thought, ‘I’ve had enough of this.’ I had burned out on teaching,” recalled Yeakey, who was the head of the Foreign Languages Department at Holland Hall. “And I wondered, ‘Is there anything that I haven’t done in my life that I’d like to do?’ Yes, own a standard poodle!’”

Say what?

Though she taught humanities at a local junior college and did some tutoring in ensuing years, Mary Yeakey likes to say, “I had gone to the dogs by the time I was 42.”

She went full-tilt into raising and breeding standard poodles through her own business, Barbican Standard Poodles (Barbican being the name of a neighborhood in London).

“My parents saved their money. I’m an only child. I’m a trust fund baby, sort of. I’ve taken my inheritance and done well with it.”

Over the years, along with serving as president and every other officer of The Poodle Club of Tulsa, Yeakey has bred and raised 55 American Kennel Club award-winning standard poodle show dogs.

“When I was a little girl, I wanted a horse. My mother was a cat woman. So, we had cats.”

And then came Mary’s standard poodle bliss of enlightenment in early middle age.

“They’re very protective and very sociable and sit on the couch and talk to you,” said Yeakey, spreading the poodle joy. “At one point, I had as many as 10 living with me.”

Now it’s down to a canine trio – Sparkle, Simone and Lauren (as in Hollywood icon Bacall).

“As you might imagine, living with multiple standard poodles is not unlike living with seventh-graders – ‘Me first.’ ‘No, me!’ ‘Do you really expect me to EAT that?’ ‘I’m going in the car!’ ‘Me too!’ ‘Me three!’ ‘Let’s get up and cruise the backyard at 3 a.m. – or even better, the streets.’ Humbug!” Yeakey merrily related.

Looking back on her life, Yeakey is bemused by having earned two college degrees in Latin. “How stupid was that?” she kids. “There’s a strange bunch of cats in classics.”

But regrets? Mary Yeakey has had very few. She loved her years in teaching. She has many fond memories

of her brief – and in retrospection, groundbreaking – two years at Peddie as the school’s only female faculty member of most of the first six decades of the 20th century. And she’s really, really loved her life with the woof, woof joys of standard poodles.

When asked about her favorite Latin phrase, she quickly chooses “Ars longa, vita brevis.” Art is long, life is short.

“I’ve always enjoyed a life of the mind,” said Mary Yeakey. “I’ve always been pretty much a non-conformist. I’ve followed my heart, not just what would make me the most money.”

So, freely interpreting here, love the amazing art, enjoy your wonderful life.

Well, absolutely. Ala Viva to that great lesson.

And Ala Viva to Mary Yeakey.

Need for speed

Young alumni chase motorsport careers Max Faulkner ’16

Jack Manzari ’21

Max Faulkner started karting at age 12 and spent four years competing around the Northeast.

Jack Manzari started go-kart racing when he was eight years old. “My dad and I built and have worked on karts for the past eight to nine years,” he said. “The handson experience allowed me to learn the ins and outs of the engine’s anatomy. Due to COVID-19, I’ve had to race without a team, which requires me to take apart and rebuild the kart solo.”

“My father had been a long-time motorsports fan and suggested that I give it a go at the local kart track,” said Faulkner. “And later, at full-size race car events, I had the opportunity to work directly with an engineer, identifying problems and fine-tuning engines. This totally piqued my interest in the intricacies of racing.”

Faulkner has been participating in the Tour Car Racing (TCR) category.

The four-door, front-wheel-drive “saloon” cars, which max out at about 150 mph, are purchased pre-built from Audi, Hyundai and Honda to ensure that each manufacturer’s vehicles are as uniform as possible.

According to Faulkner, racing drivers’ physical demands are much greater than the average spectator would expect. “Most race drivers spend many hours a week in the gym, building cardiovascular endurance as well as core muscular and neck strength,” he said.

Faulkner is pursuing a mechanical engineering degree at Lafayette College. His racing plans are on hold due to the pandemic, but he hopes to work out a sponsorship deal to get back at the track.

“For me, the engineering side of racing is so fascinating,” said Faulkner. “When I can no longer be a driver, I look forward to building a career as an engineer within the motorsports industry.”

Top: Max Faulkner ’16 competes in his Audi racing car.

Manzari competes in the Senior Tag category for ages 15 and up. The karts are gas-powered, typically 40–50 horsepower and, depending on the track, can top off at speeds between 80–90 mph.

“This is possible because the motors rev very high, to almost 17,000 revolutions per minute,” said Manzari. “For context, the typical car revs to only around 6,000–7,000 rpm.”

Over the past ten years, Manzari has raced in several locations, from New Jersey to upstate New York, Boston, Pittsburgh, Indiana, North Carolina and Baltimore.

“I would like to continue racing as I move into adulthood.

However, college must come first,” he said. “I do have my Sports Car Club of America license, which allows me to take the next step into cars.

I got it at 15, two years before my road-going license.”

Right: Photo by Writer50

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PEDDIE ALUMNAE IN FILM

WHOSE LINE IS IT ANYWAY? If you watched an animated film just eight years ago, it’s likely that fewer than one-third of the characters you saw and heard on screen were female.

Jessica Heidt ’89 made that startling revelation in “Inside Pixar,” a documentary series that gives an inside look at the people and culture of Pixar Animation Studios. Heidt, a script supervisor at the animation giant, is featured in episode four (“Who gets all the lines?”) of the ten-part series currently streaming on Disney+.

Heidt manages Pixar scripts through all stages of production. While reviewing the screenplay for “Cars 3” in 2013, she became acutely aware of something.

“I was doing all of these recording sessions, and everything felt very heavily male,” Heidt remembered.

“And I started to think, can I quantify this?”

So she started tracking lines in the script to see if her instinct was right.

It was.

It turns out there was a significant gender imbalance in the film. Heidt’s data revealed that 90% of lines spoken in “Cars 3” were by male characters. She created a robust database to share her findings with the movie’s director, writer, producer, head of story … anyone she thought had the power to change it.

The reaction from her colleagues was generally very positive. While many of the major characters in “Cars 3” were inherited from the earlier Cars films, Heidt said that team members were motivated to revisit the script and change the gender of some new characters after reviewing her data.

Next, Heidt took a look at gender balance in all of Pixar’s films and calculated that about 75% of lines spoken were by male characters.

Soon after, she was approached by a colleague in Pixar’s tools department, and the two partnered to develop an internal software program that counts film characters and

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lines by gender. Their next-level, gender-counting program was greenlit by studio executives and has been integrated into the process of making movies at Pixar ever since.

Heidt, who was recently promoted to associate production manager, believes that gender balance has “absolutely gotten better since we started doing this work.” She cited the recent Academy Award-winning Pixar film, “Soul,” as having “almost a 50-50 split.”

While recognizing that tracking scripts line-by-line can appear prescriptive, Heidt underscored the importance of gender balance in film and Pixar’s dedication to that endeavor.

“Representation matters. Because I think it’s important, even if it’s a fish or a toy or a car, that people are able to see themselves or something they believe represents themselves on screen.”

— Jessica Heidt ’89 in “Inside Pixar” “It’s important to let female characters be powerful and funny and all of the things that we are traditionally used to seeing in leading male characters. We’re also trying to be expressive of non-binary as well, and allow space for that.”

She added, “It’s important to be able to let everyone know that they are worth seeing and that they should have a voice. And that we care enough in this global company to say, ‘Yeah, what you have to say is important.’”

After Jessica Heidt ’89 documented significant gender imbalance in “Cars 3,” her colleagues at Pixar changed the gender of several characters, including Cruz Ramirez, pictured here to the right of returning character Lightning McQueen.

(Photo provided by Pixar Animation Studios.)

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PEDDIE ALUMNAE IN FILM

ARIANNA BOCCO ’87 IS THE NEW PRESIDENT OF IFC FILMS For more than two decades, seasoned movie executive Arianna Bocco ’87 has brought dynamic, diverse and thought-provoking independent films to audiences.

Bocco has spearheaded acquisitions and productions for IFC Films since 2006 and before that for Miramax Films and New Line Cinema, in that time obtaining the rights to some of the most critically acclaimed independent movies. She is reputed to be among the most successful acquisitions executives in the independent film industry.

In December, Bocco was named president of IFC Films.

In addition to leading acquisitions, she oversees theatrical film distribution and the company’s streaming service.

Since the pandemic hit, IFC employees have been working remotely, so Bocco runs the NYC-headquartered indie distributor from her Bradley Beach, New Jersey, home. Her dog, Henry, a chihuahua/beagle mix, is usually by her side.

The effects of the pandemic on the movie business are well reported. In short, it roiled the industry. Yet last year, as theaters shut down and studios postponed release dates, IFC made what Bocco described as a “nerve-wracking” gamble to continue to release movies.

“A lot of distributors held back,” Bocco recalled. “But we decided to lean into it and not only release films, but to try to adhere to as normal a release schedule as we could.

We decided to throw the rulebook out the window.”

IFC pivoted quickly by distributing films to drive-in movie theaters — a first for the company — and the small number of cinemas that remained open. They continued their pioneering strategy of simultaneously releasing movies in theaters and across on-demand platforms.

Ultimately, their plan worked. Last summer, CNBC trumpeted IFC Films as a “box-office champ,” and Comscore heralded the distributor as “a beacon of light for the industry.”

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BEST ACQUISITIONS Over the last 15 years, Bocco has helped create an extensive library of celebrated independent films for IFC, including Richard Linklater’s “Boyhood,” Jennifer Kent’s “The Babadook” and Noah Baumbach’s “Frances Ha.”

The pandemic-induced closure of movie theaters across the country — some permanently — has hit very close to home for Bocco. The 100-plus-year-old ShowRoom Cinema on Main Street in Bradley Beach, just a five-minute walk from her house, shuttered last year.

Its closure motivated Bocco to recruit a group of film industry leaders connected to Bradley Beach, including New Jersey resident and actor Patrick Wilson, to launch a fundraising campaign to revive and expand the theater.

“I took it upon myself to figure out how we can save it,” said Bocco. “That has been a personal mission. We are in the process — a group of investors — of buying it, and we’re going to turn it into three screens, and we are going to operate it as a movie theater.”

Selecting a favorite amongst her 400plus acquisitions is difficult.

“It’s hard to choose. There are some filmmakers that I gravitated towards, like Armano Iannucci (‘In the Loop,’ ‘The Death of Stalin’) and Michael Winterbottom (‘The Trip’ series) and Olivier Assayas (‘Clouds of Sils Maria,’ ‘Personal Shopper’).

We did Barry Jenkins’ first movie (‘Medicine for Melancholy’). He went on to win an Oscar for ‘Moonlight.’ And we did Steve McQueen’s first movie (‘Hunger’).

The recent documentary ‘MLK/FBI’ was a really rewarding experience.”

The team has aspirations to revive other theaters across the country. “We have to engage ourselves as active participants in preserving our industry,” she said.

Amidst her busy lifestyle, Peddie remains ever-present in Bocco’s mind. “It was one of the most awakening and enlightening times in my life,” she said. “It was very much a place where I was encouraged.”

At Peddie, through her involvement in drama club, the Amphion, The Peddie News and yearbook, Bocco began to formulate what her love of the arts meant for her future.

“When I look back on all the things I did, I was always more of the producer, which is kind of what I do now.

It really makes sense to me that I’m having the career that I have based on what I did in high school,” she said.

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Building the right thing Rotimi Opeke ’12 keeps competitive in the tech ecosystem When Rotimi Opeke ’12 speaks about technology, he describes it as a window to a world of possibilities.

“The beautiful thing about technology is that being able to understand it gives you a ton of perspective,” he pointed out. “Because I understand how different technologies work, I can use them as building blocks to discover and implement new solutions.”

Reflecting on Opeke’s Peddie career, technology might seem like just one building block among many.

He was a prefect, an athlete, student body president and a co-leader of the Multicultural Alliance. But a single computer science class, taught by Tim Corica, would lead Opeke to his future calling.

“Looking back, there were so many guardrails [Corica] put up for new students to be successful in their first coding experience,” Opeke reminisced. “It was the perfect starter course.”

After learning Javascript at Peddie, Opeke continued to pursue computer science at Stanford University.

Stanford courses were broader and more advanced, but Opeke was emboldened by a well-rounded Peddie experience. “I was able to chart my own path,” he said.

That path would take Opeke in an unexpected direction.

Despite excelling in computer science and spending his summer after college building a stock portfolio visualizer and an app that would keep him up to date on his favorite sports team’s latest scores, Opeke found himself drawn to particular questions: Why do we build? What new innovations best serve users?

How can the user experience be optimized?

In short, Opeke said, “I’d rather build the right thing.”

Today, Opeke is a product manager at Stripe, a financial technology company that enables online payments. If you’ve shopped online, you’ve probably used a Stripe product without even knowing it. Opeke doesn’t code Stripe’s features; instead, he works to plan the features of the future and keep Stripe and its users competitive in the tech ecosystem.

Opeke has some ideas about the way this ecosystem will continue to evolve. “It’s a lot easier to monetize ‘the self,’” he said. “Every individual has an opportunity to bring services and goods to the table, and that is monetizable in ways we’ve never seen before. One person can set up a store, enable shipping and transact on the internet, all within a day.”

This newfound online independence has already made great strides since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“As a society, we were forced to get creative,” he continued. “There’s going to be a return to normal, and people who appreciate the brick-and-mortar experience will move back to that. But it’s also forced us to question some of the paradigms in commerce and fintech.”

Opeke recently lent his expertise to Peddie’s Computer Science Club as a guest speaker. “When I was going to Peddie, being able to code was a weird, niche, nerdy thing,” he said. “It may still be a weird, niche, nerdy thing. But I’m glad that it’s less so than when I was at school.”

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Features 18

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PEDDIE PARTNERSHIPS

DEVELOPMENTAL CRESCENDO

ON WITH THE SHOW

Peddie Partnerships Peddie alumni team up in the workplace as co-workers, mentors, consultants and more — and dedication is first on the agenda

Suzanne Daly ’99 and Dani Dudick ’00

Suzanne: I knew Dani at Peddie, and we hadn’t spoken in many years. Right before I joined, I sent her a note to say, “I don’t know if you remember me, but I’m joining Two Sigma next month, and I’d love to grab a coffee and get together. We’ve become very close friends. I work on the insurance side of the business, and Dani works on the traditional investment management side. We have an opportunity to connect professionally when questions come up, and it’s very easy for us to get on the phone and answer them. But I think more importantly than that, we’re resources for one another.

We’re both team players, and that definitely comes from Peddie. I tell folks that Two Sigma is a lot like Peddie because you have that very collegiate environment where people are very smart but very kind, and want to work hard and solve hard problems together. I think we both operate in a very collegiate way; we’re both structured thinkers, we both have positive attitudes and outlooks and I think a lot of that comes from our time at Peddie.

Dani: About six years ago, I was walking through the lobby at Two Sigma reception. Suzanne was there with her former employer and colleagues at the time. While we had not seen each other in years, we quickly recognized one another and picked up the conversation right where we left off (on Peddie’s campus back in 1999). Suzanne’s colleagues and others passing by were instantly drawn to our conversation and curious about what these two women were talking and laughing about. (“What’s Ala Viva?”)

The next year, Suzanne joined Two Sigma, and we instantly became part of the same internal women’s network. It’s so important to have a strong support system at work – across genders, experience levels and skills. It makes for good business, too – projects are more fun, contributions more collaborative, outcomes more productive. Working with partners, who in some instances become friends, motivates me to be my best self. Building a relationship of mutual respect and trust, like I have with Suzanne, makes all the difference.

While I lost contact with Peddie for a few years, for no other reason than life just gets in the way, Suzanne has encouraged me to reconnect with the school.

There’s something really special about Peddie and the community, and I’m glad to be a part of it. Suzanne’s loyalty and commitment to Peddie is unbelievable, and she is in touch with everyone. We graduated over 20 years ago, but she hasn’t missed a beat!

Suzanne Daly ’99 is Senior Vice President, Head of Strategic Partnerships at Two Sigma in New York City.

Dani Dudick ’00 is Managing Director, Head of Client Service at Two Sigma in New York City.

18 PEDDIE CHRONICLE

Dar Vanderbeck ’04 is a partner at Canopy Collective, a California-based philanthropic fund.

Dar Vanderbeck ’04 and Fernando Perez ’01

Dar: Fern was working with [former Peddie faculty member] Pat Clements on a chapel talk on the anniversary of when Martin Luther King, Jr. spoke. Pat asked me to offer some perspectives.

It might be the first time Fern and I collaborated on something. We’d always been friends, but now it was like, “How do we think about these critical issues?”

It was just a joy. He’s better at engaging young people with public speaking, so I looked up to Former professional baseball outfielder Fernando him. It’s fun to be near his energy and how Perez ’01 is a partner at Canopy Collective and an he captivates a crowd. The issues that were analyst for the San Francisco Giants. most compelling to us, like racial justice, are still so relevant.

We started Canopy Collective at the end of last year, and now we’re actively fundraising. It’s really exciting and necessary, and a very cool mix of my background in global social justice work and his expertise in telling stories and harnessing culture and being able to educate in a way that’s simple.

I feel like I learn things from Fern every time we talk. His ability to synthesize is really special. He’s such a good teammate. He’s so self-aware, and he understands his role. He knows when to step in, and he knows when to call someone else up. Those are skills that are hard to teach.

From Peddie comes our willingness to lean into complexity and ambiguity. We just want to get close to it and bring to bear all the wisdom and reading and not being confined by one discipline. That’s very Peddie.

Fernando: Our professional relationship is a lot like our regular life, which is amazing. What’s exciting is that we don’t ever feel that, “OK, that’s enough work; let’s talk about life.” This is life, actually.

Dar is an extremely courageous person. I think that Peddie definitely nurtured that. When I came out of baseball, she was on a very short list of people that I looked to and said, “Tell me about life. Tell me about what I’ve missed.” I was really interested in her path.

Dar is a really great leader. This is really all her bringing us to this moment. She’s very much a hero of mine. I thank her for including me because everybody else on the staff, like Dar, has been working in this field for a long time. With my professional life, I’ve had to leverage soft skills and work ethic essentially to furnish opportunities.

I worked in media for many years. That’s a Principio thing: We like doing lots of different things. And if we can do all of them at the same time, great. There’s nothing wrong with specializing and playing it safer.

But it truly takes a lot of courage to play it the other way. Because it doesn’t always work out. I think our civilization kind of encourages you to specialize and be safe a lot. Dar’s a modern risk-taker, and I always looked up to her for that.

19 SPRING/SUMMER 2021

Uwakokunre “Kokie” Imasogie ’10 and Nicholas “Nikko” Lara ’10

Kokie: Nikko and I were best friends at Peddie, and it’s been like that ever since. We always stayed in touch; we knew we were going to do something together, but just didn’t know what. After we graduated college, I worked in a major PR firm, then at a major label. He joined Beauty Bakerie [cosmetics company] for the last couple of years. Once I left the label, I started doing Treehaus. About a year into it, I was able to convince Nikko to get on it.

Nikko’s been a role model — dynamic, constantly growing and learning. It’s really fun to work with him.

I bring a little more sauce and excitement. We live and work together, and keep it pretty much in-house. We know what we want. The challenges are just patience.

My sister calls Nikko when she’s upset with me. He goes on my family vacations without me; I’ve stayed at his family’s house many times without him.

We’re totally interchangeable. We’ve been fortunate enough to know how each other works throughout our whole careers.

Peddie gave us the ability to understand how to tackle different things and the willingness to do the work. We take a lot of our lessons from Peddie.

We’re close to a lot of people there. We go back to campus as often as we can, and I coached there with some lacrosse guys in the summer.

It’s a place that gives us really good memories.

I’m in a group chat with six Peddie alumni from my grade, and we talk every day.

Nikko: We’ve known each other for half our lives — almost 15 years now. As his mother would say, we’re a married couple.

I think our collaboration on Iroko Treehaus for the past year is really just a build-up of a lot of different things that we had talked about at Peddie. We realized that we had the ability to meet and build relationships with people, to maintain them and take that forward.

The best part of working together is working with my best friend. He’s seen me at my ups and downs, professionally and personally. He’s vested in helping me become a better version of myself, and vice versa.

At Peddie, during our off season, we’d attend Coach Martin’s 6 a.m. plyometric training sessions in the athletic center. It was fully optional. We’d always push each other to make sure we were not late to that and hold ourselves accountable. It translated to many things later in our lives: Structure is important, meeting deadlines, giving respect to the people who are also participating. It’s the respect we’d want them to give us. Everything we did together, we wanted to make sure we were giving it our all.

Kokie Imasogie ’10 is co-founder and creative director at Iroko Treehaus, a Los Angeles-based creative strategy and investment agency.

20 PEDDIE CHRONICLE

Nikko Lara ’10 is co-founder and CEO of Iroko Treehaus in Los Angeles.

Arthur E. Brown, M.D. ’63 and L ianne Cavell ’97

Arthur: My father and her Retired infectious disease grandfather were friends in high specialist Arthur E. Brown ’63 school. The Kaylor family and my lives in New York City. family were close. I think there was a point at which they were looking for a place to send George, Lianne’s father, to boarding school. Apparently, I was seen as someone who was happy at Peddie. George was Class of ’66.

When Lianne’s father got lung cancer, they called and asked if I could connect them with someone at Memorial Sloan Kettering to take care of them. And I did, and they did. They were very grateful.

Lianne’s established and a wonderful woman.

She’s steady — strong and steady. When she and I saw each other at a Peddie event in Delray Beach, it was very warm and affectionate. I’m very happy for her because she seems happy as a mom and as a gastroenterologist in Florida. She’s living the life. All good memories and good things. It’s part of this Peddie circle that is remarkable and bigger than we think.

Lianne: Arthur was at Peddie, and our families were friends. His family said, ‘You have to look at Peddie.’

My father applied and went, and he felt that Peddie opened his eyes to a world that he would have never seen if he had not gone there. He literally attributed all of his life success and who he became to Peddie.

Fast forward: I was at Princeton Day School for middle school, and said, ‘I want to be a boarder someplace.’ My dad said, ‘You’re going to Peddie!’ I said, ‘I want to go to Lawrenceville.’ And he said, ‘I can’t have a daughter who’s black and red. You need to be blue and gold!’ So I toured it, loved the school and had a great four years. Arthur was very proud to see another generation from the Kaylor family going to Peddie.

Unfortunately, my father was diagnosed with lung cancer as a result of his treatments from Hodgkin’s

Lianne Cavell ’97 is a gastroenterologist in Florida.

lymphoma when he was 19. That’s when Arthur came back into our lives. He was working at Sloan Kettering, and he really helped my dad get set up with some doctors there.

After my father passed away, I went on to medical school and did my fellowship at Sloan Kettering. I reached out to Arthur when I was there. We had lunch together and saw each other in the hallways.

I think my father would be over the moon to have seen this, to go full circle and have the career he wanted, and in a place like Sloan Kettering, where he sought treatment; at a place where Arthur Brown was, who was the one who started all this, of getting into Peddie.

I feel like Arthur was sort of the captain of our family.

He steered us into a course that probably never would have happened. It’s a testament to Arthur, to the connections that Peddie can make and the influence that the people and the school can have.

21 SPRING/SUMMER 2021

John Coiro ’87 and Luis Martinez ’1 7

John: It started from being involved with Peddie robotics. Three or four times, different classes came to see my company’s factory to see robotics in the real world. A couple of cool things came out of that.

My team made a few parts for Peddie robotics; they make all the stuff in the shop there. Some of the base plates, wheels and sprockets. Peddie asked if we could cut them quicker and get a head start. We’ve done that several times. One time the students brought the robot to the factory to demonstrate to my people what it really did.

I walked in their shoes. I know if they’re at Peddie, they’re going to be good students, they know what hard work is and they’re probably pretty focused.

When the Peddie kids come, my co-workers are shocked: They tell them once, they show them what they need to do and they’re off and running.

Luis was first. He worked for us for a summer in our engineering department, honing his skills as an engineer. He worked on AutoCAD and SOLIDWORKS to make drawings used in our fabrication process.

Or he’d pull the drawings together, put the package together and then release that to the shop.

Mr. Coiro said, “If anyone ever wants an internship, let us help you out.” So I kept that in the back of my mind.

Then, early spring semester of my freshman year of college, I got Mr. Coiro’s email address and wrote, “Can I get that internship now?”

In robotics, I mostly did structural design and was familiar with CAD (Computer-Aided Design). So at Allentown, I was able to look and make changes to the models they have for their products, to jump right in and ask questions and very quickly pick up what was going on.

Designing something to not break is always relevant.

In robotics, we’re making one thing and making sure it doesn’t break. Allentown is like, “We’re making the part 100,000 times. How do we ensure that the way they make this part will give us a 99.9% quality assurance that it’ll last a while?” It’s a lot of fun for me.

Nobody really gives freshmen internships.

Allentown is the first bullet on my resume because it’s actual work experience, and it gave me a better understanding of how things get made.

Along with Luis, Coiro has contracted robotics student Victor Cappuzzo ’19, EXP student Kyle Sikkema ’19, Michael Coiro ’17 for sales and marketing, recruiter and consultant Chuck Morgenstern ’87, MA3 Agency Chief Strategic and Creative Officer Jason Lannert ’87 and Mola Branding strategist Vince Mola ’87.

Luis: I always wanted to do engineering, but what sold it for me was my experience at Peddie. Allentown was one of the sponsors of our robotics team. And Mr. Coiro, being an alumnus, having a close relationship with the school, was very generous in allowing the robotics team to use the equipment.

My big focus is mechanical design and analysis. Back at Peddie, I was picking up the very basics of that. In my senior year, the robotics team visited the company and got a tour of the production facility. They had giant welding and laser-cutting machines.

That was very exciting for me. And I remember at the end, Luis Martinez ’17 (third from left) was a Peddie robotics student and is studying engineering at Carnegie Mellon University.

John Coiro ’87 is CEO at Allentown, L.L.C. in New Jersey.

Pallavi Juneja ’11 and Karen Marquis - Derby ’89

Pallavi: After graduating from Haverford College with a B.A. in English in 2015, I applied for teaching positions all over the country. I received an interview with Charlotte Country Day School, where the chair of the Upper School English Department was none other than Karen Marquis-Derby ’89, a fellow Peddie alumna! I was the youngest faculty member at the school in large part because Karen had faith in my preparedness as a Falcon. We worked together for two years, often swapping stories about our Peddie days in between classes. Karen, as department chair, supported my personal and professional growth tremendously. We both wore Peddie apparel for a school spirit day and would burst into the fight song at faculty gatherings! In my first job, I couldn’t have asked for a better guide, advocate and friend.

Karen: Anne Seltzer got me my job at Peddie, and here she wrote my letter of recommendation.

We needed one or two teachers, and my division head sent me a video and said, “She’s from Peddie. Do you want to take a look?” And I said, “Absolutely!” Pallavi was so clearly smart and capable and funny. And one of the things I remember specifically about Peddie is that so many of my teachers were right out of college.

They were young, and they connected with their students in really productive, positive ways. So we gave her a shot, and she rocked it.

to follow Byron’s European trek. She came back and was able to share that with her classes, too. She just brought it.

From Peddie came open-mindedness and curiosity.

That was what I remembered most about my teachers.

It wasn’t what they thought. It was always what I thought, and what I could bring.

We were so like-minded, with the same approach to thinking about the work. Getting the kids to do it themselves. Being there in good, healthy, supportive ways. But they have to mess up and start again.

What she reminded me of, as a young teacher, was that enthusiasm of helping kids see who they are. She had a big hand in our diversity awareness forums with kids of color, even if they didn’t have her as a teacher. She made a big difference in a lot of kids’ lives.

It’s so great to see such a strong voice come out of Peddie, some 30 years later.

Pallavi knew she wanted to teach for a couple of years and then go to medical school. She taught 10th grade world literature. She’d call The New York Times to pull in science, art, philosophy. She even won a grant to go to Switzerland

Pallavi Juneja ’11 recently graduated from Wake Forest University School of Medicine.

Karen Marquis-Derby ’89 is an upper school English teacher at Charlotte Country Day School in North Carolina.

Developmental

Crescendo

Every student who participates in Peddie’s music program can benefit from the experience in unique ways.

Carrying a large brass instrument around a 250-acre campus is no easy feat for a busy teenager. So Manya Kaushik ’21 keeps an extra tuba in her dorm room, in addition to the one she stores in the Swig Arts Center.

Kaushik learned to play the tuba two years ago when Peddie Arts Department Chair Alan Michaels needed to fill an empty seat in the Chamber Orchestra.

“I was thinking about trying the trumpet, but Mr. Michaels needed a tuba player,” Kaushik recalled.

Kaushik came to Peddie already a piano, alto and tenor saxophone player. But learning a brass instrument,

which requires a different mouth technique, was a new challenge for the sophomore.

“I spent most of that spring learning how to play.

And Paige would help me because she plays trumpet,” Kaushik said.

“Paige” is standout trumpet player and percussionist Paige Pakenas ’21, a fellow member of Peddie’s jazz ensemble and Chamber Orchestra.

program. For both, being involved in music has been the highlight of their high school experience.

A music-rich curriculum While most students who sing or play an instrument in high school won’t become professional musicians, Peddie can claim several music sensations as former students, including Chris Tomson ’02 of Vampire Weekend; Matt Burr ’99, founder of Grace Potter and the Nocturnals and rising singer-songwriter Daniel Breland ’13. Yet every student who participates in the music program at Peddie can benefit from the experience in unique ways.

“Music is an outburst of the soul.”

— European composer Frederick Delius

The pair attributes their willingness to take on new challenges, and their friendship, to Peddie’s music

There’s also a heap of scientific research that shows a music-rich education improves students’ academic performance. Over the past 20 years, several largescale studies have found that music training can lead to improvements in cognitive skills, resulting in better educational outcomes, including greater achievement in math and English and increased average SAT scores.

Michaels believes that music can set students up for success in all subject areas. “They learn that the more time they devote to practicing, the more progress they’re going to make. They learn discipline and structure and how to devote time to a project over a long period. Ensemble play teaches students how to collaborate and participate in a group.”

Peddie’s Assistant Head of School Catherine Rodrigue agrees. “I think there’s no question that music taps into parts of the brain that make kids more creative, strong, abstract thinkers. And the more we can do that when they’re young, the better position they’re going to be in for whatever they face later in life.”

At Peddie, first-year students take three terms of foundation courses to introduce them to music, theater and visual arts. During the remainder of Above: Arts Department Chair Alan Michaels conducts the Peddie orchestra.

Below: Manya Kaushik ’21 (left) credits Paige Pakenas ’21 (right) with helping her learn how to play the tuba.

Trumpet player and percussionist Paige Pakenas ’21 said that the Peddie music program helped her gain confidence.

“I just started doing this dance, and everybody was cheering,” she recalled. “The special thing about Peddie is that when you do performances, everybody is genuinely interested in supporting you and interested in what you are playing.

“That performance was a turning point. Before that, I felt like I was on the outside, looking in. From that moment on, I felt involved. I 100% gained confidence, and that transcended into the classroom, sports, ability to meet new people, everything.”

Though Pakenas won’t be majoring in music in college, “it will definitely be a part of my college experience,” she said.

their time at Peddie, they take two arts electives.

Rodrigue called the curriculum “substantive,” and Michaels noted that “most students are taking well beyond the minimal arts requirements.”

Students who want to continue their music studies outside the classroom can join a host of choral and instrumental ensembles, take private lessons, join the pit orchestra for school musicals and perform at school and community events.

“I don’t know of many schools that have that strong of an emphasis on the arts,” Rodrigue said.

On the outside, looking in Paige Pakenas ’21 said she had trouble coming out of her shell freshman year. But during spring term, she played trumpet in a life-changing chapel improv performance.

Former Peddie orchestra concertmaster Mia Huang ’20 remembers playing at New Falcon Music Chapel, a tradition started by Michaels whereby new students perform on the chapel stage for the entire school. “It was at the beginning of the year, maybe September or October, and I didn’t really know anyone. I went on stage and saw a whole audience of unfamiliar faces. When I started playing, my bow was completely shaking, and my legs were shaking as well.”

Huang, who is dual majoring in psychology and violin performance at Northwestern University, said she improved her musical

After overcoming her initial stage fright, former Peddie orchestra concertmaster Mia Huang ’20 (right) described the Peddie audience as “a big family.”

26 PEDDIE CHRONICLE

skills at Peddie by regularly performing in front of the same audience until it felt like she was performing in front of a big family. “They would always clap really loud,” she remembered.

Country-hip-hop songwriter/producer and performer Daniel Breland ’13 (aka “Breland”) recalled the time in 2012 when a community meeting performance with roommate Nathan Tempo ’13 went awry:

Pathways

Dan Funderbirk ’19 loves music, but he doubted for a long time if he could pursue it as a profession.

“I didn’t know if I was good enough. I always kind of doubted myself in some way,” Funderbirk said from his dorm room at Berklee College of Music, where he is focusing on songwriting and sound design.

The talented trumpeter said that Peddie helped him grow as an instrumentalist. During high school, he was involved in “every ensemble you can name.”

“Performing in front of the school makes you a lot more confident. Because if “Being part of the Peddie you can perform on music department put in places where I had stage in front of the meopportunities to perform,” he said.

“That me the entire school, you can confidence thatgave I needed to know, ‘Okay, this is do anything.”

“Nathan had programmed a big electronic dance drop on his computer,” he told a group of Peddie students last fall.

“During dress rehearsal, it was all smooth. But in the moment, for whatever reason, as Nathan was about to play, his computer completely crashed, and I didn’t know what to do, and so we just ran off the stage,” he said, chuckling.

Along with the embarrassment, Breland also remembered the reaction from his teachers and peers.

— Manya Kaushik ’21

“Everybody afterward was like, ‘Oh, that was a really great performance. Keep your head up.’ Nine times out of 10, that type of performance where you are embarrassed and run off the stage, I think most people would be making fun of you. But [at Peddie], I always felt supported and loved.”

something I can do.’”

“Before Peddie, I had only looked at music as a side hobby,” said Ethan Govea ’19, a music major at Drew University.

Govea plays bass for Drew’s jazz ensemble, directs the school’s male a capella group and plays in the orchestra for school theater productions. He played bass and percussion at Peddie and starred as Tevye in the school’s production of “Fiddler on the Roof.”

Both Funderbirk and Govea said the Peddie music program gave them the self-assuredness to pursue a career in music.

“None of the musical pathways I have taken leading up to today would have been possible without Peddie,” Govea declared.

Berklee College of Music student Dan Funderbirk ’19 (center) is pursuing a career in songwriting and sound design.

“The Peddie music program pointed me in the right direction,” said Funderbirk. “It allowed me to figure out exactly what I wanted and allowed me the space and creative discretion to hone in on my skills. And figure out what path I want to take.”

Breland credits Peddie as where he “found himself musically.”

He reminisced, “Over those four years, I found myself feeling confident and comfortable to try things out musically.

“It was the independence at Peddie that I had — to be able to explore things — that pushed me further down that path,” he added.

Classical music singer Lindsay Kartoz ’21 said that the Peddie music program allowed her to explore her passion, including taking a songwriters workshop at New York University and auditing an online music theory course for Berklee College of Music. Recently, Kartoz decided to pursue a career in music education.

“I realized that I’m an excellent teacher,” she said while touring colleges this spring. “It brings me joy to see people understand something new, the same way that singing and choir bring me joy.”

Michaels responded, “Lindsay decided, ‘Hey, this is what does it for me. This is what I want to do. I want to become a music educator. As her teacher, it was heartwarming to hear that.”

A second home It’s not uncommon to hear Peddie’s current and former music students talk about the friendships they developed with their fellow high school musicians.

Mia Huang remembers when Binglun Shao ’18 took the violin section out for ice cream. Manya Kaushik and Paige Pakenas became close friends after meeting in orchestra. Ethan Govea developed “everlasting friendships” with fellow Peddie musicians. Chris Tomson told a virtual student audience in December that “some of my closest friends are still former Peddie students.”

As crucial as these friendships are, having a central location on campus to practice — and bond — has been equally vital to Peddie musicians. For some students, the Swig Arts Center has served as a second home.

“During lunch, breaks, at night, it’s the automatic place for my friends and me to go,” said Pakenas.

“We just jam or plan a performance.”

“I would camp in Swig if I could,” said Binglun Shao, who plays violin in the Princeton University Orchestra. “It was where I found comfort, whether among the people there or just being in the space.”

“There’s no question that music plays an important part in our school culture,” said Rodrigue. “Kids will support different athletic teams, but they will also support the arts, to the same degree, with the same level of enthusiasm as they do the athletic pursuits.” The Freshman Musical, a long-standing and beloved school tradition and often the first performance on a Peddie stage for students, is always performed in front of a standing-room-only crowd of upperclassmen.

“I opened my college acceptance letter there,” she added.

“I’ve had a lot of students tell me that they don’t feel whole without music,” said Michaels. “I get it.

When you’re working on a piece of music, and it gets to a performance-ready level, it becomes physical, emotional, mental. It kind of takes over you.”

“Even though I slept in the dorms, I lived in the arts center,” remembered Govea. “It was a great place to learn, grow and master our craft.”

Shao, Peddie’s 2018 valedictorian, was so appreciative of Peddie’s music program that she spoke about it during her commencement speech:

“Swig was definitely a second home for me,” said Funderbirk. “To the point that by the time I got to senior year, I would be over there during study hall.

Even if it was to do homework, I would sit somewhere in Swig and just exist.”

“Playing music is how I learned to learn, how to focus and how to push through the lack of motivation from time to time,” she said. “Music has transformed the way I encounter, experience and navigate.”

It kind of takes over you There’s long been recognition at Peddie of the importance of a music-rich education. Nearly one-quarter of Peddie students are involved in some kind of musical performance activity. More than 100 students are involved in orchestra alone.

“I think there’s no question that music taps into parts of the brain that make kids more creative, strong, abstract thinkers,” — Assistant Head of School Catherine Rodrigue

Opposite left: Valedictorian Binglun Shao ’18 spoke about her meaningful experience with the Peddie music program in her commencement speech.

Opposite right: Ethan Govea ’19 considered the Swig Arts Center “a second home” during his time at Peddie.

29 SPRING/SUMMER 2021

Faculty reflect on lessons learned, skills gained, unexpected silver linings and how they will re-create their craft in the years ahead

Mark Cirnigliaro

ON WITH THE SHOW How COVID-19 Changed the Classroom 30 PEDDIE CHRONICLE

Mark Cirnigliaro theater and architecture teacher

Katy Lambson science teacher

What inspires him: Thinking about possibilities over pitfalls. “I approach everything by saying, “Okay, this is what I’ve been given. How do I make it work?”

What he’ll continue going forward: Increased efficiency in managing rehearsals; continued use of the best parts of virtual experiences; a greater appreciation for higher-quality, in-person interactions

One of the benefits of the Zoom square is that all the viewer sees is a face; they don’t see anything outside of the box. So I can hide stuff, put on a wig and change character, step far away from the camera or up close – there’s so much to explore. The arts are flexible and adaptable. You look at the parameters as opportunities. There is so much possibility, but if you’re not curious, all you see is this square.

In the beginning of the pandemic, most of us saw only limitations. But throughout the year, we have evolved into seeing possibilities. Students are learning how to choose happiness; that’s what happened with the winter production, “High School Musical.” It was so much work, but every day those kids – whether remote or in person – were choosing joy. We shot the ending when most of the group was in person together. There was an unbelievable explosion of energy and positivity.

What inspires her: Students’ resilience, adaptability and willingness to try new things What she’ll continue going forward: Pivot Interactives

At first, I panicked. Research shows that kids need hands-on labs to truly appreciate chemistry and biology.

How would I teach a lab-based physical science class?

Our department quickly came up with platforms and software that might work in the virtual environment.

Each classroom was set up with a wide-angle camera on a tripod that connected to our laptops and could be moved around the room.

Pivot Interactives is a comprehensive library of interactive labs. Students watch a video of an experiment and answer questions about it.

Teachers can add or take away questions and tailor them to lessons; we can even make our own labs from scratch. While simulations are not a full substitute for hands-on lab experience, I’ll continue to use Pivot labs supplementally.

31 SPRING/SUMMER 2021

We’ve tried hard to make sure students are getting similar experiences. I’ve had groups of in-person kids showcase a lab for their online classmates using the tripod camera. I tell them to treat it as an ESPN sportscast. It sounds silly, but the kids take their job very seriously.

They’re learning to pass along observations and describe exactly what is happening, which are important science — and life — skills.

Katy Lambson

Michelle Dewey-Dawson Spanish teacher What inspires her: Students’ resilience.

“They are so determined and driven, yet so incredibly patient.”

What she’ll continue going forward: A new appreciation for Canvas. “I think it’s far superior to any other web-based learning management system I’ve used. We can record and upload videos, lock down browsers so tests are secure, have conversations in a written forum — and it’s all in one place.”

The social-emotional aspect of learning has been so important this year.

Normally, students would walk in, and we’d start speaking Spanish right away. This year, I wanted to be sure we would bond – especially the freshmen.

Sometimes at the start of class, students use the stylus [pen] on their laptops to create a sketch from a squiggle I give them, and then we share them. It gives me a little window into how they’re thinking. I may lose five minutes of Spanish, but I end up with a group of students who trust and talk with each other. It’s worth it.

I have such confidence in our administration.

Knowing what the schedule would be and that it wouldn’t change brought so much stability when there wasn’t a lot.

The tech team helped us prepare and provided the tools we needed; they even organized teacher-to-teacher learning sessions about various tech tools.

Michelle Dewey-Dawson

Meghan Kocar history and humanities teacher What inspires her: New technologies. “I had heard of many of these pre-pandemic and thought, ‘Oh, that would be a cool thing to try, but I don’t have the time to explore it.’ Now I realize how useful they are, and they’re not that hard to learn to use.”

What she’ll continue going forward: Assigning projects with a personal element. “Building relationships with students has been harder.

I’ve enjoyed inviting them to share about themselves.”

One of the things I learned from the Global Online Academy faculty resource was that it’s better to assign student-driven tasks when teaching online, which our humanities team has talked about. What are ways we can give students agency? The experience of this year has shown us ways to do that.

We designed a scavenger hunt for our humanities classes. Some of the tasks had very specific directions, while others allowed more room for creativity and resourcefulness. The real world is often more about being resourceful, innovative and creative. So a big takeaway is that we want to do more projects that ask students to rely on these skills.

32 PEDDIE CHRONICLE

“The only way students have a truly transformative experience is if they are invited to do things that are unfamiliar to them.”

Marc Onion Chaplain and English teacher What inspires him: The opportunity for change.

“The pre-pandemic model of chapel will no longer be familiar to the majority of the student body. How will we recultivate and rebuild this experience?”

Between using pre-recorded and live chapel material and hosting a hybrid chapel experience, it’s been challenging. Still, I’ve slowly gained confidence in my multimedia skills throughout the year.

What he’ll continue going forward: “Initially, I only saw hurdles in the digital classroom; I’ve come to realize that incorporating some digital tools can improve the classroom experience.”

This is my third year as Chaplain; I’ve spent half of that time in the virtual space.

I see the future as an opportunity to rethink, reinvent and modify the Peddie chapel experience to make it more student-driven. The only way students have a truly transformative experience is if they are invited to do things that are unfamiliar to them.

From the outset, our department head, Matt Roach, was very confident that both our curriculum and our collective strengths would make for a smooth transition to the remote classroom.

I started using Canvas with Google Drive. I can watch students compose in real time and quickly and easily give them direction as they work. I use Google Docs in breakout rooms with groups. It’s easy to monitor activity by watching different-colored cursors on the screen and see who’s contributing. When you see five cursors composing at different places on the page, it’s exhilarating.

I’ve been excited about EdPuzzle, which places interactive content into existing videos. I assign video clips with questions that pop up during viewing. I learned to use Adobe Premiere to edit video clips, and I now use it for chapel recordings.

Marc Onion

33 SPRING/SUMMER 2021

“This year has clarified that even in my most teachercentered lessons, interaction is at the heart of the experience.”

Tim Corica math teacher What inspires him: Finding new ways to teach. “I’ve never been a teacher who takes last year’s folder out of the drawer. I have to reinvent things — that’s where the intellectual pleasure comes from.”

What he’ll continue going forward: “This year has clarified that even in my most teachercentered lessons, interaction is at the heart of the experience.

The small exclamations, the shifting of students in chairs, the shared emotion when something interesting or surprising comes up in mathematics — much of this depends upon us all being together.”

thinking and lets me look over their work in detail at leisure.

In class, presentations used to take an enormous amount of time. This year, students recorded presentations on Zoom with a fixed time limit.

We played each recording in class, taking questions along the way. All presentations were posted to Canvas as an assignment, and students had to make at least one substantive comment on the other presentations and include one point of praise.

I have a Smartboard in my house that plugs into my laptop. I teach from the Smartboard and turn around and see all my kids’ faces on Zoom; they can just wave their hands to ask questions. I can see if they’re nodding along or if they look happy or worried – and that’s very important to me.

Pre-pandemic, I would walk around the physical classroom and briefly glance at students’ notebooks to check that homework was done. Now, students submit photos of their notebook pages. Working on paper allows for a different kind of

Tim Corica

34 PEDDIE CHRONICLE

Cathy Watkins director of visual arts

Cathy Watkins

What inspires her: Motivated by an online class she took through Rhode Island School of Design, Watkins had Honors Studio artists create blogs with images of and reflections on their work.

What she’ll continue going forward: One-on-one meetings over Zoom.

“Being able to check in with students privately has been a great bonus; we can look at their piece together on the screen, and I can be very prescriptive in guiding their work.”

In an art classroom, conversations with students can sometimes last 10-15 minutes. And in that time, other students will often start to hover in the psychological space of that one-on-one conversation I’m trying to have. By isolating these conversations on Zoom, they no longer feel fractured; I can give each student my full attention.

Kurt Bennett English teacher and director of Signature Programs What inspires him: “I realize the value of being in the room with each other, being in conversation in person, being able to react in person and in real time when you’re discussing ideas.”

What he’ll continue going forward: A deeper appreciation of the value of in-person interaction and education.

Pre-pandemic, there had been significant discussion in the pedagogical world about the viability of online school and whether it posed a potential alternative to the in-person school experience. There was an uptick in the use of online learning platforms at both the high school and college levels. There is a lot of

Students at all levels have created portfolios using Google Slides. We exchange comments in the comment box. I can also pull out the stylus and draw right on top of their piece to give specific guidance – correcting lines to teach perspective or demonstrating how to create a sense of depth, for example. At the end of each project, students can see the evolution of their work in this series of slides.

When I walked into my art history class this term, with most of the students in person, the conversation flowed so naturally. And the freshmen were so happy to be in the room together – it was like opening a crate of puppies. That drove home for me how beneficial it is to have flesh-and-blood classes.

value in some of those tools, especially in relation to increasing access to educational opportunities.

In our work, certainly, Zoom makes conversations with individual students more accessible – it gives us the opportunity to interface in a way that better approximates the in-person experience.

But being able to compare online learning to in-person learning over this last year has made clear the value of being in the room together. And that’s especially true in English, where classes are discussion-based, and our focus is on how we relate and respond to each other both in practice and content. It’s been wonderful to come back in hybrid mode, and I’m looking forward to a full return in the fall.

35 SPRING/SUMMER 2021

Victoria Montgomery math teacher What inspires her: The “sparkling eyes” of her students. “I have so much respect for our students — they are smart, passionate and kind.”

What she’ll continue going forward: Efforts to meet personally with each new student over Zoom.

“I think I understand my students better than when I was in the physical classroom.”

My job is to provide opportunities and experiences to students for intellectual, social and moral growth. This year, two major questions I had to ask myself were: Can I provide these experiences in a sustainable way? And to what extent can the students and I adjust and excel amidst the often rapidly-changing circumstances? We had to convince ourselves and the students that they could take charge of their education and learn how to learn in this environment.

My colleague Greg Koch and I teach Pre-Calc Honors.

It’s an accelerated course, so it can be a bit shocking, especially for new students. Last summer, we met with every student in this course. Parents were also invited to attend. Getting to know them made their entrance into the class much more comfortable. I hope to continue these meetings each year with our new students.

I make sure to check in with students; I call our classroom a negotiation space.

And it’s amazing how responsive students are when you hear their needs. If I give them a break from homework one night, they come back the next day and do twice as much work as expected.

Jenate Brown English teacher What inspires her: “I’ve missed our office.

‘Hamlet’ is our shared senior text; we normally spend a lot of time talking about it during winter term. We missed that so much this year, so [Sarah] Jensen, [Matt] Roach and I recorded a couple of podcasts about it. We didn’t require students to listen, but we shared it in case they were interested in hearing us think through our ideas.”

What she’ll continue going forward: Remembering to play to students’ strengths and provide them multiple modes for demonstrating mastery. “All students, no matter the class level, should feel like they are bringing something valuable to the table.”

Our classroom is discussion-based, so it made sense to assess the students as such – and having them create podcasts was a great method.

Departmentally, the project fits; it aligns with the colloquiums all seniors participate in upon completing their theses. We’re getting kids

together to talk about a thing they’re excited about, articulate ideas, quote books and talk through why they think a particular passage is important. Hopefully, they find some common joy in the work.

As we consider being more transparent about the ways in which diversity, equity, inclusion and justice find themselves in our curriculum, podcasts may be a good vehicle for sharing these thoughts with the community. We want our students to be humans who think deeply about their decisions and who are willing to explain, explore and challenge their own thinking. If we are going to make that demand, it’s only fair that we allow them to turn that critical eye to us.

Jenate Brown

36 PEDDIE CHRONICLE

“At first, we were building the boat as we were sailing it.”

Marisa Green

Marisa Green director of choral music What inspires her: The hope of affording students real singing opportunities in the fall. “Students learn to be good singers by standing in a section with other singers and soaking up what they hear and see around them.”

What she’ll continue going forward: Digital audio mixing skills. “Until last year, these skills were not considered an expectation for conductors and music directors, but a basic understanding of these tools and how to use them has become a valuable asset.”

At first, we were building the boat as we were sailing it. It was like first-year teaching all over again. But unlike my first year, there was no one to use as a resource. No one had experience doing this. Out of necessity, I began to learn how to mix audio for choral projects and to produce the end-of-term concert video and the winter musical.

Making recordings in isolation is a very useful skill for students; it also allows us to share our story with a larger constituency. But it doesn’t allow students the experience of learning in a section with other singers, and that’s really how you become a good singer. In chorus, the whole is bigger than the sum of its parts.

37 SPRING/SUMMER 2021

Peddie honored Tom Petrino ’71, Jack Todd ’71, Danielle Maschuci ’96, Rich D’Andrea ’01 and the 2000 Field Hockey and 2000–2001 Girls’ Basketball Teams at the 35th Sports Hall of Fame induction ceremony held on June 5 during Virtual Alumni Weekend. Their exceptional feats have inspired others and brought lasting recognition to Peddie Athletics.

38 PEDDIE CHRONICLE

TOM PETRINO ’71 SOCCER

Tom Petrino is one of the best natural goal scorers in Peddie’s history. An incredibly dynamic offensive machine with or without the ball, Petrino had the innate ability to read the field and be in the right place at the right time. Call it “game intelligence.”

Opponents often dedicated man-to-man coverage or even a double-team strategy to silence Petrino. But defenders struggled to cope with his intensity and precision once he settled the ball at his feet. Like all gifted attackers, he was fearless in the box and possessed a nose for the back of the net.

A highly touted Division I recruit, Petrino continued his soccer career at Bucknell before transferring to Rider College, where he led the Broncos in scoring with 10 goals in 1973.

Petrino’s induction to the Peddie Sports Hall of Fame is well-deserved and brings pride to our great athletic traditions.

In four varsity seasons for the Falcons, Petrino racked up 59 goals in just 53 matches to produce a staggering strike rate of 1.11 goals per game. Those numbers represented an astonishing 48.4% of the team’s total offensive production.

It didn’t take long for Petrino to get acclimated to high school soccer. In just his second game, he found the net against Pennington in a 4–1 win. His early goal against Mercer County powerhouse St. Anthony’s jumpstarted a 4–2 upset win. Petrino bagged his team-leading 12th marker against Blair as he tucked home a penalty kick with 5:45 remaining for a dramatic 1-0 victory.

The goal-producing dynamo etched his place in Peddie soccer lore during his junior season when he scored 22 goals to guide the Falcons to an 8–4–1 record. An injury forced him to miss games against Moorestown Friends and Pingry, both ending in 1–0 losses. His scoring rate was simply off the charts, averaging a goal every 30 minutes or two goals per game. Fittingly, his penalty kick conversion once again fended off Blair, 1–0.

Elected captain by his teammates during his junior and senior campaigns, Petrino was twice named the recipient of the Evans Hicks Trophy for Most Outstanding Player. He earned several post-season honors as well, including First Team All-PrepParochial (1969–70).

Petrino also excelled in basketball and baseball and received the John D. Plant Basketball Award for best exemplifying the Peddie spirit in cooperation, sportsmanship and skill.

Tom Petrino ’71 finds the back of the net.

39 SPRING/SUMMER 2021

JACK TODD ’71*

FOOTBALL BASKETBALL BASEBALL Jack Todd embodied all the best characteristics the Peddie Sports Hall of Fame strives to honor: athletic excellence, humility and service to the Peddie community. Todd’s grit and tenacity across three different team sports are still an inspiration to those who saw him in action.

At 6 feet 2 inches tall and 230 pounds, Todd was physically imposing. But he was remarkably agile and quick for an athlete his size. His advisor described him as one of those “athletically gifted kids” who sought success and embraced it without fanfare.

“It’s a miracle the way Jack’s on-field toughness is matched by his kind-hearted, gentle personality off it,” he said. While his name is not among the Peddie career leaders in touchdowns, points or RBI, the Sports Hall of Fame Committee universally agrees that the Hall of Fame would be incomplete without Todd’s induction.

As a member of the 1970 undefeated football team, Sports Hall of Fame Class of 1990, Todd complemented 1,000-yard back Tyrell Hennings ’71. Assistant coach Charlie Clark ’66 said, “Jack could always be found selflessly blocking for Tyrell, if not himself ramming the ball down the throats of helpless linebackers. But, Jack’s most important contribution that year was his role as the team’s spiritual leader, like having a 12th man on the field.” Rich Hutchinson ’71 recalled a play at Williamson College of the Trades when “Jack powered around left end and literally sent the

Jack Todd ’71 (top left) was a sophomore on the 1968–69 State Championship team.

would-be tackler flying out of bounds, with a crackling sound that seemed to echo for minutes. But as great an athlete as he was, Jack’s will more than matched his physical skills.”

Todd’s gridiron success carried over to the basketball court, where he emerged as an impact performer midway through his sophomore year. During the 1968–69 and 1969–70 basketball seasons, the Falcons compiled a 33–11 record and captured two NJISAA Class A championships. Todd performed at the highest level in the clutch, grabbing crucial rebounds on each end of the floor and making the right plays.

A three-year starting catcher and senior co-captain for Peddie baseball, Todd helped the Falcons to an overall mark of 43–10. As a sophomore, Todd was already a top-notch defender with a cannon-like throwing arm. Clark coached Todd during his senior season. “No one would dare round third base without noticing Jack’s stocky, brute presence blocking home plate. Also, Jack was my number four hitter following major league recruit Brian Masella ’71 in the lineup.

If you were the pitcher, you had no choice but to pitch to one of these home run hitters. Truly, they were a baseball manager’s delight.”

Todd was president of the freshman class, served as sports editor for The Peddie News and yearbook, and was elected to the Gold Key Society. In addition, he volunteered as a campus tour guide and was an elected member of the Student Honor Committee.

Hutchinson concluded: “Our Class of 1971 had an amazing group of talented, intelligent and unique people. But Jack was always the best of us.”

Jack Todd ’71 (left) grinds out chunks of yards.

40 PEDDIE CHRONICLE

*Honored posthumously

DANIELLE MASCHUCI ’96 LACROSSE

As a member of the Falcon attack for three years, Danielle Maschuci helped steer the Peddie girls’ lacrosse program to a banner campaign in 1996, rolling to its best record to date at 11–4. Supported by the offensive heroics of Maschuci, Katie Horner ’96, Kelly Ritter ’96 and Mandie Sudol ’97, the Falcons sprinted to an 8–0 start, highlighted by their firstever win over Lawrenceville. Despite a season-ending setback to Lawrenceville in the state semifinals, Coach Leigh Wood’s squad gained respectability.

Maschuci’s success was largely driven by grit, perseverance and strength of character. “Danielle is a natural athlete who put her talent to work for tennis, basketball, lacrosse, and in the fall of 1995 for the first time, the field hockey team,” wrote Peddie’s College Counseling office.

“In the sports arena, she is a spirited team member who puts the good of the whole before herself. Her maturity, self-confidence and grace are a winning combination for future success,” they said.

On the playing fields, Maschuci possessed a perfect blend of humility and fierce resolve.

Mary (Tennyson) Mahoney ’94, captain of the 1994 lacrosse team, described an All-American in the making. “Danielle joined the team as a sophomore and made an immediate impact with her incredible

skills, speed and integrity of play.

Her positivity was infectious, and she raised the caliber of performance and commitment based on her work ethic and can-do attitude, making the team more cohesive and ultimately more successful.”

Danielle Maschuci ’96: a gritty Coach Wood had a competitor and a truly gifted front-row seat as she athlete watched Maschuci’s explosive athleticism.

“Danielle was fearless, fast, nimble and completely unintimidated. She was the girl you wanted to have the ball because she had the ability to make things happen. Defensively, she could use her speed to chase down her opponent and did the extra scrap to force turnovers.”

At Johns Hopkins, Maschuci became the trailblazer for the university’s conversion from Division III to Division I lacrosse. She helped the Blue Jays to an overall record of 48–17 in her four years, including a mark of 26–7 in two years in Division III and 22–10 in the program’s first two Division I seasons.

A three-time All-American and the first Blue Jay to earn the honor at the DI level, Maschuci put up points at a prodigious rate. She netted 197 goals for a career average of 3.44 goals per game, which remains the Johns Hopkins’ standard. Maschuci received The Catherine P. Carmer Award, given to the senior female who has made the most outstanding contribution in athletics at Johns Hopkins. Head coach Janine Tucker said, “Danielle was the quarterback and the heart of the team. In addition, she was very unselfish and had a tremendous rapport with the younger players. Her explosive scoring punch and team play will be hard to replace.” Maschuci was inducted into the JHU Hall of Fame in 2011.

The Peddie Sports Hall of Fame now celebrates the unmatched dedication and athletic skill of Danielle Maschuci.

Danielle Maschuci ’96 is all smiles as her team takes the win.

41 SPRING/SUMMER 2021

RICH D’ANDREA ’01 LACROSSE

Rich D’Andrea was a formidable force protecting the cage during his three years at Peddie, helping the team to a cumulative record of 44–5.

At 6 feet 2 inches tall and 185 pounds, D’Andrea created a sizable wall to block incoming shots reaching Rich D’Andrea ’01 displays lightning80–90 miles quick reflexes. per hour from 10 yards out. But it was his explosive reflexes, first step towards the ball and stickhandling skills that set him apart from his peers. D’Andrea had all the tools of an elite goalie. He was a leader on the field and a strong communicator for directing the defense, combined with the “attack the ball” mindset to turn saves into instant offense. Peddie Hall of Fame Coach Bob Turco praised his star pupil. “In 40-plus years of coaching, Rich was the only goalie I let be captain, as most could not handle the double pressures.”

D’Andrea set an incredibly high standard of excellence for himself and Peddie lacrosse. And he did not disappoint. He was named a High School All-American during his junior and senior campaigns and twice collected the Dietrich von Schwerdtner Award for Goalie of the Year in New Jersey. At the Spring Sports Banquet, D’Andrea won the Ed Parda Lacrosse Award (2000) for the player who sacrifices personal achievement for the good of the team and the Outstanding Player Award for 2001.

D’Andrea helped turn the tables against archrival Lawrenceville, defeating Big Red in five of six matchups over three years, resulting in two NJISAA Prep A championships and three straight Mid-Atlantic Prep League titles. On May 8, 2000, at Lawrenceville, D’Andrea ascended to the top of his game, making 14 saves in an 8–5 win while holding Big Red to a season-low goal output. In the second half, D’Andrea stopped all but one shot to seal the win. “Rich stymied Lawrenceville all afternoon,” said Turco following the game. “He anticipates well and has a quick stick. That’s why his save percentage is one of the highest around.

He’s an All-American in my book.”

Other teams quickly learned how tough it would be to solve D’Andrea. On the Falcons’ journey to the 2001 undefeated season (16–0), D’Andrea and company held opponents to single digits in arguably the program’s most challenging schedule. Peddie celebrated an 8–7 win over future Tournament of Champions, Moorestown and a 10–9 conquest of Top 10 Bridgewater in two epic battles.

“D’Andrea was in the zone and made saves no one had any business to stop,” Turco said.

D’Andrea went on to play at Georgetown University, where he made four straight NCAA Division I Tournament Quarterfinal appearances and twice earned Big East AllLeague goalie honors. He captained the Hoyas his senior year and was a two-time recipient of the Unsung Hero Award.

Rich D’Andrea belongs in the Hall of Fame, for he is truly one of the most competitive and respected student-athletes that ever played lacrosse at Peddie.

42 PEDDIE CHRONICLE

2000 FIELD HOCKEY TEAM Head Coach Leigh Wood’s team is one for the history books. Finishing the season with a 16–1 mark, the Falcons captured the Mid-Atlantic Prep League crown (5–0) and the Mercer County Tournament. The high-octane offense notched 85 goals, while goalie Casey Burnett ’01 played every minute (1,034) and anchored a defense that yielded just 17 goals and posted six shutouts. The only blemish on an otherwise near-perfect campaign was a gut-wrenching overtime loss to Hun in the Prep A semifinals.

A gifted playmaker with a rocket for a shot, Julia Croddick ’01 led the team with 31 goals and 13 assists. She became the first Falcon selected to the prestigious Mid-Atlantic High School Regional All-American Team.

At the Peddie Athletic Banquet, a special The 2000 Field Hockey Team was a team of resilience, skill and courage.

Achievement Award was presented to Croddick for her contributions to the program.

Kelly potted the eventual game-winner and added an “Julia’s pure athleticism and intensity have been insurance marker to lock up the victory. something special to watch,” said Wood.

“This season was a tribute to the team’s resilience, More than a one-dimensional team, the Falcons stamina and courage,” said Linda Martinelli, former also relied heavily on the double-digit point goalie coach and superfan. “They were an incredible group of athletes who overwhelmed most opponents production from Steph Kelly ’01 (Coach’s Award with superior skill to become one of the area’s for sportsmanship, loyalty and commitment), greatest teams.”

Kristen Bocina ’02 and Catherine Efros ’01. On the defensive side of the pitch, Kate Dowd ’01 and Emily The 2000 Field Hockey Team embodies the spirit of Palilonis ’03 protected Casey with abandon and competition and the commitment it takes to attain helped the Falcons’ defense hold opponents to just excellence.

7.0 shots on goal per match. “Emily was a tenacious defender, fast and able to move the ball up the field to the forward line with ease and grace,” said Wood.

Dowd was named the team’s MVP and received the coveted Winant Cup for academic and athletic ROSTER excellence.

The Falcons defeated Lawrenceville for the second time, rolling to a 3–1 win to claim the Mercer County title. With Coach Wood attending a family wedding in Georgia, varsity assistant Jan Pittas and Athletic Director Susan Cabot took charge, and “our kids did not let them down.” Sarah Hom ’02, LynAlison Martin ’02 and Kelly all found the back of the cage before Big Red snapped Burnett’s clean sheet bid.

The season finale against host Blair was fittingly dramatic. Peddie used three unanswered goals in the second half to erase an early 1–0 deficit and defeat the Bucs 3–1. Bocina jammed in the equalizer, and

Kristen Bocina ’02 Casey Burnett ’01 Jennifer Collins ’03 Julia Croddick ’01 Laura Decker ’01 Kate Dowd ’01 Catherine Efros ’01 Portia Formento ’04 Aubrey Gale ’03 Sarah Hom ’02 Stephanie Kelly ’01 Samantha Levitt ’04 LynAlison Martin ’02 Katherine Merriman ’04 Emily Palilonis ’03 Laura Semenetz ’01 Jeffrey Kelly ’04, Manager Rebekah Scotland ’02, Manager

43 SPRING/SUMMER 2021

2000–2001 GIRLS’ BASKETBALL TEAM One of the most successful coaching tandems at Peddie, Sean Casey and assistant Eric “Gus” Gustavson guided the 2000–2001 Peddie Girls’ Basketball Team to one of the best win-loss records in the program’s history at 23–2. The list of accomplishments is impressive. The team reeled off 13 straight wins to start the season and cruised to the Mid-Atlantic Prep League and NJISAA Prep A titles. In the first-ever Mercer County Challenge, the Falcons defeated West Windsor-Plainsboro South, a Central Jersey Group IV finalist, 54–44.

The Peddie defense allowed only 35 points a game, and most teams were helpless in slowing down the flying Falcons’ fastbreak offense. Facing the toughest schedule in their history, Peddie posted big road wins over traditional New Jersey stalwarts, Bishop Eustace, Gloucester Catholic, Haddonfield, Toms River North and East Brunswick. Its only setbacks came to parochial power St. John Vianney and nationally-ranked Germantown Academy.

The Falcons had waves of talent and dominated the post-season All-Prep teams. Christina Campion ’03, Jenna Graber ’02 and Yvette Rutherford ’01 claimed first-team berths. Campion earned Prep School Player of the Year honors and spearheaded the offense with 448 points for a team-high 17.9 average. She was also the Falcons’ rebounding leader and with her size and mobility in the post, became a match-up nightmare for any defense. From the perimeter, Graber kept defenses spread out with her uncanny consistency from 3-point land. She averaged 14.4 points a game, with almost half of her offensive production coming from behind the arc as she drained 56 shots from long distance. Rutherford provided additional rebounding and scoring punch to the Peddie attack as the post-grad forward from England returned from an early-season injury to average nearly 10 points a game. Casey made it a clean sweep of individual accolades earning Coach of the Year recognition.

The 2000–01 Girls’ Basketball Team was made up of tenacious defenders, playmakers and versatile offensive weapons.

44 PEDDIE CHRONICLE

And the Big Three had plenty of versatile reinforcements ready to neutralize the opposition.

Whitney Douthett ’03, a tenacious defender, averaged 7.2 points a game and racked up six double-digit performances. Christine Salinas ’01 netted 120 points and picked up the scoring slack with a 13-point effort against Haddonfield. Captain Sera Hamilton ’02 garnered respect for her dogged competitiveness and selfless dedication to the team.

No wonder Hamilton was named the recipient of the Coach’s Award for best exemplifying sportsmanship, good citizenship and loyalty.

ROSTER Christina Campion ’03 Whitney Douthett ’03 Laura Giusto ’03 Jenna Graber ’02 Seraphine Hamilton ’02 Brittany Hammer ’03 Kaitlyn McHugh ’01 Carolyn Morin ’01 Maria Nichols ’02 Yvette Rutherford ’01 Christine Salinas ’01 Lauren Zecca ’01 Randolph Vesprey ’03, Manager

Four-year letter winners Kaitlyn McHugh ’01 and Lauren Zecca ’01, along with Laura Giusto ’03, Brittany Hammer ’03, Maria Nichols ’02 and Carolyn Morin ’01 added 207 points to the mix.

Special recognition goes to manager Randolph Vesprey ’03 for taking care of the behind-the-scenes organizational tasks.

left in the first quarter. “My teammates didn’t say anything about it, but they were looking to set me up,” she said.

On February 21, 2001, in the Falcons’ win over Montclair Kimberley Academy in the Prep final, Graber reached the 1,000-point plateau with 2:24

The 2000–2001 Girls’ Basketball Team represented the best in the game, for they knew how to play and work the hardest to achieve success on the court.

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