The Magazine of William Penn Charter School
fall 2013
The STRATEGIC VISION for Penn Charter’s future is organized around six goals, each with a set of strategies. Goal 1: Quakerism Goal 2: Content ultiple platforms for content M delivery, including new technologies, will maximize student engagement and success.
Goal 3: Teaching Goal 4: Time Goal 5: Space Goal 6: Financial Sustainability
Educating Students to Live Lives that Make a Difference A Strategic Vision for the Future of William Penn Charter School
Penn Charter’s new 1:1 laptop program will put a laptop in the hands of every student in grades 4 through 12 within two years. No more laptop carts. No more mix of computer platforms and capacity. No more inequities between students with high-end technology and students with less tech capacity. The new program offers access for all, with the speed and mobility that characterize 21st century computing. Penn Charter’s 1:1 laptop program began this year in grades 4 and 5 with Chromebooks for each student; the school supplied the devices and will continue in subsequent years. Students in grades 6 and 9 purchased, leased or were loaned a MacBook with the minimum capacity of a MacBook Air; the program will expand next year so that all students in grades 6 through 12 will use an Apple Mac for their school work. In the Upper School, the former room 109 (above) was reimagined as a technology center for Upper School students. Adjacent to Gummere Library, the space connects the power of research with technology, all in a space that fosters collaboration. PC teachers and administrators are attentive to upsides, challenges and
revelations of the new 1:1 laptop program. Several months into the program, a ninth grade teacher reflected: “In my teaching, access to a wide range of tools enables me to be creative about managing and delivering content, and about communicating with students about their work. I once feared that laptops would shut down the conversational and conferencing channels of traditional teaching practices. Now I realize that my writing feedback can become more targeted and timely – and for my students, it can seem more “native” to their out-of-school communication modes. Luckily, students still keep hauling their physical bodies over to the departmental office to talk about their papers as well.”
Contents Fall 2013
Features
12 C hallenges & Success PC Strategic Vision Advances.
Faculty and administrators are working to implement Penn Charter’s bold Strategic Vision. A generous gift from Ellen and Duncan McFarland will help make these innovations possible.
Penn’s Purpose................................................................................... 14 Sustainability.......................................................................................16 Art & Design..........................................................................................20
26 Women’s Legacy
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Alumnae Shape Vision for Girls Sports. Motivated by their former mentors and coaches, a group of female graduates work to boost girls sports at PC.
Departments Opening Comments
From the Head of School....................................................................................... 2 Around Campus
Campus Currents...................................................................................................... 3
26
PC/GA Day....................................................................................................................6
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2013 Commencement...........................................................................................8 PC Profiles: Robert Lifson, Dana Bate...................................................... 10 Alumni
Athletic Honor Society....................................................................................... 30 2013 Alumni Weekend......................................................................................... 33 Class Notes...............................................................................................................36
On the Cover
The iron gate salvaged from the former PC campus at 12th and Market Streets inspired the logo for the new Center for Public Purpose. Read more on page 14.
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Opening Comments
From the Head of School The Magazine of William Penn Charter School
At our opening assembly in September, I welcomed our students to the new academic year and to the beginning of our celebration of the founding of Penn Charter 325 years ago. I tried to impress upon our students the reward derived from being part of the oldest Quaker school in the world, one which
Darryl J. Ford Head of School Stephanie Judson Associate Head of School Elizabeth A. Glascott Assistant Head of School Anne Marble Caramanico Clerk, Overseers John T. Rogers Hon. 1689 Chief Development Officer J. Peter Davis OPC ’74 Alumni Society President
predates the United States of America. I also emphasized that with the value of a Penn Charter education comes the responsibility to heed William Penn’s
Magazine Staff
charge to “Do good with what thou hast.”
Sharon Sexton Editor
In that assembly, Quakers Dozen performed a piece set to the words of T.S. Eliot and composed by Penn Charter Choral Director Joe Fitzmartin. Quakers Dozen beautifully sang, “We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.” Eliot’s words, Fitzmartin’s composition, and the Quakers Dozen’s exquisite rendering poignantly capture a special moment in time at Penn
Rebecca Luzi Assistant Editor Michael Branscom Feature Photography Proof Design Studios Design
in remarkable ways; a new Strategic Vision that is furthering the strength of teaching and
William Penn Charter School 3000 West School House Lane Philadelphia, PA 19144
learning, and deepening our Quaker commitments of service, stewardship and sustainability;
215.844.3460
and an expanding level of financial support that will strengthen today’s Penn Charter and
www.penncharter.com
Charter: an historical anniversary; a thriving educational program that is challenging students
secure our school’s future. In this magazine, I am certain you will witness the breadth and depth of what is happening at Penn Charter and what our graduates are doing outside our red doors and beyond our white post-and-rail fence. I hope, too, that you will feel the excitement that I experience each day when interacting with our students, faculty and staff, and at every occasion when I meet our
Penn Charter is the magazine of William Penn Charter School. It is published by the Marketing Communications Office and distributed to alumni, parents and friends of the school. In addition to providing alumni updates about classmates, reunions and events, the magazine focuses on the people, the programs and the ideas that energize our school community.
graduates. As T.S. Eliot’s words convey, the spirit of exploration is alive at Penn Charter, the anticipation of arriving where we started when this Friends school was founded 325 years ago is real, and the exhilaration of knowing this place for the first time palpable.
Follow Penn Charter at your favorite social media sites: Facebook Login and get updates.
Sincerely,
Twitter Updates and announcements. youtube Video and announcements.
arryl J. Ford D Head of School
Please Recycle this Magazine
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Campus Currents
Buenos Dias from Buenos Aires!
S NEW HEIGHTS
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elaying, bouldering and spotting are now part of the vocabulary of the physical education curriculum. In October, Penn Charter installed a climbing wall in Dooney Field House. Teachers were the first to train in Australian belay, a rope-and-harness system that utilizes a team of up to six belayers on the ground to support each climber. The Lower School curriculum will teach trust- and community-building activities as well as training in spotting one’s partner before students boulder (climb sideways, only to a certain height, without harnesses). “Climbing contributes to physical, social, cognitive and emotional development,” said Debbie White, chair of the Physical Education Department. “It hits all those points.” With almost 200 holds and eight top anchor points, the climbing runs can be altered to make the routes more or less challenging. The PE department is adding climbing to the curriculum in all three divisions; Upper School students taking Outdoor Recreation and members of the Green/Outdoors Club were the first to try their hand at it. The climbing wall was funded by Parent Community auction proceeds.
panish teachers Jean Taraborelli and Sarah Aguilar-Francis, along with 11 Penn Charter exchange students, traveled to Buenos Aires last June and blogged to their parents, friends and teachers back home about their Argentine adventure. For two weeks, the foreign exchange group chronicled their studies at PC’s sister school, Escuela Martin Buber in Buenos Aires, their interactions with students and host families, and their travels in Buenos Aires and beyond. When they returned, they posted reflections expressing how much they missed their host families and the culture. “I will miss the relaxed Latin American culture of greeting others with a kiss, a stress-free environment, and the vivid enjoyment of life which was always present,” one rising senior wrote. It’s not too late to read their blog at http:// penncharterbuenosaires2013.wordpress.com/.
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Campus Currents
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PC Wedding Bells
n Aug. 10, 2013, Lower School teacher Teodora Nedialkova and Middle School assistant director and Latin teacher James Fiorile got married! The happy couple met at Penn Charter in 2006 and got to know each other better while serving on a committee to reorganize and redesign the school’s website. Their wedding ceremony was followed by dancing and good cheer with their closest friends and family. Jim and Teodora are planning a honeymoon to their native Italy and Bulgaria in the summer of 2014. Congratulations!
Abdul-Kareem Muhammad and his teammates powered to the 67th Inter-Ac track title.
Setting records Penn Charter boys captured their 67th Inter-Ac Track and Field championship in May and set a new league record in the 4 x 400 relay. PC took home the trophy with an 84-63 victory over Malvern Prep. And, speaking of records, the win was the 22nd league championship for PC boys track coach Stephen A. Bonnie OPC ’66.
This Merits a Mention!
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our Penn Charter seniors won recognition in September as National Merit Scholarship Semifinalists. Daniel Zager, Leonard Brown, Leigh Steinberg and Jacob Snipes were among 16,000 semifinalists selected from more than 1.5 million U.S. high school students.
Congratulations to Penn Charter’s National Merit Semifinalists!
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The boys 4 x 400 team of James BiggsFrazier, Charlie Hoyt, Tre Williams and Daryl Worley – winners of the same event at the 2013 Penn Relays – finished in first with a time of 3:24.32. Worley, then a PC senior and now a freshman and football phenom at West Virginia University, finished the day with four gold medals, one each in the 100, 200, 400 and as anchor in the 4 x 400. Worley is the first athlete in Inter-Ac history to win four gold medals in each of three consecutive years.
Campus Currents
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PC + Smithsonian = COLLABORATION The Smithsonian Institution, the world’s largest museum and research complex, has launched a new 3D scanning and printing initiative designed to make its collection available worldwide – and Penn Charter is one of the institution’s partners in this innovative project. The 3D technology makes it possible for the Smithsonian to provide data for an artifact – for example, President Abraham Lincoln’s life mask – so that a school can download the data to a 3D printer, create a replica of the artifact, and use it to help illustrate lessons in history, art, science and more. PC chemistry teacher Corey Kilbane and the Penn Charter Innovation Club have been experimenting this year with two 3D printers, one purchased by the school and one provided by the Smithsonian. In addition, teachers from the Social Studies department will be helping to develop new curriculum tools, testing a Smithsonian designed iBook, and using the new viewer software at www.3d.si.edu. Kilbane made a presentation at the Smithsonian this fall, demonstrating how 3D scanning, viewing and printing can be used in the classroom. As part of this presentation, he highlighted how students in the Innovation Club have made a 3D scan of a statue of William Penn and used the 3D printer to produce small replicas of the famous sculpture by Alexander Calder.
Fall Festival
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he Annual FUNd Party teamed up with the Fall Festival this year, becoming an outdoor concert and festival for 800 guests with headliner Nano Whitman OPC ’98 (below) and his band from Austin, Texas. Pizza Wagon, Chickie’s & Pete’s, Down Home Diner, Say Cheese and Distrito Taco Truck kept us coming back for more, and kids found plenty to do at the craft tables and moon bounces. Students from all divisions served as opening acts, and members of the Penn Charter community spoke about what your Annual Fund dollars support, such as 1:1 laptops, a 3D printer, diversity programs and global connections.
Read more about innovative teaching and learning using 3D printing technology in the spring magazine.
Bacharach and David
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ongs popular in the 1960s found new life in Penn Charter’s November production of Back to Bacharach and David, a musical-review style show featuring 30 hits by composer Burt Bacharach and lyricist Hal David.
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127th Penn Charter walked away from a picture-perfect PC/GA Day with two Inter-Academic League championships – one in girls soccer, and one in boys water polo – and a ton of memories. The Inter-Ac championship is a first for girls soccer. The championship is a three-peat for boys water polo. Penn Charter finished the 127th PC/GA Day with wins in girls soccer, boys water polo, girls tennis, boys cross country and golf. Football ended in a heartbreaking 42-35 loss, but the five wins in the 10-sport competition left PC and GA tied for the Competition Cup. The cup will remain at Penn Charter for another year. MVP honors for the day went to Natalie Williams in girls tennis, Carl Christoph in boys water polo, Matt Sullivan in boys soccer, Lauren Dimes in girls soccer and James Biggs-Frazier in football.
PC/GA Day Media View photos on flickr. Watch the football game at www.thesfbn.com and the girls soccer game on Penn Charter’s Vimeo channel.
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Campus Currents
The girls soccer game drew a huge crowd to Somers Field for one of the most exciting games of the day. Penn Charter was assured of a shared title even with a loss, but the Quakers and new head coach Darci Borski came to win. With the game tied at 1-1 and less than 10 minutes remaining, senior and game MVP Lauren Dimes pounded the ball into the net to give PC the lead and the championship. The win was also the first soccer victory for PC against GA since girls soccer was added to the annual PC/GA contest in 1992. Penn Charter filmed the game: watch it on the school’s Vimeo channel. (Seven days later, the team captured the independent school state championship; more on page 29.)
The Penn Charter boys water polo team continued its league dominance with a win over GA at PC/GA Day, clinching a third straight InterAc title and seventh in eight years; the boys share the title with Malvern Prep. With a final score of 21-5, the outcome was never in much doubt, and coach Paul Macht was able to spread playing time around. The MVP of the game was goalie Carl Christoph, Class of ’14, who thwarted the GA squad with several stellar saves and had three assists offensively.
The football game, the final competition of the day, was explosive from the very start, with each team scoring on its first drive. Penn Charter dominated in the first half, but GA roared back in the second. A commentator on the live stream/on demand broadcast said the pace left even him “in need of oxygen.” PC running back James Biggs-Frazier and GA quarterback Hayes Nolte shared the Geis Trophy as most valuable players. At the conclusion of the 127th PC/GA Day football game, the 127game tally is PC 82, GA 34, and 11 ties. Watch the game on www.thesfbn.com.
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Campus Currents
c o ng r at u l at i o n s
class of 2013! “We believe that each individual possesses the inner light. This is the foundation – the cornerstone – of why we honor people’s differences and the ways that they define themselves as important, while, at the same time, we strive to see no difference between male and female, black and white, straight and gay, rich and poor. We each possess an “inner light.” This makes us all equal. And this unites us in ways which defy race and religion, creed and credence, gender and genes, socioeconomic status, or any other social or societal descriptor which serves to define us in limiting ways.” – Head of School Darryl J. Ford
Commencement speaker Ani Schug OPC ’13 also won the Phi Beta Kappa Award, presented to the student outstanding in scholarship in the graduating class.
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“ … our teachers inspire us to be passionate, curious and thoughtful. You show us how to do what we love, think deeply about the world around us, and ask challenging questions about the unknown. … We must dream big, really big. Big enough to encompass all the dreams of those who cannot or will not receive instruction as good as ours.” – Ani Schug OPC ’13
Head of School Darryl J. Ford with Marta Zamora, who retired in June after a 40-year career as a teacher, 18 of those years teaching Spanish at Penn Charter.
college choices An end-of-year survey by the Penn Charter College Counseling Office showed that 94 percent of students in the class are attending one of their top-choice colleges. Fifty-four percent were admitted to a “Most Competitive College” according to Barron’s Profiles of American Colleges. American University
Oberlin College (2)
Berklee College of Music (2)
Occidental College
Boston College
Pennsylvania State University (2)
Boston University
Pomona College
Brandeis University
Princeton University
Bryn Mawr College
Saint Joseph’s University (5)
Bucknell University (2)
Skidmore College
Carnegie Mellon University
St. John’s University
Clark University
Syracuse University (3)
College of Charleston (2)
Temple University (5)
Dickinson College
Tufts University
Drexel University (5)
Tulane University (2)
Eckerd College
United States Naval Academy (3)
will never forget what we are a part of, for we will always be
Elon University
University College Dublin
Fordham University Franklin & Marshall College (2)
University of California at Santa Barbara
George Washington University (2)
University of Colorado
OPC 2013 together.”
Georgetown University
University of Delaware
Hampton University
University of Denver
Haverford College
University of Miami
Hobart & William Smith Colleges (2)
University of Michigan (2)
Hollins University
University of Montana
Indiana University
University of New Hampshire
Ithaca College (2)
University of Notre Dame
Lehigh University (3)
University of Pennsylvania (14)
Loyola University Maryland
University of Pittsburgh (2)
Marist College
University of Southern California
Middlebury College (2)
University of Vermont
Monmouth University (2)
Ursinus College
Morehouse College
Washington University in St. Louis (3)
In the Old Gym before the processional, Senior Class President Gabriella DiGiovanni reviewed her remarks. She announced the results of the Senior Parent Gift: a record 92 percent of senior parents participated, and they raised a total in gifts and pledges of $127,000.
“I am a proud member of the Class of 2013, and I am confident our love and respect for each other will stay true as we all go on our separate ways. We
– David Huber OPC ’13
Muhlenberg College (2) New York University (3) New York University – Shanghai Erin Lo received the Alumni Senior Award, given to “a member of the senior class who, on qualifications of scholarship, character, leadership, and athletic ability, exemplifies the best Penn Charter type.”
West Chester University West Virginia University
Northwestern University
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PC P RO F I LE S
Good Fortune Is in the Cards Robert Lifson OPC ’78 by Jennifer Raphael
When at Penn Charter, Robert Lifson’s sports were ping pong and bowling. This wouldn’t be so unusual were it not for his current profession – which is the auction of high-end baseball cards and sports memorabilia and collectibles. Lifson founded and runs Robert Edward Auctions. The auction house has overseen the sale of some of the most valuable items in sports memorabilia – including Lou Gehrig’s farewell speech uniform, which sold for $306,000, and numerous Honus Wagner Babe Ruth rookie cards, which have sold for hundreds of thousands of dollars. Robert Edward Auctions, headquartered in Watchung, N.J., holds the record auction price for a Babe Ruth rookie card, which is $517,000. That was 2008. “If a nice one was offered today, I am pretty sure it would bring in more than a million dollars,” Lifson said. The auction house – a leader in the field today – grew out of Lifson’s boyhood hobby. He began collecting at the age of five. When he started, baseball cards were not as valuable, and as he grew older, he amassed cards by placing newspaper ads and canvassing his Rydal, Pa. neighborhood. “Fortunately, everyone humored me,” he remembered. “By 1970, when I was 10, my hobby became a business as I found I could sell cards to make money and buy new cards.” Lifson had amassed more than 50,000 cards by the time he was 15, gaining media attention in local papers, National Geographic World and Sports Collector’s Digest. “The nostalgia
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craze was just starting to take off, and while prices were modest by today’s standards, it was a great introduction to the history of baseball and the business world,” he said. “My parents let me travel all over the country to baseball card conventions, before I could even drive. I was not motivated by money, but by an interest in learning and a love of collecting.” The auction business evolved from these roots. “I found it was much more enjoyable to help others sell their items. I could handle more material and learn more.”
Lifson was enjoying the infancy of his future career while enrolled in Penn Charter’s Upper School. “The good humor and understanding of the teachers really stood out to me,” he recalled. “Mr. [Richard] Pepino was like having a mad scientist or the Michael Keaton character from Beetlejuice teach us chemistry. He really made science fun.” Besides baseball cards and crazy chemistry, the mid to late ’70s were a time of enormous social change in America, a time that Lifson said
made a school like Penn Charter, which had a more progressive worldview, a good place to be. “Respect for all walks of life, encouraging activism to create positive change by speaking out, being sensitive to others and having compassion for those in need – these are values that have certainly been reinforced by the Quaker education that I apply to my life and family every day,” he said. Another one of his favorite subjects at Penn Charter was history, which is not surprising given his passion for rare collectibles. “What I love about collectibles is how every item tells a story. In one way or another, I have learned just about everything I know about history from collectibles,” he said. “As an auctioneer, I consider myself more of a researcher. My interest is in learning about and teaching the history of baseball and the history of America through objects.” And there are still more objects out there that Lifson would love to have the chance to sell at auction. “I’d love to auction Jackie Robinson’s 1947 player contract and 1947 Dodger’s uniform, but that’s not likely to happen, although it would be a thrill!” he said. However, there are some Holy Grail items that are more plausible — such as a newly discovered Babe Ruth rookie card. “I’d love to see one of those cards break the million-dollar mark. Over the years, we’ve handled the sale of just about every known example out there, but we never know where the next one will come from. If anyone out there has a card, let us know!” PC
PC P RO F I LE S
Science and Storytelling Dana Bate OPC ’99 by Jennifer Raphael
You don’t meet many successful fiction writers with a degree in molecular biophysics and biochemistry. But Dana Bate, author of The Girls’ Guide to Love and Supper Clubs, is a science nerd who also happens to be a language nerd. At Penn Charter (OPC class of 1999, nee Greenspon), she could do both with ease. In the writing corner, she had Erin Hughes (formerly Ms. Purcell), who inspired her love of creative expression through words. “She is the one who lit the spark. She made me realize I could write. She made writing fun,” Bate said. “She not only made reading accessible and made my writing much stronger, but she led me to find my own voice. Of course my eighth grade voice is not the same as my voice today, but she helped me understand what that meant.” In the science corner, she had Alice Davis, who inspired her love of creative expression through chemistry. “Ms. Davis was like the mother hen when it came to chemistry. She would take people under her wing and encourage them and mentor them,” Bate recalled. “It was two completely different sides of my brain. In high school I could wear lots of hats. When I got to Yale I had to focus.” At Yale she chose science over writing, and stayed under the chemistry umbrella. “Yale was a challenging place, and I needed to focus on one discipline,” she said. “It’s a confusing decision, considering what I do now.” While her creative writing muscle didn’t get as much exercise, it didn’t atrophy completely. “By end of junior year and beginning of senior,
I missed having an outlet for storytelling,” she said. She found that outlet writing for the Yale Scientific Magazine, and then in her senior year she started reporting for an “NPR-esque” program on Yale’s WYBC radio. “Gradually, I was doing anchoring and producing, and I fell in love with storytelling again.” Most of her molecular biophysics and biochemistry peers went on to medical school, but she knew that wasn’t the path for her. She was intrigued by broadcasting but lacked the tools to move on to a job she desired. She decided to go to Northwestern University and get her master’s in journalism. After graduating, she landed a job working as a reporter and producer for the Nightly Business Report on PBS in Washington, D.C. For five years she fully immersed herself in visual storytelling, reporting on issues such as health care reform, nanotechnology, the housing crisis and the credit crunch. Her series on the Indian economy earned her a prestigious Gerald Loeb Award. And then, just as she began to feel the limits of journalism, an interesting opportunity presented itself. “I was pushing up against the boundaries of what I could do within journalism when it came to storytelling,” she recalled. “You’re locked in to the truth. You can’t make stuff up. I had been wanting to take a stab at returning to creative writing.” Her chance came in 2009, when her husband was offered a temporary job in England. “I thought, we may never get the chance to take this kind of leap again,” she said. She quit her job, and she and her husband moved to London. They spent four months there, and Bate began working on what would become her first novel. When she and her husband returned to D.C., she buckled down and completed Girls’ Guide. “I spent all of 2010 writing the book. I found an agent in early 2011 and sold it that summer.”
The well-received novel tells the story of a young Hannah Sugarman, who abandons a safe, seemingly perfect life to start cooking in a world of underground supper clubs. A few weeks after the book was published in February of 2013, Bate’s first child was born. “I gave birth to my first book and my first baby,” she said. “It was like having twins.” Bate and her husband moved back to the Philadelphia area to be closer to her family. She is currently at work on her second book and balancing her writing and parenting duties. She hasn’t forgotten the people who helped her on her very circuitous journey to lady novelist, and made sure to email Hughes after Girls’ Guide was published. “Teachers often go through class after class. It must be difficult to know if you are having an impact on people. You never know if they remember anything you taught them.” But Bate remembers. She remembers to use an active voice, to (try and) never start a sentence with “it” or similar weak words and to always look for compelling language. Her writing is very visual and fluid; it seems to take your hand and skip along with you as you turn the pages. But that science nerd is still inside her. “What I realize, all these experiences inform what I write about and how I write,” she said. “It may seem wacky that I majored in biochemistry, but that is in my pocket. I could have a character who knows all about science. All of my experiences inform what I do in the future.” PC
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Challenges and
Success
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hen Duncan McFarland considers Penn Charter’s future, he sees the promise of this 325-year-old Quaker school, and he sees the challenges we face. “We have the plan, and the program. But both are challenging and complicated,” he said. “We have to think in 25- and 50year time frames.”
McFarland transferred to Penn Charter when he was in elementary school. The Mathieu/Jones/McLaughlin/McFarland genealogy traces Penn Charter roots back generations, including Duncan McFarland’s maternal grandfather, Alfred E. Mathieu OPC ’11, and paternal grandfather, James B. McFarland OPC 1896. Family tradition pointed to PC as a logical choice – even so McFarland recalls his father, Alan R. McFarland OPC ’34, impressing upon him and his two brothers that they were being given an important opportunity not to be squandered. “We got his message: It’s time to work hard.”
To secure the future of the school that educated him, his brothers, his father and his grandfathers, Ellen and Duncan McFarland have made a $4,000,000 gift to Penn Charter. Why is Penn Charter a priority? “You have to give back to the people and places that made you,” Duncan McFarland OPC ’61 said.
McFarland remains good friends with many PC classmates, and especially some of his teammates. In this photograph from the Philadelphia Bulletin files, taken in September 1960, McFarland is #23, Roy Beauchamp OPC ’61 is #58. McFarland played center with quarterback Raymond Vickers OPC ’61, who is wearing #20 and taking a knee.
~ Duncan M. McFarland OPC ’61~
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McFarland excelled in the classroom and in high school took a rigorous schedule of advanced placement courses. He won honors and accolades, including the prestigious Senior Award, which the Alumni Society bestows based on qualifications of scholarship, character, leadership and athletic ability. His sports were football and baseball, and he remembers them long after he put away the helmet and cleats. “The lessons of playing to win, playing hurt, being a team player, training and managing yourself – all of these have been and continue to be important to me,” McFarland said in a 2000 speech to the PC Alumni Society. On his mother’s side, his Quaker ancestors arrived here from Wales in 1690 – a year
after William Penn and the Religious Society of Friends founded this old school. McFarland embraces Quaker values still. “We lived in a disciplined household,” McFarland said of himself and his brothers, Alan R. McFarland Jr. OPC ’60 and Stuart A. McFarland OPC ’65. “We did chores, we cut lawns – we knew what work was. And we saw various uncles involved in industries, like textiles, that involved physical labor.” When McFarland was a PC junior and his brother a senior, their father proposed a visit to the Philadelphia office of an uncle who was in an entirely different line of work: securities trading. “We went down there and watched him and it was numbers and it was talking. We knew what working was; this was sitting around talking with smart guys about numbers. We knew exactly what we were going to do.” McFarland’s name is painted on the wall of the Meeting Room – twice. He is one of four graduates of Penn Charter who have received the Senior Award and the Alumni Award of Merit. The remarks he delivered at PC in 2000 came as he accepted that second award from the Alumni Society. He thanked his parents for raising him and his brothers “in a unique culture of accomplishment and love.” And he thanked Penn Charter for providing him with “a great education and experience.” In a remarkable testament to continuity, what McFarland said he most remembered about PC in the ’50s and ’60s were the exact descriptors Ford uses today to explain the strength of the Penn Charter educational program: excellence in academics, arts and athletics, combined with Quaker tradition and values. McFarland graduated from Yale University, with honors, in 1965, and began a career in finance. In his remarks at PC in 2000, he gave a description of his career that would seem to understate the excitement of helping to grow a successful investment management company. “Someone recently asked me how I accomplished what I did in business,” he said. “On my first day … I got up early and went to work. I worked hard and did to the best of my ability everything anyone asked. I stayed late, and then I went home. The second day, I got up and did it again. Very simple.”
Duncan M. McFarland OPC ’61, left, with Head of School Darryl J. Ford. The McFarlands’ generous gift is unrestricted because, McFarland explained, “I don’t need to micromanage. I trust Darryl.”
Retirement, in 2004, has made it possible for McFarland to spend more time on board service and his philanthropic interests, which are focused on the environment and the inner city. He is on the board of directors of Panthera, a nonprofit promoting conservation strategies to protect tigers, lions, jaguars and other large and endangered cats; Rare, an international environmental group that runs social marketing campaigns to build public support for conservation; and New Profit Inc., a venture philanthropy nonprofit dedicated to creating high-impact social change. Just as he is bringing his passion and expertise to these endeavors, McFarland is helping to steward Penn Charter. He was one of the first calls Ford made when appointed head of school in 2007. “Years ago, when I first met with Duncan,” Ford recalled, “he asked one question which still resonates with me today. Duncan wanted to know whether we have the resources to deliver an excellent program. Specifically, he asked me whether we had the endowment to make certain that we could enroll every admitted applicant who needed financial aid. He wanted to know did we have the resources to hire the most talented faculty to deliver a program. He wanted to know did we have the classrooms and athletic facilities necessary for teaching students today. “Duncan challenged me to think about what excellence and success mean for every aspect of Penn Charter and to raise the
resources to deliver that program,” Ford said. The McFarlands’ gift will advance Penn Charter’s forward-thinking Strategic Vision, which McFarland supports. A private person who does not seek the spotlight, Duncan McFarland explained the main reason why he is talking about the gift: “Someone might see this and say, I can do this too.” PC
In the following 12 pages, read about the exciting innovations being made possible by gifts from Ellen and Duncan McFarland and others.
Educating Students to Live Lives that Make a Difference A Strategic Vision for the Future of William Penn Charter School Faculty and administrators are now working to achieve these goals and our vision: Goal 1: Quakerism Goal 2: Content Goal 3: Teaching Goal 4: Time Goal 5: Space Goal 6: Financial Sustainability
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Strategic Vision
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Private School, Public Purpose
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he evidence mounts: towers of food cans, piles of disposable diapers, stacks of used clothing. Behind the scenes, academic superstars offer SAT prep to public school students; educators from nine neighborhood schools meet in the Overseers Room to brainstorm how they can teach their students persistence; PC teachers develop a new interdisciplinary initiative combining science, design and philanthropy. “I’ve seen sort of an explosion this fall,” Jim Ballengee Hon. 1689 observed one busy day in November. “We are talking about bigger questions, and the result is we’re thinking in new and innovative ways.”
Strategic Vision
Goal 1: Deepen our identity and actions as a Friends school – and our students’ understanding of Quaker values – to prepare our graduates to live lives that make a difference.
Strategy: We will integrate service learning into the curriculum, pre-K to 12, and, as a private school with a public mission, create a Center for Public Purpose, a place where our students and the wider community can advance issues of equity, social justice and peace.
Excellence • Innovation • Collaboration
Ballengee is founder of Penn Charter’s new Center for Public Purpose, an initiative advanced by Head of School Darryl J. Ford in 2011. The center became a key strategy of the school’s Strategic Vision in 2012, was refined and codified by a working group of faculty, alumni and parents over the summer of 2013, and began its work this fall. There was little fanfare. “I think what’s unique about our Center for Public Purpose is that it is organic,” Ballengee said. “We can trace everything that we do today in public purpose work back to the origins of this school – and even the work the Overseers were doing in the 1700s. What we do today is rooted in the Quaker thought and belief that you look within yourself and go out and mend the world.” The world’s oldest Quaker school, Penn Charter already has a national reputation for its service learning program; that program is embedded in the curriculum and engages children in all grades in ageappropriate service activities that also serve educational goals. While the national reputation for that work is gratifying, those most involved with the new center are focused on local communities, local issues – and innovative solutions. “ I really want the Center for Public Purpose to be a place with open doors, a place where William Penn’s mission can be fulfilled,” said Jessie Levin, a senior and co-clerk of the student Service Council. Levin served last summer on the work group that helped finalize the center’s structure and goals. “Service projects are meaningful, but there are big issues. In 10 years, I want to see the center having tackled an issue and really made an impact.”
DID YOU KNOW? The logo for the new center was inspired by this iron gate, salvaged from the Penn Charter schoolyard at 12th and Market Streets and now on display in a PC hallway. The “nickname” Penn’s Purpose evokes founder William Penn and the Quaker values that have guided our school for 325 years.
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In the fall, third grade students adopted a year-long service project, a disposable-diaper drive for the nearby North Central branch of the Maternity Care Coalition. Students and teachers routinely collect donated diapers from all three divisions, packing the PC service van for delivery.
Spillover of Benefits The summer work group discussed at length whether the new center would be organized around the educational needs of Penn Charter students or the multitude of needs in the city of Philadelphia. In the end, the school decided to put PC students at the center of the work. That work will offer Upper School students the opportunity to engage in problem-solving with universities and public schools; for all students it offers opportunities to sharpen skills such as critical thinking, problem solving, collaboration, oral and written communication. The potential of service learning to build character and empathy has been proven over the years and attested to by generations of Penn Charter students. In her commencement address, Ani Schug OPC ’13 related her experience during a service project with two young girls visiting from St. James School in Allegheny West: “They wanted to see what a high school student’s locker looked like, so I took them down the hall to see mine,” she said. “When I opened my locker to reveal the mess inside, Ajia and Diamond laughed at my sloppiness. They immediately went to work organizing the textbooks and novels that they aspired to read as 11th graders themselves. As a junior, I often looked at those books as just more homework, but to Ajia and Diamond they symbolized untold opportunity, hope and wealth.” Ballengee said the benefits of the new center “will hopefully hit all levels. Not only our students, primarily, but our parents who are very involved in all the planning that’s taking place, our community stakeholders, our neighbors. There are spillover benefits, I think, for everyone.”
Education, Poverty and Food Insecurity Penn Charter will build on established and new partnerships to focus the center’s work, initially, on issues of equity in education, poverty and food insecurity in the city of Philadelphia. That does not mean there will be no more penny drives or projects to raise donations for medical research. However, the center will focus on understanding these three challenges and helping to devise solutions. “We’re never making the assumption that all of our kids are going to be social workers or go into homelessness prevention,” Ballengee said. “But no matter what they’re doing in life, no matter where, they will have had a series of experiences at Penn Charter that touched them, affected them in some way that makes them stop and question the status quo.” PC
Penn’s Purpose Online View a video about Penn’s Purpose, sign up for an RSS feed of Jim Ballengee’s blog, or read more about our projects and partners at penncharter.com/purpose.
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Strategic Vision
Committing to
G r ee n by Jonathan Howe
Coordinator of Environmental Stewardship and Sustainability
While it’s true that our Quaker testimonies compel us to protect the environment from a moral standpoint, I’ve also got my selfish reasons: I cherish the beauty, education and adventure the environment has brought to me and to my family. I grew up camping and fishing, and it saddens me to think that future generations wouldn’t – or worse couldn’t – have their own adventures in the woods. How will my children, or anyone’s children, decide whether fracking offers a safe source of domestic natural gas or poisons our groundwater for a month’s worth of fuel? How do we connect the consequences of our consumer and disposal habits to near or distant communities that might suffer them? The vast scale and complexity of these and other environmental concerns can be overwhelming and confusing. Add the fact that many environmental processes are either so slow, so high, so low, or so ambiguous as to be invisible, and it’s understandable why navigating such murky waters (metaphorically and otherwise) can be difficult. I am excited to serve as Penn Charter’s first sustainability coordinator to help our school understand and improve its environmental footprint and prepare our students to be better stewards. My charge is to coordinate the great work that students, faculty and staff are already doing in this arena as well as to help us do more. The initial efforts will include creating an “environmental master plan,” evaluating and expanding our environmental curricula, and, of course, directly reducing our environmental footprint. This
last goal means improving energy efficiency across campus, reducing the amount of waste we send to a landfill, considering the source and production of our foods and products, and a host of other activities and behaviors that define how Penn Charter gives to and takes from our environment.
Jonathan Howe, Upper School biology
teacher and Penn Charter’s new coordinator of environmental stewardship and sustainability, explains our new
“green” mission.
My position was created in response to goals and strategies in our Strategic Vision that relate to Penn Charter’s environment. For example, the first goal is to “deepen our students’ understanding of Quaker values.” One of the strategies to achieve that goal is to “prioritize environmental stewardship in the daily life of the school.” Another goal challenges us “to provide students with the knowledge and skills they will need to thrive in a complex and changing world.” One of the strategies to achieve this goal: “Teach environmental awareness and develop advocacy for environmental sustainability.”
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Committing to Green continued from page 17
The rafters are unchanged but the Old Gym’s lights are high tech.
OPC Gift Helps Reduce Carbon Footprint
So improving our environmental footprint is more than just a worthy campus goal measured in kilowatts, organic produce and improved recycling; this work is an integral part of the school’s Vision and Mission statements and our Strategic Vision. Our environmental work is one way in which we “educate students to live lives that make a difference.” With its articulate goals and strategies, the Strategic Vision is a map guiding us toward an environmentally conscious, efficient and productive school community.
The cornerstone for the gymnasium – the first building completed on the School House Lane campus – was laid in 1923. Nine decades later, photographs of the interior of the facility we now call the “Old Gym” revealed that not much changed from the 1920s through 2012: the windows, exposed rafters and wood paneling appear just the same. And so did the ceiling light fixtures. With new attention to stewardship and sustainability, Penn Charter commissioned a lighting energy analysis for the space that focused on energy consumption. The project was paid for by a larger gift from Gregory P. Hetter OPC ’54, a man of medicine and science with a keen interest in environmental sustainability. Hetter, a plastic surgeon, has lived in Europe, and the energy-conscious ways of the Swiss, in particular, have impressed him. Hetter, who personally eschews garbage disposals and clothes dryers, for example, wishes that U.S. consumers might pay more attention to energy consumption. The analysis of the Old Gym lighting indicated that the vintage lights used 26,180 kilowatt hours annually. A new lighting system would use only 4,031 kilowatt hours per year – a savings of 84.6 percent. A portion of Hetter’s gift made it possible for Penn Charter to spend $22,000 to install a new Lutron lighting system that captures that energy savings with: • 324-watt fluorescent tubes replacing 500-watt incandescent bulbs • Occupancy sensors that turn off the lights when the room is unoccupied more than 15 minutes • Dimming features that set the default at 40 percent of maximum power for use by, for example, a physical education class; the power can increase to 100 percent for a competitive basketball game, or dim below 40 percent to create the right ambiance for a dance. • Daylight sensors that push the default below 40 percent when the room is harvesting sunlight
Paul Rudalavage of Synergy Electrical Sales, local representative for Lutron, said the energy savings will pay for the system in eight years. PC will need to replace the fluorescent bulbs over time – but the fixtures will last several decades.
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Native plantings. Phillip Cooke OPC ’11 and Overseer Grace Cooke, with Head of School Darryl J. Ford, planted a scarlet oak sapling, a species native to Pennsylvania, in the front circle. Now that we have the map, we have to build the vehicle. There will be many, many ways in which Penn Charter will improve its environmental footprint. For example, this summer Head of School Darryl J. Ford, top PC administrators, Overseer Grace Cooke, and I took a “native plant walk” around campus with William Ryan, a University of Delaware doctoral student who specializes in native plants of Pennsylvania. As we looked at our current plantings and identified potential garden spaces for native plants, we discussed how native plants support greater numbers of native insects, which in turn support greater numbers of birds. The ecological benefits ripple out from there, beyond our campus. This conversation was a continuation of an excellent talk that Doug Tallamy, University of Delaware professor and author of “Bringing Nature Home,” delivered to last year’s ninth graders, in which he laid out his argument for converting yards to native plant nurseries. The campus walk led to campus talk, of course. We decided that the school should: • adopt a native plant policy to guide future plantings • plan ahead for replanting before our older trees die naturally • find space to plant small, manageable native gardens in unused places
Stewardship. On an after-school hike, Jonathan Howe, second from left, and members of the Green/Outdoors Club removed recyclables from the trail. Plastics. Penn Charter installed a bottle-filling water station in the Upper School and will install additional ones around campus this year. Suggested by the Upper School Green Club, the new fountains are a way to decrease the use of disposable water bottles. Committing to a campus of native plants is a prime example of how we can use the Strategic Vision’s strategies to achieve its goals – and it is just one way in which Penn Charter will address its environmental footprint. We will also get a better handle on our recycling opportunities, reduce our energy usage, and enhance our environmental curricula. I have hit the road to see what other schools are doing, to learn best practices, to see what works and what doesn’t, and to identify ways to monitor and communicate successes. There are thousands of worthwhile projects and goals, and one of the early challenges will be to organize and plan these efforts so that we make steady, efficient and measurable progress. Our ability to track progress and quantify results will depend on first establishing our baseline. To carry on the metaphor, if the Strategic Vision is our map, we need to figure out where to put the “You Are Here” sticker. This is a busy and exciting year for Penn Charter and for me. We all have a lot of work to do, but this kind of work is so gratifying. No
Re-use, Recycle. As a kick-off to Earth Week and a conclusion to the environmentally inspired Arts + Re-Creation fine art show, Penn Charter hosted a public electronic waste collection.
matter where you stand on the political spectrum, we can all feel good about honoring the Quaker testimony of stewardship. Taking care of our community, conserving limited resources, teaching our children to think about the world around them, and saving money by consuming less are all win-win situations. As we begin to celebrate our 325th anniversary, a commitment to stewardship is a commitment to making it another 325 years. PC
Taking Our Green Mission to the Source: A Teaser It’s a rainy Tuesday afternoon in the midst of Trimester 1, and where can Tom Rickards, chair of Religious Studies, be found? How about suspended in mid-air, dangling 25 feet above the ground? Don’t worry. He’s used to it. Rickards is a skilled rock-climber and, in addition to teaching classes such as Bioethics, South Asian Religions and Hebrew Bible (to name a few), he serves as a fearless faculty advisor for Penn Charter’s new Green/Outdoors Club. While the Green Club focuses on environmental awareness issues, over the past two years an idea slowly gained momentum among both faculty and students that a significant aspect of stewarding the environment is actually immersing oneself in it. Meeting twice a week this fall for rock-climbing with hopes for hikes and paddling in the spring – this marriage between the Green and Outdoor Clubs provides students and faculty with exciting and educational experiences surprisingly close to Penn Charter’s campus. “As much as it’s good to sit around and think about the environment, about these big issues, the Wissahickon is right there,” said Rickards. “Our hope is to build a wide range of activities because – given the location of our school – this stuff is right at our back door.” TO BE CONTINUED: In the spring issue, read how students are experiencing the school’s new green initiative.
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art
Strategic Vision
&
design The 21st Century Art Classroom by Connie Langland
W
hen Art and Design chair Sheila Ruen considers what education theorist Tony Wagner describes as the seven skills
essential to survival – and success – in the global knowledge economy, she has both the confidence and the conviction that these skills are part of the practice and pedagogy of Penn Charter’s art program. Critical thinking and problem solving; collaboration across networks; agility and adaptability; initiative and entrepreneurship; effective oral and written
communication; accessing and analyzing information; curiosity and imagination. Penn Charter’s Strategic Vision, adopted in 2012, emphatically embraces nurturing these skills and attributes. And PC’s visual arts teachers, attentive to the role and value of art education, have led the way in weaving this approach into the curriculum. Art class is not a dispensable luxury in a student’s jam-packed course schedule. Rather, Ruen said, visual arts students build persistence, resilience, creativity,
collaboration and problem-solving – skills now widely viewed as essential to success in college, career and citizenship. Ceramics is an example, Ruen said. “Learning to use the wheel, to maintain that focus; having your work collapse and doing it all over again; that kind of resilience, persistence and flexibility – those are basic skills, vital to success in many endeavors, and art is a great place to teach that.” Think of artists as inventors, says Lower School art teacher Karen Riedlmeier. Each time an artist picks up a brush, or wets a slab
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Art & Design The 21st Century Art Classroom
of clay, or begins work on a graphic, “they are being asked to think of something brand new. That’s an emphasis across education now.”
The Art and Design Department’s new name better reflects the scope of instruction, with an emphasis on the design process. The change reflects “the idea that in addition to creative self-expression, we can also serve our community with creative strategies and applied design,” Ruen said. This approach is not new at Penn Charter. Along with Riedlmeier, former chair Randy Granger embraced design-based work long before it became an educational buzzword. Marrying art with real-world problemsolving, Granger’s students won kudos for
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the inventions they created in his Design Science course, including a beach wheelchair patented in 2003. At the time, students were dubbed “artist engineers.” That course, still taught by Granger, counts as a forerunner to the current embrace of collaboration, skillbuilding and real-world relevance. Applied design projects – the design and production of solutions – often draw into the creative process students who otherwise do not identify themselves as “artistic.” Students learn to tap into and cultivate their creative problem-solving skills, developing a variety of technical skills for realizing solutions. “Digital media has democratized the field of art,” Ruen said. “While drawing, painting and sculpting remain important, digital and multimedia tools offer all students avenues
for creative production. Students who had accepted a narrow definition of art and self-identified as ‘not creative’ find that they actually are very creative when they have opportunities to work across traditional disciplinary boundaries.”
Collaboration and creativity, crosscurricular coordination and problemsolving – all were on display in a ninth grade Foundation Arts class last school year. Hunched together on the floor of the art studio, Regina Sullivan and Ali Watson, then both 15, tweaked the script they had written for a short, fact-filled puppet play about a xerus squirrel and a brown bear. Regina had fashioned her squirrel from cardboard and scraps of this and that, with long strings attached. After three tries, Ali had yet to put the legs on her brown bear, but she was getting close, nearly ready at last to lather the puppet in brown tempera. No matter that Ali’s bear was only about four times larger than Regina’s squirrel. Proportionality was not an issue. Neither was the unlikelihood of a North American bear ever meeting up with an African squirrel. “I’m a special kind of squirrel,” Regina began in a squeaky voice. “Please don’t eat me. I have a wife and 20 kids. I live in a burrow.” “Look, I’m sorry,” Ali grumbled, “but I need this cave for my hibernation. Winter’s coming soon and I’m already gathering fish. I can’t have another animal living with me.” For all its power to amuse, creating the puppet show was just a slice of an ambitious, imaginative multimedia project that spanned the three Foundation Arts courses across the academic year. In the fall trimester, students studied animals and their habits up close at the Philadelphia Zoo, created abstract collages representing habitats, explored alliteration as a means of conveying information about each critter (baboon, big, bite . . .) and created The Philadelphia Bestiary, an A-Z e-book about animals to share with younger students; the book is published online and available for free from iTunes. In the second trimester Foundation Arts class, Regina, Ali and classmates used Photoshop to explore typographic design
and create illustrations of their animals out of letterforms (F O X was a hard one). Then they created the puppets using tubing, corduroy – anything that made sense once construction got underway. In the spring, the third batch of students explored sound and an animation technique called rotoscoping. The amateur puppet makers wholeheartedly endorsed the messy, openended nature of the studio experience, co-taught by Ruen, theater teacher Eva Kay Noone and art teacher Ruth McGee. “At my old school, I learned some basics about drawing, and how to interpret a still life, but I didn’t acquire a sense of art in the big picture, pardon the pun,” Ali said. “Art is not just a still life, it’s about creating something with my own hands.” Regina said she appreciated the freedom in studio to run with an idea. Teachers, she said, “give us extremely loose parameters – they say, ‘Here’s what you’re doing, don’t be too crazy, go!’’’ “This class is very unorthodox, and that’s really what art is . . . very spontaneous,” said ninth grader James Frye. He was working alone, using a drill bit to fasten limbs on his puppet, a water buffalo. The challenge in the Upper School, Ruen said, is to get students to “explore the possibilities, to take risks, instead of taking
“Art is not just a still life, it’s about
creating something with my own hands.”
a more linear approach to completing an assignment.” “They’ve forgotten how to play,” she said. “We want them to use the scientific method, to try something and see what happens, and then try something else. We want them to engage in trial and error and also to build persistence.”
If teenagers sometimes need a nudge to shed that get-’er-done attitude and take the time to tinker, shape and make art, small
children just do what comes naturally. In Penn Charter’s pre-kindergarten, the art program is child-led as much as possible, though that concept takes some explaining. Art teacher Brooke Giles introduces one skill at a time, but her charges have the leeway to follow her suit or find another activity in the studio to explore on their own. One morning, Giles used tempera to paint a self-portrait on a mirror, covered the wet paint with paper, then rubbed carefully to transfer the image to paper. “You have to
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Art & Design The 21st Century Art Classroom
work fast, or the paint will dry,” she advised. The children were fascinated, but when the lesson was over, just two little girls set up paint pots to try for themselves. Two children were rolling out clay to make marble mazes, two others were creating patterns of jeweltoned stones on a magnetic board, and two used building blocks to create a racing ramp. One child was sewing, and yet another was trying to decide what to do next. “They have as many choices as they want, really. And it would be very unusual to have them all doing the same thing,” Giles said. “They respond amazingly to this approach because this is how they think – experimenting, exploring.” The approach draws from research into early childhood learning and also from the
Reggio Emilia movement, an education philosophy promoting student-led discovery and learning. When children are introduced to paint colors, for example, they dabble in mixing colors and learn for themselves that red and yellow combine to make orange or that red, yellow, green and blue combine to make . . . mud! “They lead the way . . . and in the end they own the understanding,” said Joan Rosen, director of pre-K. Giles said she draws the children together to explain a technique, or to talk about taking care of equipment. “We also talk a lot about what it feels like to be done with something and to really be proud of their work.” The art that comes out of this approach is in no way a cookie-cutter product – not the
“We want them to use the scientific
method, to try something and see what happens, and then try something else. We want them to engage in trial and error and also to build persistence.”
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typical nursery school crafts painted all alike. “We tell our parents the creation may not look like the most beautiful thing to put on your dining-room table, but be assured there’s incredible thought to it,” Rosen said. The approach, she said, meshes perfectly with the Quaker value of honoring the light in each child.
In the Lower School, art teachers routinely confer with grade-level teachers about upcoming lessons. “If I know that second grade is studying the community around us, that is part of what we’ll do in the art room,” Riedlmeier said. Second graders learned, for instance, that Keith Haring spread messages of caring for animals and community through his art, and they had his style in mind as they worked in pairs to create posters relevant to their community. “We ask the students, what can art do? Think about outreach – is your message clear? Are you using colors that pop?” Riedlmeier said. A challenge put to fifth graders last year was to reimagine the PC bell tower. Working in small groups, students envisioned the tower as a space ship, an ecological specimen, and an homage to recycled candy wrappers – whatever imagination and a meeting of the minds could muster. Art seems to be everywhere around school. In Middle School, collaboration and hands-
on creative activities are emphasized. And art plays a big role in the seventh-grade Quakerism, Art, Design and Service course. In Upper School, the department offers a variety but not a sequence of courses, as many other independent schools do. “It’s an art-for-everybody kind of approach,” Ruen said. Rather than specialization, the art program offers a broad exposure to art disciplines, artistic practices and media. Digital media courses have taken hold, and Advanced Placement Art History remains popular. Several of the courses have an interdisciplinary element – Art, Archaeology and Chemistry, for example, and Architecture 1750-1850: Introduction to Historic Preservation. “We like to work with the science teachers – science and art are both the stuff of the visual world,” Ruen said. Two pieces of new equipment – a high-speed camera and a 3-D printer – are shared with science department colleagues. At the same time that the department embraces opportunities for collaboration, teachers continue to believe in the importance of individual and solitary skill building and artistic production. Take ceramics. The clay studio was empty one midday except for teacher Ruth McGee and junior Matt Sullivan, who sat alone at a wheel, his hands gray with wet clay, putting form to a bowl. His project would entail creating four bowls and four cylinders – an assignment that would take hours of persistence. “I just love clay work. I can express myself,” Matt said. “I don’t like copying designs, I like doing my own thing.” The course comports with the strategic vision of Penn Charter, McGee said. “Most of what we do in art is problem-solving. I assign a project. There’s no one right answer, but the student has to figure out a solution.” “There’s a push school-wide for interdisciplinary approaches and encouraging a design-based, problem-solving method of working,” she said. “We’ve been doing that for a long time, and the other disciplines are beginning to recognize what it is we do.” PC
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Alumni
WLF VISION Girls participating in Penn Charter athletics experience an excellent athletic program, with opportunities to succeed at all levels and develop as young women who collaborate, persevere and lead.
Mission
Dedication. Persistence. Leadership. It’s what the Women’s Legacy Fund is all about. by Elizabeth Spagnoletti OPC ’08
Penn Charter’s athletic history is legendary, but what about herstory? The founders of the Women’s Legacy Fund (WLF) know there is a story to tell about girls sports at Penn Charter, and telling that story is just one of the ways in which this group is working to support and advance the school’s athletic program for female athletes. Led by a dedicated and persistent group of alumnae, the WLF is organizing athletics clinics for girls and, in honor of four women who mentored them at PC, raising funds for female athletes. Their vision: Girls participating in Penn Charter athletics experience an excellent athletic program, with opportunities to succeed at all levels and develop as young women who collaborate, persevere and lead. The history of the Women’s Legacy Fund is rich in itself. In the 20th year of girls athletics, then Director of Athletics Paul Butler reached out to a group of alumnae. “He said, ‘It’s the 20th year. I think we want to do something special, a celebration of sorts,’” recalled Alyson M. Goodner OPC ’96 and WLF executive committee member. An
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The Women’s Legacy Fund supports and advances girls’ athletics at Penn Charter through scholarship, mentoring and celebration.
Executive Committee Stephanie Teaford Walters OPC ’95 Lauren Sykes OPC ’95 Jessica Bender OPC ’92 Rachel Dyer OPC ’92 Chelsea Erdmanis OPC ’02 Alyson Goodner OPC ’96 Beth Glascott Hon. 1689, Faculty Liaison
outstanding group of athletes, including some of the first female athletes at PC, held a gathering in honor of coaches and mentors Elizabeth Flemming, Beth Glascott Hon. 1689, Cheryl Irving Hon. 1689 and Debbie White, and the potential energy in the room was palpable. “I think it was just being around one another that we were reminded what an amazing impact not only Penn Charter had on our lives – this really incredible thread that connected us – but specifically what playing sports here as female athletes did for us in terms of personality,” Goodner said. They did the math. Collectively, Flemming, Glascott, Irving and White have contributed more than 100 years of service to Penn Charter. “When we thought about each of them,” said Goodner, “we really thought about the characteristics we learned from them that we have applied throughout the rest of our lives.” Dedication, persistence and
leadership were three main and recurring themes in the group’s discussions. For Goodner, being in the presence of these four women, as well as OPCs such as Carly W. Lynch OPC ’94 and Catherine McGuckin Cantlin OPC ’92, was deeply inspiring. With these role models before her, she and others knew there was even more they could be doing for PC girls athletics. It had to be something bigger than one celebration every 20 years. How could they leave a lasting legacy? How could they have a sustainable impact on Penn Charter and the young women who would follow them in PC sports? Thus, the Women’s Legacy Fund was born, founded in honor of these four women and upon the three characteristics – dedication, persistence and leadership – that they modeled for young, female athletes.
Historical Perspective Within the next few years, the executive committee hopes to publish a book on girls athletics at Penn Charter. Using archival photos and stories from women who pushed for developments in the girls program, the committee hopes the book will educate the Penn Charter community on a piece of its history known to few. The WLF does not just tell the history of girls athletics at PC: it hopes to actively engage the present-day community. “Our number one goal [is] to build this connected group of alumni, families and students who are committed to developing girls athletics at PC,” Goodner said. When asked about the needs she sees in the Athletics Department with regard to the girls program, Goodner calls upon her own experience at PC as an athlete. “There was this non-stop activity of development,” Goodner said. “The pushing of the program was constant. There was always something happening.” In 2011, when Goodner and the group of OPCs – who would soon become the WLF Executive Committee – began gathering feedback from current PC families, they noticed a lull in the promotion and development of the girls program and a
2013 Softball:
Inter-Ac Champions! PC softball brought home its sixth Inter-Ac championship last May with an 11-0 win over Baldwin School, closing the scorebook on a season of superlatives.
Earlier in May, sophomore Kayla Quinn pitched a perfect game, the first in the 21-year history of Penn Charter softball, retiring 21 batters in a game with no errors, no walks and no hits by opponent Academy of Notre Dame. Doc Mittica, head coach since the PC softball program began in 1992, said some parents and even some players were unaware that Quinn had a perfect game in the making and – in keeping with the superstition about jinxing a perfect game – the possibility was not discussed in the dugout. “In the fourth inning,” Mittica recalled, “I said to one of my coaches, ‘I’m not saying anything…’ and he replied: ‘No! Don’t!’” Mittica, who said he has seen several no-hitters in his 30 years as a softball coach but no perfect games, noted two key plays in the perfect game: the final out, a ground ball to shortstop Eileen Hennessy, to end the game, and a play
by right fielder Ayanna Matthews to field a ground ball in the first inning and throw to Jess Drossner at first base. “That throw to first by Ayanna is a great play in any game but, looking back, it was key.”
Catcher Kristina Kubach and the other PC players kept the game rolling along. “Kayla had just two strikeouts,” Mittica said, “so it was important that everybody fielded cleanly and did their job. I think the team handled it very well.”
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Alumni Dedication. Persistence. Leadership.
focus on the boys program. They noted this again at a meeting last summer when they built a timeline of PC girls athletics. They saw an intense pocket in the ’90s when PC pushed for opportunities for female athletes, then a noticeable lull thereafter. Given this historical scope, the WLF hopes to continue to support and bolster the girls program. Looking back, Emily Bartlett OPC ’06 recognizes a need in the girls athletics program for a sustainable support system. “In [my] time,” Bartlett said, “there was sort of sporadic fun and enjoyment and learning with sports. I want girls to have a great experience, and if something’s not going right, [they should know] who to talk to.” With these personal experiences in mind, the WLF places a heavy emphasis on mentoring. In the 2012-13 academic year, the WLF ran clinics in the fall, winter and spring. These clinics invited girls to try sports they may have never tried before and build a rudimentary skill set. In the fall and winter, the WLF ran field hockey, lacrosse, soccer, softball, basketball, rowing, swimming and water polo clinics. In addition to PC’s Lower and Middle School girls, students at St. James School in Allegheny West participated. Over Alumni Weekend 2013, a whole new round of clinics took place: squash, tennis, track and cross country. In addition to St. James students, spring clinics also drew
a few boys – younger brothers of female athletes, and Upper School male athletes participated in running the clinics. “The Women’s Legacy Fund offered me the opportunity to teach young girls the sport that I love,” said junior Isabel Hirshberg, who assisted in coaching the squash clinics last year. “I hope that one day the girls that I taught squash will eventually pursue the sport, especially the girls from St. James who do not have the opportunity to play squash like we do at Penn Charter.” It is a priority of the WLF, built specifically into its vision, that there are opportunities for PC’s female athletes to experience success at all levels. Goodner explained that whether the player is MVP of the basketball team or an incoming freshman who wants to try an unfamiliar sport, they are “going to experience success, whatever that definition is, this ability to experience persistence, dedication, leadership – at all levels.” Besides clinics, the WLF hosted other events for students, OPCs and coaches. In addition to a coaches’ social, they held a varsity girls athletes panel for Middle School students and parents. A second panel discussion with female OPCs who are playing or played their sport in college took place last spring. While the clinics focused on current students mentoring and guiding other current students, the panel
focused on OPCs and their perspectives and advice on being college athletes. Nineteen OPCs, from 2012 to 1996, returned to sit on the panel and discuss their transitions from high school athletics to college. From the recruitment process, to getting cut from the team, to the difference playing sports in high school and college made in their adult lives, the panel not only highlighted Penn Charter’s amazing female student-athletes but showed future OPCs an enlightened path to similar successes. “The Women’s Legacy Fund provides outstanding role models for our student athletes to emulate,” said John Thiel, director of athletics and athletic planning. While the clinics raise money to fund the sessions themselves, the WLF plans to raise significant dollars to grow its new scholarship fund. Goodner said that the committee feels strongly about the scholarship component because many of the OPCs received financial aid that allowed them to attend and excel at Penn Charter and beyond. Even the process of raising the dollars was emblematic of female sports at PC. Modeled after the Little Quakers’ Fox Scholarship, the WLF scholarship is awarded to female student-athletes who represent the three qualities of persistence, dedication and leadership. This fall, the committee named three Women’s Legacy Scholars, and this spring, the WLF will gear up for a season of fund-raising. Goodner sees the process as a community-building effort: “Not one of us can do it on our own, but we all come together.”
Future Forward
Debbie White, Cheryl Irving, Beth Glascott and Elizabeth Flemming: “When we thought about each of them,” said Alyson Goodner OPC ’96, “we really thought about the characteristics we learned from them that we have applied throughout the rest of our lives.”
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Recently, the committee undertook the development of a strategic plan, including solidifying the WLF vision and mission. Despite all their efforts and work, the WLF wants to make it known that its mission is centered on advancing and supporting, not creating. “We realize that we are not the Athletics Department,” Goodner said. “We recognize that there are these good things that are going on, that there are things we can help extend and advance and help promote.” She believes a strong partnership between the Athletics Department and
The Women’s Legacy Fund holds athletics clinics for young girls as a way introducing girls to new sports and helping them build a skill set.
WLF should result in maximum impact for students and their families. Not only did the committee set out its goals for the next 1-3 years, but the members settled on keen metrics for measuring impact. Goodner said the impact should be apparent in both the PC community and the larger community as well. “We should see girls who are coming out of PC, out of an excellence in program, out of success at all levels, coming out with these key characteristics,” she said. Goodner wants female athletes to self-identify as persistent, dedicated leaders and hopes that, “by the end of next year, you can ask a student athlete, or a parent, or alumni, ‘What is the Women’s Legacy Fund?’ and they would really touch on the scholarship, the mentoring and the celebration.” “There’s an exciting and dynamic need and potential for this,” said Bartlett, “and it just kind of grows effortlessly, which is beautiful, and everyone is receiving it in a positive light.” The WLF will hold a second celebration June 4, 2014, another opportunity to shine light on PC’s talented female athletes as well as the staff and faculty. Bartlett noted that, as leaders, they need to further integrate Quaker values into their events and clinics, helping to build sportsmanship and the mentoring aspect of their vision. Goodner believes that integrating Quakerism into the WLF fits well into PC’s Strategic Vision. “I think athletics and Quakerism marry incredibly well in a lot of ways,” she said. “Sometimes our community [feels] like athletics might suffer because of decisions that are made based on Quaker values. It’s actually what makes it strong.” PC
2013 Girls Soccer:
Inter-Ac and Independent School State Champions! The team was something special. Coach Darci Borski sensed it. The players felt it. And, they proved it – twice!
On the 127th PC/GA Day, in front of a noisy crowd packed in along the sidelines of Somers Field, the Penn Charter girls displayed mental toughness and physical stamina in a tense contest with Germantown Academy. Penn Charter was assured of a shared title even with a loss, but with the game tied and less than 10 minutes remaining, senior Lauren Dimes pounded the ball into the net to give PC a 2-1 lead and the championship. It also was the first win for Penn Charter on PC/GA Day since girls soccer was added to the competition in 1992; PC has tied twice, once in 2010 and again in 2012. “It was an exciting win and a memorable day that puts us in the history books,” said Darci Borski, in her first year
as PC associate director of athletics and head soccer coach. (Penn Charter filmed the game; it is available for viewing on the school’s Vimeo channel.) The following Saturday, after a week during which they beat Hill School and then, once again, GA in state independent school matches, PC advanced to the state final, this time against top-seeded Agnes Irwin. Freshman goalkeeper Mireyah Davis and a strong defense shut out Agnes Irwin, 4-0, and the PC girls added a state championship to their PC/GA victory. “We have a very talented, hardworking group of players who put in the time and effort to achieve a successful season,” Borski said. “They trusted me and didn’t question any of my training methods. We did a lot of fitness in order to be successful in the last few minutes of every game. We didn’t have much depth so we needed the starters to be 80-minutes fit. “This team has a lot of skill, and we’re strong at every position. We’re solid defensively, creative in the midfield and dangerous up top. And we have amazing leadership from our three captains.”
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Alumni
Athletic Honor Society C l ass o f 2 0 1 3
Leadership. Spirit. Grit. Quality and class. The speakers who
Football 1963 Inter-Ac Champions
came to the podium on Nov. 8 to honor the Ninth Induction Class of the Athletic Honor Society described young men and women who excelled in sports at PC and brought honor to themselves, their teams and this old school. More than 200 Penn Charter friends and family gathered at the Union League to celebrate three teams, two coaches and eight individual athletes. “These were some of the best teams, coaches and players our school has ever seen,” said Overseer Robert Rosania OPC ’82, chair of the selection committee of Penn Charter’s Athletic Honor Society.
Almost six decades after his last big play, Harry L. Garrett OPC ’55 accepted the “Unsung Hero” award from admiring OPC athletes.
Latrisha Chattin OPC ’99 sang “America the Beautiful” to begin the formal presentations and later corralled her friends and classmates for a reunion photo.
Stephen A. Bonnie OPC ’66 was a wry master of ceremonies, and Michael Barkann, sportscaster and PC parent, entertained with behind-thescenes sports stories from his career covering and commentating about sports. The evening included memorable tributes and reflections about the endurance of high school bonds. Said Bill Michuda, head coach of PC’s 1985-86 Inter-Academic League champion basketball team: “Best friends are old friends. They transcend time and space.”
Basketball 1985-86 Inter-Ac Champions
Soccer 1998 Inter-Ac Champions
Distinguished Service Award
Athletes
Allan Brown Hon. 1689
William Colehower OPC ’55 Robert McNally OPC ’81 Catherine McGuckin Cantlin OPC ’92 Atiba Wade OPC ’95 Joseph Larkin OPC ’99 Stephanie Straup Saint Germain OPC ’99 Aaron Greenfield OPC ’02 Henry Bartlett OPC ’03
Coach James Ballengee Hon. 1689
Teams 1963 Football 1985-86 Boys Basketball 1998 Boys Soccer
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“Penn Charter changed lives when you were here playing on the fields, studying in the labs and classrooms, and acting on the Meeting Room stage. And it still does.” – Head of School Darryl J. Ford
Alumni
William Colehower OPC ’55
Robert McNally OPC ’81
Catherine McGuckin Cantlin OPC ’92
Letters in football, basketball and baseball; football captain
Letters in and captain of football and baseball
Letters in field hockey, swimming and lacrosse; lacrosse captain
Atiba Wade OPC ’95 Letters in water polo and swimming; swimming captain
Stephanie Straup Saint Germain OPC ’99 Joseph Larkin OPC ’99 Letters in baseball, five years; baseball captain, two years
Aaron Greenfield OPC ’02 Letters in and captain of football and baseball
Henry Bartlett OPC ’03
Letters in soccer, cross country, basketball and lacrosse; cross country and basketball captain
Cross Country coach James Ballengee Hon. 1689, center, with Robert Rosania OPC ’82 and Stephen A. Bonnie OPC ’66.
Letters in soccer and lacrosse; lacrosse captain, two years Read about Distinguished Service Award winner Allan Brown Hon. 1689 on the next page.
View a video tribute to the inductees on YouTube at pennchartertube, and photos of the gala and guests at flickr.com/penncharter/sets. View a list of past inductees at penncharter.com/honors.
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Alumni Athletic Honor Society Class of 2013
Allan Brown Hon. 1689 distinguished service award John DeSantis OPC ’74 played varsity catcher for five years – all with Allan Brown as his coach. DeSantis, now senior vice president and editor with Xpressbet.com, an online horse wagering site, entertained the crowd at the Union League with a humorous and heartfelt tribute to his former coach. Beware of jokes about age: Allan Brown is, after all, the most senior of PC faculty/ administrators/coach with 52 years of service to the school. DeSantis’ remarks: He’s devoted decades of service to Penn Charter athletics, including 11 years as varsity baseball coach, with five Inter-Ac championships. He’s been an assistant varsity and Middle School basketball coach and – in a rare display of Ripken-like durability – Mr. Brown has been the varsity basketball timekeeper for 35 years… Which is interesting, because I always assumed the scoreboard did that. Then again, Mr. Brown may have had the job before electricity.
Allan Brown Hon. 1689 received the Athletic Honor Society’s Distinguished Service Award.
Some of you know tonight’s award winner by different names. Mr. Brown, Allan, Alonzo and even Brownie. I spent five formative years with Mr. Brown as Penn Charter’s varsity baseball
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coach, and clearly his managerial style wasn’t crafted in the image of fiery motivators like Billy Martin or Earl Weaver. Although once, at a critical moment in an important game, he did raise his voice from the bench, “C’mon guys, let’s be cognizant out there!” Good thing we were Penn Charter or we wouldn’t have known what the hell he was talking about. Mr. Brown instead preferred a more relaxed and deliberate approach. He relied on patience and determination to guide his teams. He’d smile and nod at positive plays. Sigh, wrinkle his nose and shake his head at bonehead mistakes. Perhaps, the ultimate example of his patience is that for nine consecutive years he endured a DeSantis behind the plate – yours truly immediately followed by my brother Frank. Many would suggest serving that neardecade long sentence alone qualifies him for tonight’s honor. I know my mother would. Buff Weigand, who joins Mr. Brown each year in Florida at major league spring training games, received this award in 2011. That night I greeted Buff as he entered the building. He informed me that he and Mr. Brown had reminisced about PC athletes they had coached in their lengthy collective tenures. “Allan and I agreed,” Buff said, “that in a critical situation, with the game on the line, of all the players we coached, you were the one we’d want at the plate.” I was moved and thanked Buff for the honor. Then he asked, “So, how’s Vegas?” “Buff,” I replied, “You and Mr. Brown must
be thinking of my brother Frank.” Buff was embarrassed. And that made two of us. So when I learned Mr. Brown had chosen me to introduce him tonight, well, I figured maybe I should call Vegas just in case. Mr. Brown is a complete sports fan. During high school, PC classmate and fellow South Philly resident Craig Sabatino and I would visit Mr. Brown between periods at his Flyers season ticket seats. Unfortunately, Mr. Brown found that a convenient time to remind us about upcoming papers, tests and past-due assignments. We finally quit visiting him. I believe back then such an experience was known as a “bummer.” In conclusion, let’s be clear. Mr. Brown won’t be celebrated alongside William Penn and Richard Mott Jones in the annals of Penn Charter history. Even though I’m pretty sure Billy Penn never kept time for any sport. Mr. Brown has shared his heart, mind and soul with student athletes for decades. In that fashion, he stands as an outstanding example of what makes Penn Charter a spectacular educational and athletic institution. Congratulations, Mr. Brown. Well done.
Art and design teacher Randy Granger Hon. 1689 and Head of School Darryl J. Ford enjoy the tributes.
PC Alumni
weekend 2013 “welcome
home!”
Head of School Darryl J. Ford greeted the returning OPCs who walked through the red doors one more time and shared his excitement about Penn Charter’s future.
“We have a vision for the future of your school that recognizes the demands of the 21st century global community and the skills and values our students will need to thrive,” he said. Alumni Weekend 2013 was full of shared stories about memorable and transformational teachers, and Ford assured
alumni that the student-teacher relationship at the heart of Penn Charter will not change. “There are beloved teachers here today who are faithful, selfless, dedicated – just as the teachers you remember. Many things have changed, but much remains the same.”
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Alumni
PC Alumni
weekend 2013
alumni award of merit
Herbert S. (Pug) Winokur Jr. OPC ’61 “To a graduate of the William Penn Charter School whose character and outstanding achievement have reflected lasting credit upon this old school.” Herbert S. (Pug) Winokur Jr. OPC ’61 accepted the Alumni Award of Merit, a high honor bestowed on the graduate “whose character and outstanding achievement have reflected lasting credit upon this old school.” In a speech that was a highlight of the alumni’s spring banquet, Winokur remarked on his good fortune in having been “born on third base. Not in the conventional meaning of this term. But, given the year in which I was born, the place in which I grew up, and, most important, the parents to whom I was born, I really believe that I was born on third base.” Winokur said his parents believed Penn Charter’s motto – Good Instruction Is Better than Riches – and stretched to send him to school here. “The 12-to-15 thousand after-tax dollars they spent on my K-12 education at Penn Charter represented a significant portion of my dad’s after-tax discretionary income,” he said. “But they made my education a top priority, and they loved Penn Charter. I owe them much, and am very grateful.” Winokur remembered Penn Charter teachers who exerted important influences on his life: Frank Osgood, his sixth grade teacher and a former Forest Hills tennis player, who suggested that he try playing squash. “I tried it, liked it and still play four times each week. How about that for a powerful influence!” Upper School mathematics teacher Bert Linton helped him understand how much he could enjoy learning about math and its applications – and that led to majoring in math in college and applied math in graduate school. He studied four years of Latin and one year of Greek with foreign language teacher Frederick Kempner, and “Fritz” helped Winokur and his friends explore Greek drama by helping them organize the Greek Society, which met regularly at Kempner’s apartment.
Director of Athletics and Athletic Planning John Thiel, left, accepts a plaque from Richard Gilkeson OPC ’63 honoring former coach Ray Dooney Hon. 1689.
Senior Overseer Roger Hillas OPC ’45 was recognized as the alumnus at the banquet with the most seniority. With him are his wife, Dee, and, at left, Assistant Head of School Beth Glascott Hon. 1689.
Director of Alumni Relations Ted Decker OPC ’78 (center, with tie) takes every opportunity to gather his classmates for a photo opportunity. Happy 35th reunion!
Pug Winokur spoke about his life and life lessons not taught at Penn Charter. The complete transcript of his remarks is available at penncharter.com/speeches2013.
At the top of the Senior Stairs, Quakers Dozen serenaded OPCs and guests arriving at the 121st Annual Alumni Reception.
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honorary 1689
Charles H. Brown and Patricia E. Cunningham “The truth about CB, as we affectionately call him, is that he is neither a gifted teacher of math nor Latin nor language arts, nor a gifted coach. Charlie Brown is simply a gifted human being. Whether teaching,
Head of School Darryl J. Ford awards an Honorary 1689 diploma to colleague and friend Charles H. Brown.
Director of Stewardship and Special Projects Stephen A. Bonnie OPC ’66 enjoyed exchanging good-natured barbs with David Bass, Peter Alston and Matthew Beach, all OPC ’88s.
coaching, leading or being a friend, there is no one more true than Charlie Brown.
“He is a true teacher, a true coach, a true leader, and to so many of his students, former students, players, teaching colleagues, and to me, Charlie is, indeed, a true friend. For his years of service to Penn Charter, Charlie Brown is a recipient of our Honorary 1689 diploma tonight.” – Head of School Darryl J. Ford
“Pat and former Director of Admissions Steve Bonnie worked together as a team to bring life and laughter to the Admissions office. They even got some students enrolled. Those of us that know her well believe that this is where Pat found her true place at Penn Charter. … Pat’s
Another OPC in the family. Patricia E. Cunningham, administrative assistant in Development for a decade and currently the administrative assistant for Middle and Upper School Admissions, was recognized for her 25 years of service to Penn Charter. With her family, son-in-law Dennis Smith, Kathleen Smith OPC ’97, Pamela Cunningham OPC ’95, Charles J. Cunningham III and Charles J. Cunningham IV OPC ’92.
caring personality and her concern for others make her a perfect fit for Admissions. It is not unusual to hear prospective parents express their gratitude for Pat’s help during the application process when families are so anxious. Students
coming for a visit are made to feel right at home. “I have heard Pat’s coworkers describe her as kind, gentle, thoughtful and professional. I know for a fact that she is always ready to give a helping hand to anyone in need.”
Listen to Fritz On the Saturday morning of Alumni Weekend, alumni, friends and family gathered in a Memorial Meeting for Worship to remember a truly transformational teacher, Frederick F. Kempner Hon. 1689. On one of his many visits to Penn Charter – he enjoyed attending Alumni Weekend to reunite with former students and colleagues – Kempner taped an interview with recollections about the Greek Society, teaching in the turbulent 1960s, and growing up in pre-World War II Germany. Go to penncharter.com/fritz.
– Carol Steinbrook Hon. 1689, director of accounting and business services
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Alumni
Class Notes Penn Charter magazine wants to hear from you, and your classmates do, too! Submit your news and photos to jcubbin@penncharter.com. Digital photos should be 300 dpi JPEGs.
1689
A Look Back at
1944
1944
Class Agent Jane F. Evans jevans@penncharter.com George J. Hauptfuhrer Jr. OPC ‘44
1933
See death notices.
W. W. Keen Butcher OPC ’33 See death notices.
A Look Back at
1934
Robert H. Kessler OPC ’44 See death notices.
1946
1945 Class Agent H. Leonard Brown
Samuel G. Armistead OPC ’46 See death notices.
L. Leroy Hepburn OPC ’45 See death notices.
1937 Class Agent Edmond H. (Ted) Heisler
Richard L. Goldstrohm OPC ’46 See death notices.
Class of 1943 70th Reunion
Robert R. Batt OPC ’37 See death notices.
1939 Class Agent Robert C. McAdoo
1940
Edward A. MacNeal and Sevill (Bud) Schofield Jr., both OPC ’43, were guests of honor at a luncheon at Head of School Darryl J. Ford’s house during Alumni Weekend, celebrating 70 years since their graduation.
Class Agent Robert J. Harbison III rharbo@aol.com
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Alumni
Class Notes Class of 1948 65th Reunion
1949 Class Agent Bruce R. Barstow brbarstow@aol.com
Andrew S. Graham OPC ’49 See death notices.
Robert P. Hauptfuhrer OPC ’49 See death notices.
Thomas B. Force retired from medical practice in 1997 and works with a food cupboard for the needy in Montgomery County.
1950 Robert P. Levy hosted the Class of 1948’s 65th reunion at his home in Bryn Mawr on June 13. Pictured, above: Charles H. Schaefer, Lincoln Roden III and Robert P. Levy. Below: Marcia and Lawrence C. Hardy and George S. Meinel.
Class Agent Christopher W. Parker cwp420@aol.com
Wallace P. Cooney OPC ‘50 See death notices.
John S. C. Harvey III OPC ‘50 See death notices.
Harry G. Rieger OPC ’50 See death notices.
1951 Class Agent David N. Weinman ombudinc@aol.com
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Alumni
Class Notes 1952
1954
Class Agents George C. (Skip) Corson Jr. gccesq@aol.com
1955
Class Agent Alfred F. Bracher III fbracher@aol.com
F. Bruce Waechter fbw413@aol.com
A Look Back at
1953
Class Agent Charles (Chuck) Clayton Jr. cclayt@comcast.net
1954
Franklin H. Bates OPC ’55 See death notices.
Class Agent William H. Bux mbuxc@aol.com
Thomas J. McBride OPC ’53 See death notices.
Frank D. Pigage OPC ’53 See death notices.
Class of 1953 60th Reunion
A. Cope Garrett OPC ’51 and Harry L. J. Garrett OPC ’55 at Harry’s home in Mount Washington, Mass, presented Chief Development Officer John T. Rogers Hon. 1689 with a walking stick made from the wood of one of William Penn’s original homesteads. The walking stick has been in their family for generations and bears an inscription dated 1880.
Richard N. Westcott published his 23rd book, called Philadelphia’s Top 50 Baseball Players. Featured athletes are from the Phillies, Athletics, local Negro League teams and native sons. Dallas Green contributed the foreword.
1956 Class Agent Bernard E. Berlinger Jr. bberlinger@asidrives.com
“The 60th reunion of the Class of 1953 was held at Sunnybrook Golf Club in Plymouth Meeting,” reported Bill Bux. “It was, without exception, a great experience for all who were able to attend! We certainly missed those who could not be with us.” In attendance were Thayer and Robert R. Adams, Maryanne and William H. Bux, William Margerison Felton Jr., Daniel R. Furman, Barbara and Graeme Frazier, Richard P. Graff, Paul Hynes, Naomi and Phil E. Lippincott, Jan and William E. Lutz, Anne and George R. Lyons, John E. Molyneux, Clark K. Riley and Susan Allbaugh, Ursula Shaufler, Kathy and John C. Taggart, Edward W. Veit, Joan and Harrison G. Wehner, and Head of School Darryl J. Ford.
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1957 Class Agents G. Allan Dash allandash3@comcast.net James V. Masella Jr. vesperent@aol.com James G. Masland Jr. jgmasland@yahoo.com
Alumni
Class Notes Class of 1958 55th Reunion
Joseph K. Eddleman OPC ’62 See death notices.
1963 Class Agents Robert E. Brickely bob@bds-1.com Richard J. Gilkeson gilkeson1@msn.com Douglas S. Little doug.little@comcast.net
A Look Back at
1958
1964
1962
Class Agents John E. F. Corson jefcorson@aol.com
Class Agents Louis F. Burke lburke@lfblaw.com
Robert D. Morrow Jr. djm112@aol.com
Kevin McKinney pmckin5750@rogers.com Ronald O. Prickitt ron@netilla.com
1959 Class Agent Rush B. Smith smithrushb@aol.com
1960 Class Agent James M. Arrison III arrison@attglobal.net
1961 Class Agents Richard P. Hamilton Jr. rick1480@aol.com J. Freedley Hunsicker Jr. hunsicjf@dbr.com
Jacques (Jake) Poindexter Fiechter OPC ’63, who donated rowing machines to PC a few years ago, met the crew team at the boathouse in May, when he was in town for his 50th reunion. He talked to the team about rowing at Harvard University and training for the Olympic trials in the late 1960s out of Vesper Boathouse, the same boathouse PC uses.
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Alumni
Class Notes Class of 1963 50th Reunion
well as open water swims and biathlons. In addition, I have been serving in a volunteer capacity, helping manage several races in the Philadelphia area and doing some informal coaching. It all started as a member of the track team under Coach Russ Faber and swimming with Pete Zavitz on the first PC team.”
1966 Class Agent Martin J. (Marty) Harrity mharrity@aol.com
Jon Sirlin, a Philadelphia-based lawyer, participates in the Gettysburg Anniversary Committee reenactment of the Battle of Gettysburg.
1967 Class Agent Harry S. Cherken Jr. harry.cherken@dbr.com
1968 Class Agents Bruce C. Gill bcoopergil@aol.com Richard E. Stanley dickandlea@aol.com Several members of the Class of 1963 visited Philip M. Maroney Hon. 1689 the week before their reunion. Pictured: Payson Brickley OPC ’65, Douglas S. Little, Noble L. Gable Jr., Robert E. Brickley, Richard J. Gilkeson, Ruth B. Maroney, Richard G. Brotemarkle Jr. and Phil Maroney Hon. 1689 (center).
1964 Class Agents John T. Long Jr. longacres1@yahoo.com John S. Morrow jsmopc64@hargray.com
1965 Class Agent Jonathon P. (Buck) DeLong b.delong@charter.net
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Harry E. Nothacker writes, “In August of 2012, I finished my first full Ironman race in Mont-Tremblant, Canada, placing second in my age group. Earlier in the year, I had qualified for the 1/2 Ironman World Championship in Las Vegas. I completed the course in 12th place for my age group. It was quite an experience getting to meet and compete with athletes from around the world. I have participated in various endurance events like the Boston, New York City and Philadelphia marathons as
James P. Hopkinson OPC ’68 See death notices.
1969 Class Agent Thomas C. Robinson Jr. thomascrobinson@comcast.net
1970 Class Agents Charles L. Mitchell dhammalawyer@yahoo.com Robert N. Reeves Jr. robreeves@eareeves.com
Alumni
Class Notes Jeffrey S. Meltzer writes, “Sorry I was not able to join my classmates for the reunion. I look forward to doing so the next time we all get together!”
1971 Class Agents Marc A. Golden harvardceo@aol.com
A Look Back at
1974
Frederick H. Landell rlandell@ltk.com
1974 1972 Class Agent Bruce K. Balderston bruce.balderston@pncbank.com
1973 Class Agent Robert J. Marquess rjmproteus@aol.com
Class Agent J. Peter Davis davisphily@comcast.net
Benjamin H. Linton III writes, “I have my law practice focusing on family, real estate and estate law in Spring House, Pa. I am also actively selling residential real estate for Long & Foster’s Blue Bell office. My daughter, Audrey, is doing well in her college pursuits.”
Class of 1973 40th Reunion
1975 Class Agents Robert L. Nydick robert.nydick@villanova.edu James S. Still jstill3boys@gmail.com
Morrie Katz OPC ’75 See death notices.
1976 Brent Sherwood writes, “PC is taking over NASA: Dayton L. Jones OPC ’70, Peter E. Doms OPC ’71, John P. Grotzinger OPC ’75 and I are all at Jet Propulsion Laboratory, grateful for the opportunity to contribute to mankind’s great adventure of learning how our solar system came to be.”
1977 Class Agent Reid S. Perper rsperper@yahoo.com
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Alumni
Class Notes Class of 1978 35th Reunion
1978 Class Agents Sterling H. Johnson III ag96cu4@aol.com Paul C. Mancini paul@mancini.com
1982
David H. Neff dn@neffassociates.com
1979 Class Agent John D. Lemonick jlemonick@donnellyandassociates.com
1980 Class Agents John B. Caras john.caras@cingular.com Charles J. (Chip) Goodman chip_goodman@cable.comcast.com
1981 Class Agent Andrew J. Kramer akramer@kanepugh.com
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Anthony Resch was appointed associate head coach of lacrosse at La Salle College High School.
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Class Agent James L. Walker Jr. jimwalks@yahoo.com
1984 Class Agent Robert T. Myers rob.myers@barclayswealth.com
1985 Class Agents Matthew M. Killinger killingm@uphs.upenn.edu Thomas D. Kramer tom.kramer@am.jll.com
Thomas F. Burke Jr. writes, “Everything is going well! I just finished my 23rd year of teaching high school mathematics. My wife, Barb, is pursuing a nursing career.
A Look Back at
1984
My oldest daughter, Christina, is off to the University of Delaware to study nursing. My other children, Sarah, Mary and Thomas, are also doing great. Hello to all of my OPC ’85 classmates! I hope that everyone is doing well!”
1986 Class Agent P. Timothy Phelps chambertim@hotmail.com
1987 Class Agents David Felderman felderman.david@gmail.com David B. Gleit leyladavid@yahoo.com Adam M. Koppel akoppel@baincapital.com
1988 Class Agents H. Bruce Hanson hbhanson@duanemorris.com Gregory D. Palkon greg@palkonlaw.com
Alumni
Class Notes
Pictured, left to right: Calvin Johnson OPC ’84, Phillip S. Ragland OPC ’88, Raymond Ragland III OPC ’81, Bernard C. Watson OPC ’89 and Steven A. Ragland OPC ’83 at the Broad Street Run.
Hansel (Blair) Minyard’s oldest son recently graduated from Iona Preparatory School in New Rochelle, N.Y. He excelled academically and athletically; not only was he a member of the National Honor Society, but he was also the left tackle on the varsity football team that finished third in the state. He has decided to attend Northwestern University in the fall as a member of the Robert R. McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science.
selected to assume command of the 3rd Squadron, 61st Cavalry Regiment on Aug. 7 at Fort Carson, Colo. As I take command of potentially one of the last units to assist our Afghan partners, I would love the opportunity to link up some of my junior leaders with PC students via email (leo.j.wyszynski.mil@mail.mil) or Facebook. I think they would both benefit from the interaction and may find novel ways to develop solutions to help Afghans at the grassroots level with a gamut of issues. I think it might expose them to a broader perspective, like I received from my education at PC. I am honored to be considered for selection to the PC Athletic Honor Society. I hope I can spend more time focused on giving back to the environment that has shaped me and taught me compassion, selfless service and, through hundreds of athletic events, the ability to manage my emotions when humanity is at its worst.”
Keith M. Nigro kmn5774@yahoo.com
Julie M. VanSciver OPC ’92 See death notices.
1993 Class Agent Victor S. (Tory) Olshansky victor.olshansky@gmail.com
1994 Class Agent Jennifer R. Gallagher gallagherj@unionleague.org
Meggan Drumm Peyton OPC ’94
1992
See death notices.
Class Agents Anna V. Davis vanleer@hotmail.com
1989 Class Agent Kenneth (Casey) Murray playnikez@yahoo.com
Class of 1993 20th Reunion
1990 Class Agent James D. Phillips jphillips@penncharter.com
1991 Class Agents Daniel S. Donaghy dsdonaghy@hotmail.com Leo J. Wyszynski ljwyszynski@aol.com
Leo J. Wyszynski writes, “I just returned from a year in Afghanistan, where our soldiers had the opportunity to help shape a new government, army and police force in the Arghandab River Valley. I was promoted to lieutenant colonel and was
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Alumni
Class Notes A Look Back at
Class of 1998
1994
15th Reunion
1995 Class Agent Stephanie Teaford Walters walters-stephanie@aramark.com
1996 Class Agents Alyson M. Goodner alygoods@yahoo.com Michael Sala sala_lm@yahoo.com
Aaron H. Carter has taken over high school sports coverage for the Philadelphia Daily News, replacing the legendary Ted Silary OPC ’69. Patrick A. Sasse is now principal of Schuylkill Valley High School.
1997 Class Agents Brendan Moore brendanmoore78@yahoo.com Allison MacCullough O’Neill allisononeill88@gmail.com
Kate Keller Samson earned her doctorate degree in clinical psychology from Widener University last spring. Yinka Orafidiya is participating in an artist residency at the International Ceramics Studio in Kecskemét, Hungary.
Gerri Trooskin made Philadelphia magazine’s list of 20 Best Philadelphians for her work at the Franklin Institute.
1999 Class Agents Mark D. Hecker mhecker616@gmail.com Margaux Pelegrin margaux.pelegrin@gmail.com
Latrisha M. Chattin received her EdD in special education from Arcadia University.
1998
Joseph O. Larkin was selected as a member of the Athletic Honor Society’s Class of 2013. He writes, “Penn Charter remains
Class Agents Jeff Bender jb2424@gmail.com
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Patrick A. Sasse psasse@hotmail.com
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a very special place to me, and I am very humbled by the selection.”
2000 Class Agent Adam K. Sperling adsperling@gmail.com
2001 Class Agents William A. McKinney williammckinney@gmail.com Jessica A. Stein stein.jessica@gmail.com
2002 Class Agent Katherine A. Butler butlerka@gmail.com
Matthew W. Royal received his PhD in electrical and computer engineering from Duke University, where he is currently employed as a postdoctoral associate.
Alumni
Class Notes A Look Back at
2004
Celebrating the Cape Cod wedding of Ryan D. Still OPC ’03 to Corinne Melville were groomsman Denis J. Whelan OPC ’03, best man Derek S. Still OPC ’05, Ryan Still, groomsmen Colin Still OPC ’08 and David E. Gaunt OPC ’03, father of the groom James S. Still OPC ’75 and guest Geoffrey H. Shields OPC ’75.
2003 Class Agents Jessica A. Kolansky jekolansky@comcast.net Anthony E. McDevitt mcdevitt44@gmail.com Jennifer N. Cooperman jcoop9185@gmail.com
Elizabeth A. Perelman is in Cameroon on a medical mission through Ascovime, a small grassroots volunteer organization committed to fighting illiteracy and disease in Cameroon.
2006 2005 Class Agents Christopher W. Garrison cwg008@bucknell.edu
Anthony E. McDevitt, Francesca R. MuraskoBlank, Robert C. Hitschler and Henry Bartlett showed their school spirit at PC’s varsity lacrosse game during Alumni Reunion Weekend 2013. They met up again at their 10th reunion at Chickie’s & Pete’s in South Philly.
Class Agents Joey Fugelo insaniac83@aol.com Sarah Roberts sar777@aol.com
Jessica Kalick jessiekalick@gmail.com
Katherine Siegmann ksiegmann@gmail.com
Maureen Ryan mmr54@georgetown.edu
Jeffrey Torchon jazzjeff88@gmail.com
Class of 2003 15th Reunion
2004 Class Agents Katherine A. Entwisle kentwisl@gmail.com Erin E. Hozack erin.hozack@gmail.com Jerome B. Wright jwright08@gmail.com
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Alumni
Class Notes 2007 Class Agents Richard Baska Lynn richardbaskalynn@gmail.com Audra Hugo audra.hugo@gmail.com
Curtiss R. Jones Jr. crj213@lehigh.edu Laura A. Kurash chargefan5@comcast.net
Class Agents Demetra B. Angelakis dangelak@bowdoin.edu
Sam H. Lerner sam.lerner@richmond.edu
Adam J. Garnick ajg9692@gmail.com
Anne McKenna anniemck515@comcast.net Eric Muller bericmuller@gmail.com
Casandra P. Gigliotti cassieg@bu.edu
2010 Class Agents Megan C. Delaney megan.c.delaney@gmail.com Cormac J. Ferrick mac.ferrick@gmail.com
Anne Bryan OPC ’07 See death notices.
Jonathan Hulting-Cohen participated in a five-day workshop at Carnegie Hall, where he also performed “Yo Shakespeare.”
2011
Casey T. Maher ctm214@lehigh.edu Kellie C. Ragg kragg@princeton.edu
Grant A. Guyer guyerg@dickinson.edu
Timothy W. Bell received favorable reviews as a lead in a professional production of Mary Zimmerman’s Metamorphoses at the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts of Miami-Dade County in Miami, Fla.
2012 Class Agents Sarah L. Butler slbutler94@gmail.com
2008 Class Agents Kathryn Corelli kcorelli@stanford.edu
Ben P. Krieger benpkrieger@gmail.com Edward Malandro edmalandro93@gmail.com
Ryan Goldman ryg@sas.upenn.edu
Cathryn C. Peirce cpeirce@sas.upenn.edu
Kyle Maurer kmaurer3@jhu.edu Sierra Tishgart sierratishgart@gmail.com
Arthur Bartolozzi IV is currently at Harvard Medical School and is considering specializing in surgery and/or health care policy and management.
Bianca Santini-Dumas and Michael Brown celebrated son Ronin’s first birthday on Sept. 14, 2013.
Caroline M. Grace writes, “To the Class of 2012: Well, our first full year as OPCs is over. Who knew it’d go by so quickly? I hope you all enjoyed it, and here’s to the many years to come!”
Nathaniel Leach is associate advisor in the Office of Pre-Professional Health Studies at Temple University. He graduated from New York University in May 2012. He is pursuing a graduate degree in education/leadership. Nora McGurkin was named assistant coach of women’s lacrosse at La Salle University.
2009 Class Agents Alexandra M. Glassman amg296@cornell.edu
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Class agents for the Class of 2013: Aaron Mandelbaum, Rachael Garnick, Julia Vahey and Bennett Samuel.
Alumni
Class Notes MARRIAGES 1997 Alan H. Rappeport to Kristen Looney, on Aug. 10, 2013.
1998 T. Jeffrey Bender to Catharine Eleey, on April 13, 2013. (See photo.)
2000 Lindsay E. Donn to Justin H. Mann, on July 20, 2013.
2002 Andrew Richards to Lindsey Kneipper, on June 8, 2013. (See photo.)
The wedding of Theodore S. Decker OPC ’06 to Lauren Saylor at the Joseph Ambler Inn: (back row) Joseph A. Rosskam OPC ’00, Drew Speranza OPC ’06, James Entwisle OPC ’06, Lauren Saylor, Ted Decker, Joe Fugelo OPC ’06 and Theodore F. Decker Jr. OPC ’78; (seated) Timothy G. Decker OPC ’08, Jessica L. Rosskam OPC ’04, Kathryn S. Decker OPC ’13 and Andrew Smith OPC ’06.
Pictured, left to right: Michael Swift OPC ’02, Andrew Richards OPC ’02, James M. Ballengee Hon. 1689, Christopher A. Lins OPC ’02, Emily M. (Ballengee) Renwick OPC ’01, William Palowsky OPC ’02 and Robert Smyth OPC ’02.
Katherine A. Butler to Robert Ahrens, on April 27, 2013. (See photo.)
Julia Garden OPC ’07 and Nathan Maidenbaum celebrated their wedding rehearsal dinner with many members of the Class of 2007: Elizabeth J. Bak, Anne McKenna, Timothy Walling, Marguerite Walters, Shannon Harrington, Charlotte Revol, Jayne Bernsten, Ann Strackhouse, Kiera Murasko-Blank, Mark Adzick, Amanda Davis, Sarah Miller, Robert Nation, Pat Brady, Ethan Alderman, Kelsey McDowell, Thomas Caramanico.
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Alumni
Class Notes 2003
1998
2002
Ryan D. Still to Corinne Melville, on Aug. 17, 2013.
Nora Grace, to Tara and Patrick A. Sasse, on Oct. 22, 2013. (Pictured, left.)
Quinn Rylee, to Jill and Gerard M. Sasse, on Oct. 6, 2013. (See photo, right.)
2006 Theodore S. Decker to Lauren Saylor, on Aug. 17, 2013. (See photo on p. 47.)
DEATHS 1933 W.W. Keen Butcher, on May 15, 2013.
2007 Julia Garden to Nathan Maidenbaum, on Jan. 6, 2013. (See photo on p. 47.)
1937 Robert R. Batt, on April 2, 2013.
1944 George J. Hauptfuhrer Jr., on Aug. 2, 2013. Robert H. Kessler, on July 13, 2013.
Births 1987 Alyssa Harper, to Julie and Jeffrey R. Havsy, on June 24, 2013.
1994 Dylan Jonathan, to Benjamin and Deborah Gordon Goodrich, on Aug. 29, 2013.
1999 Daniel and Charles, to Ryan and Brandilyn Alexander Kist, on May 14, 2013. Reese Josephine, to Kim and Joseph O. Larkin, on Dec. 17, 2012. (See photo.)
2000
1995
1945 L. Leroy Hepburn, on July 19, 2013.
1946 Samuel G. Armistead, on Aug. 7, 2013. Richard L. Goldstrohm, on April 28, 2013.
1949 Andrew S. Graham, on Sept. 23, 2013. Robert P. Hauptfuhrer, on Aug. 11, 2013.
Charles Denman, to Ilana H. Eisenstein and Thomas H. Scott, on July 13, 2013.
1950 Wallace P. Cooney, on June 28, 2013. John S. C. Harvey III, on May 31, 2013. Harry G. Rieger, on Aug. 14, 2013.
Tai Evans, to Ryan and Megan Evans Kafer, on Sept. 29, 2013. (See photo.)
1953 Thomas J. McBride, on Aug. 19, 2012. Frank D. Pigage, on April 6, 2012. William Thomas, to Brent and Mary Rogers, on March 22, 2013. Ayla Rae, to Barrie and Charles J. Mittica, on Nov. 16, 2012. (See photo.)
1955 Franklin H. Bates, on June 6, 2013.
1962 Joseph K. Eddleman, on March 24, 2012.
1968 James P. Hopkinson, on May 22, 2013.
1975
1997
48
Morrie Katz, on May 7, 2013.
Grayson Ilhwan, to Liana and Aaron Z. Cohen, on Oct. 5, 2013.
1992
Adelaide Brette, to Kyle and Allison MacCullough O’Neill, on Oct. 27, 2012.
1994
Analee Joan, to Tracy and Christopher J. Rodgers, on Sept. 7, 2013.
2007
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Julie M. VanSciver, on May 12, 2013. Meggan Drumm Peyton, on June 2, 2013. Anne Bryan, on June 5, 2013.
Annual Fund 2013-2014
Did you know? Our school has a long history of philanthropy – 325 years ago, William Penn asked his friends to pay tuition for those who couldn’t afford a Penn Charter education.
Today, Penn Charter tuition averages
$26,000 But spending per student averages
$32,000 With the school’s careful stewardship of its finances, a small gift goes a long way and a large gift can be truly transformational.
COMING SOON
Alumni Society Downtown Reception February 6, 2o14
$32K $26K
the
Annual
Fund makes up
the Difference. T h i s Y e a r’ s G oa l :
$1.2 million 2,000 donors
Every gift matters. Visit www.penncharter.com/give to make your gift online.
Feature Presentation Stephen D. Bruno OPC ’97 President of marketing for the Weinstein Company, the film studio behind Silver Linings Playbook, Django Unchained and The Butler.
Nonprofit Org. U.S. Postage
PAID Philadelphia, PA Permit No. 6118 3000 West School House Lane Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19144
Save the Date January 4
May 2-3
OPCs in Education Forum, 11:00 am Young OPC Holiday Hoopla (OPC ’09-’13), 3:30 pm
Alumni Weekend Class Reunions: ’44, ’49, ’54, ’59, ’64, ’74, ’79, ’84, ’89, ’94, ’99, ’04
February 6
May 23
Alumni Society Downtown Reception, with Stephen D. Bruno OPC ’97, president of marketing for the Weinstein Company
Color Day, 1:00 pm
April 21
June 7
Bert Linton Alumni/Parent Golf Outing
Commencement, 10:00 am
June 4 Women’s Legacy Celebration, 6:00 pm
