WINTER 2014
Periodicals postage paid at Andover MA and additional mailing offices
Households that receive more than one Andover magazine are encouraged to call 978-749-4267 to discontinue extra copies.
Phillips Academy, Andover, Massachusetts 01810-4161 ISSN 0735-5718
WINTER 2014
Chris Daze Ellis will be the Addison Gallery of American Art’s spring 2014 Edward E. Elson Artist in Residence. For more about the Addison, please see page 38.
iPad Pilot Transforms PA Classrooms Kemper Negotiates the Hair-Raising ’60s Chris Daze Ellis (b. 1961), Life in the Fast Lane, 2012, oil, acrylic, spray paint on canvas, 66 x 82 inches
Stella ’54, Church ’72 & Abiola ’92 Honored
Andover Ties That Bind by Eric “Ric” Redman ’66 Bad behavior got me to Andover. At my junior high in Seattle, Miss Boyd unfurled the wall map and began searching for Iceland around Antarctica, presumably because Antarctica is where one finds the most ice. “Miss Boyd, you are so stupid!” I blurted out. She lifted me by the ear, marched me to the principal, repeated my insult, and stormed out. Miss Peterson, the principal, thought a moment and then asked two questions: “Miss Boyd really is stupid, isn’t she?” and “Have you considered Andover or Exeter?” I had, actually, but my parents disapproved of private schools, and worse, Mom headed the local parent-teacher association. “Leave it to me,” Miss Peterson said. Soon I was back in her office, where she supervised my admissions test.
Gratitude for his Andover experience moved Ric Redman and his wife, Heather, to provide for Andover in their estate. They recently were welcomed into the Samuel Phillips and Sarah Abbot Society in recognition of their thoughtful and generous planning.
When I graduated from Andover, I went home to spend my summer as a logger. The Northwest was built on logging; that world was vanishing, and I wanted to experience it before it did. Fortunately, John Watzek (Class of 1910) had become a friend when Headmaster John Mason Kemper deployed us students to persuade him to fund Nathan Hale House. “Uncle John” was a timber baron. He called Frederick Hayes ’45, who ran Weyerhaeuser’s biggest logging operation. Fred put me into the woods. One day that summer the mightiest logger—the “bull buck”— surprisingly asked me to meet his son. Why? “He gets sent home for insulting teachers. Fred Hayes thinks you might have a suggestion.” Soon Steve Fury ’70 was at Andover, too.
Yuto Watanabe ’11
Of course, what matters isn’t the old school tie but ties to the school and its academic environment, the best I experienced, even though I was fortunate (thanks to Andover) to attend great universities. And what is that environment built on? An intergenerational partnership of John Watzek, Fred Hayes, and thousands of others. In gratitude (including to Miss Peterson!), I’m honored to join that partnership—and perhaps atone, belatedly, for my bad behavior to Miss Boyd.
To learn more about Andover’s gift planning options, contact David Flash at 978-749-4297 or dflash@andover.edu.
C on te nts
F E AT U R E S
28
33
44
28 New-Fashioned Learning, Old-Fashioned Objectives Discover how iPads are enhancing teaching and learning at PA. DEPARTMENTS
33 Athletics Goes Coed
6 From the Head of School
In fall 1973, Andover’s athletics department welcomed its first female athletes, including many from Abbot Academy.
7 Dateline Andover 16 Connected Learning
38 Bidding Adieu to Brian Allen William Agee ’55 offers a panoramic look at the former Addison director’s legacy of art, aesthetics, and education.
42 The Andover Alumni Award of Distinction
19 The World Comes to Andover 20 Sports Talk 22 Philanthropy Highlights 24 From the Archives 49 Connection 52 Andover Bookshelf
Frank Stella ’54, George Church ’72, and Hafsat Abiola ’92 receive this year’s awards.
55 Class Notes 117 In Memoriam
44 A Passion for the Peabody
120 Tales Out of School
Benefactor Marshall Cloyd ’58 shares his unique perspective on the R.S. Peabody Museum of Archaeology.
CLOSE-UPS 66 Jane Munro Barrett ’54 Biking solo across the United States
115 Avery Stone ’10 Fighting for equality for LGBT athletes
YouTube
Andover Alumni App
Linked In
SmugMug
PA Mobile
Andover | Winter 2014
1
FROM THE EDITOR WINTER 2014 Volume 107 Number 2 PUBLISHER Tracy M. Sweet Director of Academy Communications EDITOR Kristin Bair O’Keeffe Director of Publications DESIGNER Ken Puleo Art Director ASSISTANT EDITOR Jill Clerkin CLASS NOTES EDITOR Jane Dornbusch CLASS NOTES DESIGNER Sally Abugov CLASS NOTES COORDINATOR Laura MacHugh CONTRIBUTING WRITERS William C. Agee ’55, John Berman ’90, Alessandra Bianchi, Audrey Doyle, Victoria Harnish, Rachel Skiffer, Paula Trespas, Ryan Wheeler PHOTOGRAPHERS Boys & Girls Club of Lawrence, David Fox, Jeff Goldberg, Sam Hall ’06, Sally Holm, John Hurley, Jimmy Jusuf, P’16, Emma Kaufmann-LaDuc ’17, Chris Lynch, Gail Mansfield, Michael Malyszko, Brent Pederson, Jenny Savino, Damian Strohmeyer, Gil Talbot, Emily Tordo, Bastiaan van den Berg, Peter Vanderwarker ’65, Yuto Watanabe ’11 © 2014 Phillips Academy, Andover, Mass. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. Andover, the magazine of Phillips Academy is published four times a year—fall, winter, spring, and summer—by the Office of Communication at Phillips Academy, 180 Main Street, Andover MA 01810-4161. Main PA phone: 978-749-4000 Changes of address and death notices: 978-749-4269 alumni-records@andover.edu Phillips Academy website: www.andover.edu Andover magazine phone: 978-749-4677 Fax: 978-749-4272 E-mail: andovermagazine@andover.edu
Happy 2014! Despite the fact that New Year’s Day has passed, I’d like to share my top 10 resolutions for the magazine—and all other PA publications that cross my desk—for this new and glorious year. 1. Explore PA stories that in some way respond to Hafsat Abiola ’92’s inspirational call to the community during her November All-School Meeting address: “How can we be the best people for the world? Not in the world, but for the world.” (See story, page 42.) 2. Introduce a more robust digital format for Andover magazine. (No, this does not mean we’ll stop printing the magazine. Promise.) 3. Offer readers the opportunity to opt out of the paper issue of the magazine and instead enjoy our more robust digital issue. (See resolution #2.) 4. Share even more about the extraordinary learning and teaching—traditional and innovative—going on in PA classrooms every day. (See story, page 28.) 5. Make you laugh…and think. (See “From the Archives,” page 24.) 6. Share more stories about Abbot Academy and its graduates. Yes, the controversy spurred by the Coed@40 article in our spring 2013 issue was uncomfortable and upsetting, but it ignited an important and necessary conversation. 7. Convince readers (including our esteemed head of school) to refer to this publication as the “magazine,” not the “bulletin.” (I know, I know. A lofty goal.) 8. Reduce the amount of paper generated by the Office of Communication, a resolution that surely will please PA’s new sustainability coordinator (see story, page 14), as well as many alums. 9. Grow the magazine’s Twitter conversation. (Follow us at @AndoverMagazine.) 10. Learn more about your interests. Our readership includes nearly 24,000 women and men around the world, ranging in age from 18 to 103. With spectacular numbers like these, there’s no doubt we’re missing a few key stories. What would you like to read about that we haven’t covered? BONUS: Hang something besides a bulletin board on my office wall. How about you? What do you have planned for 2014?
Periodicals postage paid at Andover MA and additional mailing offices. Postmasters: Send address changes to Phillips Academy 180 Main Street Andover MA 01810-4161 ISSN-0735-5718
Kristin Bair O’Keeffe
Follow Andover on Twitter: @AndoverMagazine
Front cover: In Yasmine Allen’s Spanish 110 course, Leah Hamann ’17 practices a grammar structure on the board using the online textbook on her iPad. (See more about PA’s iPad Pilot Program on page 28.) Photo by Gil Talbot.
TO T H E E DI TO R
Dear Editor, It was with great sorrow that I read of Dick Duden ’43’s death in the fall magazine. Dick was an early idol of mine, and probably the reason I went (read “was sent”) to Andover.
I was content to stay there. But several arguments with my parents wore me down, always capped with my mother’s punch line: “If it was good enough for Dick Duden, it’ll be good enough for you!”
In 1943, my family moved from Shaker Heights, Ohio, to Rye, New York. Renewing a long and deep friendship with my mother, Dick’s mother, Emma Duden, who was always “Aunt Emma’ to me, became a frequent weekend and holiday guest at our home in Rye. She lived alone in New York and worked at the corporate offices of the Hanes Hosiery Company. She seemed to enjoy these visits, as we all did, which could be at any time of the year. We shared her accounts of Dick’s successes at the Naval Academy. She was also a strong Andover booster and put this bee my mother’s bonnet.
I went to Andover as a lower in the fall of 1948. I played club football as a general purpose back that year and quarterbacked the JVA the next. I was invited back by [coach] Steve Sorota for early varsity practice in my senior year. We had two stellar running backs that year, my dear friend and classmate the late George “Pete” Gardere Jr. ’50, and junior Bob Kimball ’51. Another classmate and later Yale roommate, E. Leigh Quinn ’50, won the quarterback job. Fullback was supposed to belong to a large, fast, and talented junior, whose name escapes me, but he broke his ankle early on, and that job opened up. I worked my way into it, a process not aided by getting hurt approximately every other game.
Occasionally, Dick would come, and, for me, that was really something special. In the fall of 1945, he was captain of the Navy football team. He got a lot of national press both before and throughout that season as Navy challenged Army, with Blanchard and Davis, for national standing. I basked in reflected glory. I can remember a pre-season day when he visited, and I invited virtually every kid from the Milton School 7th grade to come over, meet Dick, and get his autograph, and play touch in our front yard. He got a kick out of that. He was good for tickets: that year we saw Navy play Penn at Philadelphia and Army in basketball at West Point. He never pushed Andover, but then he didn’t have to; Aunt Emma did. I was not enthusiastic when the issue of prep school came up. Rye High School started off well for me, and
Macro Mystery Can you identify the campus location of the photo below?
We were 4 and 2 going into the Exeter game. Exeter was supposed to be very good, with a highly touted ringer named Billy Wells, already admitted by Michigan State. I was physically fit and formally designated as the starting Andover fullback. I was scared stiff! Imagine my feelings when I received the following telegram the evening before the game:
If you think you know, send your answer to:
“Good luck against Exeter! Your friend, Dick Duden”
Congratulations to the winners of the fall 2013 Macro Mystery:
Thanks, Dude!
—Richard G. Bell ’50 Hamden, Connecticut
andovermagazine@ andover.edu
P.S. We cleaned their clock!!
Jing Qu ’13 (first correct answer) Richard G. Fullerton ’46
1949 Football Team Richard Bell ’50 is number 65, front row, far right.
ERRATA Fall 2013 In the “front cover” description on page 2, we should have identified Wang Zong of Beijing as the photographer. In “We, the People” on page 8, the website address was incomplete: the correct address is nosotroselpueblo.wordpress.com. And in the Class of 1948’s notes on page 64, Austin Brandt Graff ’s last name was left off. We apologize for these errors.
This striking emblem hangs above the front door of Benner House at 22 Salem Street. For many years, as Fullerton pointed out in his e-mail, Benner House was home to the Alpha Gamma Chi (AGC) secret society. The building, which also once served as a student snack bar, currently houses PA’s ceramics studio. If anyone can shed light on the origins of the emblem or the meaning of its elements, we’d love to hear from you!
Please share your thoughts with us Andover, the magazine of Phillips Academy welcomes your comments, suggestions, and involvement. Letters may be edited for length, grammar, and style. Please e-mail andovermagazine@andover.edu or call 978-749-4677.
Andover-Exeter 2013 4
Andover | Winter 2014
Len Rubenstein
5
Photos by Neil Evans, Jimmy Jusuf P'16, Steve Porter, and Damien Strohmeyer
Andover | Winter 2014
Gil Talbot
From the Head of School A high school, no matter how sophisticated or famous, is, at the core, a simple operation: we bring together young people with adults for the purpose of teaching and learning. The way we make this connection may be changing; the subject matter we engage is shifting; the world is bigger, more complex, and more diverse. But fundamentally, we are in the business of an explicit, daily, human, emotional connection between students and faculty. As we move through the strategic planning process to guide the Academy over the next three to five years, we are looking hard at how innovation in teaching and learning makes sense at Andover. And as we consider this essential aspect of our work, we are reading a great deal. I’d like to recommend a few of the books that have been on my nightstand and that many other faculty have been reading as we do our own homework. College: What It Was, Is, and Should Be by Andrew Delbanco
Princeton University Press, 2012
Columbia University professor Andrew Delbanco takes up the problem of what college ought to be. In exploring “the traditional four-year college experience,” Delbanco challenges us to think hard about the premise of a liberal arts education before we move too quickly toward a world of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) and other newfangled ideas. The New American High School by Theodore R. Sizer Jossey-Bass, 2013
In addition to being Phillips Academy’s 12th head of school, Theodore Sizer is a giant in 20thcentury educational theory and practice. Faculty Emerita Nancy Faust Sizer, the late Dr. Sizer’s widow, wrote the introduction. Dr. Sizer wrote this book and nearly published it before his death; Mrs. Sizer and their editor brought it to fruition last year. It is a great introduction to the Sizers’ work, which continues to have reverberations throughout our Academy today. (I have in mind a present-day Andover update to Sizer’s 6
Andover | Winter 2014
short chapter, the ninth, on technology.) [Editor’s note: For more about The New American High School, see Andover Bookshelf, page 52.]
Why Teach? In Defense of a Real Education by Mark Edmundson Bloomsbury, 2013
University of Virginia humanities professor Mark Edmundson makes a passionate statement about what makes a teacher great. And while the Harper, 2007 author is the crankiest of the lot I This book is a wonderful synthesis of recommend in this column, this book hundreds of studies of how the brain hits the hardest. It is well worth readworks, especially with respect to reading. If you are an Abbot Academy or ing, by Tufts professor Maryanne Phillips Academy graduate, I suspect Wolf, who specializes in early childthis book will make you recall your hood education. The emphasis falls favorite teachers from high school and on kids younger than ours, but the how they opened your mind. I know implications for our student body are it has made me rethink my approach clear—especially for students whose both to administration and classroom parents didn’t read to them or encourteaching (which in my case is the great age them to read at an early age. joy of winter term). The One World Schoolhouse: Education Reimagined Reading these books, as stimulating by Salman Khan as they are, is no substitute for the Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain by Maryanne Wolf
Twelve, 2012
As you may have heard, we at Phillips Academy are partnering through our math department with Sal Khan and his team at Khan Academy. But if you think you know Khan’s views on education based on what you’ve seen on his website, think again. This is an impressive, thoughtful book about education broadly conceived.
best interactions, face to face, with a great teacher. We have the luxury of personal connections at Andover, and I give thanks every day for the opportunity to work with both the talented adults and the curious, energized students who come to our campus to live and learn. John Palfrey
D ate li ne an d o v e r
Educate Girls, Change the World Girl Rising showcases the strength of the human spirit and the power of education to change a girl—and the world. Directed by Academy Award nominee Richard Robbins and coproduced by Kayce Freed Jennings ’76 (at right), the groundbreaking documentary shares the struggles of nine seemingly extraordinary girls from nine countries who dream not of becoming pop stars or being rich, but simply of going to school. “These nine girls really aren’t special,” says Jennings. “They are very similar to the tens of millions of other girls who are not in school but want to be.” On November 15, Jennings, cofounder of The Documentary Group and 20-year veteran of ABC News, visited campus to meet with students, share dinner with members of the Girls’ Leadership Project, and host a screening of Girl Rising followed by a Q&A. “There are no miracles, and not every one of these girls is going to make it,” she told her audience, “but we do know the dramatic effect education can have. One extra year
of education can increase a woman’s future earnings by 20 percent. If 10 percent more girls are educated, the GDP of a country goes up 3 percent.
Educated girls marry later, have fewer, healthier children, and educate both their girls and their boys; the cycle gets broken.
“This project is as much for boys and men as it is for girls and women—it’s about all of us,” she added, noting the film’s many important male characters. Jennings hopes students who viewed the film not only will feel a stronger commitment to their responsibilities as global citizens, but also will join the Girl Rising movement, which offers specific actions students can take to spread the message about girls’ education, raise money for programs that empower girls, or support the campaign to influence policy (see www.girlrising.com). “Andover students have influence,” she says. “They will have the opportunity to affect real change during their lives.” Jennings’s visit, initiated by former Andover magazine editor Sally Holm, was cosponsored by the Girls’ Leadership Project, Brace Center for Gender Studies, Women’s Forum, and Andover Film Club.
Bravo, Lou Bernieri!
Courtesy of the BGCL
Andover Bread Loaf (ABL) Director Lou Bernieri was honored by the Boys & Girls Club of Lawrence (BGCL) with the 2013 Jeannie Melucci Award, presented each year to “a volunteer who goes above and beyond in service.” The audience at the November 27 event included more than 400 young
members of the BGCL. Bernieri, also a PA English instructor, collaborated with BGCL’s education staff to create the Slice program, which engages the club’s elementary school children in writing, arts, and performance activities throughout the year. “We’re very appreciative of Lou
for his remarkable, and at times lifechanging, impact on our kids,” said Markus Fischer, executive director of the BGCL. “He has opened up a new world of creative writing and arts to our youth members.” “It has been my honor to be able to do this work,” said Bernieri, adding
that he has gained more than he has given through his volunteer experience at BGCL. A Phillips Academy outreach program founded by Bernieri in 1987, ABL empowers young writers, develops and supports teachers, engages communities, and promotes literacy and educational revitalization.
Joining ABL Director Lou Bernieri (holding plaque) in celebration of his award are, from left, Rhandy Audate, BGCL assistant director of education; Lou’s wife, Laura; Jo-Ann Fortier and husband Leon Modeste, PA athletics instructor and head football coach; Rich Gorham ’86, ABL educator and chair of the Lawrence High School English department; Karen Kravchuk, BGCL director of education; and Roberto German, BGCL alum, ABL educator, and assistant principal of the Guilmette Middle School in Lawrence. Andover | Winter 2014
7
D ate li ne an d o v e r
Trustee Weekend: Celebrations Abound The presence of more than 200 alumni at Trustee Weekend last fall generated incredible opportunities for engagement in the life of the school. The Board of Trustees, Alumni Council, Andover Development Board, and Annual Giving Board each pursued separate business agendas on Friday, November 1, then joined for dinner with faculty and other members of the PA community. The dinner was an occasion to recognize the legacy of former associate head of school Becky Sykes, the service of retiring trustees Bill Lewis ’74 and Mollie Lupe Lasater ’56, and the leadership of Brian Allen, departing director of the Addison Gallery. It was also an occasion to celebrate exceptional teaching.
season allowed Andover to reduce its projected draw on the endowment from 5.98 percent to 5.73 percent. Fundraising exceeded its ambitious targets, finishing the year with $38.8 million in cash, which included $10.6 million for the Andover Fund.
Photos by Gil Talbot
• Strategic Planning was the focus of a joint session of the Board of Trustees and the Andover Development Board. Rachel Skiffer, dean of policy and strategic planning, presented an overview of the process, emerging themes, and the multiple ways the community can offer feedback and ideas. Much of November and December were dedicated to data gathering via broad-based surveys and campus discussion forums.
Generously supported by endowed funds, four instructorships and foundations recognizing faculty excellence were presented by Dean of Faculty Patrick Farrell. Trustee Stephen Sherrill ’71 (second from right) congratulates this year’s recipients, including, from left, physics instructor Clyfe Beckwith, George Peabody Teaching Foundation; athletics instructor and head football coach Leon Modeste, Independence Foundation; and theatre and dance instructor Judith Wombwell, Ammi Wright Lancashire Teaching Foundation. Not pictured: English instructor Elly Nyamwaya, Sumner R. Kates ’38 and Marshall S. Kates ’39 Instructorship for the Humanities Trustee Weekend also included the following highlights:
• Trustees and members of the Andover Development Board gathered for a “global breakfast” on Saturday. Coordinated by Dean of Studies Patricia Russell, Andover Institute Director Caroline Nolan, and Global Perspectives Group Chair Peter Merrill, conversations with students and faculty exposed board members to off-campus learning experiences and how they circle back to Andover and inform curriculum development. Among the programs featured were Niswarth (India), BASK in ASK (Kunming, China), HUACA (Peru), South Africa & Arts, Brazil PLACES, and Russian language immersion. • Alumnae leaders representing every decade from the 1950s to the 1990s joined students and faculty for dinner and discussions on contemporary issues surrounding gender. Students initiated discussions on matters most important to them, including the school’s copresident model, mentoring relationships, leadership development for girls, sex education, and the recent controversy over appropriate forms of dress and dance. —Tracy Sweet
• Former heads of school Barbara Landis Chase and Don McNemar and Faculty Emerita Nancy Sizer (widow of late headmaster Ted Sizer) attended Friday’s dinner and offered personal reflections on Becky Sykes’s 40 years at the Academy. Head of School John Palfrey then made the surprise announcement that trustees had voted—that very day—to name the soon-to-be-constructed wellness facility the Rebecca M. Sykes Wellness Center (see story, page 23). Deeply moved, Sykes voiced her gratitude for the colleagues, alumni, and trustees who worked so hard to make the center a reality. • Representatives from Shepley Bulfinch presented architectural renderings of the wellness center and outlined its environmental features, which include geothermal heating and cooling, a green roof, and an energy dashboard. The project is on track to break ground in September 2014 with completion expected December 2015. • The board heard reports outlining the Academy’s financial status, which included a healthy finish to Fiscal Year 2013. The FY13 endowment return of 13.7 percent placed Andover ahead of nearly all peer schools and most colleges and universities. A successful recruitment and enrollment
8
Andover | Winter 2014
Tristin Batchelder Mannion ’82 (left) was one of several trustees who met with students in Paresky Commons on Friday, November 1, for casual conversation over lunch.
Andover-Exeter Young Alumni Challenge From November 4 to 8, the epic rivalry between Andover and Exeter heated up with the AndoverExeter Young Alumni Challenge, a philanthropic throw-down in which classes from the past 15 years competed to pull in the most gifts.
—Rachel Skiffer Dean of Policy and Strategic Planning
In addition to diving into the data received via surveys, members of the task force and campus community have been reading much about the field of education. Have you seen the recommended titles from Head of School John Palfrey? (See page 6.)
1,298 15 $26,723 classes
made gifts totaling
5
days in November
49.3%
new
277
donors participated
in the challenge
participation rate of the class of
2005
—the highest of any young alumni class
1
31 gifts Exeter flag
flew above Flagstaff Courtyard on November 12
by which
Exeter
Phillips Academy’s Strategic Planning Task Force began its work in earnest last summer. The plan, expected to be presented to the Board of Trustees for approval in fall 2014, will set Andover’s strategic direction for the coming three to five years. One of the most important aspects of the strategic planning process is gathering input from the PA community—those who teach, live, and learn on the campus—as well as the thousands of alumni and parents who care deeply about Andover’s future. Much of the fall was spent reaching out to individual groups to hear their thoughts and dreams for PA and to test our long-held community values, such as non sibi and “youth from every quarter.” Working closely with an Alumni Council committee, the task force created a special survey for Abbot Academy and Phillips Academy alumni. Topics included the Academy’s core values, the current ways in which alumni engage with the school, and the skills that today’s graduates must have to be successful in their lives after Andover. More than 1,400 alumni participated in the comprehensive survey, with respondents spanning every decade from the 1940s through today. A handful of respondents graduated before 1940. The highest concentration of responses came from alumni from the 1980s. In early 2014, via the Web, the task force will share and request feedback on the emerging shape of the plan as informed by the input received from alumni as well as from students, faculty, staff, administrators, and parents. Those who did not participate in the survey still may contribute to this data-gathering phase by e-mailing thoughts to strategicplan@ andover.edu. We thank all alumni for their time and engagement in this critical process; it is essential to a successful strategic plan!
young Andover alumni from
over
Alumni Feedback Fuels Strategic Planning
eked out a narrow victory
Total gifts: Exeter 1,329 Andover 1,298
Andover | Winter 2014
9
D ate li ne an d o v e r
Exeter Geek Day Neil Evans
Caught in an Anchorman-esque leap of joy are, from left, Blue Key heads Cat Haseman, Austin Gaiss, Cooper Hurley, Stephanie Nekoroski, Marjorie Kozloff, Dan Kim, Grant Bitler, and Matt Simon, all Class of 2014.
New England Champions!
Damian Strohmeyer
Following football’s first AndoverExeter win in five years (13–12 in a nail-biter), which secured an 8–0 regular season (the team’s first winning season in four years), Andover did itself one better. In a stunning 4th quarter come-from-behind 35–28 victory over Brunswick School on a neutral field in Connecticut, Andover’s football team, led by head coach Leon Modeste and his coaching staff, became Jack Etter Bowl NEPSAC champions for the first time since 1999. For individual player recognition, see page 21.
10
Andover | Winter 2014
Archives Acquires Rare Abbot Album
David Fox
An album filled with more than 325 photographic portraits of Abbot Academy students and teachers—circa 1858–1889—has been added to PA’s Archives, thanks to the generosity of Leslie K. Hendrix ’73. “A rare book and manuscript dealer contacted us about the album and sold it to us during the summer,” says Paige Roberts, director of Archives & Special Collections, “but he has not told us its provenance.” Although the folio pages are brittle, the sepia-colored photographs are sharp, clear, and in very good condition. Each student—many with elaborately coiffed hair and clad in hoop skirts, gowns, lace collars, and gloves—is identified by name and year of graduation. Also included is a handful of photos of male trustees and teachers, Academy Hall (the present day School Room, located in Abbot Hall), and the Classes of 1886 and 1889, with students holding tennis rackets, guitars, and banjos. Described by Roberts as “a true treasure,” the album will be an invaluable resource for those researching Abbot Academy and late 19th-century history, fashion, and furniture.
Emily Tordo
London Bridges Thanks to a generous Abbot Academy Association grant, 13 students and three faculty members spent the Thanksgiving recess exploring London through the lens of London: Harbinger of Modernity, the 2013 William Sloane Coffin Colloquium. The unconventional fall term class—involving 16 faculty members from eight departments—focused on the cultural, intellectual, political, artistic, and scientific life of London from the start of the English Civil War in the mid-17th century through the publication of Robinson Crusoe in 1719. English and art history instructor David Fox, colloquium creator, was joined on the trip by history and social science instructor Chris Jones and English instructor LaShonda Long. “We journeyed to London so students could experience much of what they had studied,” he says. “From standing on Aphra Behn’s tomb in Westminster Abbey to seeing the rooms in which Newton wrote the Principia, from absorbing Wren’s self-described masterwork, St. Stephen’s, to reading from a first edition of Hobbes’s Leviathan, the students connected their travel to their academic studies.” From the students’ perspective, the London trip was eye opening. “We ate dinner in the pub where Watson and Crick announced their discovery of DNA and saw the apple tree that inspired Newton’s discovery of gravity,” said Rachel Murree ’14. “The history is quite spectacular, and visiting Cambridge University was awe-inspiring.” The photo above was taken on the famous Tulip Stairs at the Queen’s House in Greenwich, England. For Fox’s part, it was a vivid illustration of the power of experiential learning. “There is almost nothing more rewarding than walking through the National Portrait Gallery and witnessing the students generating, augmenting, and sharing their knowledge and understanding,” he says. —Jane Dornbusch
Andover | Winter 2014
11
D ate li ne an d o v e r
Grasshopper Night
“What started with a group of frantic producers running about turned into a magical and memorable night of talent,” says Ellie Simon ’15 of Grasshopper Night, the ever-popular Family Weekend student variety show. Performances were based on inspiration from books, art, and movies. It took “collective creativity and imagination,” acknowledges Lane Unsworth ’15, to pull the show together. Emcees included Simon, Unsworth, Sophia Lloyd-Thomas ’14, Rob Irvin ’15, and Vince Mocco ’15.
Left: Pop art evoked a musical response from guitarists Alec D’Alelio ’14 and Noah Singer ’15. Inset: Vince Mocco ’15 describes a sorrowful experience as he introduces “Summertime Sadness,” sung by the Keynotes.
Photos by Gil Talbot
Below: This dance performance by, from left, Rachel Murree ’14, Elizabeth McGonagle ’16, Olivia Berkey ’15, Sophia Landay ’14, Sara Luzuriaga ’16, Emily Ewing ’14 (hidden), Hannah Beaudoin ’17 (hidden), and Marion Kudla ’15 took its inspiration from The Great Gatsby.
12
Andover | Winter 2014
Winter at the Addison
James Abbott McNeill Whistler, Wapping, 1860–64, oil on canvas, 28 3/8 x 40 1/16 in., National Gallery of Art, John Hay Whitney Collection, 1982.76.8
An American in London: Whistler and the Thames February 1–April 13 In the 1860s and 1870s, James Abbott McNeill Whistler immersed himself in the life of Victorian London, with a particular focus on the bustling neighborhood surrounding Battersea Bridge—including the workers and women who frequented the Thames-side wharves and pubs, the barges that navigated the perilous passage under the bridges, and the steamboats and wherries crowded with daytrippers that paddled up and down Battersea Reach. An American in London brings together numerous paintings, prints, and drawings from this pivotal period in Whistler’s career. The exhibition was organized by the Addison Gallery, the Dulwich Picture Gallery in London, and the Smithsonian Institution’s Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery. Generous support for this exhibition was provided by Edward P. Bass ’63 on his 50th reunion, in honor of Brian T. Allen (by The Bass Foundation); Thomas C. Foley ’71 and Leslie Fahrenkopf Foley; Leslie G. Callahan III ’68 and Barbara Keenan Callahan; David Carter ’41 and Louise Carter; the David L. Older Fund; the Keamy Family Foundation in memory of Yvonne and Donald Keamy; The Lunder Foundation; and an anonymous foundation. In-kind media partner: 90.9 WBUR.
Industrial Strength: Selections from the Collection
Eye on the Collection: Artful Poses
February 1–April 13
At their most essential level, portraits are representations of the physical presence of the subject, yet the gaze, the drape of fine garments, the polish of furnishings, and well-placed accoutrements can reveal so much more. Artful Poses will feature works from the collection spanning the 18th century to the present, including self-portraiture by Chuck Close and Red Grooms.
Complementing An American in London, works by artists such as Edward Hopper, Walker Evans, Margaret Bourke-White, O. Winston Link, Peter Vanderwarker ’65, and Siah Armajani will explore other aspects of the industrial landscape, from laborers to factories, planes and trains to bridges and automobiles, and geometric shapes to hard-edged forms and industrial materials. This exhibition was curated by Allison Kemmerer, the Addison’s Mead Curator of Photography and Curator of Art After 1950.
February 1–March 31
Generous support for this exhibition, curated by Addison Associate Director Susan Faxon, has been provided by the Bernard and Louise Palitz Exhibitions Fund.
New in Spring 2014 Loisaida: New York’s Lower East Side in the ’80s April 12–July 31
Street Talk: Chris Daze Ellis in Dialogue with the Collection May 3–July 31 Chris Daze Ellis will be the spring 2014 Edward E. Elson Artist in Residence. (See back cover for a look at Ellis’s work.)
Be sure to visit www.andover.edu/museums/addison
Teamwork Tallies $250,000
Chris Lynch
In a mid-December competition hosted by Brooks School, four squash teams helped raised $250,000 to support SquashBusters Lawrence, a program that engages urban youth—from sixth grade through college—by combining the discipline and fun of squash with academic enrichment. PA and Brooks have shared their squash courts with the program and involved their own students as partners on the courts and in the classroom since fall 2012. The “Andover Academics”—led by past PA parent Ed Krapels and featuring Head of School John Palfrey, Jon Karlen ’90, and last year’s boys’ squash captain Alex Demeulenaere ’13—won the competition and also raised the most in donations, which included more than $600 from a pre-fundraiser organized by the boys’ varsity squash team. “It was,” says Tom Hodgson, longtime PA squash program director, event referee, and member of the local SquashBusters board, “a spectacular weekend of community-building fun.”
SquashBusters Lawrence fundraiser participants included, from left, seventh-graders Phoenix Almonte and Angel Garcia, and eighth-graders Katherine Leiva and Joyce Zhang. Zhang played on the Andover Academics team. Andover | Winter 2014
13
D ate li ne an d o v e r
Strength in Numbers A few days before Veterans Day 2013, the Reverend Anne Gardner, director of spiritual and religious life, rallied 728 students and other community members to celebrate two of the core tenets of military service—non sibi and physical fitness—by attempting to break the Guinness Book of World Records mark for most people simultaneously doing pushups for one minute. The event
was held on Phelps Field just before Friday evening’s Andover-Exeter pep rally. Although not everyone completed the full 60 seconds (traditional stance, on palms and toes only), the total number that did far exceeded other recent successful record attempts. Gardner, pictured at left, has documented the event for GBWR and is awaiting official word.
Serious About Sustainability
PA math instructor Don Barry recently received a 2013 Yale Educator Award, which recognizes outstanding educators from around the world who have supported and inspired their students to achieve at high levels. Yale undergrad and potential math major Justin Wang ’13 nominated Barry “because of his ability to pass on his passion for math to me and other students.” Barry oversaw Wang’s senior independent project on contest math (creative, non-routine problems generally not seen in textbooks), but most of their interactions were through PA’s Math Club. “I think what makes Mr. Barry a strong club leader is his belief that contest math is not just for exceptionally talented math students but also for anyone who enjoys problem solving,” says Wang. “This made the club not only very educational but also a lot of fun.”
To build on groundwork laid by current Dean of Studies Patricia Russell and many others, Debra Shepard recently was named to a fulltime position as sustainability coordinator. Shepard, who has worked with MIT and Sustainserv of Boston, is collecting data on campus energy and water use, greenhouse gas emissions, and waste, and coordinating PA’s participation in the Green Cup Challenge, an annual competition among peer schools to reduce energy use. “Making a campus sustainable entails changing the institution,” says Shepard. “Through this process, we’re uncovering ways to improve environmental performance, cut operating costs, and educate the students on social responsibility.” In the months ahead, she will work with PA’s Sustainability Steering Committee to establish goals, develop Andover’s sustainability strategy, and collaborate with faculty and students on ongoing projects and some new initiatives.
14
Andover | Winter 2014
Emma Kaufmann-LaDuc ’17 The Phillipian
Gil Talbot
Steve Porter
Don Barry Honored by Yale
GSA Celebrates 25 Years PA’s first-ever Gay Pride Parade—led by Barbara Dalton Rotundo ’00, Kai Kornegay ’14, and Barbara’s father, Tony Rotundo, instructor in history and social science and Brace Center for Gender Studies codirector—processed along the Elm Walk to the steps of SamPhil.
Twenty-five years ago the closet door opened at Phillips Academy. Despite the growing AIDS epidemic and a rising tide of homophobia, a handful of brave PA students and faculty came out as gays and lesbians in 1988 and, with the support of many heterosexual allies, founded the Gay Straight Alliance (GSA). Providing conversation, support, educational programming, and social events for the Academy’s gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and questioning youth, the GSA was one of the first clubs of its kind established in the United States by an independent high school. As part of PA’s annual Gay Pride Weekend in mid-October, students,
alumni, faculty, and friends proudly celebrated the 25th anniversary of the GSA (which now stands for Gender and Sexuality Alliance). “This community is a better place thanks to the courage of a small group of faculty and students and their allies who took risks to make their authentic selves known as a minority LGBT club,” says LGBT advisor Peg Harrigan, also an instructor in art. “These change-makers could only dream of a Gay Pride Parade on our campus in a 25th celebratory year, made all the more auspicious by the Supreme Court’s recent decision to affirm marriage equality for same-sex couples and their children.”
Along with the parade, special weekend programming included GSA student and alumni panels, a viewing and discussion of LGBT artists represented in the Addison Gallery’s permanent collection, and a dinner for the GSA’s current members and alumni. On Saturday evening, the film Happy Birthday to a Beautiful Woman was screened, followed by a Q&A with writer Mickalene Thomas and producer Tanya Selvaratnam ’88. The second event, “Dance of the Dying Soldiers,” written by GSA alumni panelist Agustin McCarthy ’88, was a comedic, coming-of-age, multimedia performance piece that included
current GSA members. McCarthy, one PA’s first students to come out, announced he was gay to his senior class and received a standing ovation. What McCarthy found particularly remarkable on this recent visit to Andover was current students’ awareness and vocabulary when it comes to issues of gender and sexuality. “I was grateful to see how integrated the LGBT students seemed to be into the larger student body,” he says. “While some students still experienced difficulties due to their sexual orientation and gender identity, they were able to identify and voice these [difficulties] in a way that made it clear to me they are on a path to acceptance and self-esteem. “I felt proud and honored to be an alum from a school where the faculty is so clearly committed to challenging simplistic assumptions and where difference is seen as an asset in creating the critical thinkers and leaders of the future.” “Amazing” is how GSA member Alyssa Augustin ’15 described the weekend. “Just being around so many alumni and out faculty made me feel this sense of pride and inclusion I’ve never felt here before.” —Jill Clerkin
Photos by Gil Talbot
Above: Former PA English instructor Nancy Boutilier and Agustin McCarthy ’88, two of the seven GSA alumni panelists. Right: Malina Simard-Halm ’14 (green scarf) gave a presentation on gay fathers and parenting. She is surrounded by GSA student panelists, from left, Harry Wright ’14, Sean Burkitt ’14, Jaleel Williams ’15, Kai Kornegay ’14, Hanover Vale ’15, Jerry Li ’14, and Alyssa Augustin ’15, and LGBT advisor Peg Harrigan. Andover | Winter 2014
15
C on n e cte d Lea r n i n g
Wade Zahares
The Andover Institute: Cultivating Innovation, Activating Ideas
“Connected learning” at Andover means that we focus on the interconnected learning experience of our students in a vibrant, diverse residential community. We encourage students to learn both from teachers in traditional classroom settings as well as from the many communities with which they engage, online and face-to-face—peers, mentors, sports teams, global communities, those involved in public service—and to draw meaningful connections between and among these experiences.
In “Connected Learning” (Andover, winter 2013), Head of School John Palfrey expressed his intention to create an institute at PA “designed to give faculty and students a place to assess digitally mediated learning, a lab in which new tools and teaching techniques are tried out, tested, tossed around, and assessed.” The Andover Institute is the culmination of that very intention. In October, Caroline Nolan took the helm of the nascent institute. And while the Andover Institute hopes to celebrate an official launch in fall 2014, Nolan’s appointment marked the beginning of a yearlong “soft opening”—a year during which Nolan, Dean of Studies Patricia Russell, Head of School John Palfrey, and others are working together to develop the institute’s focus and chart its future.
Vision The Andover Institute will be a hub where faculty, students, staff, and visitors can come together to envision and experiment with new modes of teaching and learning, and bring the best of them to fruition. It’s a place where new ideas will find their way into common practice, where the effectiveness of new or existing modes of teaching and learning
will be assessed, and where findings will be shared. As Palfrey wrote in the institute’s July 2013 concept note: “Everyone involved in the Andover Institute will learn about how to make something from nothing, how to scale something for greater impact as it succeeds, and how to fail gracefully and learn from our mistakes.” Over time, the institute will become many things to many people: laboratory, research facility, conference room, think tank, workshop, studio, factory, and more. Faculty members in every discipline at PA are using innovative methods of teaching in their classrooms: The institute provides a place where they can gather, share, learn from one another, and extend their reach.
Focus During this first year, the institute is focusing on three interconnected themes: 1. global citizenship and off-campus learning 2. connected learning 3. innovations in outreach While these three themes are vital and very much a part of current conversations at PA and in the broader educational community, Nolan is quick to point out that they are by no means permanent
Gil Talbot
16
Andover | Winter 2014
Just the Facts: Caroline Nolan
Gil Talbot
Fellows
or exhaustive but rather “early seedbeds through which to explore mechanisms for experimentation. Ideally, they will offer flexible pathways for participation that will shape and inform future work—and structure—of the institute.”
Home Currently the institute is housed in Pearson C, but Russell admits that that may change as she, Nolan, and others see what needs arise. What’s important, Nolan explains, “is having a collaborative, participatory space where community members can come together to work on projects across a broad range of disciplines. We’re excited to build a place that can support diverse modes of collaboration and exchange—from informal chatting and brainstorming to working/building online, hosting focus groups, project-based learning, and other innovative approaches.”
Funding Funding for the institute is collaborative. Generous gifts from trustees, alums, and parents provided seed funding that allowed the initiative to get off the ground. An Abbot Academy Association grant and the Head of School Venture Fund are providing additional funding.
Looking Forward Much is happening collaboratively, says Russell. “The Eight Schools Association is developing blended learning courses that will be open to students in all schools,” she explains. “We are working on expanding our curricular offerings and exploring online learning by doing it together. This allows us to take advantage of resources that are in some schools, but not in all.” Choate and Deerfield, she says, are developing an Arabic course, and plans are in the works for a water resources course in which a teacher from each of the eight schools would be involved.
The Puzzle The institute is a first for PA. It’s an opportunity to harness the ways PA can lead the movement in educational transformation—as it always has. Figuring out how to make it all work is challenging, but Russell says, “Caroline is piecing this jigsaw puzzle together very nicely. We’ve always been a place with tremendous innovation. What is different is that when people have great ideas, now they have someplace to go.”
Director of the Andover Institute
Neil Evans
In fall 2013, the institute put out an open call for fellows to contribute to and propose a number of projects, including: • global citizenship and off-campus learning programming • a hybrid interdisciplinary course developed in collaboration with the Eight Schools Association • an online BC calculus course • the continued growth of our Khan Academy partnership • an online tool for new student placement and baseline testing • innovation in teaching and learning in the humanities While the focus this time was on current faculty, in the future, depending on project needs, fellows may be chosen from diverse community members, both on and off campus. Appointments are for one year, with the possibility for renewal based on the status of the project. The first round of fellowships will begin in fall 2014.
• In early October, Caroline Nolan joined the PA community as the first director of the Andover Institute. • Before joining PA, Nolan worked as an associate director at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University. • At the Berkman Center, Nolan led projects focused on the impact of technology and technological change in various fields, especially in education. • Nolan has a master’s degree in international affairs from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University and a bachelor’s degree from Brown University. • While attending Fletcher, Nolan worked as a researcher for Reebok’s human rights department and the Boston Consortium on Gender, Security and Human Rights. She also worked at Pathfinder International. • During her first career, she was a sous chef at Rialto restaurant in Cambridge.
—Kristin Bair O’Keeffe
Andover | Winter 2014
17
C on n e cte d Lea r n i n g
Visiting Scholar Shares Poetry, Humor, and Know-How
Neil Evans
Steve Cushman, the Robert C. Taylor Professor of English at the University of Virginia, engages students in Paul Yoon’s fiction writing course in Bulfinch Hall.
In mid-November, poet, writer, and Civil War scholar Steve Cushman joined PA’s English department as a visiting scholar. During his week on campus, Cushman worked with classes in both English and history, including one extended period at the Addison Gallery of American Art with
students in instructor Chris Jones’s Civil War elective course. He also worked with English faculty during their department development day and, on his last evening, gave a reading of his own work to an enthusiastic crowd of students and faculty. English department chair Jeff Domina says
that the visit was an overwhelming success. “Our department brings in quite a few visiting writers and scholars,” he says, “but this longer visit with Steve has been something special.” Students agree. Willa TelleksonFlash ’14, who worked with Cushman
New Off-Campus Learning Opportunities In “World Views: A Look at PA’s Off-Campus Learning Programs” (Andover, fall 2013), we shared the myriad opportunities around the world that are open to PA students. Starting in fall 2014, there will be two more exciting opportunities for students to explore and learn in unique, invigorating communities and to discover how people can affect positive change in our world. In the fall, two PA students will head to the Island School in Cape Eleuthera, Bahamas, and in spring 2015, two students will spend the term at the Mountain School
18
Andover | Winter 2014
in Vershire, Vermont. “These are opportunities for our students to do off-campus learning in big ways,” says Dean of Studies Patricia Russell. At the Island School, students are immersed in challenging place-based learning, and at the Mountain School, they live and work on an organic farm. “These are programs that take independent school students for a semester and are designed for kids like ours who want to have an experience off of their campus,” says Russell.
in her poetry writing workshop taught by Writer-in-Residence Paul Yoon, and Joe Faller ’14, who is in Yoon’s fiction writing workshop, both appreciated the energy, enthusiasm, and knowledge of craft Cushman brought to their classes. “We focused more on the origins of the short story and flash fiction before it took on the sort of official form that we’re studying and experimenting with in the class now,” says Faller. “We looked at excerpts from the Bible, philosophers, and even short jokes as examples of where flash fiction could have stemmed from. I learned that while almost anything could be interpreted as flash fiction, it takes a lot more to turn it into good flash fiction.” Tellekson-Flash said she was reminded that there is no such thing as a meaningless word in a poem.
Th e Wo rld C o mes To an d ove r
Humanitarian Recounts Rwandan Genocide
Paul Rusesabagina, the hotel manager who provided refuge to more than 1,200 Tutsis and moderate Hutus at the height of the Rwandan genocide of 1994—and whose actions inspired the 2004 film Hotel Rwanda—spoke about the experience to a rapt Kemper Auditorium audience on October 25. He also described his efforts to support the genocide victims through the Hotel Rwanda Rusesabagina Foundation, which he established in 2005, and the importance of promoting peace in Rwanda and the surrounding region. “What struck me about Mr. Rusesabagina was his sincere non sibi spirit,” says Marcello Rossi ’16. “A man of humble origins, he risked his life and used almost all his money and resources to protect more than a thousand refugees, expecting nothing in return.” “Due to our privileged circumstances in this country, it is easy to forget that atrocities still occur,” adds Theo Perez ’16. “His visit was an eye-opening experience.” Rusesabagina also visited English and history classes and met informally with faculty and students. His visit was funded by an Abbot Academy Association grant and the Office of Community and Multicultural Development.
Bruce T. Anderson ’90 and Noelle Eckley Selin ’96 Energy and Climate Experts For two consecutive Wednesdays in early fall, All-School Meeting featured PA’s third annual Kaleidoscope Speakers Program, which this year focused on energy and the climate. Bruce T. Anderson ’90, an associate professor in the Department of Earth and Environment at Boston University, spoke on September 25. He emphasized humans’ environmental impact and the complexities of climate change while highlighting the importance of pioneering solutions. On October 2, Noelle Eckley Selin ’96, Esther and Harold E. Edgerton career development assistant professor of engineering systems and atmospheric chemistry at MIT, discussed clean energy strategies for improving global health and well-being and how scientists and engineers can help shape our energy and climate future. Following their ASM presentations, Anderson and Selin met with students for a Q&A lunch in Paresky Commons. Their visits were sponsored by the Dean of Students Office.
—Carlos Hoyt, associate dean of students Everett Gibson NASA Senior Scientist A senior scientist at Houston’s NASA Johnson Space Center, Everett Gibson, PhD, visited Andover on October 1 for an evening of celestial conversation, observation, and exploration. Following dinner and an informal discussion in Paresky Commons, Gibson met with students and faculty in the Gelb Science Center, where he gave a fascinating presentation on the search for life on Mars. Gibson, whose research is on lunar samples and Martian meteorites, has received two Aviation Week Laurel Awards for outstanding scientific discoveries and was presented NASA’s Exceptional Scientific Achievement Medal. His visit was funded by Marshall P. Cloyd ’58 and the Israel Family Foundation.
—Caroline Odden, instructor in physics and observatory supervisor Women of the World Musical Ensemble Hailing from Japan, India, Italy, Haiti, Mexico, and the United States, Women of the World is a Boston-based collective of female musicians who perform original and traditional folk music in more than 17 languages. The music department sponsored the group’s October 4 visit to campus, where they shared their message of peace and unity in a Cochran Chapel performance that celebrated the beauty of diversity.
—Elly Nyamwaya, instructor in English and African Student Union advisor
“Women of the World renewed my faith that the world can be united one day,” says Meera Tawil ’14. The ensemble has toured in Japan and North America and collaborated with many renowned artists, including Bobby McFerrin, Angelique Kidjo, Mario Frangoulis, and the Boston Pops Orchestra.
—Christopher Walter, instructor in music Frank H. Wu Journalist, Scholar, and Activist The topics of race relations, civil rights, and the political process highlighted Frank H. Wu’s speech at the October 23 All-School Meeting. PA’s inaugural Youth from Every Quarter speaker, Wu also gave an evening presentation in Kemper Auditorium, in which he discussed how Asian Americans fit into our diverse democracy as well as the history of Asian migration to the United States, contemporary stereotypes of Asian immigrants, and public policy issues affecting Asian Americans. Campus chancellor and dean of the University of California’s Hastings College of the Law, Wu is the author of Yellow: Race in America Beyond Black and White and a coauthor of Race, Rights and Reparation: Law and the Japanese American Internment. His visit was sponsored by the Asian Society and the Office of Community and Multicultural Development and funded by the Hosch Family Fund.
—Aya Murata, advisor to Asian and Asian American students Alexis Ohanian Jessica Livingston ’89 Reddit Cofounder Y Combinator Founding Partner Student entrepreneurs and Internet activists converged in Paresky’s Mural Room on December 9 for lunch and conversation with Alexis Ohanian and Jessica Livingston ’89. Livingston’s company, Y Combinator, was a funder of Ohanian’s successful startup, Reddit.com. The pair talked about the power of the Web and digital tools in creating new communities, supporting charities, fueling successful entrepreneurs, and igniting online movements. They also discussed Ohanian’s new book, Without Their Permission: How the 21st Century Will Be Made, Not Managed. “Alexis and Jessica were very engaging, entertaining, and lighthearted but informative,” says Zainab Aina ’14. “I loved when Jessica told about how she was a mediocre student at PA, and I was surprised that, despite her immense success, she was very down to earth.” Ohanian and Livingston’s visit was sponsored by the Office of the Head of School.
Summaries compiled by Audrey Doyle
Andover | Winter 2014
19
S P O RTS TA LK
Boys’ Water Polo Takes New England Title
Kicking It Up!
Imagine spending 90 minutes in a pool each day swimming laps and sprints while keeping your head out of the water. Or passing chairs and 5-kilo balls overhead, back and forth, with your teammates. Or trying to zing a ball into a goal while being thwarted by your opponents’ half dozen pairs of outstretched arms and kicking legs. Now imagine doing all of the above while never touching the bottom or sides of the pool—even though you know this pool is only four- to five-feet deep. With your arms burning and lungs screaming, your only recourse is to tread water with your legs churning in an oddly asymmetrical manner called eggbeatering. And oh, yes, you do this while wearing nothing but a swimsuit and (some might say) an odd-looking bathing cap with built-in protective earmuffs. Such is the lot of the Phillips Academy water polo player.
deep) and where it was first introduced as a club sport in 1984—water polo has remained mostly a fringe activity. “It’s a Originally played during the mid-1800s hard sport to understand to begin with, as a form of water rugby in the rivers and there are lots of reasons why it’s and lakes of Scotland and England, not popular to watch,” concedes David water polo is the oldest Olympic team Fox, a former All New England player, sport. It combines the physicality of who has been coaching PA water polo football, the passing and shooting for the past 10 years. finesse of soccer and basketball, and the endurance of swimming. It is wildly Like basketball, water polo relies on a popular in Hungary and the republics dominant center, with lots of blocking, of the former Yugoslavia, as well as in intercepting, and strategic passing. On sunny states like California, where last offense, a seven-man team tries to get year it was the fastest growing high the ball to the player in front of the goal school sport. (the two-meter man) repeatedly so
he can shoot. To prevent scoring, the defense will generally try to commit a foul (i.e., holding, sinking, kicking), forcing the two-meter man to take a free throw and pass to a teammate. Only goalies are allowed to touch the ball with two hands and place their feet on the bottom of the pool; all others must tread water and use only one hand. Referees signal ordinary and major fouls by blowing one or two short whistles, respectively. They seem to do this constantly, for players repeatedly rely on the fact that refs often notice only the retaliation, as opposed to the
But in New England, and particularly at Andover—with its non-regulation pool (it’s supposed to be at least six feet
Ke
nP
Despite an orderly player arrangement at the start of the game, water polo strategies are complex and rules can be baffling. In short, seven teammates kick, lunge, swim, throw, and baulk in an effort to slam a yellow ball (soccer ball–sized, but more grippable) into their opponent’s net.
ule
o
20
Andover | Winter 2014
PA
rs
A h
ea
ic
let th
dli ne
Neil Evans
Football: First A-E win (13–12) in 5 years, 8–0 regular season, and Jack Etter Bowl NEPSAC champions (35–28 over Brunswick School). Named: Brandon Michel ’14, team MVP; Ryder Stone ’14, NEPSAC Class A Player of the Year; cocaptain John Cifrino ’14, Brandon Michel ’14, and Michael Moore ’14, All New England NEPSAC Class A. See photo, page 10.
In Exeter’s pool on November 9, Andover’s boys’ water polo team nabbed its first-ever New England Championship title with a 6–5 victory over PEA. “We just gave every ounce of energy and excitement, and over the course of 24 hours we pulled out three straight victories,” Marc Sevastopoulo ’15 told The Phillipian. “I can’t describe how proud I am to be part of this team.”
initiation, of an untoward action. This can lend an exciting, cerebral aspect to an otherwise physical game. Compounding the baffling array of rules and exceptions and upping the game’s unpredictability ante is the application of the water polo rule that trumps all others, the “advantage rule.” It states: “The referees shall refrain from calling a foul if, in their opinion, such declaration would be an advantage to the offending player’s team. The referee shall not declare an ordinary foul when there is still a possibility to play the ball.”
20-year history, Andover stunned all rivals by winning the New England Championship tournament. With Coach Fox’s emphasis on what cocaptain Andrew Yang ’14 describes as “fundamentals, not small tricks,” the team achieved spectacular and improbable back-to-back wins over first-seed Brunswick and defending champion Exeter. Rome Arnold ’14, Peter Fanikos ’14, Nick Faulkner ’16, and cocaptain Travis Bouscaren ’14 were named to the 2013 All New England team.
“Going into the tournament, we knew we were the underdogs, and really The ambiguous nature of this rule, embracing that mindset allowed us to combined with the fact that much of the play two of the best games we played player vs. player action takes place under all season,” Yang told The Phillipian. water and out of sight, often thrusts What’s more, Andover Blue seized water polo players into a moral gray these wins before a packed house of area. “Anything can happen. Everything 700 cheering fans—at Exeter in the happens,” says Fox. “Oftentimes, midst of the schools’ annual fall rivalry. the team that breaks the rules most efficiently and effectively wins.” “It was pretty crazy,” adds Yang. But not this year. At the end of the season, for the first time in its
And definitely not fringe. —Alessandra Bianchi
Boys’ Water Polo: Following 6–5 victory over Exeter to take New England Championship, named: Rome Arnold ’14, tournament’s outstanding goalkeeper; Nick Faulkner ’16 and Andrew Yang ’14, to All-Tournament Team; Travis Bouscaren ’14, tournament MVP. See story at left for more. Girls’ Cross Country: Finished 3rd overall in NEPSTA Div. I Championship; Anoush Shehadeh ’15 completed second undefeated X-C season as NEPSTA Div. I Champion; Awarded: Shehadeh and Peyton McGovern ’16, All New England certificates On Dec. 14, Shehadeh overcame a nasty spill at the Foot Locker Cross Country National Championships in San Diego to place 4th in the 5K, with a time of 17:35. Boys’ Cross Country: Finished 2nd overall in NEPSTA Div. I Championship Boys’ Soccer: Undefeated 12–0–5 regular season, but fell to Worcester 3–2 in NEPSAC semifinals. Named: Taylor Chin ’14 and Graeme Henderson ’14, NEPSSA Senior All-Stars; Dylan Mott ’15, NEPSSA Junior All-Star Girls’ Volleyball: Advanced to the NEPSAC quarter-finals, falling to Exeter. Named: Alex Becker ’15, Annette Bell ’16, and Kate Wincek ’14, Boston Globe All Stars Field Hockey: Finished with 11–4–1 regular season, but fell to Westminster 4–1 in NEPSAC quarter-finals Voted New England Women’s and Men’s Athletic Conference (NEWMAC) Athlete of the Year: MIT soccer star Ambika Krishnamachar ’11 On Duke’s national championship lacrosse squad: Luke Duprey ’10, Joe Kruy ’12, and Ben Scharf ’12 U.S. men’s water polo gold medalist in July’s 19th Maccabiah Games in Israel, the 3rd largest international sporting event in the world: Howie Kalter ’07
Andover | Winter 2014
21
P H I L ANT HR OP Y HI G HLI G HTS
An Ode to Shakespeare—and a Former Dean
—Victoria Harnish
The Comedy of Errors, directed by theatre instructor Kevin Heelan and performed in Steinbach Theatre, was the Academy’s first Rosenkranz Shakespeare Fund play. Clockwise from top: David Benedict ’15 as Antipholus of Ephesus, Liana Brooks ’15 as a courtesan, Esther Cohen ’14 as the second merchant and Gabriel Braunstein ’16 as Luciana, Adella Pierre ’14 as Angelo, and Theodore Perez ’16 as Balthasar
22
Andover | Winter 2014
Photos by Neil Evans
He is equally comfortable behind the scenes, producing Broadway plays, and in front of the classroom teaching constitutional law. Nicholas Quinn Rosenkranz ’88 credits Kelly Wise, longtime Andover faculty member and former dean of faculty, with his passion for theatre. “Wise’s legendary Novel & Drama class was the most difficult course that I took at Andover—and also the best,” says Rosenkranz. “We read a superb novel or play each week and did college-level analysis. This class was every bit as rigorous as any in the English department at Yale.” Rosenkranz, who majored in English at Yale, continued directing plays while a student there. Following graduation, he served as the literary manager of the Atlantic Theater Company and assisted Pulitzer Prize–winning playwright David Mamet on a few productions in New York City. Eventually, Rosenkranz returned to Yale to earn a degree in law and went on to clerk for Judge Frank Easterbrook on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit and then Justice Anthony M. Kennedy on the U.S. Supreme Court. He also worked in the U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Legal Counsel, before joining the faculty of Georgetown Law. Through the years, though, his passion for theatre remained. He continues his involvement by serving as a board member of Elevator Repair Service, an acclaimed avant-garde theatre company in New York. And he recently produced Mamet’s Race and Tom Stoppard’s Arcadia, both on Broadway. “I discovered my love of theatre while at Andover,” Rosenkranz says. “The first show I directed—Tina Howe’s Painting Churches—was in the Drama Lab in 1988.” On the occasion of his 25th Reunion, Rosenkranz created The Rosenkranz Shakespeare Fund, which will help the theatre department in perpetuity. A tribute to Wise, who will retire at the end of the year, the fund will support at least one major theatrical production per year, with a preference for William Shakespeare’s plays. In mid-December, Andover’s Department of Theatre and Dance produced Shakespeare’s The Comedy of Errors—the inaugural Rosenkranz Shakespeare Fund play at Andover. “We are excited about the possibilities this gift enables,” says Erin Strong, chair of the Department of Theatre and Dance. “This fund makes it possible for us to enhance production design elements such as costumes and set, think outside the box, bring vibrant guest artists in to contribute to our productions, and produce shows we may not otherwise have considered in the past.”
Developing a New Model of Health and Wellness The Rebecca M. Sykes Wellness Center will be a bold, physical statement about the importance of comprehensive care and each student’s personal health and well-being. The center will combine medical and psychological counseling services under one roof and provide generous space for health education and wellness programming. “There can be no higher priority than ensuring the health and well-being of our students,” said Head of School John Palfrey. “Our goal, through this new building and programming, is for Andover students to have every opportunity for academic achievement and personal fulfillment.” Named in honor of former associate head of school Becky Sykes, the center will recognize a legendary administrator, dean, advisor, and teacher whose 40 years of service centered on PA’s students. Sykes left the Academy in summer 2013 to become president of the Oprah Winfrey Charitable
Foundation. During the spring 2013 Trustee Weekend, Medical Director Dr. Amy Patel outlined the current state of Andover’s health services and education and the need for better integration. “The wellness center and its staff will be the heart of a program focused on each student’s individual growth and intellectual development—a facility fully integrated into the educational and residential life of the school,” she said. While there is urgency on the structural front due to the deteriorating condition of Isham Health Center, there is also a growing programmatic need. “Societal changes have increased stress on all adolescents,” said Patel. “In recent years, we have seen an increase in students seeking support for psychological, medical, and social
issues; this adds a layer of complexity to students’ educational experiences.” The new wellness center will be located in the neighborhood of Bulfinch Hall and Shuman Admission Center—closely aligned with the Academic Skills Center, residential programs, and athletic training facilities. It will be the school’s first new building construction since Gelb Science Center opened in 2004. Reflecting Andover’s
commitment to global sustainability, the building’s features will include geothermal heating and cooling, a green roof, and an energy dashboard, with the goal of achieving LEED Silver certification from the Green Building Council. Thanks to the generosity of lead benefactors, Andover has secured commitments totaling approximately $6.5 million toward the $12 million goal. —Tracy Sweet
Phillipian Endowment to Support Digital Era Newsroom Ask any alums who worked on The Phillipian what made the experience so special and nearly all will say the lessons of the newsroom that continue to resonate in their lives today: teamwork, responsibility, negotiation, persistence, and commitment to excelllence, among many others. To help keep The Phillipian a thriving tradition and one of Andover’s most vibrant learning laboratories, the
Academy seeks to raise an endowment of $500,000. Like all newspapers, The Phillipian is navigating a new frontier in multimedia journalism, and income from an endowment will help support its transition to the digital age. The goal is not to underwrite the paper’s entire operation, but rather to subsidize expenses that would allow students to enhance Web content, support technology renewal, and provide
a free hard copy of The Case for Endowment Support the paper to every To protect ‘student voice’ Please Show student each week. Academy Seeks to Raise $500,000 Your Support! for Phillipian Endowment Students will continue to manage The Phillipian like a small business, sell advertising, and work within an annual budget. If you believe in The Phillipian’s role as an the Phillipian Endowment invaluable learning experiFund. For more information, ence and Andover tradition, contact Alison Hebert at please consider a gift to 978-749-4525. To contribute to the Phillipian Endowment Fund, please call Alison Hebert at 978-749-4525 or e-mail ahebert@andover.edu.
Like so many local and national news outlets, The Phillipian, Phillips Academy’s student-run newspaper, experienced financial difficulties following the 2008 economic downturn. The award-winning weekly paper, popular with students, alumni, and
parents alike, has barely broken even in the past several years. To secure The Phillipian’s future—in print and online—the Academy is now seeking
to fund a $500,000 endowment. Income from the endowment will primarily be used to enhance The
The 2013–2014 Phillipian staff at work
If you would like to send a check, please make it payable to Trustees of Phillips Academy and mail to:
Phillipian’s online presence via the purchase of new hardware, software, and online services; provide technology and equipment renewal; and enable on- and off-campus learning, enrichment, and networking opportunities for Phillipian staffers. Students will continue to be responsible for generating advertising revenue, managing the paper like a small business, and producing each weekly issue within an established budget.
Appreciated securities or stock, corporate matching gifts, and planned gifts also are welcome, as are gifts in memory or in honor of loved ones or past or present faculty. Thank you!
135 years and counting
Remembering Tom Lyons
Since 1878, The Phillipian has provided Phillips Academy students with an uncensored voice. Thousands of students have been involved with the production of the newspaper and have gained remarkable experience as writers, journalists, editors, continued inside
Phillips Academy Attn: Alison Hebert Office of Academy Resources 180 Main Street Andover MA 01810-4161
Alumni may wish to make a gift in memory of Tom Lyons, passionate Phillipian advisor for 25 years, who passed away in 2012. He was a beloved history instructor, football coach, and house counselor from 1963 to 1999.
Andover | Winter 2014
23
F r om t h e Archi v es
Kemper and the Unkempt “Pardon me for calling attention to your pictures, which make you look like conceited, self-satisfied asses,” Weddie Stokes, Class of 1915, wrote to five Andover boys on May 21, 1969. “Don’t bother to come around to me looking for a job until you wash up and look like a human being.” by Amy Morris For good measure, Stokes copied Headmaster John Kemper on his polemic, in which he blamed the “Progressive administration” for allowing students to “embrace hippie land.”
Empathy, antipathy, and keeping the peace
Kemper, a West Point graduate, preferred that boys kept short hair, but he empathized with the “shaggy set” and was perplexed by the antipathy shown Stokes’s ire had been incited by an Andover Bulletin photo essay—a four- them by some adults on campus. “The hair business is such an emotional page spread of black and white porissue that some of the faculty comtraits featuring, as the photographer fondly explained in the foreword, PA’s pletely blow their cool,” he wrote. “Some boys, on the other hand, get “wooly minority.” really up-tight about being spoken to In the following weeks, Kemper about their hair. The problem for me, received a number of charged missives. as I see it, is to keep the peace...” One alum expressed surprise at seeing Since becoming headmaster in 1948, “long hair and feminine hairdos on Kemper had worked hard to reconcile Andover seniors.” Another found the adversaries. Some derided his diploissue “most repulsive,” the portraits macy as indecisiveness, but many having confirmed that PA “has gone appreciated the democratic air he had completely socialistic.” 24
Andover | Winter 2014
brought to campus. Prior to the photoessay furor, he handily had arbitrated hairy disagreements between individual faculty members and students. But, by late spring 1969, the emissary was no match for the factious storm about to brew. Today, cultural scholars trace the root of the long hair fad to the Beatles’ 1964 appearances on The Ed Sullivan Show. As Kemper was learning from students that there were, in fact, a “variety of motivations for hairstyles among boys,” many instructors and parents still sought a singular rationale for Andover’s “creeping slobbism”: an exercise that language instructor Bob Lane ’56 said could turn into a “parlour game.” Ceding that in trying to guess longhairs’ motives, one “probably reveals more about the interpreter than the subject,” Lane nonetheless took a turn to reveal his own projection bias: “Is it due to pseudo-masochism, which conceals frustrated aggression (I reject the image of attractiveness because I feel rejected)?”
A bearded force Looking back on that time, in which he himself sported a bushy Afro and full beard, Dr. Freddie Drake McClendon ’70 offers a less existential explanation for why one particular group donned bushy locks: no one in the town of Andover knew how to cut black people’s hair. As a result, McClendon became an accidental symbol of counterculture on campus and was elected president of the senior class (by two votes). The students also elected African Americans Timuel Black ’71 and Edward McPherson ’72 presidents of the upper and lower classes, respectively. “I didn’t necessarily have any political agenda, but I looked like I had a political agenda,” McClendon laughs. He arrived on campus from Oakland, California, as one of some 40 black students then enrolled at Andover,
the majority of whom came from Dartmouth College’s A Better Chance (ABC) program, of which Kemper was a trustee. “Up to that time, Andover boys went to Yale and Exeter boys went to Harvard, and certainly there were kids, like the Bush brothers, who still fit that bill,” says McClendon. “There’d long been a vision of perfection, of what you had to look like and act like. And I had no trouble with that. It was just that there was no way I was going to be their vision of perfection.” By spring 1969, students everywhere— no matter their sex, color, or creed— had to navigate adolescence through a turbulent societal stew: civil rights struggles, Vietnam, the draft, urban race riots, the 1968 assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy, student strikes, the Black Panthers, Cambodia, Students for a
A mother of a longhair told Kemper she believed the style to be “a symptom of an incompletely developed personality” and lamented that her boy harbored a “rage at all barbers.” History instructor Fred Harrison ’38 said that one boy had made a conscious decision to develop “the attitudes and the behavior patterns of the self-styled liberal and inveterate rebel.” Classics instructor Alston Chase ’35 hardly concerned himself with parlour game objectives, flatly declaring that “those who cultivate the Hippy [sic] appearance must not be surprised if they are...the objects of anti-Hippy prejudice.” Andover | Winter 2014
25
F r om t h e Archi v es
Democratic Society, the Weathermen, and others. Andover boys were not immune to the tumult. As the school year was ending, the simmering outrage over Andover’s hippie set reached a rolling boil. On May 25, 1969, a fight broke out behind Cochran Chapel between a PA student and a U.S. Marine home on leave from Vietnam. Police broke it up with pepper spray. The widely reported incident allegedly started after PA students, wearing “peace” armbands, passed out pamphlets opposing the Vietnam War at the town’s Memorial Day parade.
Photo courtesy of the New York Times
As students prepared to leave for summer, a good number of them, a patchwork coalition that included some longhaired boys, felt at loggerheads with the Kemper administration over myriad issues. Over the course of the previous year, the growing chorus called for a bigger say in school policy: they wanted an end to required chapel, meaningful integration with Abbot Academy, an end to
The New York Times photo that accompanied the June 11, 1969, story titled “Negroes Elected President of Three Classes at Andover.” From left, Timuel K. Black ’71, Edward J. McPherson ’72, and Freddie Drake McClendon ’70.
26
Andover | Winter 2014
the dress code, and the right to have long hair and beards—a right that, seemingly, African American boys like McClendon already had. The PA electorate speaks At the baccalaureate, Lane paid close attention to the white seniors as they filed out of the chapel, counting 11 “whose appearance, with particular reference to hair,” he wrote Kemper on June 10, “might have the effect of raising ‘dander,’” adding an etymological digression, “(dander, a variant of dandruff, from E. dan ‘scurd’ +Old Norse hrufa + scab).” He urged Kemper to send an “unambiguous” letter to all parents stating the policy on dress and appearance.
“socialistic” or now “embraced hippie land,” the story—along with the subsequent ones that ran in the Washington Post and the Boston Globe—was pure vindication: ANDOVER, Mass.—Phillips Academy, the oldest and one of the most prestigious of the elite prep schools, the alma mater of the Lees and Washingtons of Virginia and the Quincys and Lowells of New England, has elected three Negro students from the ghettos of Chicago and Oakland as class presidents for 1969–1970.
Journalist John Leo wrote that the election signaled the demise of “shoe” students, a term once used to describe Ivy-bound legacies—fops who could afford to walk in white shoes atop That next day, the New York Times ran campus grass, past the aspirants in a story with the headline “Negroes practical footwear. “Now the Andover Elected President of Three Classes at style of dress runs to long hair and the Andover,” which included a large photo baggy and the sloppy,” wrote Leo, quotof Black, McPherson, and McClendon ing one student as saying Andover’s in suit jackets and ties. To those “‘in’ crowd is now on the left.” bemoaning that Andover had gone McClendon, Leo wrote, “wants to go to Harvard or Stanford, then medical school, then back to his native Oakland” (and, indeed, that’s what he did) and quoted a white student who said McClendon “is the only guy on this campus strong enough to stand up to Kemper on the [hair] issue.” Another said the three black students were elected to force the administration’s hand; it would risk accusations of racism if their demands were rejected. “It’s ironic,” one black student said, “that a rich little white boys’ school elects three blacks to defend them from a white administration.” Dress code revisited The 1968–1969 student body bid its adieu with a most discordant swansong. Left to mop up, Kemper took Lane’s council and sent a memorandum
to all parents on July 3. Noting that while he and the majority of adults on campus disapproved of the growing number of “unkempt” students who were “extreme in their hairstyles,” Kemper conceded in the letter that “we have been ambivalent about whether and how to enforce the existing dress code.” He revealed that “candidates for admission” are finding the “appearance of our students offensive.” Moreover, he wrote, the straggly style has left faculty, alumni, some fellow students, even Kemper himself with a “feeling of antagonism.” He encouraged parents to talk with their sons about the rule, which insisted upon “neatness, cleanliness and the avoidance of extremes.” “It may be that even this will seem intolerable to some of your sons. If so, they may not wish to return to school in September.” Kemper said he would now be the “final arbiter in interpreting these provisions.” Parents responded to the letter most positively, one hoping the memo finally would cure “this infection of our lads.” Students replied, too. One warned he would not cut his hair before returning, but that “if you find it extreme, I shall cut it. My PA education is too valuable to sacrifice over such a small issue.” Another boy wrote that if the school paid attention to the “hirsute faction,” it would find “the vast majority of its talent, creativity, and intelligence is housed inside shaggy heads.” A new acceptability checkpoint In fall 1969, students returned after a tumultuous summer: Stonewall, the moon landing, Woodstock, and the
“hair and dress memo.” Not that all the news was bad: for the first time ever, boys were allowed to wear turtlenecks with jackets, and, after May 1 of each year, jackets and ties would be optional at chapel. Associate Dean of Students Bill Bennett ’51 greeted the returning boys on September 21, as they cued up to have their pictures taken for the directory. He directed any white boy with “excessively long hair” to confer with Mr. Kemper. The boys scheduled appointments with Kemper’s assistant, who sat just outside his office. Dean of Faculty Simeon Hyde ’37 couldn’t resist pointing out the irony of the setting: “The folly of assuming that one style is inherently right is daily demonstrated in your office by the long curly locks of Samuel Phillips, whose portrait hangs just above the point at which boys stand to make their haircutting appointment with the headmaster.” Kemper met with 18 boys that first week. For each, he kept notations of their hairstyle and the type of trim required: incipient beard…trim sideburns (left two tufts)…take off an inch …eliminate the curl. Calling himself the “czar of haircuts,” he marveled at “how hard the boys will fight for every last quarter inch of hair!”
Kemper’s file of offenders By January 1970, the czar’s rule had softened, now demanding a boy take off a bit “to show that his heart’s in the right place.” Eventually, just as he had hoped, the hairy campus controversy petered out: long hair, briefly a subversive statement, quickly became the mainstream “norm.” A voluminous file labeled “Hair, Dress, and Appearance,” kept by Kemper, can be found in Andover’s archives, with the last hair complaint dated 1971. As for McClendon, he credits the Times story with making him a “marked man.” A library book infraction, in spring 1970, earned him probation. The demerit stripped him of his title, ensuring he would be in the Commencement procession but not leading it, as is the honor of senior class president. The editors of the 1970 Pot Pourri devoted a full page to McClendon: Three candid portraits, on a white backdrop, arranged like the portraits in the “wooly minority” photo essay from one year prior. Three portraits of a bespectacled boy with a warm smile and a large crown of hair, and beneath him, a single word: Confrontation. “Andover could’ve dealt better with the hair issue, to say nothing of the race issue. But, the point was, and is, that it dealt with it, and it did so head-on. In many ways, it was ahead of the times. It didn’t always get it right, but it tried,” says McClendon.
Exeter and Choate closely tracked Kemper’s policy, since they, too, were sprouting longhaired boys. The issue for administrators was not just contentious but potentially litigious. More than 100 Special thanks to Paige Roberts, director cases involving high school boys and hair of Archives and Special Collections, for regulations were heard in federal courts archival support. of appeals between 1965 and 1975.
Andover | Winter 2014
27
New-Fashioned Learning with Old-Fashioned Objectives by Kristin Bair O’Keeffe
In September 2013, PA launched an iPad Pilot Program. Throughout the year, approximately 250 students—mostly ninth-graders—in 32 sections across seven departments are using iPads in their classrooms. Students who don’t own iPads are using loaners from PA, and a number of students are enrolled in more than one pilot classroom. The program—for which teachers volunteered—is part of an ongoing initiative to explore how technology works best in classrooms, to help teachers learn how to incorporate technology into their teaching, and to motivate and inspire students with the wondrous possibilities of new-fashioned learning. “The Russian department started the iPad trend a few years ago,” says Dean of Studies Patricia Russell, “and then a small pilot was launched in Chris Odden’s math class and in some chemistry sections last year. Thanks to a generous gift, this year’s pilot was vastly expanded.”
Photos by Gil Talbot and Kristin Bair O’Keeffe
28
Andover | Winter 2014
Gustav Ofori ’17 concentrates on an assignment in Yasmine Allen’s Spanish 110 class.
B
oth Lilia Cai-Hurteau’s Chinese 100 class and Yasmine Allen’s Spanish 110 class begin in ways that might feel familiar to anyone who has ever taken a language course. Cai-Hurteau’s students stand, line up into two teams, and launch a raucously competitive game of “who can write a Chinese character correctly on the whiteboard the fastest.” Allen’s students listen to Marc Anthony’s popular song “Vivir Mi Vida” and prepare to complete a fill-in-the-blank worksheet of the Spanish lyrics.
But because both courses are part of PA’s iPad Pilot Program, that sense of familiarity will fade pretty quickly for anyone who went to high school before 2008 or so. Cai-Hurteau reads the Chinese words her students must write from an iPad, not a sheet of paper, and Allen’s students—while listening to “Vivir Mi Vida”—turn on their iPads, open an app called Notability, find the lyrics to the song that Allen loaded in earlier, and fill in the blanks by writing directly on their iPad screens with either a finger or stylus. Andover | Winter 2014
29
Left: Yasmine Allen shows her students a picture of a calavera (sugar skull) for Día de los Muertos using the app Notability. This was an end-of-class activity, in which the students colored the skulls right on their iPads. Last year, she did the same activity but on paper. Right: Instructor Lilia Cai-Hurteau helps Rahmel Dixon ’17 solve a problem with an app. Far right: In Cai-Hurteau’s Chinese 100 course, Emily Humphreys ’17 uses stroke order animation in her online textbook to practice writing the character de (which mostly indicates the possessive form). She also writes it in her notebook.
From here on out, there’s an iPad propped on every desk (except perhaps one, in which case the student begs forgiveness for having let the charge run down—the modern-day equivalent of “my dog ate my homework”). Depending on what they’re working on, students zip among a variety of apps. In Spanish class, they move from Notability to Mematic, which they use to create humorous or inspirational memes in Spanish. In Mandarin class, they write sentences in Chinese for their final projects using Doceri, a screencast app that allows students to write characters directly on iPad screens and, most importantly, records the stroke order. Then students read and record their dialogues on their iPads using the app Book Creator. All the while, both Cai-Hurteau and Allen walk around their classrooms with their own iPads in hand—looking over the shoulders of their students, checking work, answering questions in the target language, leading group discussions, and deciphering technical glitches. It’s a lively, fun, and engaging atmosphere, and the frequent back-andforth between teacher and students dispels any fear that the introduction of technology into classrooms means the obsolescence of teachers.
Target language, technology & creativity Both Cai-Hurteau and Allen emphasize how vital it is for students—even those in first-level classes—to speak, write, and read in the target language as much as possible. “It is most important for me to show my students how to use the language,” says Allen. “They need to learn that it’s not just me feeding them information and vocabulary, but that there’s actual meaning in this.” She’s found that the iPad facilitates this goal, while also offering students opportunities to personalize their learning and stretch their creativity. Her “Will You” points program challenges students to utilize both their interpersonal and social media/digital skills in partnership with their developing language skills: • “Will you change your Facebook page to Spanish for a week and write down new words you learn from the experience?” • “Will you read 50 tweets on Twitter about Colombia in Spanish and write a ‘What I Learned’ reflection?” • “Will you talk for 10 minutes with a native Spanish speaker and record the conversation?” 30
Andover | Winter 2014
Allen’s list of more than 40 possible Will You activities is available to students on the class Wiki (a Web application that lets people work together on the same document even when they’re not in the same place or working on the same iPad or computer). Students don’t have to complete all of the activities, but Will You points do contribute to their participation grade.
projectors, accommodations for laptop plugins, etc.), not all are outfitted with the latest and greatest technology—Apple TV boxes, for example, which allow teachers and students to project their iPads wirelessly to a screen at the front of Cai-Hurteau’s class is equally dynamic. As in past years, just the classroom. “This is important,” Cai-Hurteau explains, before Family Weekend she divided her class into groups “because then I get to stand right next to the students in and told them they had to make presentations on their iPads the back of the classroom while projecting course materials to families about an aspect of the Chinese language. “Each onto the screen—no more ‘sage on stage’!” This changes the group was assigned a topic,” she says, “but they could use pedagogical dynamic in positive ways. any apps to create their presentations. The choices ranged Administrators are closely monitoring the pilot, and as from video recording to Doceri to Explain Everything to Caroline Nolan, director of the Andover Institute, explains, Keynote and some other apps I didn’t know about.” “Another intention of the iPad pilot is to engage in a One group in particular wowed both Cai-Hurteau and broader discourse about what the technological needs families. In just 20 minutes with an iPad, they creatively are and what Andover will need over time.” Russell agrees presented numbers 1 through 10 in Chinese. They made a and says that faculty and administrators will be using the video of a hand drawing the numbers, recorded someone information gleaned from the pilot to make decisions about saying the numbers aloud, and included film credits. “They infrastructure. “First,” she says, “we’ll ask, what will students even incorporated music from Kung Fu Panda,” Cai-Hurteau be using next fall? And from that we’ll determine what really says. (To watch the video, visit videostarapp.com/vsc/gpG.) needs to be in classrooms.” She’s given the same assignment in past years, but students were much more limited by what they could create in a short Upsetting the traditional dynamic time on a computer. The “all-in-oneness” and portability —in good ways of the iPad introduce greater opportunities for innovation. In any given class, students are always learning much People often assume that iPads—or any electronic beyond the subject at hand, but that experience is even more devices—in classrooms will make students turn inward, pronounced in this first term of the iPad Pilot Program. Yes, limit their interaction with other students, and restrict students are learning Chinese or Spanish, but they’re also creativity. But, in fact, paired with thoughtful teaching, the learning how to use iPads for more than socializing, how to opposite proves to be true. use unfamiliar apps and troubleshoot technological snafus, how to manage online distraction, how to schedule their Of course, there are frustrations, too. Cai-Hurteau isn’t time and organize online notes, and how to choose apps satisfied with the e-textbook she chose for the class, both that work best for them—along with digital citizenship teachers admit having to speak in English a bit more in and responsibility, collaboration, and much more. Like the beginning to explain how to utilize apps and the iPad, Cai-Hurteau and Allen, they’re getting comfortable with and, while all classrooms feature the basics (big screens, Andover | Winter 2014
31
Julia Jackson ’15 and Margot Steiner ’17 work together on a Spanish crossword puzzle in their online textbook.
Class Apps Notability Book Creator Explain Everything Quizlet Doceri Mematic Audio Memos Edmodo Socrative Educreations Byki Google Drive Akinator Canvas Speed Grader
32
Andover | Winter 2014
digital learning. As a result, teaching and learning have become multidirectional. “A number of teachers say they’re learning a lot from the kids,” says Nolan. “This seems basic, I know, but it upsets the traditional dynamic in a really good way.”
like it. I still would not give it a thumbs up (yet), but I’m predicting that by the end of the year that will change.”
While it takes only one visit to either class to see that using iPads to learn is both fun and productive, it is also a big change for some. Cai-Hurteau says that a few students want to create old-fashioned paper flashcards in lieu of the digital flashcards she requires them to create using an app called Quizlet. When they balk, she tells them, “Just do it for the fall term. If you want to do both, that’s fine with me. But for the fall term, let’s build on this skill.” She requires them to work directly on their iPads for two reasons: first, to increase their digital literacy, a skill they’ll need more and more as they move through high school, college, and into their careers, and second, she says, “Because handwriting in Chinese and typing in Chinese are two different skills. I want them to build on both skills at the beginning of their Chinese career to get comfortable with both.”
Cai-Hurteau, whose Chinese students created e-books as their final projects, says, “The final portfolio was a great way to utilize the iPads and assess students in multimodal ways. Except for a few hiccups, everything went fairly smoothly from Book Creator to Dropbox to iBooks.” She spent the break between fall and winter terms transitioning from Blackboard to Canvas, a comprehensive, interactive learning management system on the iPad. “Within a Canvas course on iPads,” Cai-Hurteau says, “students can subscribe to the calendar feed and all events and assignments go straight to their iCal; they can complete their assignments and get teacher feedback through the Canvas app; and they can embed and share Quizlet flashcards, YouTube videos, and collaborative learning tools like Google Docs and Etherpads. Students and teachers can use audio/video conferencing without having to use any other software. There is a built-in interconnectedness of Canvas that brings out the best of iPad teaching and learning.”
It’s erroneous to assume that students “get” digital learning immediately. Some students, like Emma Kelley ’17, adjust quickly. “As I got used to the iPad in Chinese class,” Kelley says, “I began typing all of my notes on it, critiquing my accent by replaying audio, writing characters repeatedly, and watching videos and animations in Chinese.” But Spanish 110 student Julia Jackson ’15 struggled a good bit. “Before this year, I only used iPads for entertainment, not for learning,” she says. “I’m not going to lie. I really did not like it in the beginning. I felt that I wasn’t learning anything thoroughly and I wasn’t absorbing the grammar the textbook was teaching.” But as the term progressed, Jackson’s feelings shifted. “At the beginning,” she says, “I would have undoubtedly given the iPad a thumbs down. However, after three months of using the iPad in class, I have definitely gotten used to it and even come to
Different, but in many ways the same
But while that sense of familiarity when you walk into an iPad pilot classroom may be gone for many, three of the most important aspects of education at PA still look and feel the same: 1. Teachers are teaching. 2. Teachers engage with students as much, if not more, than ever. 3. Teachers are striving to improve and innovate. And no matter how many snazzy devices are introduced into Andover classrooms, this will never change.
Coed@40
Athletics Goes Coe Girls take to the fields, courts, and sports of PA
by Jill Clerkin When Andover’s first female athletes hit campus in September 1973 after the merger of Abbot and Phillips academies, there was a bit of scrambling and a fair amount of improvisation. But even so, intentions were good, the welcome was heartfelt, and the predominantly male athletics department had worked hard to prepare. If not exactly sport-for-sport equal to the boys’ programs, the girls’ postmerger athletics options were viewed by most at the time as being generally fair as well as progressive. And for the Abbot Academy athletes who moved to PA, the selection of new intramural and interscholastic sports and personal fitness opportunities was exciting. Certain facilities, however, left much to be desired. Varsity, JV, Gargoyles, Griffins, and ballet
1974
Shirley Ritchie, PE teacher, coach, and house counselor for more than a decade, had been named head of Abbot Academy athletics in 1961. Along with carrying on the school’s long tradition of Gargoyles vs. Griffins intramural contests, she instituted a formal schedule of interscholastic athletic competition in the late 1960s. By the early 1970s, Abbot’s varsity and JV teams were well populated, and many were quite successful, frequently besting the likes of Dana Hall, Exeter, Brooks, Cushing, and Andover High. Andover | Winter 2014
33
Coed@40
Ritchie coached soccer, Marge Harrison coached field hockey, and both, over the seasons, coached basketball and softball. For many years, ninth-graders had been required to take ballet, so the school’s dance program, led by Cristina Rubio, was particularly strong. Those mysterious girls In anticipation of the merger, PA Headmaster Ted Sizer, who had joined the Academy in 1972, and longtime PA Athletics Director Fred H. “Ted” Harrison ’38 (Marge’s husband) eagerly sought the advice of the Abbot coaches about young female athletes. What would the girls need? Where would they change clothes and shower? How should they be coached? What about PE classes? How—in very little time—could the athletics department create a welcoming environment and an equitable program? In many ways, it was left to Ritchie, Marge Harrison, and Rubio—newly hired members of PA’s athletics department—to smooth the transition for their girls. A hundred or so former Abbot athletes were now part of a much larger program, changing, practicing, and playing on unfamiliar turf with a number of brand new teammates. Many thrived, but others sorely
missed the nurturance and easier camaraderie of their old school. Playing on the hill Ritchie coached varsity soccer, basketball, and lacrosse, while Marge Harrison oversaw field hockey, softball, and JV basketball. Ritchie, now 89, recalled how PA offered more facilities, like the pool and field house, and new opportunities for the girls, like swimming, gymnastics, skating, and crew. It was, says Ritchie, the happiest time of her life—but a few of the Abbots who became PA uppers or seniors were not as enthusiastic. “They certainly were just as good athletically,” says Ritchie, “but there seemed to be some resentment of the ‘new’ PA girls.” Carina Kjellstrom Elgin ’76 was one of those new PA girls—and a standout athlete. “I didn’t know either school as a single-sex institution,” she says. “Some of the Abbot girls would ask, ‘Don’t you feel oppressed/depressed/ suppressed?’ But I really didn’t. I felt totally and completely accepted by every teacher and student there.” Required of new juniors and lowers, physical education classes, taught by Ritchie, were all coed. Topics and activities included how not to drown, rope climbing, and talks about gender differences in sports and body movement. “The boys were better in the gym part,” claims Ritchie, “but the girls were better at swimming.” Elgin is still haunted by the hideous gym suits girls were forced to wear— “one-piece atrocities with a zipper up the back. No one looked good in them, which was possibly the point.” Faculty Emeritus Joe Wennik ’52, a PA German instructor who would succeed Ted Harrison as athletics Future athletics director Joe Wennik ’52 in 1974
34
Andover | Winter 2014
Hope Woodhouse ’74
field hockey, cross-country skiing, basketball, tennis 1 year at Abbot, 1 year at PA When I was an upper, half my classes were at PA. Things were pretty well integrated before the actual merger occurred. I was lucky enough to be coached by Mrs. Harrison in varsity field hockey, and we had a great and fun team. The facilities back then were pretty crappy, but nobody cared. When you look back to our era of girls’ sports, one of several big differences is that you could (and were encouraged to) play a different sport all three semesters. In fact, I got an award, an “A” sweater for playing three varsity sports two consecutive years. I cherish it to this day. Hope Woodhouse, pictured above with Coach Tom Cone, is a member of PA’s Investment Committee.
Peggy Bliss ’74
field hockey, lacrosse, boys’ swim team scorekeeper 2 years at Abbot, 1 year at PA Abbot’s lacrosse field was wonderful—surrounded by trees and hidden. At PA it lost some of its coziness. We played way back by the boys’ lacrosse field. We didn’t need lockers at Abbot, but at PA the field was far away from dorms. The lockers we were given in Cooley House were really gross. There were no showers. It seemed dreary and unclean—and like no one had thought ahead. At a special ceremony, I got an “A” sweater for playing a sport all three semesters. They didn’t bother to order girls’ sizes; mine came down to my knees. Coach Marge Harrison stood out as helping us make that transition. She was very motherly and supportive. Overall, sports were a lot of fun, a big team experience for me. But my PA shop class—that’s a whole other story.
director four years after the merger, notes that the athletics department “tried to incorporate everything from Abbot Academy that made sense.” While horseback riding was dropped after a few years due to expense and impracticality, Abbot’s dance program was embraced and the program opened up to boys. “Most of them took ballet to get in shape for their ‘main’ sport,” said Rubio, now 88, in a recent e-mail, “but some of the theatre students, like James Spader [’78], also took ballet.” Forty years later, PA’s popular dance program continues to be one of Abbot Academy’s strongest legacies.
by former Abbot athlete Peggy Bliss ’74 as gross, dreary, and unclean (see above). There were no showers. The more fortunate boarding students changed and showered in their dorms. The need for new facilities was quickly recognized, but trustee approval, funding, and construction would take time. Coaches, practice, and play Because the existing athletics facilities could not simply be divided, most girls’ sports were still headquartered out of the old Abbot Gym for the first
few years. Some practices and games were scheduled on PA fields, and some continued on Abbot’s fields—which pleased many former Abbot girls. It wasn’t just physical facilities that needed to be divvied up. As PA’s female faculty increased—all potential coaches, per Andover’s “triple threat” tradition—so did the options in girls’ sports. But many male faculty members also stepped forward enthusiastically to fill coaching slots, and James Bronk, the school’s popular athletic trainer, gamely
A failing grade for facilities But the transition was not always smooth or easy. “Efforts were made right away to try to make the girls feel equal and comfortable, but, at the beginning, some of the facilities for girls were woefully inadequate,” acknowledges Wennik. Early on, while boys piled their pungent uniforms on the floor of their rather spacious locker room and headed for hot showers, female day students and coaches changed in the basement of Cooley House, described At right: 1974 lacrosse team with Coach Shirley Ritchie (second row, left) and Peggy Bliss ’74 (second row, third from left) Andover | Winter 2014
35
Coed@40
assumed responsibility for tending to the girls’ injuries and rehabilitation. Current PA biology instructor Tom Cone enjoyed his experiences as an early lacrosse coach. “The girls were slightly different from the boys—more supportive of each other,” he says. “They were highly spirited, eager to improve, and as competitive as the boys.” Faculty Emeritus John Chivers coached boys’ club hockey prior to forming the girls’ ice hockey team in 1977. The difference between how the two sexes approached the game, he says, was stunning.
to better meet the needs of the entire student body, including those less athletically inclined. We stepped up cluster intramurals and added new sports, and put our efforts into creating a new facility that would better serve the girls.” With Sizer’s blessing, Wennik made a case to the Board of Trustees for a new facility that would symbolize Andover’s future as a coeducational school. There was strong support, funds were raised, and construction of the Andover Athletic Complex began in 1978.
“The architect worked with every coach and every team to determine “Winning was important [to the girls], what kind of space and equipment but not the end-all. Returning to they would need,” recalls Wennik. campus after an away game, our bus The girls’ locker room, in particular, stopped at a traffic light downtown. received plenty of input from females Some PA boys yelled, ‘How was the in the PA community. Whereas the game?’ Some girls rolled down the boys’ space had row upon row of lockwindows and said, ‘Great! It was a great ers, the girls’ lockers were arranged to game!’ ‘What was the score?’ ‘We lost.’ include a series of niches. Meanwhile, Their enthusiasm was terrific. Rubio happily oversaw the design and “Attendance was pretty slim at girls’ construction of the new dance studio, games compared to the boys’, but the searching far and wide for its special fans were devoted,” says Chivers, now wood floor. 80. “There was a group of boys that was The Abbot Academy Wing opens always there to cheer on the team.” Dedicated in November 1979, the A changing of the guard Andover Athletic Complex included “The ‘maleness’ of the school was renovations to the Borden and 200 years old,” notes Wennik, as if Memorial gyms, a “circulation spine” to explain some of the awkwardness connecting the gym to the hockey rink of the time. Athletics Director Ted Harrison, described by Wennik as “iconic,” had been a three-sport athlete at PA. He joined the Andover faculty in 1952 and taught English and history. Much admired by students and alumni alike, he ran a very traditional program that tended to focus on varsity athletes. “I knew Sizer wanted to set a different tone,” says Wennik of his transition to athletics director in 1977. “Going forward, we wanted to make sure no sport was favored over another, and we made changes to the athletics program 36
Andover | Winter 2014
Carina Kjellstrom Elgin ’76 field hockey, softball 3 years at PA
One of my strongest and favorite memories [was the] simple daily act of walking out to the Abbot field used for field hockey and softball. I so vividly remember the crunch, crunch of my cleats, the way my hockey stick felt in my hands, the anticipation of an energetic practice led by Mrs. Harrison’s whistle, and the amazingly strong smell of the autumn leaves as the sun warmed the cool air. Mrs. Harrison remains one of my heroes to this day. She was sharp, witty, and upbeat, but acerbic. She loved “her girls” for exactly who they were, and we loved her.
Below: 1975 softball team with Coach Marge Harrison ( front row, third from left) and Carina Kjellstrom Elgin ’76 (back row, right)
and the Cage, and, at long last, the spacious, bright, new Abbot Academy Wing. Why all the glass? Wennik says that facility donors wanted the boys and girls to be able to see each other play their sports and to support and learn from one another.
Mari Wellin King ’75
soccer, softball 2 years at Abbot, 2 years at PA Before we went coed, it probably was a bigger deal for a boy at PA to be an athlete than for a girl at Abbot to be an athlete. Certainly the Abbot community was proud of their athletes, but Abbot was a small, close-knit school where everybody knew everybody and was incredibly supportive, no matter what your interests or what you excelled at. Playing on a team was a wonderful experience for me at both schools. Shirley Ritchie and Marge Harrison were great coaches who cared about us and fortunately had good senses of humor. There is no question they had a positive influence on my life. The transition to a coed school may have been easier for girls who played varsity sports. I know it helped me. Most, if not all, of the male coaches taught classes, and I think those of us who played sports often had an easier time developing a rapport with them. The male coaches and athletes I knew and was in contact with were always very respectful and supportive. One ridiculous thing I recall is that the varsity football players got steak in Commons before at least some of their games, and of course the rest of us ate whatever else Commons had to offer. And hands down, the boys had better uniforms! Mari Wellin King is a member of the Board of Trustees.
Wennik, underscored the basic tenet “that boys and men, girls and women in a coeducational school must be accorded the same excellence in this area of their lives as in all others.”
With unfailing support from the top, PA’s athletics department touted the Among many other fitness offerings, connection between regular physical girls and boys were drawn to martial exercise, better mental health, and an arts, yoga, weight training, endurance increased capacity for learning. Diverse swimming, canoeing, and cycling, sports and fitness programs reflected a reflecting a heightened interest in “healthy body, healthy mind” philosocare of the body through the pursuit phy, and student participation at any of individual lifelong sports. There level was key. In the process of winning were large new spaces for wrestling many games and championships, girls and gymnastics. Girls would join and boys alike became stronger, made the wrestling team, too, but gymnas- friends, and learned a few ancillary lestics was eliminated after a few years sons about leadership and life. because of a lack of teams to compete Inducted into the Andover Athletics against and high insurance costs. Hall of Honor: Fred H. Harrison ’38 The new complex was a resource for and Shirley J. Ritchie (2008), Joseph B. the entire PA community and, says Wennik ’52 (2012)
E
vents are being planned through June 2014 to both celebrate and reflect on the historic merger of Abbot and Phillips academies, highlight some of the important Abbot Academy programs and traditions that continue to be embraced at PA, and engage the community in conversations about coeducation and gender. March An art exhibition by students in the Girls’ Leadership Project. Gelb Science Center lobby April 4–6 Spring Weekend on Coeducation and Gender Friday, April 4: 6:30 p.m., Keynote speaker (TBA). Kemper Auditorium Saturday, April 5: What Artists Study. Steinbach Lobby, G.W. Hall This exhibition will highlight the rich history of visual arts education at Abbot and Phillips academies. Included will be work in a wide range of media from eight alumni career artists who graduated between 1978 and 1989. Sunday, April 6: Broadening Horizons program with students and alumni From 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. on the Abbot campus, a diverse group of alumni will engage in conversations with students
about “Gender on Andover Hill: Then and Now.” Tentative topics: gender in classrooms, on sports fields, and in leadership, and sexual culture. May 24 At 1 p.m., Andover will celebrate its 40th year of coeducation and the anniversary of the advent of Title IX by dedicating its upgraded softball facility when the team hosts Exeter in their annual season-ending doubleheader. May 31 A contemporary Abbot Bazaar honoring Abbot Academy history and traditions. Abbot Academy Circle June 13–15 Reunion Weekend 40th Reunion celebration of the Class of 1974, PA’s first coed class; screening of History of Abbot Academy: Recollections of Alumnae, a documentary by Charlie Stuart ’62
For the most up-to-date information, contact Debby Murphy, director of Alumni Engagement, at dmurphy@andover.edu or 978-749-4268.
Andover | Winter 2014
37
I n t i m a t e S p ac e s Brian Allen’s Legacy of Art, Aesthetics & Education
Photos by John Hurley, Peter Vanderwarker ’65, and Jeff Goldberg/Esto
by William C. Agee ’55
38
Andover | Winter 2014
Running a museum is no easy job,
Center left: Brian Allen Above: Jacob Hurd, Teapot, c. 1750, silver with wood handle, purchased as the gift of Sidney R. Knafel (PA 1948), Stephen C. Sherrill (PA 1971), Bernard G. Palitz (PA 1942), William Heidrich (PA 1972), S.J. Shrubsole Corp., Thomas Foley (PA 1971), J. Mark Rudkin (PA 1947), and Kuni and Michael Schmertzler (PA 1970). Photo courtesy of Sotheby’s Below: Paul Manship, Venus Anadyomene, 1927, marble, gift of anonymous donor
and good directors are hard to find. Since arriving at the Addison Gallery of American Art as the Mary Stripp and R. Crosby Kemper Director in the summer of 2004, Brian T. Allen has become one of the best. It was his first directorship, but he took to it quickly. In January, Brian left to become the vice president and museum director of the New-York Historical Society, one of the country’s most venerable and distinguished institutions. His list of accomplishments at Andover is impressive to be sure, for he departed bequeathing us nothing less than a new and transformed museum. The Addison is substantially larger now, and the beautiful Sidney R. Knafel Wing, devoted to art education, has expanded the gallery’s profile and presence on the campus and in the school itself. From now on, every Andover student will be exposed to its resources and participate in its riches, an educational experience matched by no high school in the country and by but a few colleges.
as many a museum has encumbered itself with unhappy and flawed additions, to say nothing of unwanted debt. Brian’s calm but firm leadership dictated a remarkably smooth process, almost as if he knew all along what Platt would have wanted. And the construction squarely hit its budget target of $22 million—all paid for, thanks to the Addison’s generous and loyal supporters. An essential part of the fundraising goals for the renovation and expansion was $8 million to endow expanded operations—a goal that was met through the collective efforts of Brian, Sidney Knafel ’48, Stephen Sherrill ’71, Michael Schmertzler ’70, Addison Director of Development Susannah Abbott, and others.
The unity, the seamless connection between old and new buildings, is rare and important, for it enables us to partake in the continuity of art, the organic flow of the past and present and even future, and how they interact on the long train track of our history. Those of us—poor lost souls—who first came to the In addition, there is increased space for new Addison more than 50 years ago found immeprograms, renovated galleries, and replaced diate solace upon entering the calm and reasand updated infrastructure technologies. suring peace in the lobby, thankfully set at ease Even the roof was replaced for safety reasons by the presence of the Paul Manship fountain and to ensure the sublime lighting of the Venus Anadyomene. As an old museum hand, galleries, one of the glories of the Addison that I am deeply grateful and happy to report that continues to make it one of the best places in this quiet harmony of the galleries has been the country to look at art—to be with it and improved but not changed: The Addison is soak it up. The renovation of the old building, new, but it is the same. We still have the same designed by Charles Platt and opened in embracing experience from top to bottom wel1931, was absolutely faithful to the original, coming us, beckoning us to new worlds, and keeping its quiet, classic harmony while inviting us to find—or re-find—our selves, at welcoming new programs and experiences our deepest core. This is essential to America, for its many constituencies. This is rare, the need to see our culture whole, as a great Andover | Winter 2014
39
enterprise that dates to our founding, as does the school itself. American art often has been labeled as provincial, in the sense of something inferior. Yes, America and American art perhaps were provincial in some ways, at least prior to 1945, but only in the literal sense of the word, meaning apart from the capital, away from the center. Our art has always had its own special qualities, its own genius, distinct but authentic and inspiring, just as our founding fathers, among them one Samuel Phillips, were provincials yet still geniuses. This all fits Andover itself, a capsule history of America, in its architectural gems such as Bulfinch Hall and the Moncrieff Cochran Sanctuary designed by Olmsted Brothers, a perfect setting for the best American history course ever, or English 5, where we learned Emerson, Hawthorne, Melville, and Whitman, the pinnacles of earlier American literature. Andover and the Addison together are surely the center of a living, breathing curriculum of American Studies. All indications are that the Addison and the school are more closely integrated than ever before, extending traditions into lively new experience.
Under Brian’s directorship, supported by his staff and countless donors, a legacy of beautiful and important exhibitions—almost 100 over his tenure—and major acquisitions in all media has been handed down to us. Here, too, old and new have been well blended. Among my favorite acquisitions is the extraordinary silver teapot (c. 1750), a landmark of early American craftsmanship done by Jacob Hurd and inherited by Phebe Foxcroft Phillips, wife of the school’s founder. Major paintings were acquired, such as Argos (1949) by Barnett Newman, one of the pioneers of post-1945 art in this country. It references, of course, classical antiquity, reminding us of the sources of the school’s guiding principles and of the long traditions of even the most advanced art. The gallery also added major paintings by Mark Bradford, Arthur Wesley Dow, John Marin, and Rackstraw Downes, as well as sculptures by the 19th-century sculptor Harriet Hosmer and a rare piece by Theodore Roszak done in the 1930s. So, too, during Brian’s tenure, the photography collection—one of the richest and deepest collections of American photography in the country—has grown enormously
Far left: Sheila Hicks, Bamian, fiber art, 1968, 102 3/8 x 102 3/8 in., wool and acrylic yarns, wrapped, Charles Potter Kling Fund and partial gift of Sheila Hicks, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 2011.474. Photo courtesy of Bastiaan van den Berg Left: Harriet Goodhue Hosmer, Puck, modeled 1854, carved before 1865, marble, purchased as the gift of Thomas C. Foley (PA 1971) and Leslie A. Fahrenkopf, Widgeon Point Foundation, and James B. Murphy II (PA 1969) Below: Barnett Newman, Argos, 1949, oil on canvas, gift of The Barnett and Annalee Newman Foundation. Photo courtesy of The Barnett and Annalee Newman Foundation
40
Andover | Winter 2014
“Adventures in learning” may best summarize the Addison under Brian’s direction. He supported expanded educational programs for all ages, be they students or the public.
under the keen eye of curator Allison Kemmerer. Few institutions can boast the extent of the integration of so many aspects of the American genius as can the Addison. Since its founding, the Addison has been well known and respected, both regionally and more recently, nationally. Under Brian’s leadership, through its prominent exhibition programs, the Addison has become an international presence, again, like the school itself. For example, after opening at the Addison, Coming of Age: American Art, 1850s to 1950s, drawn entirely from the Addison’s collection, was seen at Meadows Museum of Art, Dallas, the Dulwich Picture Gallery in London, the Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice, and the National Museum of Fine Art of Quebec. In fact, during Brian’s tenure, exhibitions have traveled to more than 20 cities in the U.S. and abroad, with more foreign venues in the works. The nowexpanded building faces out onto the Great Lawn, proudly stating from its beginnings that it will be open to the world and will serve that world at the highest level of accomplishment. That goal is now happily in place. Further, in the nine years of Brian’s tenure, the Addison has continued to be the most important museum in the country for its scholarship and exhibitions devoted to American modernism up to 1945. Exhibitions devoted to Marin, James Abbott McNeill Whistler, Jennifer Bartlett, Dow, Kara Walker, John La Farge, John Graham and his circle, Lorna Bieber, and countless others have established high standards matched by few, if any, museums. Gertrude Stein once famously said that you could be a museum or you could be modern, but you couldn’t be both. Not so at the Addison, for the gallery has engaged contemporary art to the fullest extent, both in exhibitions and acquisitions. Many, such as the Sheila Hicks exhibition, have been revelatory and ground breaking, continuing the long-standing tradition at the Addison since its opening. For students and public alike, the ability to view and experience American art from its early years to, literally, the present day, under one roof, is rare if not unique
in this country. Indeed, one of Brian’s gifts has been an awareness and understanding of the interrelation of all the arts in American culture. Students and public alike can view 18th- to 21st-century art and then engage one of the artists, established and emerging, who visit as part of the Edward E. Elson Artist in Residence program. In this, the Addison has led the way. One thinks of then-director Bart Hayes bringing Charles Sheeler to the campus in 1946, perhaps the first artist-in-residence program in America. While at Andover, Sheeler was able to recharge and took his art into new places that made his later work one of the important achievements of the post1945 era. We will see how this program adds to our art as time unfolds. “Adventures in learning” may best summarize the Addison under Brian’s direction. He supported expanded educational programs for all ages, be they students or the public. The new Sidney R. Knafel Wing has a reading room, with an art library that is a truly inviting space. There is always something new, as Brian believed in taking us on journeys, literally the world over. A favorite photograph is a 2012 shot of young children working on the floor of the gallery in which American Vanguards was beautifully installed by Susan Faxon, associate director and curator. The show and its scholarly catalogue, supported by Brian from the very inception of the idea, won a prize that year as best in New England. But what was most pleasing was to see a new and young audience happily and industriously engaged with it, making art all their own. We never know how, when, or where art will touch us, but thanks to Brian Allen, at the Addison we know it will, without fail. William C. Agee ’55 is the Evelyn Kranes Kossak Professor of Art History at Hunter College, City University of New York. A historian of American art, he has worked closely with Brian Allen and the Addison staff on several exhibitions and has served on the Addison Gallery’s Board of Governors since 2000. [Editor’s note: Susan Faxon, longtime Addison associate director and curator, is serving as interim director of the Addison Gallery.]
Andover | Winter 2014
41
Three Receive
Andover Alumni Award of Distinction 2013
Andover Alumni
Gil Talbot
Award of Distinction
The second annual induction ceremony of the Andover Alumni Award of Distinction (AAAD) was held in Kemper Auditorium on Friday, November 1. The AAAD was conceived to recognize and honor alumni of Phillips Academy or Abbot Academy who have served with distinction in their fields of endeavor. Opening remarks were offered by Alfred Blum ’62, chair of the AAAD Committee, with closing remarks provided by Head of School John Palfrey.
Above: Hafsat Abiola ’92 and Frank Stella ’54, center, are flanked by award presenters Karen Humphries Sallick ’83 and Christopher Auguste ’76.
George C. Church ’72 Geneticist, Molecular Engineer, and Chemist
Sally Holm
Right: Due to a schedule conflict, award recipient George Church ’72 was unable to attend the November 1 event, but plans to visit campus and meet with students in 2014.
42
Andover | Winter 2014
Widely regarded as a pioneer and visionary in personal genomics and synthetic biology, George Church is a professor of Genetics at Harvard Medical School, a professor of Health Sciences and Technology at MIT/HMS, and a founding member of the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering.
Hafsat O. Abiola ’92
Gil Talbot
Human Rights Advocate, Civil Rights and Democracy Activist Inspired by the unlawful imprisonment of her father and the assassination of her mother, Hafsat Abiola is lauded for her tireless efforts to promote democracy in her native Nigeria and empower women around the world. Abiola founded the NGO Kudirat Initiative for Democracy (KIND) in 1996, which today seeks to involve women and youth in Africa’s social, economic, and political development. Along with receiving the AAAD award, Abiola addressed students at the October 30 All-School Meeting as this year’s Finis Origine Pendet Speaker.
women are culturally understood to be property and largely believed to be unworthy of consideration in political decisions.
“Her response transcended my expectations. While I sat on the edge of my seat waiting for a detailed explanation of the planning Corinne Singer ’15: “Hafsat spoke at a dinner for student and execution phases leaders from various campus involved with all of her accomplishments, she organizations. As the group responded with very few delved further and further words. She looked at us into the common oppressions and simply said, ‘I choose women face around the not to see ceilings, only globe, one student asked opportunities.’” Hafsat how she is able to break through the glass ceilings all women are subject to in their lives and careers— particularly in a country where
Neil Evans
“My mother brought me [to Andover] on the first day of school to start classes. Right away I felt like I made a mistake…. I had never been amongst so many white people, coming from Nigeria, where [we] all kind of
look like me,” she said with a laugh. As Abiola gained confidence she began to explore her passions. “I fell in love with learning here because…I had teachers who were interested in what I had to say and in me as a person.”
Frank P. Stella ’54
Gil Talbot
Painter, Printmaker, Sculptor, Author, Innovator One of the most highly regarded postwar American painters working today, Frank Stella has continuously reinvented himself over the course of his five-decade— and counting—career. He is heralded both for his excellence as an abstract artist and printmaker and for paving the way for Minimalism, an art form characterized by “extreme simplicity of line, shape, and form.”
of each. He also introduced printmaking and sculpture— compelling me to try them— and he talked to us about expression through artwork. He showed us the power of words, symbols, and shapes. “Stella was very kind and honest in his discussions
with our class. He told us about his experiences with art and some of the difficulties he encountered. Meeting Frank Stella was definitely a high point of my time at Andover. It was really amazing to have such a famous artist in our studio.”
Neil Evans
Sabrina Lu ’17: “Frank Stella’s visit provided lots of insight into the world of art. I had always stuck with the watercolor and acrylic, but his use of different media allowed me to experience the impact and effectiveness Andover | Winter 2014
43
Perspectives:
Marshall Cloyd ’58 and the
Brent Pederson
Robert S. Peabody Museum of Archaeology
44
Andover | Winter 2014
Gil Talbot
While the Peabody was a “curiosity” on the Andover campus, it held a hallowed place in the hearts and minds of American archaeologists.
by Ryan Wheeler
Director, Peabody Museum
Marshall Cloyd ’58 is many things— civil engineer, graduate of Stanford and Harvard Business School, international businessman, philanthropist, Domus Fellow of St. Catherine’s College, Oxford, and an outstanding raconteur. Told from his unique perspective as an alumnus and a highly engaged museum supporter, Cloyd’s stories add a new dimension to the recent history of the Peabody.
proffered a sheaf of dusty notes and offered to resurrect his archaeology class, but Cloyd and his classmates quickly got the message that the Peabody was not seeking a relationship with students. “Visiting the Peabody,” Cloyd says, “one felt the tension of a laboratory. Serious scientific investigations were underway.”
What Cloyd didn’t know then but learned many years later was that While Cloyd first recognized the eduJohnson and the Peabody were at the cational potential of the Peabody in the heart of an important revolution in 1990s—at which time he joined the archaeology. Johnson had been tapped Peabody Advisory Committee at the to lead the American Anthropological request of David Underwood ’54, Association’s blue ribbon committee then president of the Board of that would guide the fledgling techTrustees—his very first encounter nique of radiocarbon dating, developed with the museum was years before, in by Willard Libby at the University of 1954, during his upper year at Phillips Chicago. This technique, today such Academy. “Having a mother holding an integral part of archaeology, was two law degrees and an MIT/Harvard the entrée to a major paradigm shift: Business School father, I had been archaeologists could now actually taught to investigate everything,” says measure time. Cloyd, who had journeyed north from The work on radiocarbon was just one Dallas. “I decided 500 acres with two of many contributions to science made museums was a good place to start.” by the Peabody’s archaeologists during During that early encounter, Peabody the decades when the museum seemed Museum Curator Frederick Johnson so quiet and students shied away. From
1915 to 1929, Alfred V. Kidder pioneered the use of stratigraphic excavations at Pecos Pueblo in New Mexico; Douglas Byers and Fred Johnson, working at the Peabody from the 1930s through the late 1960s, conducted project after project that demonstrated that archaeology could be a science; and, in the 1960s and 1970s, Richard “Scotty” MacNeish probed the origins of agriculture and advanced civilizations in Mexico and Peru. In fall 1992, when Cloyd next encountered the Peabody, the glory days of groundbreaking achievements seemed a distant memory. The museum was reopened after being all but shuttered throughout much of the 1980s due to financial difficulties. Cloyd’s older daughter, Carey ’95, was a lower at the time. Having been an Andover student himself, Cloyd thought she ought to be introduced to the Peabody. Then–museum director Jim Bradley says Marshall Cloyd was fascinated by the museum and that he quickly recognized the possibilities for collaboration with Phillips Academy faculty and students. But the Peabody faced Andover | Winter 2014
45
Far left: Beads and pendants; turquoise; Pecos Pueblo, New Mexico; c. AD 1400 Center: Awanyu figurine; ceramic; Pecos Pueblo, New Mexico; c. AD 1400 Left: Miniature painted vessel; ceramic; Pecos Pueblo, New Mexico
new challenges in the early 1990s with the passage of the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA), federal legislation that required museums to assess their collections for ancestral remains and funerary items and to notify affiliated tribes so that repatriation could be affected. To many this seemed like the undoing of decades of collecting and scientific research, but Bradley embraced NAGPRA and developed a consistent and holistic approach that produced positive relationships between the Peabody and Native American communities. Cloyd tells a good story about the NAGPRA consultations involving the Etowah Indian Mounds Historic Site near Cartersville, Georgia. The Peabody’s Etowah holdings included material excavated by Warren Moorehead in the late 1920s— embossed copper plates, massive shell beads, stone statues, and the like; the Smithsonian Institution and the state of Georgia had similar materials, all collected at different times. In order to make sense of the history and archaeology of the site, the Peabody—with Cloyd’s assistance—helped to organize a bus trip for tribal members in summer of 2000. Many on the trip had never been to Etowah but had ancestors who had lived in the area during the years before and after Hernando de Soto blazed across the Southeast. 46
Andover | Winter 2014
Many were descendants of those who had survived the Trail of Tears; their ancestors had been forcibly removed to Oklahoma and they had never visited their eastern homelands. Cloyd joined them at the site. In an attempt to make some form of peace, he stated that the Peabody was fortunate to be working with the likes of the Smithsonian and the state of Georgia. Cloyd remembers the reaction of tribal members: “Remonstration was instant and unqualified. Every tribe felt that the Peabody was the only institution that had any appreciation or empathy for the tribes in attendance. This sensitivity shown by the Peabody to the Native American community remains a hallmark of the institution.” At least twice since the early 1980s, the Academy considered closing the Peabody’s doors due to financial challenges. Things got so bad in the early 2000s, Cloyd recalls, that Jim Bradley and future director Malinda Blustain organized a workshop at the 2002 annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology (SAA) to get archaeologists from all over the country involved in brainstorming about what would happen to the Peabody and its collection of some 600,000 objects. Cloyd, a regular at the SAA meetings since the 1990s, says that the room was packed and people were upset. While the Peabody was a curiosity on the Andover campus, it held a
hallowed place in the hearts and minds of American archaeologists. Thankfully, that workshop saved the Peabody. Cloyd says, “Fortunately, David Hurst Thomas, curator of the American Museum of Natural History, was in attendance. He, along with Linda Cordell, was instrumental in bringing about an appropriate rebalancing of the institution.” Both Thomas and Cordell, eminent archaeologists and members of the National Academy of Sciences, joined the Peabody Advisory Committee and became powerful voices for the continued existence of the museum. An invitation to Pueblo of Jemez Tribal Governor Raymond Gachupin from Board President Underwood to address Andover’s trustees in the early 2000s was another key bright spot during the Peabody’s darker days. Gachupin, says Cloyd, was no stranger to public speaking, and “many did not realize that he was a United States Marine who had spoken on behalf of the Native American community to both the House and the Senate. Simply put, he knew how to hold an audience.” Gachupin was also quite familiar with the Peabody Museum, since he had been directly involved in the NAGPRA consultations and the Pecos Pueblo repatriation of ancestral remains and funerary objects just a few years earlier. Pecos—the ancestral home of the people who now reside at Jemez
Sam Hall ’06
A Peabody Museum event held in New York City’s American Museum of Natural History celebrated the contributions of Marshall Cloyd ’58 and archaeologists David Hurst Thomas and the late Linda S. Cordell.
Andover | Winter 2014
47
Sam Hall ’06
The Peabody has gained positive collaborated with biology department momentum since 2002, and Cloyd has chair Jerry Hagler in an attempt to been involved in most of it. During the isolate DNA from dog bones from an most recent Academy campaign, he archaeological site in Maine. Perhaps and other vital supporters, including most exciting, she said, was the need Oscar Tang ’56 and Kuni and Michael to improvise techniques and equipSchmertzler ’70, significantly bolstered ment, unnecessary in Trudi’s later labs the museum’s endowment. Cloyd also at Smith and Oxford. Thanks to the financed interior restorations, includefforts of Cloyd and others, this type Trudi Cloyd ’03 paid a surprise tribute to her father. ing the addition of internal fire stairs. of collaborative student and faculty Pueblo—was excavated between 1915 At a recent event held in New York endeavor has become a hallmark of the and 1929 by Alfred Kidder under the City’s American Museum of Natural Peabody. Head of School John Palfrey, auspices of Phillips Academy and the History—“The Peabody Museum: in his comments at the New York event, Peabody. The reburial of 1,922 individWhere the Past and Present Meet”— described the Peabody as a “laborauals at Pecos National Historic Park in more than 300 alumni and parents tory,” one of the places on the campus 1999 is, to date, the largest such repatricelebrated the contributions of Cloyd that allows students to experiment and ation made under NAGPRA. The repaand archaeologists Thomas and the late innovate. triation involved both Harvard, which Linda S. Cordell. After the main preAll along, Cloyd’s support has spoken housed the remains, and the Peabody, sentation, Abigail Seldin ’05, a Rhodes to the Peabody’s potential to spark the repository for the funerary objects Scholar and 2012–2013 Luce Scholar, interest in scientific inquiry and give and other Pecos artifacts. The relationspoke about her interest in archaeology, students a chance to work with signifiship between Jemez and the Peabody which was ignited at the Peabody when cant collections. Clearly, things have was in its infancy then, but the govershe met then-director Blustain, as well changed since Cloyd’s first encounter nor recognized the value of the synergy as Thomas and Cordell. She recently with the Peabody in 1954, and Cloyd that came out of the repatriation. became a member of the Peabody says that his vision for the museum Advisory Committee. According to Cloyd, the governor has only expanded throughout the “made it lucid that the entire Native In addition to arranging a spectacuyears. “Given that the Peabody has American community realized and lar venue, dinner, and presentation, been involved in work all over the appreciated the quality of and respect event organizers planned a surprise. Americas and tells the story of the held for the Peabody.” His words Trudi Cloyd ’03 shared a tribute to her human race over the last several thouhelped sway the Board of Trustees. father, mostly focused on her Peabody sand years, the opportunities it offers The Peabody would continue, but experiences. While at Andover, Trudi are, in effect, infinite.” with a new direction and focus on the education of Andover students. This shift has meant that faculty from across “ The sensitivity the humanities and sciences now bring their classes to the Peabody for handsshown by the Peabody on workshops and projects, work duty students catalog the expansive colto the Native American lections, student researchers conduct community remains their own independent projects, and students travel to significant sites like a hallmark of the Pecos Pueblo, Machu Picchu, and Mas d’Azil Cave in France. institution.”
[
Andover | Winter 2014
Gil Talbot
48
]
C ONNE CT I ON
Veterans Gather to Remember Left to right: George Rider ’52, Charlie Dean ’79, Chris Joel ’88, Walker Washburn ’08, Seth Moulton ’97, Capt. Tom Barron ’04, John Doherty ’59, Lea Pendleton ’59, and John Chory ’76 were among the veterans who attended the Academy’s Veterans Day program and dinner. Inset: Mohammed Harba and Seth Moulton ’97
Gil Talbot
Now on the Web
More than 100 veterans, alumni, and students gathered in Paresky Commons on October 31 for the Academy’s fourth annual Veterans Day program and dinner. Alumni Council President Tom Beaton ’73 welcomed guests, and Capt. Tom Barron ’04, a graduate of the U.S. Army’s Airborne and Ranger schools who served in Afghanistan, introduced speakers Seth Moulton ’97 and Mohammed Harba.
“Mohammed took risks in assisting the American military, even when his family was threatened,” said Moulton. Harba later came to the United States as a Fulbright Scholar and in 2008 became Andover’s first instructor in Arabic. In response to a shortage of Arabic speakers— and inspired by Andover’s non sibi motto— he left the Academy in 2010 to enlist in the U.S. Marine Corps.
Moulton enlisted in the Marine Corps following his graduation from Harvard and served four tours of duty in Iraq in five years. Early on, in 2003, Harba was assigned as Moulton’s translator. The pair was tasked with creating a local TV news show—at a time when the Iraqi press was not free.
Moulton, who currently serves as chair of the Andover and the Military affinity group, credits Andover with making him more mature, selfless, and confident. And he sees some parallels between PA and the military. “Both mold people to do far more than they think they are capable of,” he said.
John Hurley
2013 Distinguished Service Award Recipients Honored
Alumni, veterans, and others are invited to view David Chase’s Andover in the Military: A Historical Overview at www. andover.edu/alumni/connect/military/history. Chase’s narrative begins in 1778—the year the Academy opened—with students who participated in the American Revolution, then recounts alumni service, selflessness, and heroism through the Civil War, World Wars I and II, Vietnam, and the Gulf War, concluding with alumni serving in the military today. ry Milita Andover in Athe view Historical Over by David Chase
1 Back to the beginning
Eight members of the Phillips Academy community were awarded Andover’s Distinguished Service Award at a special luncheon held on Saturday, November 2, in Paresky Commons. Those gathered— including PA faculty and administrators, along with family and friends of the award recipients—were welcomed by Alumni Council President Tom Beaton ’73. Head of School John Palfrey thanked the alumni and parent honorees for the great energy and many hours they’ve given Andover, and for inspiring others to step forward and fill important volunteer roles.
Alumni Council President Tom Beaton ’73, far left, presented Andover’s highest award for volunteerism to ( from left) John C. Kane Jr. ’63, P’96, ’99, ’03; Susan Urie Donahue ’73, P’05, ’08; Grant Cho ’17 (accepting the award for his father, Henry K. Cho ’83); Yichen Zhang ’82; Kuni S. and Michael Schmertzler ’70, P’05, ’07; and David Stoldt and Constance Wright P’07, ’09, ’12. Pictured at far right is Head of School John Palfrey. Andover | Winter 2014
49
C ONNE CT I ON
the Buzzzzz
z
Seen on Boston’s Fox 25 news on Black Friday: Misty Muscatel ’01 and a cohort of family members dressed in Superman—make that Supershopper— costumes…
Tantum “Teddy” Collins ’08 was awarded a highly competitive Marshall Scholarship and with it will study for an M.Phil. in international relations at Oxford University…
Henry Smyth ’88 was installed as the 14th headmaster of Gilman School in Baltimore, Md., this past August…
In August, Meta Weiss ’05 and Arianna Warsaw-Fan ’04 released Entendre, their first CD as duoW with Sono Luminus Records; they toured the West Coast in November and January…
Jerrold Chadwick ’73 was appointed president of the Children’s Cancer Foundation… Photographer Keziban Barry ’02 had her first solo exhibition at the Norwood club in NYC, which featured 12 photographs from different series (for a glimpse at Kezi’s work, see page 42 in the fall 2013 issue of Andover)…
Ho ho ho! Time magazine named Jonathan Meath ’74 one of the 11 best Santas in the country… In early January, new Boston Mayor Martin Walsh named Daniel Arrigg Koh ’03 his new chief of staff…
Over the past year, We Are the World Kids (WAWK)—a nonprofit organization founded by Justine Wang ’15 and younger sister Jessica—raised over $9,000 for the construction of three reading corners in schools in Mtwara, Tanzania. Proceeds from PA’s January 2013 Abbot Cabaret were donated to the construction of a reading corner at the Chikongola School in Mtwara… Nick Simon ’87’s film company produced The Rocket, which went on to win at the Berlin and Tribeca film festivals…
Bill Gardner ’62 recently won a 20-mile open-water race in his class at the 2013 Blackburn Challenge off Gloucester, Mass., finishing in slightly more than three hours in an outrigger doubles canoe… In 2013, Lauren Wilmarth ’09 received the Outstanding Senior Scholar-Athlete Award from the University of Connecticut, where she played Div. I tennis and studied animal science as an honors student. Lauren completed requirements for a BA degree in three years and went on to veterinary school at Cornell University…
The London-based organization Action on Armed Violence (AOAV) recently named John Marks ’61, head of Search for Common Ground, one of the 100 most influential people in armedviolence reduction…
Annual Meeting of Alumni
Michael Malyszko
The Annual Meeting of the Andover-Abbot Alumni Association will be held during Reunion Weekend on Saturday, June 14, 2014, at 11 a.m. in Cochran Chapel at Phillips Academy in Andover, Mass. All alumni of Phillips Academy and Abbot Academy are cordially invited to attend.
50
Andover | Winter 2014
New York
Photos by Gail Mansfield and Jenny Savino
New York
Washington, D.C.
Phillips Academy Alumni Events, January–June 2014 National & International Events
San Francisco
Washington, D.C.
Feb. 9
Naples, Fla.
With Head of School John Palfrey
Feb. 10
Miami, Fla.
With Head of School John Palfrey
Feb 13
Vero Beach, Fla.
With Secretary of the Academy Peter Ramsey
Feb. 27
New York
Film screening of The Cardboard Bernini with Olympia Stone ’87
March 18
Los Angeles
With Head of School John Palfrey
March 19
Santa Barbara
With Dean of Studies Patricia Russell
March 20
San Francisco
With Dean of Studies Patricia Russell
March 20
Seoul
With Head of School John Palfrey
March 23
Hong Kong
With Head of School John Palfrey
April 26
New York
Non Sibi Project: Citymeals-on-Wheels
Campus Events Feb. 22
Alumni Coed Basketball Game and Alumni Coed Hockey Game
Feb. 22
Andover-Exeter Winter Athletic Contests
April 4–6
Spring Weekend on Coeducation and Gender
April 25–26 Non Sibi Service Days May 1–3
Alumni Council Weekend
June 8
Commencement
June 13–15 Reunion Weekend: All classes ending in 4s and 9s Washington, D.C.
For the most up-to-date listings, visit the Office of Alumni Engagement event calendar at www.andover.edu/alumni.
Andover | Winter 2014
51
a n d o v e r B OO K S H E LF
New York City of Trees by Benjamin Swett ’77 The Quantuck Lane Press Benjamin Swett worked as a photographer and writer for the New York City Parks Department for 13 years. In that time, he acquired a nearly encyclopedic knowledge of significant trees scattered throughout the city’s five boroughs, many of which are documented here in words and photos whose specificity turns each tree into a compelling character. For anyone with even a passing interest in trees, New York, or history, this beautiful and sometimes lyrical book is a fascinating read. The Flying Brownie: 100 Recipes for Homemade Treats That Pack Easily, Ship Fresh, and Taste Great by Shirley Fan ’95 The Harvard Common Press It’s not just brownies that fly in this colorful cookbook. Shirley Fan, a registered dietitian, offers recipes for all kinds of delicious, nutritious treats that are easily packed and shipped, as well as detailed information on creating and sending care packages for distant loved ones. (PA parents, take note!) The likes of apricot-pecan bars, peppermint fantasy fudge, and sriracha party nuts will surely delight the lucky recipients. 2Pac vs. Biggie: An Illustrated History of Rap’s Biggest Battle by Jeff Weiss and Evan McGarvey ’03 Voyageur Press The New American High School by Theodore R. Sizer Jossey-Bass Former Headmaster Theodore R. Sizer—known to all as Ted— left an impressive legacy when he died in late 2009. A leading voice for education reform, Sizer outlined his philosophies and proposals in several books, most notably Horace’s Compromise: The Dilemma of the American High School (1984). If Horace eloquently laid out the problems, Sizer’s last book, published posthumously in 2013, posits the solutions. Public high schools—institutions Sizer dubbed “the oxygen of democracy”—are in trouble, he wrote in The New American High School, because they are based on an outmoded model that no longer serves our society well. He expressed frustration at the difficulty of undertaking reform: “We are stuck on the old metaphors and procedures...We inherited a program of studies that in its overall structure has not changed in over a century.” And those in charge, Sizer said, have little appetite for the radical solutions he believed necessary. Although he admitted there are no easy answers, his message is one of hope. Each of the book’s chapters addresses a specific area in need of reform, such as technology, pedagogy, testing, time, and so on; in aggregate, they paint a picture of just what a new American high school might be. Not all reforms may work, but few readers could quibble with Sizer’s final conclusion: “Our work is worthy, essential to an orderly, optimistic democracy. Let us persist with it.”
52
Andover | Winter 2014
This unexpectedly scholarly, exhaustively detailed volume might be the last word on the rivalry that captivated a generation—or at least one sliver of a generation. The too-brief lives of rappers Tupac Shakur and Christopher Wallace, a.k.a. 2Pac and Biggie, were both intertwined and at odds, like magnets that repel and attract. Their parallel stories are recounted here in lively prose and plentiful pictures. A Thousand Pardons by Jonathan Dee ’80 Random House Jonathan Dee, a Pulitzer Prize finalist for The Privileges, takes on a timely topic in his new novel: the culture of public apology. When complacent suburbanite Helen Armstead is forced to find work, she evinces a rare talent for helping powerful men admit their mistakes and salvage their reputations. But forgiveness, she learns, has its limits. This thought-provoking black comedy is especially apt in the era of Anthony Weiner, John Edwards, et al.
Shorecliff by Ursula DeYoung ’00 Little, Brown and Company Cousinship—that peculiar bond among not-quite-siblings—is examined evocatively in Ursula DeYoung’s first novel. Thirteen-year-old Richard is thrilled to be spending the summer of 1928 at Shorecliff, the family’s ramshackle Maine homestead, with his worldly, slightly older cousins. But when long-hidden secrets come out, Richard must learn to see his family in a less flattering light. His loss of innocence is as heartbreaking as it is inevitable. Deer Hunting in Paris: A Memoir of God, Guns, and Game Meat by Paula Young Lee ’82 Solas House A quirky memoir that travels from Maine to France and points beyond, Paula Young Lee’s newest book is a love story at heart, as the author falls for an unlikely man. But it’s amusingly digressive and thoroughly unsentimental. Meat is the thread that ties the story together, often described in memorable turns of phrase: A giblet, Lee writes, “was a meat pacifier, rubbery and melting at the same time.”
INADDITION
Paris Was the Place by Susan Conley ’85 Alfred A. Knopf
Petticoats and Pinstripes: Portraits of Women in Wall Street’s History by Sheri J. Caplan ’83 Praeger A Dangerous Marriage by William W. Blunt ’54 iUniverse Hungry Start-Up Strategy by Peter S. Cohan ’75 Berrett-Koehler International Students in Independent Schools: A Guide for Educators edited by Allison Rainville ’90 National Association of Independent Schools
—Written by Jane Dornbusch Been published recently? Please send your book to Jane Dornbusch, Office of Communication, Phillips Academy, 180 Main St., Andover MA 01810-4161. After your book is announced, it will be donated to the Oliver Wendell Holmes Library. Autographed copies appreciated! Regrettably, due to the high volume of books written by alumni, not all books will be featured in the Andover Bookshelf. Selection is at the discretion of the class notes editor.
Don’t expect to find the Paris of elegant cafés, broad boulevards, and high culture in this debut novel by the author of The Foremost Good Fortune, an acclaimed 2012 memoir about living in Beijing. Or rather, do expect to find it, but alongside a Paris that is far more complicated and less idealized than the city typically seen by tourists. The time is the late ’80s, and narrator Willow “Willie” Pears is an expat living in Paris, teaching poetry to American college students. A product of unconventional parents, Willie has come to Paris to be near her beloved older brother Luke. Through her work with immigrant teenage girls who live in a prisonlike shelter while awaiting asylum hearings, she becomes romantically involved with a French lawyer. Meanwhile, Willie finds herself invested, perhaps too heavily, in the lives of the girls at the shelter. At the intersection of the political, the professional, and the personal, Willie must make a difficult decision that could have disastrous repercussions. Through it all, Paris is nearly as much a character as Willie herself. Readers may want to arm themselves with a map in order to follow Willie’s detailed peregrinations in and around the city. By the book’s end, Willie—who struggles with a sense of rootlessness and longs to belong—has found her emotional and spiritual home: Paris, it turns out, is the place.
Andover | Winter 2014
53
2012
1954
“Hairs” to You! See story, page 24.
1935
1985
2005
1966
1942 1995
54
Andover | Winter 2013
1927
www.andover.edu/intouch Cl ass Not es
1935 ABBOT
Doris Schwartz Lewis 250 Hammond Pond Pkwy., Apt. 515S Chestnut Hill MA 02467 617-244-7302 doss123@webtv.net
1912
1936 ABBOT
Lucy H. Winship Heritage Heights 149 E. Side Drive P.O. Box 350 Concord NH 03301 603-225-7109 lhwinship@comcast.net 1976
1976
PHILLIPS
[Editor’s note: The Academy has received word that Robert Hewitt, class secretary since July 2012, passed away on Aug. 21, 2013. Our condolences go out to his family and friends.]
1937 1914
1927
PHILLIPS
John Foskett 4694 Rue Bayou Sanibel FL 33957 239-472-1726 jdfoskett@gmail.com
1938 ABBOT
Dana Lynch ’68 P.O. Box 370539 Montara CA 94037-0539 650-728-8238 Dana.h.lynch@gmail.com
1988
PHILLIPS Dana Lynch ’68 P.O. Box 370539 Montara CA 94037-0539 650-728-8238 Dana.h.lynch@gmail.com
1955
Andover | Winter 2014 1944
55
stay connected... 1939 PHILLIPS Joseph F. Anderson P.O. Box 482 Lower Hollow Road Dorset VT 05251 802-867-4119 jfanders@truvista.net
It’s easy to get despondent when beginning to write about a class whose members average 92 or thereabouts in age and, further, as that class approaches its 75th Reunion. But as soon as one begins making phone calls, that feeling of pessimism lessens with the lively discussions that ensue. In short, though it’s impossible to deny the sadness over the loss of friends, there is an element of joy as we catch up with the activities of many others in our class. Danny Dannenbaum, about whom I wrote in a recent issue, has some physical difficulties, but his intellect was intact as we talked about Andover. To me, the conversation with Danny was an example of why this job can be quite rewarding. He’s recovering from a fall, which injured his shoulder and put him in a rehab center. As we talked, he was at his Stockton Springs, Maine, home, where he has spent summers for 41 years. A world-class swimmer, Dan might soon become an equally great walker as he navigates half a mile daily using a walker. Don Quarles, our preeminent mathematician, is living in his longtime home in Eastham, Mass., on Cape Cod. He and wife Doris have children and grandchildren nearby, and life is very pleasant, according to Don. Faelton Perkins sounds like a 30-year-old as he describes life in Brockton, Mass. Faelton and his second wife, Pauline, are in their 32nd year of marriage. Pauline is quite active as a director of the Brockton Symphony Orchestra. Faelton reports some difficulty with breathing, caused principally by a blood deficiency discovered seven years ago. It may be a lingering difficulty, but to this day he takes no medicine. Herb Fletcher greeted me with great enthusiasm from his home in Tarzana, Calif. I told him there were 170 members of our class who attended Yale, yet Herb, who didn’t go to college, was probably close to being the most successful. His rags-toriches story is captivating. As previously reported, he lost his parents after leaving Andover and was living day to day without employment in a town near Albany, N.Y. He answered an ad seeking a theatre usher, a desperation job, and from that modest beginning became a leader in the international distribution of motion pictures. He credits Phil Allen, one of Andover’s most beloved administrators, for much of his success. Herb is a keen Andover devotee and is particularly pleased his son, Phillip Fletcher ’75, matriculated there. Our irrepressible Harry Anderson was awaiting fall 2013 publication of The Strenuous Life of Harry Anderson, a 350-page biography written by
56
Andover | Winter 2014
Roger Vaughan. Mr. Vaughan produced a similar work on Ted Turner. Dan Hall talked with me from his home in Keene, N.H. He was eagerly awaiting a visit from his oldest son, Warren Daniel Hall III, and other family members. A trip to the family graveyard in Canada is planned. Dan was full of enthusiasm and sounded much younger than his 91 years. Mindy and Jack Castles, who spent the summer in Callawassie, S.C., have had difficult leg and foot problems. Mindy accidentally stepped the wrong way and broke a femur, which put her in a wheelchair for nine weeks. Jack, meanwhile, injured his right ankle, and a stabilizing brace has limited his golf to the confines of the practice tee. Both sound hale and hearty except for the aforementioned extremities. We recently learned that Mel Shoul died on Sept. 30 in Boston. Surely Dr. Shoul—we called him Mendy at Andover—was one of America’s most celebrated surgeons, with longtime service at the Faulkner Hospital in Boston. He also was a MASH surgeon in the Korean War. On behalf of our class, we grieve for Mel and his family. Since my last report, we also lost Ernie Holthausen and George Wagoner, two fine members of our class. Late this summer, almost in tandem, Art Williams and his wonderful, gracious wife, Mary Helen, died. Married for more than 65 years, they lived until the end in their longtime residence in Fairfield, Conn. Surely Art was one of Andover’s greatest golfers, carrying that ability on to Yale, where he excelled on the golf team. In his senior year at Andover, during the last match with Exeter, Art faced a young phenom from West Virginia, Bill Campbell, who later became two-time national amateur champion. They played to a draw and split the points. Sixty years later, at Ekwanok Country Club in Manchester, Vt., Bill was speaking on the occasion of the club’s 100th anniversary, and he and Art paired up again. Happily, Art prevailed, scoring 82 to Bill Campbell’s 83. On a personal note, my wife, Molly, and I have lost two great friends with whom we spent many happy days in recent years. We already miss greatly this modest, unassuming couple and the fun we had, particularly on the golf course. A final note: I finished a memoir describing the people and places encountered during 20-plus years traveling for Hamilton College. The 165-page Over the Hill has been well received. Molly and I are still living in Dorset, Vt., from May to October and Camden, S.C., for the rest of the year. We have also had 65 fun-filled years together. And I mean it!
1940 ABBOT
Nadene Nichols Lane 125 Coolidge Ave. #610 Watertown MA 02472 617-924-1981
PHILLIPS Blake Flint 1762 Bay St. #401 Sarasota FL 34236-7751 941-955-9396 cbflint@comcast.net
Brad Murphy reported on our 73rd Reunion. He wrote, “Our party arrived at Andover on Friday afternoon after driving from Basking Ridge, N.J. Our party consisted of my wife, Margaret; our son, Sam, a graduate of Millbrook School, who is 44 and eaten with curiosity about Andover; and lastly, Ali, my aide, since I am still somewhat crippled from my fall in March. We stayed at the Marriott nearest Andover. We registered that afternoon and attended the class dinner in the Cage that evening. We were among the last to arrive and had a small table to ourselves under the banner of ‘Old Guard.’ I had checked to see who else was registered from the Class of 1940 and found I was the only one. I had hoped Manuel Cadenas would be there, too, but for some reason he could not attend. No one else from ’40 showed up then or later. We then retired for the evening and appeared the next morning for the ceremony in Cochran Chapel. The ushers directed us to sit in a row of chairs facing the congregation, which consisted of attendees from all the classes whose people were at the reunion, including the Class of 2013. There followed a series of speeches by various worthies including the new Head of School John Palfrey, who comes to the Hill from Exeter via Harvard, where he was vice dean of the law school. He gave a 20-minute address that I unfortunately could not hear because my chair was at the far end of the podium, opposite where his lectern was. From the reaction of the audience, he seemed to possess a good sense of humor and good wit. I feel the audience was impressed by him. “Later on that day we had lunch on the lawn in front of GW and had the opportunity to greet Mr. Palfrey and shake hands and wish him well. ...The luncheon was the last function of the reunion we attended. We departed in the middle of the afternoon for Cape Cod.” A note from Don Voss, who wrote, “Blake, your note at the end of the 1940 entry in the spring issue of Andover prompts the following. At 90, with no family remaining, my activities are centered on occasional contributions to the journals of the Azalea Society and the Rhododendron Society, as well as volunteer work at the U.S. National Arboretum. Since retiring, in 1988, I have spent more than 8,000 hours at various tasks in the Arboretum’s
www.andover.edu/intouch herbarium (a reference collection of dried plant material, not an herb garden!). Although names from the past sometimes escape me, certain words learned in the Army spring forth during my 18-mile, 90-minute drive to the Arboretum (it took about 45 minutes in 1990) or when I hear the political news.” Ned Freeman died on Oct. 30, 2012, from a head injury sustained during a fall the day before. Ned went on to Yale from Andover, where, following service in the war, he was on the Yale championship swim team and performed in the legendary production of Aristophanes’ The Frogs. Ned was a businessman with a multitude of interests, a volunteer for many worthy causes, and a consummate sailor and tennis player. He had a lifelong love of traditional jazz and sang bass in his church choirs, both in Maine and in Sanibel Island, Fla., where he and his wife, Barbara, wintered. Donald Davis died on Aug. 2, 2012, in Minnetonka, Minn. He attended PA from September 1937 to June 1939 as a member of the Class of 1940. Maurice “Mike” Pease died on Nov. 10, 2012. After a stint in the Navy as a flight engineer, he returned to Yale and graduated in 1949 with a degree in geology. His career as a geologist with the U.S. Geological Survey lasted 31 years and took him to the Pacific Northwest, Puerto Rico, and finally New England. He was author or coauthor of several geologic bulletins and geologic maps. He and his family enjoyed spending time at their home on Martha’s Vineyard. Bill Wallace died on Dec. 22, 2012. Following military service in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Bill returned to Yale to complete an engineering degree and then pursued a master’s degree at Columbia. He joined Aramco in 1950, when crude production was 100,000 BPD and all craftsmen were American. When he retired, in 1981, production was at 10,000,000 BPD and all craftsmen were Saudi Arabian. He wrote in the Yale 50th anniversary book, “Twenty-five years in Saudi Arabia were the best it gets.” Bill retired to Madison, Conn., and played a lot of golf. Chuck Chandler died on June 2, 2013. Following his service as an infantry lieutenant in Europe, he returned to finish his education at Ohio State. There, he completed a bachelor’s degree in physics in 1946 and a master’s degree in electrical engineering in 1948. He worked at Sperry Gyroscope Co., Gilfillan Bros., and Rantec Corporation, where he was head of the engineering department from 1967 to 1977. From 1977 to 2002 he was an engineering consultant in business for himself. He was a very active member of the LDS Church and served in various capacities including high priest, missionary leader, temple patron, and home teacher. Tom Beddall died on Sept. 3, 2013. Following his Army service and graduation from Yale, Tom received a law degree from the University of Virginia. For 31 years he was the in-house counsel and personal adviser to philanthropist Paul Mellon. He worked on projects ranging from the acquisition of 1,864 acres of land that became Sky Meadows State Park in Virginia to the construction of the
Yale Center for British Art in New Haven, Conn. As Mellon’s top adviser, Tom specialized chiefly in the activities that most interested his employer: the arts, higher education, the environment, and horses. Tom retired in 1989 but continued to do work for the Mellon family for years afterward. R.I.P.
1941 ABBOT
[Editor’s note: The Academy has received word that Ruth Bondy Lowy, class secretary since July 2001, passed away on Oct. 29, 2013. Our condolences go out to her family and friends.]
PHILLIPS William D. Cochran 233 Ash St. Weston MA 02493 781-894-8067 wmdco@aol.com
[Editor’s note: The Academy has received word that Dexter R. Hunneman Jr. passed away on Oct. 26, 2013. Please see his obituary in the In Memoriam section.]
1942 ABBOT
Ann Taylor Debevoise Pinnacle Farm 222 Daniel Cox Road Woodstock VT 05091-9723 802-457-1186 Ann.T.Debevoise@valley.net
PHILLIPS Robert K. Reynolds 185 Southern Blvd. Danbury CT 06810 203-743-0174 rreynolds06@snet.net
To paraphrase the policeman in Gilbert & Sullivan’s The Pirates of Penzance, a class secretary’s lot is not a happy one. Getting news of the Class of ’42 is more difficult than getting the political parties in Washington to agree on anything. Included in my letters seeking news of current activities is a request for any political thoughts. Alas, not much. This is strange considering that back when we were students we were castigated by the Phillipian for expressing our political thoughts. To quote one editorial: “On the subject of movies, we’d like to add a suggestion in regard to the deplorable conduct prevailing these days, especially during the news reel. Now, we feel no more kindly towards Franklin Roosevelt than
you do, but next time wouldn’t it be more sensible to let him dissertate first and then politely boo him if he has failed to gain your confidence, which is quite possible?” Gordon Elliot is alive and well and reports from Newton, Mass., that two of his sons are busy building a boat in his driveway. He sent me a copy of a memoir about André Breton written, in French, by Charles Duits, who died back in 1991. Thanks to my PA French teacher, Lester “Fig” Newton, I was able to read the entire thing without referring to my French dictionary. Larry Eccles e-mailed me to say that he has no news to report, but he sent me a copy of some philosophical notes he wrote on the state of the world. He also added a paragraph about Alston Chase, his instructor in Greek at Andover: “Alston Chase was a super Greek teacher...and scholar. He used to read scriptures in Sanskrit in morning chapel, translating on the spot. And, because I wanted to please him in class, I’d put up my hand at every question he’d ask, give a quick incorrect answer, and then say, ‘Uh, I mean...’ So he called me ‘Epimetheus’ Eccles: Afterthought.” Jurgen Honig is keeping active. He recently completed a book on thermodynamics, a subject that I found very difficult, especially entropy and enthalpy. He reminisces about his time at Andover, writing, “In my upper middle and senior years I was housed at Park House under the relaxed supervision of Dr. Carl Pfatteicher, whom I served as registrant on the four-manual Casavant organ. In this capacity, I got to hear his rendition of the complete organ works of J.S. Bach after compulsory Sunday services, three years in a row—what must have been an almost unique experience of witnessing an incredible accomplishment! I still provide organ music on Wednesday morning prayer at Faith Church in West Lafayette [Ind.], but it pales by comparison.” Dr. Pfatteicher taught several courses in music. Having taken cello lessons for several years, I fancied myself an accomplished musician and signed up for Dr. Pfatteicher’s course in harmony. I found harmony to be more difficult than differential calculus, so I switched to taking cello lessons, for which the Academy provided a first-class instructor: Gerard Haft, first cellist with the Boston Symphony Orchestra. With a lot of time on my hands, I recently wrote a memoir titled What a Life!! Footprints in The Sands of Time. Among various recollections of the past 80-plus years, there is a chapter on my time at Andover. You won’t find a copy of it in your local library or online, but if you have nothing better to do, there is a copy in the Oliver Wendell Holmes Library. I’m saddened to report the death of Eugene F. Williams on Aug. 7, 2013. After graduating from Andover, Gene entered Yale, graduating in the class of 1947. His Yale education was interrupted by service in WWII as a fighter pilot in the Army Air Force. He had a distinguished career in banking with the St. Louis Union Trust Co., retiring in 1988 as chairman of the board. During this time, he Andover | Winter 2014
57
stay connected... served on the boards of numerous corporations. He also endowed a chair at the Yale University School of Management. He is survived by his wife of 66 years, Evelyn Neidringhaus Williams, 5 children, 15 grandchildren, and 3 great-grandchildren.
1943 PHILLIPS
Richard L. Ordeman 619 Oakwood Ave. Dayton OH 45419 937-299-9652 mbo510@aol.com
I saw Lou Hudner on television visiting North Korea in July, reportedly his first return there since the events that led to his receiving the Medal of Honor. Reportedly, he was there to work with a search team to excavate the area where his plane crashed, with the hope his visit would help to foster peace and reconciliation in the region. Bard Smith and his wife, Charlotte, have each recently had a book published. Bard’s, titled Narratives of Sorrow and Dignity: Japanese Women, Pregnancy Loss, and Modern Rituals of Grieving, offers perspective on a modern ritual performed to bring solace to those who experience miscarriage, still birth, infant death, or abortion. This study provides insight from the sociology of the family, the power of the medical profession, the economics of temples, the need for healing in private and communal ways, and the place of women in modern Japanese religion. Charlotte, in Tell Me One Thing, writes of their personal story about the adoption of a South Korean boy and the warm relationship that developed with their adoptive son’s biological mother. Ted Peck writes, “[Wife] Dee and I are enjoying our retirement in the beautiful home we built 20 years ago on the shores of St. Michael’s, Md. As Cliff Wright said, ‘I don’t need to leave the house to find something to do!’ My current projects are writing up the memoirs of my life, including some fond memories of Andover and not-so-fond memories of those history exams, and compiling all the genealogical research I’ve done over the years.” Speaking of history exams, you may recall I recently passed along to you the first part of our June 4, 1943, final American history exam. Charlie Weiner wrote, “I failed it then and I failed it again!” Phil Drake was having lunch with three or four colleagues at his law firm this spring, all in their 30s and 40s. The talk turned to a Jack Lemmon movie. Phil said, “When I told them I’d gone to school with Jack, they all looked at me like someone out of the Dark Ages!” Jack Fallon passed along a memory from spring 1943, when he was playing on the Gauls’ club baseball team. “I found myself hugging third base, tie score, ninth inning, waiting helplessly for something to happen. With the catcher poised to pass the ball back to the pitcher, I decided to make something happen. I sizzled down the baseline, targeting the crouching catcher whose mitt nested the
58
Andover | Winter 2014
ball he had not released to the pitcher. What to do? Go airborne missile-style, of course. Ba boom! The last image I had before my lights went out was the ball loose. Safe, of course! I awoke in the infirmary bed under the care of Gallagher and Park. ‘Two days and we ought to have you on your way,’ they assessed. Bad—I had set aside the next two days to cram for my biology final. Enter ‘Flop’ Follansbee. ‘Were you safe?’ he asked. (I’m sure he knew.) ‘Yes, sir,’ I replied. Aglow with his sunshine smile, he announced, ‘You’ll not need to take your final!’ ” With sadness, we say goodbye to four of our classmates. I’m sure you join me in expressing our sympathy to their family and friends. Rex Cherryman died on July 25, 2013, as a result of a fall following a family gathering to celebrate Father’s Day. Rex practiced law in Virginia Beach, Va., until his death. I remember Rex for his strong support of our class, especially his work on our 50th Reunion class book and his personally sending out letters to all of our classmates encouraging them to attend the reunion. Rex’s wife, Beatrice, died in 1984. He is survived by two daughters, a granddaughter, and his partner of many years, Marguerite Haasnoot. Stuart MacLaren passed away peacefully at his home in Dana Point, Calif., on Aug. 4, 2013. A graduate of the U.S. Military Academy and Harvard Business School, Stuart was a financial consultant and served for a number of years as vice president of Capital Research and Management. An avid downhill skier and hiker, he loved to spend time with his family. He is survived by his wife, Pat, four children, and five grandchildren. Fred Jordan died on Aug. 4, 2013. Following service with the U.S. Marines during WWII and graduation from Yale, Fred worked for General Foods, McCall Corporation, and J. Walter Thompson. He moved West, where he later was president of Producers Studio and Raleigh Studios. A lifelong follower of the Cincinnati Reds, he enjoyed watching every game by satellite. Concluding his biography in our 50th Reunion book, Fred wrote, “The luckiest thing that ever happened to me was getting sent to Andover,” a belief he supported with financial help to the school. Fred is survived by his partner, Betty Blase. Cliff Wright died on Aug. 11, 2013, in the Montecito, Calif., home where he had lived for 54 years. Cliff served in the Army Signal Corps in France and Germany during WWII. Following graduation from Yale, he worked on the Nautilus in Groton, Conn., and at the Fifth Third Bank in Cincinnati, Ohio, before moving to California, where he operated Wright Marine for 36 years, retiring in 1996. Although plagued by rheumatoid arthritis for most of his life, he possessed an unfailingly optimistic outlook. More than anything else, he enjoyed people and traveled regularly to visit friends and maintain relationships, evidenced by his annual cross-country trips to join his classmates at the yearly 1943 Naples, Fla., get-together and visit with other friends on the East Coast. For many years, Cliff was class agent, along with Bob Traylor, for
which we offer a special vote of thanks. Cliff is survived by a brother, 5 children, 12 grandchildren, and 2 great-grandchildren.
1944 70th REUNION June 13–15, 2014
ABBOT
Emily McMurray Mead P.O. Box 292 Etna NH 03750 603-643-3741 Emily_mead@valley.net
PHILLIPS Angus Deming 975 Park Ave., Apt. 2A New York NY 10028-0323 212-794-1206 ademingusmc@aol.com
Here’s something to think about. Recently, Pete Stevens, our honorable class leader, sent me a reminder that spring 2014 will mark the time for our 70th Reunion. Pete said he intended to drive up to Andover this past fall to discuss a program with the school’s administrative people, then send out a letter inviting us all to show up on 2014 Reunion Weekend (June 13–15) “as members of the Old Guard”! Say again? The last time we got together, at our 65th Reunion in 2009, we were still walking tall and looking good as members of the Class of 1944. Now we’ve joined the ranks of the Old Guard? Oh, well—maybe we should consider it our good fortune. Whatever the case, it seems that few of our classmates are going to waste time brooding over this matter. Consider the aforementioned Pete Stevens (father of seven, grandfather of 11, for those who keep tabs). He enjoys a remarkably busy and varied life in a retirement community in Beverly, Mass., but often seems to be on the road, setting the bar ever higher for senior citizenry. Among his many activities, Pete belongs to a local choral group called the Chorus North Shore, which rehearses every Monday, beginning in September, and gives concerts in December, March, and late May. In July 2013, Pete and his choral group returned from a 10-day European tour that included Milan, Lugano, Como, Verona, and Venice. “Memorable moments,” he reported, “included singing in Casa Verdi in Milan, which Verdi built for retired opera musicians to provide a secure home for them in their later years. There was time for sightseeing in each city and boat rides on Lake Lugano and Lake Como.” Hard to top Pete on this one. Also in 2013, I received a very welcome letter from Dick O’Keeffe, who retired some years ago
www.andover.edu/intouch to the lovely little Cape Cod town of Osterville, on Nantucket Sound. “Life continues to be enjoyable here on the Cape, although at a little slower pace than in previous years,” he wrote. Dick said he still enjoys getting out on the links with the “Nine and Dine,” a group of about a dozen fellow golfers around his age who play nine holes twice a week and then have lunch together. “We don’t keep score or have a match—just enjoy the scenery,” he said. Several years ago Dick traveled with old Harvard friends to Ireland and Scotland, playing golf at some of the most celebrated courses and staying at great country houses. He and Kay have also traveled once or twice a year to various destinations in Europe and the U.S. In 2013, they visited New Orleans, where jazz bands kept it hot at each corner on Bourbon Street. The last day, they boarded a paddleboat for a voyage up the Mississippi, with two jazz bands on board outdoing themselves. “Most enjoyable,” Dick said. Stan Dickey is also hanging in there—at his own pace. He says he still plays nine holes of golf once or twice a week and walks the beach a lot at Massapequa, N.Y.’s, South Oyster Bay. In addition, Stan says he’s also discovered a renewed interest in crossword puzzles, pointing out that his first job at a publishing company some six decades ago involved correcting crossword puzzles for the company’s magazines. All this may sound just a little out of step with the times, but I say thank goodness there are still some in our midst who are not permanently glued to their “smart” phones and other digital gadgetry. On a separate note, Stan said he recently received an announcement from the venerable Boston law firm Hemenway & Barnes that our classmate Ray Young, one of the Boston area’s most distinguished lawyers, has been appointed “of counsel” at the 150-year-old firm. As Stan says, “not bad for an 87-year-old.” And welcome to the Old Guard.
1945 PHILLIPS
William M. Barnum 89 Angell St. Providence RI 02906 401-861-6083 wmbarnum@hotmail.com
It is with deep sorrow that I report the passing of my PA roommate and dear friend Chips Lazo on Aug. 23. While at Andover, Chips and I spent vacations in Miami and Havana, Cuba; both our fathers were involved with Pan American World Airways’ effort to design and build airports down through Central and South America to enable the U. S. government to fly fighter planes on short hops south and jump over to Africa for the African campaign against Rommel. My family and I visited the Lazos’ beautiful home in Havana. We swam at the yacht club, and I discovered girls from the tropics were somehow different from those in the North. Chips
In February 2013, nine alums gathered for an annual Class of ’43 mini reunion in Naples, Fla. In the front row, from left, are Skip Ordeman, Artie Moher ’45, Arthur Sherrill, and Bard Smith. Back row, from left, are Dick Baird, Bill Chipman, Dave Thurber, Dick Harshman, and Phil Drake.
had had health issues for some time, and his sweet wife, Sarah, said, “Chips is in a better place.” He was a dear friend with a wonderful sense of humor, and I will miss him. Your scribe literally hasn’t got a leg to stand on, since I broke my ankle in Norway in early August, climbing on the rocks. Very painful and cumbersome, and my fall aborted a wonderful trip my wife, Kit, and I had planned for Prague, Budapest, and Vienna, as well as Paris and London. We did have a lovely crossing on Queen Mary 2, which was a delight. I hope you all fared better last summer, and I would love to hear from you on this or any other subject. Following Charlie McDuffie’s death on Jan. 22, 2012, I had numerous discussions with his widow, Ann, and his daughter, who teaches at the University of Rhode Island. Several lunches with Cy Chittick, John Thorndike, and Art Moher have been delightful—all in the interest of the Andover Fund but also reinforcing old friendships and comradeship. Rick Hudner ’46 called in September and suggested a reunion gathering of our two classes at Andover sometime during the fall. I was still in the clutches of my injury, so I don’t believe I contributed much to the idea; I hope I can contribute more in the future. I’m sure we all took delight in hearing about the naming of a new destroyer for Tom “Lou” Hudner ’43 in Bath, Maine. I have heard that some of our number need our prayers on health issues. Ed Mead, Ken Sutherland, and others are among them. I hope these notes find the rest of you well and happy. God bless you.
1946 ABBOT
Sarah Allen Waugh 441 Pequot Ave. Southport CT 06890 203-259-7640 SallyAW@optonline.net
Luty Robertson Johnston’s husband was born on 12/12/1912, so they celebrated in Maui last December with great fanfare. I am hoping she will let us know about it. At the last minute, I was unable to go. Cheers, Sally
PHILLIPS Richard R. Hudner 24 Merrill St. Newburyport MA 01950 978-462-0103 rickhudner@gmail.com
A personal note from your secretary: Our 21-year-old granddaughter returned from Germany in September. She spent a delightful summer in a small medieval town at the Goethe Institute, studying German with other students from around the world. She is now a junior at the College of the Atlantic in Bar Harbor, Maine, which made the arrangements and will give her course credits. She had been homeschooled by her mother, our daughter Liz, a graduate of the University of Michigan and former teacher at the Loomis Chafee School Andover | Winter 2014
59
stay connected... in Connecticut. Her father is a potter, and they live in Gouldsboro, Maine. Dick Phelps arranged for a luncheon at the Academy for Oct. 4, 2013 (after these notes were submitted), for members of the classes of 1945, 1946, and 1947, spouses or guests included. Invitations were sent out to those within a reasonable proximity of the school. John Palfrey, head of school, was scheduled to speak. Jim Ventre ’79, dean of admission and financial aid, planned to attend, as did Peter Ramsey, secretary of the Academy, and Leon Modeste, head football coach. I talked to some of our ’46 classmates about attending. Charlie Smith, up in New Hampshire, said he gets wonderful letters from students who have received scholarships provided by his family and is pleased to hear of the ways things have changed since ’46. But he doesn’t drive, so he didn’t plan to attend. Dan Anderson, in Needham, Mass., said his time at Andover topped his college experience, but he also doesn’t drive. Jack Lynch, in Sharon, Conn., was enthusiastic about attending but then had second thoughts about the long drive required. Duke Curtis, in Lincoln, Mass., had a Williams College reunion about that time. He said if he could find a driver, he’d attend. Cliff Crosby, in New Hampshire, said he was having vision problems but would think of driving down. One thing came across in talking to these old classmates: Their spirits are high, as is their affection for Andover. At this writing, the jury was still out, but with representatives from three classes, the luncheon looked to be a success. Dick Phelps, by the way, still competed in the father-daughter tennis tournament at The Country Club in Brookline, Mass.
1947 ABBOT
Mary Lou Miller Hart 47 Harborview Road Lewes DE 19958 302-644-9249 mlhart@comcast.net
As I write this, it’s a beautiful day in September, with signs of fall setting in. Jack and Virginia “Ginnie” Eason Weinmann sent me pictures of their “second honeymoon.” I wish I could send them all to you, but I will describe them as best I can. Picture One shows them enjoying dinner outside Athens near their hotel, the Astir Palace. Picture Two shows Jack at the dinner overlooking the bay by the Astir Palace. Picture Three shows Mykonos and the Seabourn Spirit cruiser. Picture Four shows Ginnie aboard the Seabourn Spirit, going through the Corinth Canal. Picture Five shows how close the ship came to the rocks along the canal. Picture Six shows Jack and Ginnie on the terrace of the Achilleion Palace on the island of Corfu, Greece. Picture Seven shows Jack and Ginnie dancing on the deck of the cruise ship during barbecue night. Picture Eight shows a harbor view
60
Andover | Winter 2014
from the city of Kotor, Montenegro. Picture Nine shows a costumed woman doing hand embroidery, an old art form in Kotor. Picture Ten shows Ginnie with “Roman soldiers” at Diocletian’s Palace in Split, Croatia. Picture Eleven shows a seagull on the seawall at Rovinj, Croatia. What a honeymoon! When a tornado hit Oklahoma City, Okla., I tried to get in touch with Helen Hoehn Holloway. Unfortunately, I don’t have an up-to-date address or phone number. Fortunately, I was able to get the address of her daughter, Gentry Holloway, in Minneapolis, Minn. She sent me the following: “She [Helen] and my father are very well and escaped the tornado in OKC. She still enjoys history and has a great sense of humor.” In my search I found the sad news that Helen’s son, William J. “Bill” Holloway III, died in 2009. I know it is late, but I send condolences to the family from her classmates. Joyce Huntington Knights wrote, “We celebrated [husband] Cal’s 90th birthday in August camping in a cabin with all our family but two. A wonderful weekend of loving kids, grandkids, six dogs, good fishing, hiking, yummy meals, and, best of all, Cal’s good health.” When I have space, I like to send along news of Abbot. Each year, the Brace Center for Gender Studies gives the McKeen Award to a member of the PA community who has made significant contributions in shaping the “new” (now 40 years old) coeducational Phillips Academy. The honor is named for Abbot’s former principal Philena McKeen. Last spring, it was awarded to Becky Sykes, then associate head of school, who has since been named president of the Oprah Winfrey Charitable Foundation. In 2011, the Abbot Academy Association provided the PA softball team with a boost when it awarded the team a challenge grant to help improve Isham Field. Alumni and parents responded, and students began playing at a revitalized facility in spring 2013. New permanent dugouts were constructed, the seasonal batting cage and bullpen were replaced with a permanent structure, and new bleachers were installed. The team went on to post its first undefeated season in the school’s 40-year softball history, after winning a second straight Big East Prep Invitational Tournament title in 2012.
I contacted Bill Wood, who continues to report good health and happy retirement in Florida. He’s not very talkative, which suggests he’s very busy, which is good. I also contacted Morris Tyler, son of Vic Tyler, who continues to report Vic’s slow but steady progress, marred by a slight setback this past summer. The road back from a stroke is a long one, but Vic’s in good hands. Next contact was with Charlie Bradley, still too busy in Darien, Conn. He’s retracted his wanderings and sold places in Florida and France (too large, too much work) but still visits children scattered country-wide. The big item to report is that his son, age 53, has just fathered twins—how about that? When I fathered a do-it-yourself “grandson” at age 45, I thought it might be a record of some sort, but no such luck. Charlie is still actively managing his assorted businesses and states he’ll slow down but never retire. Heading up the never-retired list is Mike Suisman, still struggling with developing or selling long-held land in Hartford, Conn., but at least trying to retire. I also reached Les Sherrill, who says his abilities to stay on pitch, breathe exactly, and hold notes forever have diminished a little. But I countered that all my abilities have dimmed more than a little and to sing a cappella at all is a huge accomplishment. And, summa cum difficulty, spoke with Art Brockie, who jolted me with tales of a missed sojourn to South America, instead undergoing a triple bypass, a replaced valve, and a repaired aneurysm. He’s doing fine. All that was the result of his dental hygienist noticing a slight bump in his mouth. God bless the medical arts. Now the tough part. The school reported that Art Tebbens died last June, with no further information. Art practiced law for his entire career, the latter part in private practice with one partner, and punctuated that with competitive senior swimming, plus a little heart surgery. Sounds like, all in all, a good life. As always, our condolences to his family.
1948 ABBOT
PHILLIPS Bob Lasley 1958 Cherryvale Court Tom’s River NJ 08753 ralasley@comcast.net
Once again, Bayard Waring is in the news, with a broken leg resulting from a tumble and bad fall in his rocky backyard in early summer, necessitating several months in a large cast and several more to recuperate fully. He’s doing well and says if any able-bodied classmate needs fresh air and exercise, he’s welcome to visit, and lawnmowers, etc., will be provided.
Gene Young 30 Park Ave., Apt. 12C New York NY 10016 212-679-8931 panchogene@gmail.com
[Editor’s note: This issue’s class notes were written by Jane Kenah Dewey, filling in for class secretary Gene Young.] Seven hardy members of the glorious Abbot Class of 1948 reunited during Reunion Weekend this past June in Andover: Brigid “Biz” Bisgood Galusha with husband; Mary Farrar Bonotto with husband and son; Pat Hammond Foot with husband; Nancy Elliot Stewart; Gene Young; Dodie Hildreth Detmer with daughter;
www.andover.edu/intouch and Jane Kenah Dewey with husband. We enjoyed an all-Abbot dinner at McKeen on Friday night, and our Saturday night dinner was in our old Chapel with our Andover gentlemen classmates. There was much happy chatter about times both new and old. Save June 2018 for our 70th! In mid-September, I enjoyed a Parker House luncheon in Boston with Rosemary “Mo” Jones and Nancy Elliot Stewart. Mo was midstream in one of her East Coast “progresses” between her home in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., and her son’s in Salem, Mass. Young grandson Gabriel is an added incentive for the trip. Mo missed our reunion because of complications resulting from an operation for breast cancer. On September 29, several hundred people gathered in NYC at the Pierre, to wish Gene Young a happy 83rd birthday but mostly to celebrate her mother’s 108th! My husband, Harry, and I were among the well-wishers. It was a magnificent gala hosted by Gene, Shirley Young ’51, and Oscar Tang ’56. The next morning we breakfasted with Felicia “Chica” Tavares Angulo. Her son, Carlos, is a lawyer who lives outside Washington, D.C., with his wife, son, and daughter. It was a reunion of the third floor of Abbey House. Wassup with you? Write!
PHILLIPS Robert Segal 118 Sutton Hill Road North Andover MA 01845 978-682-9317 robsegna@verizon.net
Picking up some pieces left standing after the reunion, I called Ted Hudson to apologize for not calling attention to the fine cartoon work he had done for the occasion. Always gracious, he apologized for not being able to attend. He and wife Pam are still living at the Palace Renaissance in Miami and enjoy being close to their daughter. Although there is a medical issue, their spirits are upbeat. I spoke to Mary and Bill Engstrom, having missed them at the reunion, and made plans for lunch at the Andover Inn. Bill says he has trouble with large groups these days, but given an opportunity, he can still unfold a wonderful story. We had time to visit the Addison after lunch and enjoy a James Prosek exhibition and a retrospective look at the last two days in the life of JFK. Some of us still find it hard to relive those days. Charlie Reach checked in to say, “Just read the Andover magazine. Been a long time since I thought of the orange-clad Saxons! I was a green Gaul, and we did not have much ’til Rod ‘Goose’ Gander joined to play QB. I think we managed to beat the scourge of the league, the Georgetown gray–clad Greeks (I think). None of us made the NFL, but Goose went on with me to Hamilton College and played great goal for us. Thanks for the memories.” Asked whether he was related to Jim Ventre ’79, the new dean of admission, Bob Ventre replied,
“Indeed we are related; he’s my nephew.” I chatted with Bob Brenner at the reunion. Bob attended with his son, John Brenner ’81. Bob and wife Carol lived in Chapel Hill, N.C., after he retired from orthopedic medicine in 1995. Although they were happy in the Raleigh-Durham area, they left when Carol took ill and required long-term care. Bob now lives near his son in Ithaca, N.Y., but when he lived in Chapel Hill, he saw Clyde “Pete” Selleck, John Sylvester, and Tony Armer. A follow-up with Pete yielded this news from him: “I do keep in touch with John Sylvester. We had lunch together just a few weeks ago. I have moved into a retirement community, the Forest at Duke. Lots of things to do here, and I still teach at the Duke Institute for Learning in Retirement, which has become the Osher Learning Institute. I am currently teaching a course on energy.” And there was a comment from John Sylvester, relayed by his son John Jr., who wrote, “He has retired to a golf course in Durham, N.C., suffering daily humiliation with the little white ball. The only Andover friends he has seen in the last couple of years have been Pete Selleck, who also teaches at the Duke adult education program, and Bill Missimer, who was at the Williams College 60th reunion. John Jr. has returned from a year-plus in Iraq to duty in Washington.” Mark Hardenbergh remarked on the passing of Austin Graff, writing, “We were roommates at Yale. His association was an enrichment of my life, even if (it) was only during our school years together.” A note from Peter Flemming recalled his days working with Dan Tucker on the Phillipian and then as a classmate at Harvard. Peter remarked that Dan was the only one who ever noticed his letters to the editor of the New Yorker, back when Jeffrey Goldberg was there. Peter and wife Camilla often found themselves at the table with Dan and wife Edie when the Tuckers lived in Pelham, N.Y. Edie Tucker wrote that she works to adjust to her new life without Dan and that, despite the long siege, she was not ready for her loss. [Editor’s note: Dan Tucker’s obituary appeared in the spring 2013 issue of the magazine.] The Boston group opened its regular luncheon season at Brookhaven with Phil Aronson, Norm Henderson, Bob Segal, Jim Stockwell, and Allen West present. We had traveled over the summer, some adventuresome and some less so, but we’re still moving and happy with the Red Sox and Patriots. I heard from Allyn Bress as I was readying to compile this edition’s notes. His wife, Françoise, had died. To those of us who knew her, she was a shining star. He wrote, “After almost 55 years of marriage, Françoise, my beautiful, wonderful wife, has passed away. She died on Sept. 9, 2013, about a year after we relocated from Chevy Chase, Md., to Madison, Wisc., to be near our children and grandchildren. Françoise and I met on a blind date while I was attending graduate school in naval architecture and marine engineering, and we
agreed to meet in the lobby of 60 Wall Street, in New York City, where she was working for a French bank. I was to be in uniform, and she would see me and then come to introduce herself. Minutes passed beyond our confirmed 1730 rendezvous; I worried that she might have forgotten our date or, perhaps, spotted me and decided not to keep our date. Then, miraculously, the prettiest girl in the exiting throng approached me to say, ‘I am Françoise.’ We were married a year and a week later.” Otherwise, at last count, we all survived the summer.
1949 65th REUNION June 13–15, 2014
PHILLIPS
James P. McLane 28 County St. Ipswich MA 01938 978-356-4149 jpmcl@cs.com
1950 ABBOT
Nora Johnson 1619 Third Ave., Apt. 13G New York NY 10128 212-289-2097 noraj31@gmail.com
There have been four more deaths in our class since 2010, and these notices—presumably—bring us up to date: Sally Westhaver Kydd on April 8, 2012; Lucy Wright Case on Sept. 12, 2010; Mary Dodge Astle on May 17, 2010; and Ann Merriwether Disharoon on July 17, 2013. Ann Merriwether Disharoon was in Abbey House the year I arrived (1947). She was tall and slender, with a delicate, porcelain complexion, but she wasn’t as fragile as she appeared. She was a natural leader—somehow we turned to Ann when there was something to be done, and she always did it well. In the 10th grade, she’d already found Mr. Leslie Disharoon, and she was with him to the end. Peg Doane Calvert writes, “Painting away for a show in April. Travels in California and the West for vacations. Granddaughter just left for Pomfret! Shades of the ’50s.” News from Margaretta “Peggy” Kitchell Stabler: “I am blessed with 3 married children, 10 grands plus 2 grand-in-laws, and behold! I am a great-grandmother! That family is in Brooklyn, so I visit often. I am also blessed with good health. I built a smaller house on my property here in Delaware after [husband] Laird died. I keep busy with my long association at Longwood Gardens Andover | Winter 2014
61
stay connected... and encourage all of you to come visit. Wishing you all well.” Helen Sinclaire Blythe writes that “all’s quiet on the Western front”—her front being the Santa Barbara, Calif., area. And Cindy Atwood Couch writes, “Will mention my daughter Cathryn and maybe someone will know her. She lives in the Sebastopol area in California—started the Ceres Community Project (teenagers who cook for people with cancer). Also have six grandchildren— some in college and some working. Life in the 80s is trying at times, but hopefully we do the best we can. Am lucky we have two of my children in the area. Hope all is well with you.” Anne Johnson Sharpe sends a short bio: After graduating from Bennington, “[I] married an architect, and we had two sons and a daughter. ... In 1976, I became director of the Norwich, Conn., senior center; later, I joined a human-service agency as director of the homemaker/home-health-aide department and rose to become vice-president of that agency. In 1991, I started my own practice as a geriatric consultant. I retired in 2006. Since then, I have become a widow and moved to Mystic, Conn. I am a hospice volunteer as well as a volunteer at a health and rehab center, and serve on some boards. I am most grateful for the years with my husband and for the good life I have had.” Some interesting Abbot lore from Nancy Gray Sherrill: While leafing through a Wellesley College museum’s book of photographs, Nancy came upon a photograph of a woman who looked like Abbot’s frail little French teacher, Marie Baratte—and so it was. The text, she says, told her that “the rumors we heard about Mlle Baratte’s war experiences were true. Her father was the headmaster of a college in Brittany. Four hundred German soldiers moved into the school buildings, but the Baratte family was allowed to keep their apartment at the school. At one time, the family sheltered a wounded British soldier and tried to get him out of France, but they never knew what happened to him. “Mlle Baratte came to America in 1946. When she arrived, she said, ‘I couldn’t believe what I saw. The luxury...the waste. The waste broke my heart. I had been without so many things for so long that I couldn’t accept a glass of milk. I was scared to death.’ ” Nancy continues: “At age 14, I had no understanding of what French civilians endured during the war. I am embarrassed to think what little concern I had for the shy, painfully thin Mlle Baratte. I was a poor student of languages and did not like French class. She must have shuddered when she saw a grumpy teenager lumbering into her classroom every day. This is a period of my life I would like to re-live.” On Sept. 15, I had a piece in the New York Times in the Sunday Styles section’s “Modern Love” column—about love among the elderly—which is getting a lot of attention. There is also a very funny video on the New York Times website. Try Googling “NYTimes love at 71” and see what happens. By the time Andover magazine comes out, these things may well be in the archives but, I hope, still seeable.
62
Andover | Winter 2014
PHILLIPS Eric B. Wentworth 2126 Connecticut Ave., N.W., Apt. 32 Washington DC 20008 202-328-0453 ebw@bellatlantic.net
Tony Herrey, chair of our 65th Reunion, scheduled for June 12–14, 2015, invites your “wishes, preferences, and recommendations” to produce a record turnout. “What will it take to return you to the Hill?” Tony asks. “How should we organize the program to ensure your enthusiastic participation? We appeal especially to those of you who seldom or never attended past reunions. How can we attract you to this venerable event? We promise our utmost to make this reunion as interesting, as stimulating, as relaxing, and as rewarding as possible.” Please send your ideas and requests to me, your class secretary, and I will relay them to Tony. You’ll be hearing further from Tony in coming months as the program takes shape. Last June, our ebullient German classmate, Burkhard Strack, and his wife, Trudi, hosted a 10-day visit to Berlin for Phil Brooks and wife Claire, Pim Epler and wife Eleanor, Bob Martin and wife Joanna, Will Watson and wife Myra, Charlie Flather, and Sig Sandzen’s widow, Pam. Joining them were a like number of Burkhard’s German friends. The itinerary, by Phil’s account, featured memorable dining experiences, visits to immense museums and ornate palaces, and bucolic boat rides on local canals and rivers. Will Watson wrote that Berlin’s many parks give the city “a more pervasive sense of refuge from the pace of urban life than you find in most cities of the world.” What most impressed him, Will added, was “the astonishing vitality of German democracy, most notably expressed in the achievement of unifying the two postwar Germanies.” “This was the fourth, and most likely the last, mini reunion to be hosted by Burkhard, our irrepressible classmate,” Phil commented. “I can’t help feeling that it is the end of an era.” Also last June, Jerry Schauffler and his wife, Barbara, enjoyed an art tour in France sponsored by the Oakland Museum of California. Jerry wrote that a highlight was the new Louvre-Lens museum outside of Lille in northern France: “It’s a joy to visit, and the collection, if you’ve not yet seen it, will knock your socks off.” The Schaufflers’ next destinations were to be Botswana and South Africa in December, with their kids and grandkids in tow. Charlie Austin was not letting macular degeneration in his right eye deter him from birdwatching. On a two-week trip in July to East African game parks with his wife, Carol, he not only saw prey animals and predators galore but, he says, with the aid of his good left eye, good binoculars, and excellent guides, added 68 new bird species to his list. Charlie said he has a database program on his computer that “keeps a giant checklist of all the
birds in the world and tags the ones I have reported seeing. I never argue with my computer. At the end (I haven’t quite finished entering all my Africa sightings) it should say that I have seen 2,147 (or thereabouts) species. Eye or no eye, I’m running out of places within my reach where I might see a lot more (although the world’s total is about 10,000).” Skip Schaum, another veteran long-distance traveler, was planning to attend the March opening of Iraq’s Basra Sports City, for which his Newport Global Project Management Group, Ltd., has been a major contractor. Skip was continuing to serve as a member of the U.S.-Iraq Business Dialogue Group for the State and Commerce departments and took part in a U.S.-Arab bankers’ conference in Newport, R.I. “I am still very optimistic about the future of Iraq,” he wrote. “Their oil output is now over 3 million barrels per day, greater than under Saddam.” Back here in the US of A, Bill Drake and his wife, JoAnn, towed their Airstream trailer out to the Nevada desert in late August for the fourth time in five years to join many thousands of fellow enthusiasts at the freewheeling Burning Man festivities. “Man!” exclaimed Bill. “Another world out there! Loved the sculpture, the space, and the variety.” He added, “The Airstream life seems to agree with us.” “Too much going on” was Bill King’s explanation from Bath, Maine, for putting off possible eye surgery. Bill provided a progress report on constructing an addition to a house owned by his companion, Jayne Palmer, in Bath and rebuilding a cottage down on the coast that Jayne owns with her three sons. He and Jayne were also visiting other Maine towns as community revitalization consultants—work he said was “still fun and rewarding.” Jim Malcolm wrote that he and his wife, Beverly, enjoyed their 46th season at their cottage on N.H.’s Bear Island in Lake Winnipesaukee. He said, “In July, we had 20 people and 4 dogs there at the same time, as family and friends got together to enjoy. Our son, Scott Malcolm ’82, and his wife, Rosanna, came from California, and we also hosted relatives from Ohio and Florida and friends from Alabama. As is our tradition, we flew the flags of the states from which they came.” John Li sent us a handsomely printed book, published in 2011, that recounts the first four decades of the health-care clinic in New York’s Chinatown where he served as a cofounder, one of the original volunteer doctors, and a longtime board member. John also became president of the Chinese American Medical Society. Mac Rohrbough’s new book Rush to Gold, published in July, tells the story of the California Gold Rush from the perspective of some 30,000 French participants who crossed the ocean to join the quest for riches. A University of Iowa history professor emeritus, Mac previously wrote the prize-winning Gold Rush history Days of Gold and several other books.
www.andover.edu/intouch 1951 ABBOT
Connie Hall DeNault 37 Green St. Marblehead MA 01945 781-631-9233 dkdenault@comcast.net
PHILLIPS George S.K. Rider 22 Curiosity Lane Essex CT 06426 860-581-8199 ridercrawford@gmail.com
Labor Day sneaked up in a rush. Hard to believe my wife and I have been in Essex since Dec. 2008! Three more classmates are gone. Walter Wales died Dec. 28, 2011. Steve Yamamoto remembered Wally, a one-year student who lived in a faculty house, as quiet and bright. He graduated from Carleton College in Minnesota, earned a PhD in physics from Caltech in 1960, and chaired the physics department at the University of Pennsylvania. Lenny Cohen passed away April 14, 2013, in NYC. Predeceased by wife Judith Cohen and survived by three sons and five grandchildren, Lenny was a financial advisor at E.F. Hutton and Prudential Securities. “Hook Shot” ’s basketball skills were considerable. Dick Vance left us on June 9, 2013. He is survived by Patricia, his wife of 55 years, niece Frances Coffey, and nephew John Kuntz IV. Dick attended John Burroughs School before Andover. At Andover, he captained the golf team and was treasurer of the student congress. Dick served in the Air Force and was associated for 29 years with the Monsanto Company in Latin America and St. Louis. We roomed together freshman year at Yale with Jim Doak and Bob Sutherland. Steve Yamamoto and family spent three weeks at their summer home in a community in Japan called the International Village, which used to be a foreign missionaries’ summer resort and is now home to a multilingual and multicultural population. Andover was well represented by Betsy Wiedenmayer Rogers ’89, a former Andover and Brown hockey player whose family has lived in Tokyo for 12 years, and by Geoff Perry ’65 and wife, who grew up in Japan. Desperate, I e-mailed classmates on Sept. 10: “Deadline (9/16)! Help! Ran out of dimes! Too late for ‘snail mail’! Anything! Lie if you must! — George in exile!” Peter Baldwin responded, quoting me: “ ‘Write anything, doesn’t have to be the truth.’ I might just inform you that I am, and have always been, the reincarnation of Buck Rogers, sky pilot, still desperately seeking to become grounded. I was a practicing psychologist. I became tired of practicing. In
my 80s, I am just doing my own thing, authoring weird books about The Weird. Trust me! I am telling the truth. One of my totems is the sloth. So, mates, I gaze down at you, with the sky beneath my feet, as you rush about in the underbrush. ‘The door’s not shut on my genius, but I just don’t have the time.’ Signed, Sloth Sky Pilot.” John Scheiwe reflects, “Aside from occasional medical challenges to deal with/overcome, I’ve found the 80s to provide more of a sense of personal historical satisfaction than earlier decades. I now have time to appreciate and feel a quiet, inward sense of gratification in accomplishment(s) of [my] child, child-in-law, and two grandchildren. When same was occurring with my child, I was so wrapped up with work, world travel, etc., that I didn’t take time to appreciate the enduring and obvious. Now times are more sedate and have become both a wonderful and significant blessing. Makes one want to lean back and issue forth a satisfied and sustained, ‘Aaahh!’ ” Jim Pates responded to an e-mail I forwarded earlier, about emulating the tortoise—as opposed to the rabbit, the postman, or the whale—in areas including exercise, diet, and longevity. Jim fondly recalled his redheaded mother, who lived to be 87 defying “conventional wisdom” and would have lived longer if “she had taken better care of herself ”! Jim recalled an incident at a recent reunion. He was taken ill at dinner, left the table to tend to a digestive backup, and there close behind him was Frank Yatsu, following to care for him. Mission accomplished, they returned to the table, Jim none the worse for wear! Billy Lee had an article on the meaning of friendship in the September 2013 issue of Voice of Friendship, a bilingual publication put out by the Chinese People’s Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries. I will forward when received. Please update contact information for the alumni office and me. Also, take a moment and write your news. You enjoy reading about classmates. They would enjoy reading about you! Tony Thompson writes his Stanford class notes. He made some great suggestions on rousing the troops, which I will try. “It’s a lonely job,” he says, “but someone has to do it!” Dave West, with great memories of Andover, writes about the follow-up to his book, Fritz Müller: A Naturalist in Brazil, published in 2003. He is finishing the manuscript for the second book, which concentrates on Müller’s worldview and his relationship with Darwin. In Dave’s words, “It is a great story supporting my contention that Müller was Darwin’s closest intellectual kin and also the only real Darwinist in Brazil in the latter half of the 19th century.” Dave is wheelchair-bound from peripheral neuropathy. He and wife Lindsay manage to travel by Amtrak from Virginia to Brooklyn to visit their son Peter, a lighting designer, and Peter’s wife, Kathy Hood, administrative director of the Julliard Drama Division, enabling them to keep up with theatre, botanical gardens, museums, restaurants, and much else that keeps them happy.
Someone watered my grandchildren. They’re growing like weeds! Graham Jr., 14, had bonelengthening surgery in July and has external fixators on both arms. He flies to Florida for monthly checkups. He was named assistant equipment manager for the Valley High football team and was introduced with coaches at the first assembly. Bradley, 12, excels on defense for a traveling lacrosse team. Tory, 10, set up a tying soccer goal recently. Duncan, 9, scored a first goal and assisted on the other two goals; the team won 3–0. Please send me your news! —George P.S.: Eureka! I just signed a book contract with Skyhorse Publishing. Rogue’s Road To Retirement is due out next year. I’m grateful to the team: editor Holly Rubino, agent Anna Termaine, and daughter Jenny Rider ’86.
1952 ABBOT
Mary “Molly” Edson Whiteford 149 Pine Valley Road Lake Oswego OR 97034 503-636-0980 davwhiteford@yahoo.com
News arrived from Ethel Kenah Bowman in which she writes of a great trip she took last April. Ethel, her daughter, and 8-year-old granddaughter cruised from Fort Lauderdale, Fla., to Portugal, Spain, and Italy. From Rome, they flew to London, where they stayed with a good friend of Ethel’s who lives very near Buckingham Palace. Many years ago, Ethel and her family lived in Venezuela, where she and her English friend ran a nursery school. Ethel now lives in Houston, near Audrey Taylor MacLean ’53, whom she sees frequently for lunch and lectures at the Women’s Institute of Houston. We in the Northwest have had a glorious summer. Sadly, our river-running days seem to be over. My husband and I are getting too old. But we hope new adventures await us all. So, please, do send me your tales.
PHILLIPS Mike Bromberg P.O. Box 423 The Sea Ranch CA 95497 707-785-3910 mjbromberg@pbnlaw.com
First, many thanks to Hugh “Hubie” Fortmiller (a.k.a. Eibuh) for filling in for me while I was recuperating from heart surgery. I’m back in the saddle now. Dean Gitter reports that he and wife Lynn are off to Oslo with their granddaughter to visit a cousin whom he hasn’t seen in many years. The granddaughter is in her freshman year at NYU in Paris. Dave Willis has moved from Beaufort, S.C., to Newton, Mass. He enjoys living in a retirement Andover | Winter 2014
63
stay connected... community, Lasell Village, and taking courses taught by instructors from prestigious institutions in the area. Another active classmate is Charlie Greene, who has served as president of his retirement community for more than four years. Charlie continues to fly his Cessna 182 and flew with his wife, Barbara, from Santa Barbara, Calif., to Eugene, Ore., for the Oregon Bach Festival in July. Yet another president of his homeowners’ association is Lex Thielens, living in Ardmore, Pa. Lex works with Empower Network, a rapidly growing Internet marketing company. He still enjoys singing and is in the choir at Washington Memorial Chapel in Valley Forge, Pa. Like most of us, he’s enjoying his grandkids. I always say that if I had known grandkids were so terrific when I was younger, I would have skipped kids and gone directly to grandkids. Just kidding. See www.blueribbonrestaurants.com for news of my sons. Jim Downey, a semiretired pediatrician, works three afternoons a week. Jim and wife Sally have an apartment in downtown Chicago and enjoy the city, but, he says, “not its warped politics.” Jim and Sally spend most weekends at their farm in Wisconsin. Lester Bilsky and his wife, Barbara, moved to Waltham, Mass., last year to be near their son Alex and his family. Lester’s been able to get back in contact with David Slavitt and Harris Faigel. Harris reports that he’s retired from medical practice. He and wife Frayda spent the summer on their sailboat and had a chance to rendezvous with Gene Fachon. Harris and Frayda also did a complete revision of their The Happy Heart Cookbook. Bill Lewis has decided to restrict himself to office practice after 50 years in neurosurgery in Monterey, Calif. He spends summers at Lake Tahoe and is also busy with activities that include serving as chair of the board of the Facioscapulohumeral Muscular Dystrophy Society. Hugh Fortmiller and wife Francie are in the midst of a home renovation in Boxborough, Mass., so that they can, as Hugh puts it, “age in place.” Steve White writes, “I am now teaching ‘students’ who are at least 55 and seeking knowledge itself. ...In November we planned to meet at a Catholic college in Worcester, Mass., to examine racism in America. [Wife] Clare and I spend our summers in the San Juan Mountains of southwestern Colorado and winter in Worcester and mid-coast Maine. In December, I went to Bhutan, where the king, who studied at PA and Cushing, hopes his people will pursue happiness rather than a higher GNP.” Bill Stevens is living in Albuquerque, N.M., and plays much golf. He says that he shot his age a few times and had a hole in one in April. Bill has also completed a rewrite of Come the Fall, the second novel in his planned trilogy of Irish immigration. Evan Berlack has retired from his DC practice of law with Baker and Botts LLP. He and wife Phyllis are still living in DC. They have been enjoying some travel. Larry McCarthy trained in pathology at the
64
Andover | Winter 2014
Mayo Clinic after Harvard Medical School. He practiced pathology in Honolulu for 45 years. He and wife Cindy retired to Bainbridge Island, near Seattle, in 2007. Larry and Cindy have 5 children and 11 grandchildren and travel to visit them frequently. Pete O’Hara recovered well from his open-heart surgery last June. He and wife Pat spend half of the year in Pennington, N.J., and half in Dunedin, Fla. Don Gordon has retired from 20 years of college teaching in Denver and is living in Loveland, Colo., with his wife, Ruthie. He has recently finished his second book and is working on getting it published. He took a foliage trip to New England in October and November. Peter McIntyre had surgery on his carotid artery and heart and has had other circulatory problems over the last year. Peter noted that he is “very grateful” and “not yet lying on a slab in Harvard Med School.” Bob Milburn says he learned to sail while working at the Tyler Place in Vermont. He’s now racing in an Ideal 18. He describes a moving experience in a boat out of the Larchmont Yacht Club, seeing the new Freedom Tower in Manhattan more than 20 miles away. Bruce Warr and his wife are among the managers of Heron Haven, a wetland sanctuary near their home in Omaha, Neb. Bruce is the grant writer, a skill he learned during his career in neuroscience. Stew Sanders is also into ornithology, but does it from his home in Plymouth, Mass. Stew also serves on the local recycling committee. Chuck Richards and wife Betsy live in Yuma, Ariz. They enjoyed a cruise around South America and the Antarctic last January. Alan Messer spends winters in Sarasota, Fla., playing much tennis. He looks forward to competing in the 80-plus age division next year and maintains a “super senior” tennis website (http:// www.supersenior.info/). Wife Geri runs a tapdancing studio. Paul Jameson has retired from Raytheon. He enjoys the opportunity to “read and cycle around town” but misses the “joshing about politics and socializing at lunch.” At this writing, my wife, Lisa, and I are off to Paris and Brittany for two weeks. This will be my 60th visit to France! Finally, I should tell you of the barrage of get-well notes I received from Hubie, Ed Selig, and Joe Wennik while I was recuperating from open-heart surgery. It was a great source of encouragement. My Yale class has adopted the motto “Friendship Lasts.” It sure does!
1953 ABBOT
Patricia Eveleth Buchanan 9 The Valley Road Concord MA 01742 978-369-6838 pebl35@comcast.net
I’m sorry to report news of the death of Jane Wilson Mann. Jane passed away suddenly in July 2013. She and her husband, Addison, and their “funny four-legged friends, Cornbread and Grady” (as described in the Tampa Bay Times), lived in Palm Harbor, Fla., in what Jane once described as an “assistant” living complex. She leaves behind her husband; their three daughters, Nancy, Sally, and Carolyn; and four grandchildren. I remember Jane as having a gentle humor and a twinkle in her eye. In our 50th Reunion book of bios, Jane wrote, “ ‘Some of us’ gave Mlle Rosa fits! Miss Bockstedt was from my hometown, so she always threatened to tell my parents, and never did. The most outrageous thing I did at Abbot was to raid the kitchen, and somehow never got caught.” She was a roommate of Ellen Smith and Patty Earhart. On behalf of our classmates, I’d like to extend our deepest sympathy to Jane’s husband and family.
PHILLIPS Bill Joseph 225 W. 83rd St., Apt. 5Q New York NY 10024 347-907-4647 (cell) wjoseph80@hotmail.com
Reunion hangover: I forgot to mention that Evan Geilich has published three more books. Post reunion/post July column: Jack Eliassen sent the following update in response to my plea for news. “We retired to rural Byrdstown, Tenn., to escape the hot and humid weather of Houston. Our children had already left Texas. This place was part of my wife’s family farm. She did not grow up here, but it has been in her family for more than 200 years, and we inherited about 42 acres. There is a 15-acre hardwood grove with large (old) oaks, maples, hickories, poplars, walnuts, etc. Around here, hardwood can be a cash crop, because many sawmills seek logs for things as mundane as pallets or as sophisticated as furniture. Of the balance, five acres are wetland and four are occupied by the home we built, together with a ‘yard.’ What is left grows grasses that are cut for hay by a neighbor. “Pickett County is small, as I mentioned on the phone. Its claim to fame is a lake, Dale Hollow, created by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (not TVA) for recreation, power generation, and flood control. I am told it hosts some record-size smallmouth bass, as well as other types of sporting and/or edible fish. A fair number of fishermen have
www.andover.edu/intouch retired here from Ohio, Michigan, and Indiana. Our children and grandchildren think of it as a big swimming pool (with 600 miles of irregular shoreline). You can even spot the lake on a highway map. Look for Cookeville on I-40, about halfway between Nashville and Knoxville. Then move north to the Kentucky line. This is a hilly area called the Highland Rim, a shoulder of the Cumberland Plateau. “We relocated here in 2004. For the first three years, I taught a chemical engineering design course at the local university. It was basically a review of what I had done for the previous 40 years. It was exciting to see the upcoming talent, but a class schedule does limit travel, so I ‘retired’ again. Just visiting the kids (California, Nebraska, and Kentucky) means significant travel, but we also try to throw in other sightseeing excursions. The past four years we have rediscovered Chautauqua, N.Y., and have spent a week there each year. This year we also searched for family roots in the Dakotas, where my grandfather served three small Norwegian Lutheran churches more than 100 years ago. We actually found two still standing, though not currently active. “In my ‘spare’ time, I read theology books, support the local theatre, and try to find bridge games. I am vice chair of the local Democratic Party, working for a little purple in an otherwise red state. Our house has five bedrooms, so visitors can almost always be accommodated.” Tom Brown, in retirement in Indiana, is enjoying his six sons, eight grandchildren, and one great-grandchild. Peter Carroll spent 20 years as a naval aviator and was involved in the U.S.’s last-minute evacuation from Vietnam; like Tony Lopez, who served in the Air Force, Peter flew more than 300 missions in that country. After the military, Peter started a venture capital firm in the Middle East. He has a son who is a teacher married to a CPA and another who is in IT. Leo Daley continues to work as a securities broker for Wells Fargo. If I’m reading my notes right, he has one son and three grandchildren. Pete Duvoisin continues to live in Tennessee, having retired from a career in cardiology, in the course of which he was an early practitioner of angioplasty. For recreation, he continues to sail and, if it lasts long enough, he is hoping to get to the America’s Cup in San Francisco Bay, where he himself has sailed. Tom Edson is living in San Antonio, where, following careers in real estate, teaching, and securities, he is involved in various charitable activities. He and his wife, Catherine, are collectors of Asian art and have enjoyed travel to Japan and Europe. Eliot Goss, after a career in architecture, continues painting full time and skiing. He has three sons and five grandchildren.
1954 60th REUNION June 13–15, 2014
ABBOT
Nancy Donnelly Bliss 31 Cluf Bay Road Brunswick ME 04011-9349 207-725-0951
Judy Prior Blair and I keep in touch, and it was especially good to hear her cheery, uplifting message on my answering machine just as I was about to write these notes. Judy is well and is lobbying for me to come to Florida for a visit this winter. Griermoen Catledge has continued to keep in touch and appreciates hearing about her classmates. Suzanne Kent Evans writes periodically that she is doing well in California, where she continues to write for the Carmel Valley News, although she has “fewer assignments due to the shrinking of newspapers lately.” Suzanne’s husband, David, continues to play tennis, and they enjoy time spent near Palm Springs, Calif., during tennis tournaments. Betsy Hilgenberg Heminway and I enjoyed a wonderful time together in early September. We had a picnic in the park in Bath, Maine, along the Kennebec River and had a grand time catching up and recalling our days at Abbot. We both loved our time at Abbot and agreed that we received a fine education. Betsy reflected that she felt free at Abbot and that the atmosphere among students and faculty was one of acceptance. She loved her long walks with apples in her pockets for a snack. Betsy is well and enjoyed time abroad with family and friends, including the celebration of the wedding of her grandson, Ben. Lucy Lippard sends her best to everyone. She continues to lead an active, full life, including meeting deadlines for her writing projects. Lucy and I connect on Kennebec Point in Georgetown, Maine, where she has spent her summers, as has my husband, Howard. Howard and Lucy reminisced this summer about the times when Edie Williamson Kean came to visit Lucy and they all went sailing. Lucy continues to enjoy sailing and is out in her boat as often as the tide and weather permit. Panna de Cholnoky Grady sends wonderful notes and enjoys hearing the class news. She keeps in touch with Valjeanne Brodeur-Paxton, and they see each other occasionally. I have spoken to Patti Skillin Pelton, who has moved to Easthampton, Mass., to be nearer her family. She is happy to be back in New England and hopes to attend more class gatherings, including our 60th Reunion. Peggy Moore Roll has shown the spirit of non sibi by participating in a church project to make small cloth bags to be sent to Haiti with a team of doctors and other volunteers. Peggy and her group completed 100 bags made from fabric donated to the church, as well as from extra fabric from Peggy. The bags are used by patients to carry home the
medications and dental supplies that are prescribed and given to them. Doris Niemand Ruedin’s grandson, Daniel Snyder, attended Summer Session at Phillips Academy this past summer. Doris said that Daniel had a wonderful time, worked hard, and enjoyed the experience. Doris traveled with her daughter, Nancy, to Andover and enjoyed being there and showing her family around the Abbot campus. Doris and I speak frequently by phone, and I am reminded often of our friendship by a beautiful quilt Doris made for me: wonderful Abbot-blue fabric and perfect for snuggling up with on chilly winter days here in Maine. June 13–15, 2014, is the weekend for our 60th Reunion. I believe that it is fitting and worth noting that even before the increased discussion of gender issues brought about by the 40th anniversary of the merger of Abbot Academy and Phillips Academy, the group of classmates attending our May 2013 gathering decided to support the Brace Center for Gender Studies in honor of our 60th Reunion. We are excited about working with the Brace Center, as it lets young women at Andover know that women who graduated 60 years ago are with them, supporting them and encouraging them. It is, as Francie Nolde wrote, “a good message for the whole school.” Looking forward to seeing you in Andover in June. Love, Nancy
PHILLIPS W. Parker Seeley Jr., Esq. Seeley and Berglass 855 Main St., 5th Floor Bridgeport CT 06604 203-366-3939 ext. 483 wps@seeleyberglass.com
Hugh MacMillan has kindly agreed to lead the organizing for our 60th Reunion, to be held at Andover June 13–15, 2014. Please mark your calendars. He writes, “Andover will take care of most of the scheduling and dining details. We will choose the motel nearby that will be large enough to house us all. “Our principal organizing task will be to encourage as much attendance as possible. At our age, the main interest seems to be reconnecting with our classmates. For that, we would like help from as many of you as are inclined. “We hope to do most via e-mail. Please send your e-mail address to machugh@gmail.com. We will soon provide (using e-mail to those who have e-mail) a list of classmates who are ‘lost’ to the school and us. If anyone knows their whereabouts, please let us know.” Hugh is assembling a group to help lead the organizing effort, and he will circulate the list soon. While there is a paucity of “class news” for this issue of Andover magazine (probably in part because I have not fulfilled my duties to elicit such news—will try harder next issue), the editors of Andover | Winter 2014
65
stay connected...
Jane Munro Barrett ’54 Biking solo across America
I
n 2008, Jane Munro Barrett biked 1,600 miles from Massachusetts to Florida. In 2010, she rode 2,000 miles from Florida to the California coast. And in 2011, “Jane’s West Coast Ride” began in Dungeness, Washington, and ended at Imperial Beach, California, near the U.S.-Mexico border. While it would take incredible stamina, skill, and confidence—and, yes, guts—for anyone to attempt such feats, Barrett accomplished these at ages 74 and 75 after being diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. The early days following her graduation from Abbot Academy were devoted to her husband and children. After completing two years of college, she married Charles “Bill” Barrett. They moved to Concord, Massachusetts, where they raised four children—three girls and a boy. Getting a degree was a goal, so Jane enrolled in Wellesley College’s continuing education program and earned a BS in 1976. Only a year later, Barrett started her own real estate firm in Concord. It thrived and, under her leadership, grew from three brokers to more than 35 by the time she “semiretired” and sold the firm in 2007. Most days, when she isn’t on her bicycle, she goes to the office, where she is still a broker. For years Barrett and her husband enjoyed biking trips all over the world, including Vietnam, China, and New Zealand, but, Jane says, “My dream was to bike across America.” Bill, sounding a note of caution, agreed: “But I think you better try Florida first.” She more than proved herself with her Florida trip. Dipping her back wheel in the Atlantic, she began her dream odyssey on Jan. 11, 2010, in St. Augustine, Florida. It turned perilous at times. The diminutive athlete peddled in fog, rain, wind, snow, and bitter cold on narrow or nonexistent highway shoulders, where truckers gave no quarter. Her umbilical cord was her indispensable guide and day-by-day blogger, Bill, whom she dubbed “my guardian watchdog.” Their mobile radio provided a vital link as he rode “shotgun” in an outfitted van. Averaging 50 miles a day, Barrett rode as many as 81. “I was hell-bent on making those 50 miles a day,” she says. Forty-five days later, she dipped her front wheel in the Pacific with an exuberant “Whoop!” In an ironic twist, after riding thousands of miles across country unscathed, Barrett had a terrible bicycle accident “in my own backyard,” near her summer home in Wolfeboro, New Hampshire, in summer 2012. She suffered broken bones—shoulder, elbow, pelvis—and a concussion. “It took me a year to get back on my bike,” she says with characteristic brio, adding, “I’m being more cautious now.” But hanging up her bike in the garage is not an option. “My bike is my shrink,” she says. —Paula Trespas
66
Andover | Winter 2014
the magazine have been kind to our class with a nice remembrance of Skip Elsas and his career in the fall 2012 issue and Dave Knight’s “friendly type” feature on page 75 of the spring 2013 issue. There was a wonderful VCR exchange between John Nichols, Phil Hudner, and several other classmates about all of the Hudner boys who attended Andover. For those of you who did not read the VCR, here it is. Phil wrote, “Except for Tom Hudner ’43, my brothers led ordinary lives. The exception was when they were at Andover. In 1942–1943, they were all there at the same time. Each became president of his class! “Tom was the starting halfback on the football team and the track captain. He attended the U.S. Naval Academy. After retirement, he was appointed commissioner for the Massachusetts Department of Veterans’ Services. His focus was and still is to help veterans and make sure they’re aware of the services and benefits available to them. He married the widow of a Navy pilot killed in a plane crash during training exercises. Tom has one son of his own and three children from his wife’s previous marriage. “Jim Hudner ’44 was captain of the football and track teams. He went into the Air Corps (now Air Force) in the spring of ’43 after graduating early to enlist. He later went to Princeton and was a stockbroker after college. He has three children. “Rick Hudner ’46 was a starting halfback on the varsity football team, a member of the varsity track team, and captain of the lacrosse team. He went into the Army after graduation. He only served 10 months and then went to Harvard, where he was captain of the varsity lacrosse team, setting the school record for most assists, and was all-American. After Harvard, he was called back into the Army, where he served as a tank commander for a couple of years. After the Army, he became a vice president at the Bank of New England, and later pursued a variety of interests. He’s currently the secretary of his PA class. He has two daughters.
www.andover.edu/intouch “Coincidentally, my sister married Thruse Hammer ’42, who played varsity baseball at Andover and was a teammate of George Bush ’42. After PA, Thrus served in the Navy aboard LSTs during the Okinawa invasion and other battles in the Pacific. He later went to Yale. At age 91, he still works at Sturbridge Village. “Incidentally, my oldest son, Tim Hudner, attended Andover, graduating in 1977. He was president of West Quad and captain of the swim team. A few days after graduation he went to Marine boot camp at Parris Island. He graduated from there in time to enter Dartmouth, where for four years he was in the active reserves, attending weekend training each month and two weeks each year. “That’s about it. Seems like I’m bragging, but you asked, and if I refused, it might appear I had something to hide when, in reality, my brothers were my role models.” But, of course, Phil was president of our class. Ken MacWilliams, our tireless editor/publisher of the class VCR, writes of a recent appointment he has received: “A month ago I accepted an invitation to join the international board of the Alliance for Clinical Research Excellence and Safety (ACRES). The global mission of ACRES is to develop high and consistent worldwide quality and safety standards and operating systems for all medical devices and drug research throughout the world that involves human subjects. The senior leadership of ACRES is the same that led the United States government when it developed the gold standards for clinical trials that now exist in the United States and that serve as an example worldwide.” George Shapiro, wife Ray Ann, and Jon Foote recently met up and had a nice two-hour (no martinis) lunch together at the Sport Bar & Grill in Livingston, Mont., reminiscing about many things. George sent a picture, but it was taken with a camera phone and is not reproducible for this magazine. I had an opportunity to visit with Carol and Dick Carlson, Jan and Roger Whitcomb, Ellen and Dick Starratt, Sid Unobskey, Tim Hogen, and other Andover classmates at the Yale 55th reunion in June, and all agreed that they would come to the Andover 60th. Kent McKamy, David Mackenzie, and I recently had a nice lunch in Fairfield, Conn., and they have offered to help in the organizing effort for the 60th. Dave has won election to the Fairfield, Conn., representative town meeting (the local legislative body) and is a welcome voice seeking to reign in local spending, thus slowing the expanding budget and rising real estate taxes in his hometown of Fairfield. No moss growing there! [Editor’s note: Artist Frank Stella received the Andover Alumni Award of Distinction on Nov. 1, 2013. The award recognizes alumni who have served with distinction in their fields of endeavor. See story, page 42.]
1955 ABBOT
Nancy Eastham Iacobucci 17 Wilgar Road Etobicoke ON M8X 1J3 Canada 416-231-1670 n.iacobucci@bluelink.andover.edu
It’s September, and the column for the winter issue of the magazine is due in two days. My plea to the silent majority to become noisy has done no good, alas, but I thank two of the loyal few for their e-mails. In June, Kathy Lloyd sent a great catch-up on her life. When she wrote, she was visiting Sue Appleton Jowett in her “little paradise on the sea [in Maine], watching the tide come and go,” while they also watched the French Open tennis tournament. She reported that Sue is walking an hour a day—a good model for all of us! Kathy and Sue had met Ann Cleveland Lange and Eleanor Easton Flaxen for lunch in Portsmouth, N.H., and then had visited the Strawbery Banke Museum, which Kathy described as a “Williamsburg-style group of houses saved for restoration” during a period of urban renewal in the 1960s. Kathy also reported that she had undergone another operation on her hand in hopes of improving “many activities of daily living, which are unspeakably awkward with 1.5 hands.” She is playing bridge again, walks a couple of times a week with a friend, and enjoys her new condo, with its lovely view of the Charles River. Her choir performed Brahms’s Requiem in May and were on a summer break when she wrote. She added that Eleanor’s chorus (in London) was planning to go to Berlin for a week in the fall to perform Benjamin Britten’s War Requiem. That must have been a super experience, and I look forward to hearing about it (Eleanor, take note!). Dee Fleming King sent a fascinating report on her April visit to Cuba. Space limitations prevent my including the whole thing, but I’ll try to do it justice in a summary. She went legally, since she was with a foundation on a people-to-people visit. There were 12 in her group, plus two guides (one a young female Cuban history major), and they concentrated on Havana and the Viñales Valley (the north and northwest coasts). Dee commented that it would take many more visits to see the whole country, since it is much larger than she had imagined. She had a “charming and lovely visit from every angle, and found that Cuba is not unlike the rest of the world: the rich (government), middle class like our guide, and the underprivileged.” She said she was “welcomed with open arms” everywhere and “had lunch with the elderly, played schoolyard games with the local children, went to classes where four languages are taught, toured art galleries, played guitar with one of the pleasant local musicians who are on every corner, and generally found an uplifting sense of coping.” Unemployment is not
tolerated, and many people work more than one job. Although capitalism is not embraced, people welcome the chance to buy and sell property and to start their own small businesses. Travel outside the city is often by handmade horse-drawn cart, but in the city most people walk or ride bicycles. The few proud owners of cars (’50s vintage) keep them running by creating any missing parts; the cars are brightly painted and have “unusual” upholstery. The attitude toward the Russians is somewhat ambivalent, especially since, when they pulled out of the country, they left unattractive cement buildings and “overpasses that went nowhere.” Dee commented that the people “mostly disassociate themselves from Communism while claiming Socialism, the difference between the two being an AK-57.” She said her trip left her with much to think about, and she ended with this: “I was touched beyond words when an elderly gentleman at lunch put his hand on my arm and sang to me ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’ in English. [The visit] was one of the greatest things I have ever done.” Dee also had another wonderful experience at home. Her son Brad has always been interested in Operation Finally Home, which raises money to provide services to injured veterans. He decided to build and donate a house for one of these men and his family. This was done and everything was furnished, with help from Dee, right down to new toothbrushes. Brad, Dee, and everyone else involved thought they would simply hand over the keys to the organization and maybe meet the new homeowners one day. Instead, she reports, “it turned out to be a big event with people from all over the country, veterans of all kinds, and streets lined with flags. It brought tears to all to see the respect of the general public when the parade passed; cars pulled off the road and saluted.” Not surprisingly, Dee found it a very moving experience. Finally, I end with my usual plea: Please send me your news for our next column. Thanks!
PHILLIPS Tom Lawrence 1039 1/2 Sweetzer West Hollywood CA 90069 323-654-0286 323-804-4394 (cell) yogi@earthlink.net
Bob Bushnell passed away April 28, 2012, at his home in Dorset, Vt. His senior entry in the Pot Pourri did not presage his long banking career in New York but gave all the necessary clues to what made him happiest: singing and sailing. At Andover, the choir, glee club, and 8 ’n 1 all benefited from his vocal contributions, and he was vice president of the sailing club as a senior. At Princeton, where he majored in economics, Bob sang with the Tigertones and the Boomerangs and was a mainstay of the Princeton yacht club. He began his banking career at Chemical Bank after a short stint as a Coast Guard officer. After Andover | Winter 2014
67
stay connected... serving as a partner at Mack Bushnell & Edelman, he joined the arbitrage division at Hoppin, Watson —all this while a perennial contestant at the Caribbean midwinter regatta, representing the Noroton (Conn.) Yacht Club, and singing with the Manhattan Sounds and the Seventh Sound. The latter was a Monday evening attraction at the Biltmore Hotel in the mid-’70s. Bob met his wife of 20 years, the former Nancy Smith, at the Blue Hill Troupe theatre company. They were active for many years with the Blue Hill Troupe and the Dorset Players and opened a gift shop, Babette, in Nancy’s hometown, Salisbury, Mass. The marriage ended in divorce in 1984. Bob leaves two sons, Robert and Edward, and a daughter, Heather. The last leg of my cross-country motor trip this summer brought me to Santa Fe, N.M., and a longoverdue visit with Dick Cowles. He hosted me for an evening of pleasant reminiscences and consultations on shared minor surgical procedures. He was active in the democratization process when the Soviet Union ended, so he relished recent visits to see his daughter Sarah in the former Soviet republic of Georgia; Sarah spent the past year teaching landscape architecture there on a Fulbright grant before returning to the faculty of Ohio State University’s school of architecture. Back in 1987, Dick rebuilt a Lotus Super Seven, a vehicle immortalized by Patrick McGoohan in the classic miniseries The Prisoner. Dick takes it out for the occasional junket and enjoys turning heads all over northern New Mexico. He claims, “It’s still easy to jump into, but getting out has become devilishly awkward.” There’s a colossal existential truth lurking there somewhere, but I’m not going there...Y. [Editor’s note: The Academy has received word that Daniel H. Blatt passed away on Oct. 9, 2013. Please see his obituary in the In Memoriam section.]
1956 ABBOT
Anne Woolverton Oswald 7862 East Greythorn Drive Superstition Mountain AZ 85118 480-374-4281 317-502-0339 (cell) Woolvie56@gmail.com
From Louise Day Cook comes this note: “I had meant to include this bit of information in the last bulletin but didn’t let you know soon enough. My dear friend (and friend of Eleanor Rulon-Miller York) Charles Homer ‘Chip’ Willauer, great-grandnephew of American artist Winslow Homer, died Feb. 14, 2013. I’m sure classmates will remember my endless chatter about Prouts Neck, Maine, and my summers there! “Chip was the one who introduced me to the genius of Winslow Homer, and I came to truly appreciate the breadth of the artist’s work as I grew
68
Andover | Winter 2014
older. One of his masterpieces, Eight Bells, hangs in the Addison Gallery at Andover. The Portland Museum of Art recognized the treasure that was practically on its doorstep and, with Chip’s cooperation, purchased and restored the Homer Studio, holding the grand opening in September 2012. What a tremendous legacy and fitting tribute to Chip!” Carol Kelton Ryland writes, “Marjorie Orr Stein and I just spent several days together, including going up to Kent, Conn., to the home of her elder daughter, Lynn, and husband. It was a lovely day in a lovely spot! We roommates of long ago called Susan Wickham Maire but were unable to reach her. “Mardie Roth Brown will visit next week on her way from her home in DC to a wedding in Maine. I have hopes that Marjorie Moore Yoars will join us for a visit.” Susan Wickham Maire has finished her chemotherapy. Yeah! She will start a course of radiation next. Your scribe phones her frequently and gets caught up to date with her treatments. Susie thanks everyone for the cards and prayers. Phoebe Estes Bryan e-mailed, “Finally— finally—completed radiation treatments last week and am now dealing with side effects. A matter of time, I guess, but it moves all too slowly for me. Genuine exhaustion this go-round, so I have been dragging. We manage to get out on the boat each weekend, so nothing could be more relaxing than that. Lake Champlain is always lovely. “Last month, [husband] Alden and I had lunch with Betsy Parker Powell and her husband, Dave, when the Powells celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary by hosting all their family for most of a week at Basin Harbor Club on Lake Champlain (near Vergennes, Vt.)—a marvelous place for a family gathering and remarkably fine food.” And Betsy wrote, “Hope your summers are going well. Feel so blessed that my health is good and I have such great travels planned: to Southeast Asia (Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, Taiwan) in January and February; to Monterrey, Mexico, for Babson College in April; to Berlin with our Andover Class of 1956 in May; then on to Talloires, France, in late May and early June for the Fletcher School and Tufts.” My husband, Bob, and I spent much time away from the desert heat over the summer. We rented a house in Durango, Colo., for the month of July. The location was ideal, permitting us to walk just over three blocks to Main Avenue, the center of town activities, and to the midway point on that street’s 12-block-long assortment of shops, restaurants, and the other commercial ventures of a tourist location catering to the ski crowd in winter and outdoor types all summer. A number of evenings we enjoyed “Music in the Mountains,” a summer concert program in its 28th year presenting classical, pops, and a three-week-long youth education and competition event with amazing talent. August found us in Montana (Flathead Lake is the largest natural freshwater lake west of the
Mississippi) and Jackson, Wyo. We had dinner with Ellen Welles Linn and husband Gene. It was fun to catch up on a number of fronts. Fall is here (even in Arizona), and I wish you all a healthy and blessed season. Keep communicating!
PHILLIPS Phil Bowers 322 W. 57th St., Apt. 30F New York NY 10019 212-581-0538 philbowers@verizon.net Philip R. Hirsh Jr. 59 Union Run Lexington VA 24450-6040 540-464-5202 prhjr@rockbridge.net
Go to www.PA56Berlin.wordpress.com to share in the delights of the Berlin extravaganza, which continue to reverberate among the participants. You can see classmates’ photos and comments about the trip. At Yankee Stadium, I ran into classmate Dick Sigal, quasi-classmate Grabo Keator ’57, and Secretary of the Academy Peter Ramsey at a Yankees– Red Sox outing, an alumni event sponsored by the Andover Abbot Association of New York. When asked what’s new, Dick informed me that, after 49 years of partnership at Hawkins Delafield & Wood, he took up partnership with McKenna Long & Aldridge. Good grief! Talk about jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire. Tom Corbett reports that he is giving up his longtime gig in surgical anesthesiology in Ann Arbor, Mich., and is considering moving permanently to his 25-acre Christmas-tree farm and retreat in Glen Arbor, Mich., a couple of miles inland from Lake Michigan. It is located on Michigan’s Leelanau Peninsula, 25 miles west of Traverse City, an area speckled with nature preserves known by whimsical names such as Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, the Manitou Islands, and Inspiration Point. A flurry of morning TV shows proclaimed it the most beautiful spot in America. A Photographic History of the Laguna Pueblo, Tom’s collaboration (text) with Native American Lee Marmon (photography), to be published by the University of New Mexico Press, should be approaching galley status and, we hope, distribution by late 2014. Marmon is now 88 years old. Meanwhile, his photos hang in the Peabody Museum in Andover. In a spirited genealogical caper, Tom recently discovered that an existing Corbett family in Ireland owns a farm that shares a border with the property that Tom’s great-great-grandfather owned back in the 1850s. The magic of DNA established that the two families on either side of the pond are closely related! A recent trip to Ireland reunited the longlost cousins.
www.andover.edu/intouch Doug Crowe doesn’t have to go far for his “kid fix.” He reports in as follows: “I’ve arrived at the three-quarter-century mark out in the Virginia Piedmont, living about a quarter mile off Main Street in the historic town of Warrenton, home of John Mosby, the ‘Gray Ghost’ of the Confederacy. A committed ‘gym rat,’ I work out daily and walk a lot with my Lab/Rott ‘rescue’ dog, Abby (remember Harry Truman and his quip about Washington ‘friends’?). “My personal wealth begins and ends with my family. The proud father of three boys and two girls, I am additionally blessed with 12 grandchildren (with another due in October), all of whom—my cup runneth over—live within 25 miles of me in the Washington metro area. To add anything more would count as shameless bragging.” I caught up with Johnson Hall housemate John Cashman, who retired not too long ago from surgical duties. He recently downsized in Wilmington, N.C., his adopted city of 41 years, into a small gated community of 20 homes. Would you believe that last summer, the turnaround time between Jim Clunan’s noticing that there was a problem and his return home from an appendectomy was less than one day? That was his second emergency procedure in the same number of years. In 2012, during his wife Dorothy’s absence, his daughter Anne ’86 flew in from San Francisco to Maine and blessed him with her presence to the extent that the two watched the entire playoffs and World Series together on TV—a magic, fatherdaughter moment for bonding. Jim explains that he is winding down from the center of things. He’s no longer affiliated with his passion, Acadia Senior College, other than holding an unofficial title of director of institutional memory and emotional continuity. Limited to two 3-year terms, its board members and leaders have effectively turned over more than once since Jim left. Consistent with his abatement program, Clunan has also resigned from the Mt. Desert [Maine] Planning Board after a dozen years of membership. Jim informed me that he and his family had lived in West Berlin for four wonderful years while he and Dorothy worked as foreign service officers from 1974 to 1978. Too bad they did not join us for last summer’s class trip to Berlin. Skip Klemm’s familiar, cheerful, and resonant voice caught me up by phone to note that he and his wife, Beth, have reached their 50th milestone year of both marriage and residence in their home in Danvers, Mass., 10 miles from Andover. He is pleased that his 15-year-old grandson is attending St. John’s Prep, just blocks away from where he lives. From Saint-Jean-de-Luz, France, Doc Bennett informed us that he was editing his second historical novel. Set at the end of the 19th century in Mexico, it concerns a Mexican rural policeman who believes that the country’s 1857 constitution applies to all Mexicans, including Indians. Doc’s well-received first novel, Playing for Pancho Villa, is a love story set in 1916 Mexico and is obtainable at Amazon.com. Doc and Dianne Romain live
together in Guanajuato, the high desert country in the center of Mexico. Fellow ex-Andover oarsman Toby Clark wrapped up an important gig as director of operations for the National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling. Begun under presidential executive order in April 2010 with a staff of four, the commission, Toby explained, eventually comprised five dozen team members, and he brought the project in by mid-January 2011—under budget and on time, a rare feat in corporate annals, much less government projects. After submitting these notes, we received late word that our classmate Peter Knipe died on Oct. 7, 2013. Look for a more extensive note honoring Peter in the next issue. If you have news you would like to share with your classmates, contact either of the two Phils. If you are not receiving our infrequent and newsworthy e-mails and would like to, send either Phil your e-mail address. We promise not to abuse the privilege. The Other Phil. ... (Bowers)
Lucy Beebe Tobias: Mary Margaret Manatee, written and illustrated by Lucy Beebe Tobias (website: www.marymargaretmanatee.com) Anne Deane: Plum Island, by Nelson DeMille P.S.: A copy of the Abbot Courant from January 1957 turned up recently among papers in my attic. Contributions from our class were really very nice. Youth, hope, humor, and effort were all in play then and, by your accounts, now. Best wishes to all of you. —Anne and Lulu
1957
There was so little material on hand when I sat down to write these notes that I almost called on my pal at the National Security Agency for help. Then Stephen “Triv” Trivers, my scribal colleague, launched an SOS, and a gratifying number of replies came back, ranging from John Draper’s cryptic “I am alive and doing well” to the rolling cadences of Bill Sterling’s class letter: “The grape harvest has begun. ...Apart from the fundamental concern whether we can find a way to keep our home and continue to live here, life is good.” (Check out the full text on the class website.) Nappy MacNaughton wrote about his passion for competitive show jumping. A dozen years ago, Nappy tried golf as a sport he and his wife, Liza Jane, could practice together as they grew older. But Liza Jane found her friends a bit too competitive. So, knowing she loved horses, Nappy volunteered blithely, “Why don’t I take up show jumping? You like going to shows and this will give me something to do while there.” A great deal of fun and many ribbons ensued. The sport inevitably involves some falls, however, and a year ago, at the urging of family and friends, Nappy gave up competitive jumping and returned to golf. “It’s tough to improve your swing, but one is closer to the ground,” he says. “Those jumpers are big!” Tom Fox spent two leisurely months at the family home on Mt. Desert Island in Maine. But the highlight of his summer, he writes, was dinner with Fred Shuman, his old roommate. Back in Washington, D.C., Tom remains active as board chairman of a foundation involved with children in Africa and teaching a graduate course on sustainable development. In September, John McConnell celebrated the 50th reunion of his Coast Guard OCS class in Newport, R.I. He says, “We told ourselves a few lies
ABBOT
Anne Boswell 5 Choate Road Hanover NH 03755-1701 603-643-5043 aboswell@valley.net Lucinda “Lulu” Cutler 267 Legend Hill Road Madison CT 06443-1881 203-779-5859 lucindacutler@gmail.com
Dear Class, This issue of Abbot class notes comes with sad news of Mary Ann Spurgeon Lewis’s death on May 27, 2013. Those of you who knew her well may want to add commemorative remarks about her for the next magazine. Our request for the titles of books you’ve found especially influential has been fruitful. To conserve space, we have put your choices in a very brief format: only one book per classmate, with editorial comments ruled out. Will save your additional suggestions for the next issue. Thank you for your participation and for the enthusiasm that comes with each recommendation. Mimi Ganem Reeder: Plainsong, by Kent Haruf Marcia Truslow: Fifty Shades of Grey, by E.L. James Sue Allen: God’s Hotel, by Victoria Sweet Louisa Lehmann Birch: Behind the Beautiful Forevers, by Katherine Boo Anne Boswell: The Kite Runner, by Khaled Hosseini
PHILLIPS Stephen C. Trivers 151 South Rose St., Suite 611 Kalamazoo MI 49007 269-385-2757 Stephen@StephenTrivers.com Gregory Wierzynski 4426 Klingle St., NW Washington DC 20016 202-686-9104 gregor@wierzynski.com Class website: www.andover57.ning.com
Andover | Winter 2014
69
stay connected... and drank some rum.” John recently moved into a retirement community, but he’s not given up racing his Etchells-class 30-foot sloop. In late September, he was gearing up to compete in the American Yacht Club fall series. Anne and Gary Hammond celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary in June with a five-week tour across Thailand, Vietnam, and Cambodia. For the past 11 years, Gary and Anne have made their home in Saddlebrooke, just north of Tucson, Ariz. In the summer, they clamber aboard their RV and head for San Francisco and Seattle, where their children live. “Life is good,” Gary writes. “I had two excellent adventures,” Tom Bissinger says of his summer. First, Tom and wife Kristen joined their son and his family on the San Juan Islands, in the Pacific Northwest. Then they drove around Colorado and New Mexico, visiting Native American museums. Back home in Pennsylvania, Tom is putting the finishing touches on his memoir, The Fun House: Memory, Magic & Mayhem. Several other classmates have books in the works or on the shelves. Bill Rapp edited a tome on financial crises, titled Boil, Bubble, Toil and Trouble, and had “an amazingly busy summer” promoting it and lecturing in Hawaii, Milan, Belgrade, and the U.K. Bob Darnton spent a summer of hard work finishing a study of censorship in Bourbon France, British India, and East Germany. Unkindest Cuts: An Inside History of Censorship is the working title. In April, the Digital Public Library of America, a project Bob spearheaded, went online, providing access to 4.6 million items in multiple digital collections, available to anyone in the world able to log on to www.dp.la. Bill Babcock completed a well-received translation of Saint Augustine’s masterwork, The City of God. The first volume came out in November 2012 and the second in August 2013. The task took Bill some 20 years. For the past eight years Lew Neisner has been bedeviled by serious back pain, but it has not sapped his energy or spirits. He started summer 2013 with nine afternoons and nights at the Rochester International Jazz Festival, followed by five days in New York and Philadelphia traipsing through museums in search of teaching material for his modern art course at the Rochester Institute of Technology. Then it was a week in Chautauqua, N.Y., discussing health-care reform and ending with a lunch and boat ride on Lake Chautauqua with Jill and Jim Cook, who were spending their summer there. Ron Campbell rounded off his corporate career with a one-year assignment in Dublin, Ireland, before retiring at year’s end. Though he had to travel a great deal, he found time to trace his roots, visiting the gravesite of his great-grandparents and connecting with distant cousins. “It’s been a gift from heaven to spend my time here, in what feels like my ancestral home,” he writes. Jim Blackmon’s day job is as a research engineer at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, but it’s clear that, at heart, he is a salt-of-the-earth farmer. He sent the following note: “All I have to
70
Andover | Winter 2014
report is corny Alabama farm stuff, like [wife] Tina and I hauling a huge hay baler we’d just bought (used; nobody can afford a new one) 80 miles to the farm. One tire got so hot it disintegrated and pieces the size of Frank Incropera’s Introduction to Heat Transfer started flying off (great book, by the way; we use it here). We (barely) made it, luckily. The baler worked great for a while. Then it broke and cost $2,975.84 to fix. I could go on. I’ll tell you about the coyote problem some other time, and maybe the black-panther sightings that the Fish and Game folks say aren’t possible, never happened, etc. Jeeezzz…Oh, and our Bach-loving Angus is still healthy and lovable and has a cute little bull calf, and all the other cows hate her because she’s our favorite and gets Christmas cards from Sam Suitt, Lee and Tom Terry, and a bunch of Californians who visited and got to pet a cow for the first time in their lives. God, I love Alabama!” —G
1958 ABBOT
Parry Ellice Adam 33 Pleasant Run Road Flemington NJ 08822-7109 908-782-3754 peaba@comcast.net
Joan Foedisch Adibi writes, “We are leaving our beloved island home on Chappaquiddick Island, Mass., to go to another paradise: Pittsburgh! Our youngest daughter, Jennifer, her husband, and her three darling children—ages 5 and (twins) 22 months—have moved there from San Francisco. Oh, joy! I know it will change my life and give me a whole new perspective. Our other offspring are thriving: Camron in Gloucester, Mass., and Elise in Cambridge, Mass. We feel very grateful.” Betsy Gardner Riley writes, “I’m looking forward to a picture of all you 55th Reunion Abbot women. How I loved that school and the years I spent there. Our news this year is a family reunion... not held for three years. Our grandchildren now number 13, aged from 25 to 6 years old. All but four were here. [Husband] Gil is recovering from his fourth back surgery. Arthritis has played havoc with his body, but when he’s holding his camera, his pain disappears. He’s quite a gifted photographer. My life continues to be energizing: leading three support groups, active in church, a quilter/knitter and counted-cross stitcher. Our home in rural Maine and a small house with a cove for a view in Tenants Harbor, Maine, give Gil good photo ops. Would love to see any of you driving through.”
PHILLIPS Dermod O. Sullivan Morgan Stanley 590 Madison Ave., 11th Floor New York NY 10022 800-468-0019 dermod.o.sullivan@ms.com
For those of you who missed the 55th Reunion this past June (I think more classmates made the First Honor Roll than attended the reunion), you also missed a display in the Oliver Wendell Holmes Library of our Class of 1958 authors and their books. Highlighted were books by Dick Tashjian, Geoff Movius, George Pidot, John Rockwell, Lawry Chickering, Mal Salter, Phil Makanna, Phil Woodward, Bob Zeff, Thayer White, Tom Elden, and Bill Hamilton. Bill Hamilton takes the coveted award for most books in a career, with a total of 10. Phone calls reveal that these scholars are not resting on their laurels; they are planning to publish future books. Dick Tashjian taught at the University of California, Irvine, and he has written at least six books, mostly on the arts. His first, about New England gravestones, was done in graduate school. He is now working on a project that surveys cultural developments during the World War II years. We mostly think that the war effort was all-consuming, but scholarship and the arts flourished between 1941 and 1945. John Dolan’s published contributions to the legal field were not included in the library’s display. A prolific author with several books and many journal entries to his credit, Dolan currently serves on the board of editors of the Banking Law Journal. John’s long and illustrious law career was pure serendipity. The distinguished professor of law at Wayne State University Law School fell into the profession “strictly by accident,” he says. “I was planning to change my major to journalism and wandered over by the Illinois Law School. It was a quiet day, and a secretary talked me into applying. I took the LSAT, gave her the results a few weeks later, and bang: I was a law student.” It was certainly a good career move for the Massachusetts native, even if it took second place to his original career dream. “Well, only so many boys get to play second base for the Red Sox,” he says with a smile. Dolan, who was a core board editor of the University of Illinois Law Review, did a federal clerkship in Illinois and then spent 10 years in private practice. He became an associate professor at Wayne Law in 1975 and a full professor in 1978. Dolan was named distinguished professor in 2000. Dolan, who holds dual citizenship from the U.S. and the Republic of Ireland, also taught at University College Dublin, taking him back to his ancestral roots. “My grandmother was born there, and some of my dad’s cousins,” he says. “We lived in Dublin for a semester. Great architecture, fabulous courts, grand theatre—and they say their restaurants have improved!”
www.andover.edu/intouch While still in law school, Dolan married piano major Carole Ann Winke, and they now have three children and 10 grandchildren. He and his wife enjoy canoeing, biking, and cross-country skiing. “All old-timers’ sports are our favorites,” he says. A fuller version of John’s CV is at www.Law.Wayne. edu/profile/john.dolan/. John Rockwell is credited with four books, and he’s currently editing a coffee-table book for Times Books about the ’60s, part of a series of “decade” books being drawn from articles in the New York Times. “I help pick the topics and articles and will write a general introduction and smaller intros for the various sections (international news, N.Y. sports, science, arts, etc.). I’ve also been brooding for years about a big book on Mozart’s Magic Flute; but whether I get that one off the ground, we shall see.” Your secretary has written in the past about Geoff Movius’s recently published book of poetry, Transit (2012). It is currently available on Amazon and from Barnes & Noble. Years ago, Geoff also wrote The Second H Book of Harvard Athletics, 1923–1963, a 940-page tome. Geoff said he took more than a year off from his postgraduate studies to complete that book. Speaking of the histories of schools’ athletics, there are two books on Andover’s athletics: one by Ted Harrison, covering the period from 1778 to 1978, and another, older one by Frank Quinby covering the period from 1860 to 1920. There was a loose map in my copy of the Quinby book, and it described a golf course within the sanctuary. The golf team disbanded for a brief period starting in 1905, so I guess the golf course reverted back into the wilderness we know today. Mal Salter has written three books: one on Enron; one on the auto industry; and one on corporate acquisitions, titled Diversification through Acquisition (1979). That one sparked a negative reaction and a querulous phone call from Gulf+Western. Mal’s response was, “Hey, I’m on your side!” Mal has virtually recovered from shoulder surgery (rotator cuff repair and ligament reattachment), the result of 60 years of squash abuse exacerbated by a back-country ski spill in Utah. I say “virtually” because he complains his golf handicap is not back to where it was—but whose is? Mal is sketching out another book on the subject of institutional corruption, very topical after the events surrounding the Great Recession and the behavior of our large financial institutions. I’m sure that we have not recognized all the publishing contributions of other classmates. I wrote earlier about Tony Rhinelander’s book, Prince Michael Vorontsov, Viceroy to the Tsar. Let me know if we missed others, and I will give credit in future columns.
1959 55th REUNION June 13–15, 2014
ABBOT
Nathalie Taft Andrews 2407 Ransdell Ave. Louisville KY 40204 502-459-5715 dulcie@iglou.com
Reminder! Starting with this issue, class notes will be included in the digital version of the magazine on the website. As before, the digital edition is available in Flipbook format or as a PDF download. We hope this makes it easier and more convenient to keep up with your classmates!
PHILLIPS David Othmer 4220 Spruce St. Philadelphia PA 19104 215-387-7824 davidothmer@aol.com
First order of business is, of course, our 55th Reunion, June 13–15, 2014. Your trusty committee—listed in ascending-age order—is Susie Stedman ’59, John Doherty, Kitty Sides Flather ’59, Artie Rogers, and myself. First, of course, we want you to come to the reunion, and second, we want your thoughts on what activities we should have there. Call or write any of us. But above all, be there! Many of us had our 50th college reunions this summer, and Sven Hsia reports that 27 of us went to the Yale reunion—which was led by Hank Higdon, Charlie Sawyer, Artie Rogers, Peter Foote, and Peter Pochna—and included Jerry Bremer, Bill Nordhaus, and Sven on panels and a film starring, among others, Lea Pendleton, Ed Shapiro, George Nilson, Chuck Cacos, Bill Bell, and Geoff Martin. Both Bill Bell and Sven mentioned what a thrill it was to see Juan RodriguezDiaz there—with the same girl he had been with in 1959! And Bill also mentioned that he “had a great visit at our home from Pepper Stuessy and his traveling partner, Gizelle, who came to Maine for some wildlife photography en route to the Yale reunion. Had a chance to see Pepper immerse himself in his new pastime when we spent a late afternoon in the wildlife refuge behind our house.” Ralph Kimball, who spent much of the summer at his cottage on Boothbay Harbor in Maine, says, “I normally skate with the Rusty Blades in Worcester, Mass., during the winter, but I was able to find a seniors [hockey] team playing during the summer in nearby Falmouth, Maine.” You gotta love hockey! He also had lunch this summer with John Doherty and Tom Stirling, all part of a Vietnam vets group that meets irregularly in Andover. John Butler writes, “In August, Lea Pendleton showed up in our Maine harbor. We had a wonderful visit aboard his boat over iced tea. (It was morning.) Discussed the usual topics: joys and heartbreaks, friends and classmates, our fathers’ friendship, our kids, women. Also, issues that bore most people to tears but absolutely fascinate
boaters: horsepower, battery life with and without refrigeration, dinghies and outboard motors, navigation instruments, cruising speeds, and upper decks.” Lea has been doing a lot of cruising in Maine, some with a new friend, June, who lives in St. Louis. Dave Harris, newly moved to the Tampa area, declares, “I’m loving Florida!” and is delighted that Jim Hayman’s thriller number three, Darkness First, is now out and available—hard, soft, and electronic. John Charlton has been reading “Trollope, G.B. Shaw theatre reviews from the 1890s, many John Buchans, P.G. Wodehouse, lots of African stuff for work, especially Nigeria and Congo, and Robert Musil short stories.” He’s also been musing on “paths not taken”—and wondering what classmates’ missed or unchosen paths have been. In early 2013, Dexter Koehl writes, “[I] volunteered on a USAID-funded project developing a strategic tourism promotion plan for the eastern part of the island of Sri Lanka, devastated by a generation of conflict. They’re impressive, gutsy people, and their land is incredible. Feel like I’m in a late 1970s time warp.” Bill Anderson reported the sad news that he and wife Lanny lost their daughter Maysie on July 3. There were memorial services in Wilmington, N.C., and on Deer Isle, Maine. Bill, we all can only imagine how hard it must be on you both, and our thoughts are with you. Also, we just learned that Greg Gates died of cancer in November 2012. He graduated from Dartmouth (both the college and the medical school), served in the Army, and spent 25 years working as a Andover | Winter 2014
71
stay connected... pathologist in Valparaiso, Ind. A memorial service was held in Montana this summer. In his report for his 50th reunion at Stanford, Maynard Toll wrote, “After years living and traveling in Asia and the Pacific, we are focusing on our recent travels in Europe. We visited France twice last year with friends (Champagne, Lorraine, Alsace in the spring, Brittany in the fall), and we spent some time in England and Wales earlier this year. We are into leisurely paced overseas trips these days, and not too many of them. There is too much fun stuff to do at home.” My wife, Maureen, and I had a grand spring and summer—celebrating our 30th anniversary— traveling to Guanajuato, Mexico (where daughter Rachel lives), Montana (hiking in Glacier, canoeing on the Missouri), LA (where we spent two great days with Donna and Jerry Secundy, getting an incredible set of tours of the city and of Pasadena), Maine, Cuba (fascinating, but there is ample evidence that two 55-year-old failed government policies—one theirs, one ours—have together severely damaged but not killed the spirit of that wonderful people), and Florida. I want to end with two love stories. In the late 1960s Susie Goodwillie ’59 met Bruce Stedman at the UN. In 1984, at a charity auction in Manhattan, Lee Webb met Judith Daniels. Susie and Bruce maintained a friendship for well over 25 years before they were married in 1993; they retired and moved to Maine, where Susie chaired the board of the Heartwood Regional Theater Company and Bruce developed Model UN programs across the state. Lee and Judith, who was the founding editor of Savvy magazine and the first woman editor of Life, were married a few months after they met, lived in Manhattan for 20 years before retiring in 2004, and moved to Maine, where Lee sits on a number of state and nonprofit boards and is a PhD student at the University of Maine. Judith chaired the board of the Center for Maine Contemporary Art. Bruce died quietly in his sleep in February; he was 92. Judith died after a brief illness of stomach cancer in September; she was 74. Both were wonderful.
1960 ABBOT
Lynne Furneaux Clark P.O. Box 1087 Manchester Center VT 05255-1087 802-362-1744 puffinplace@aol.com
Greetings from southern Vermont, where, at this writing, the colors are just starting to show. Paulette Dufault Peden writes that she and her husband, John, are fine. She still has her antiques business and John continues with photo assignments and videos. Her son Taylor and his partner, Jen Munkvold, are a photography team going under the name Peden + Munk and doing food
72
Andover | Winter 2014
photography for Bon Appétit magazine and Condé Nast Traveler, which just sent them to Copenhagen. Cally Sherman Williams reports that all is well in New Mexico. She and her husband took a wonderful spring trip starting in Prague, Czech Republic, and ending in Romania—some on their own and some not, including a week on a Viking cruise on the Danube. This is a fascinating part of the world that is still recovering from the Communist era. Cally says they met many nice people, heard lots of local music, and learned a bit of local history and culture. Joyce Matteis Wilson comments on having so many friends who are cancer survivors in recent years. Three of her friends who don’t know one another reacted the same way after completing chemo: They rushed out to buy vintage convertible sports cars. Sara Jasper Cook’s blood cancer (CLL) is in remission, meaning it is, for now, nowhere in sight. “It will be back,” she writes, “and probably sooner than I’d like, but for now everything’s great. [Husband] Fred retired this spring, and so we’ve been dividing our time and activities more evenly between the Adirondacks and Westchester County, mountains in one direction, lake in the other.” They celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary in September. Hannah Jopling has had her own encounters with illness and travel. As she and husband Bob arrived in London for a planned walking trip in Yorkshire last summer, Bob came down with a serious bacterial infection that put him in the hospital for two weeks, followed by four weeks of antibiotics. Kathy Stevens says she and husband Crowell have been very lucky in their life together during the past 25 years but are getting older. On the subway recently in New York, a man offered Kathy his seat. Kathy says, “I guess it shows that I turned 70 this year. Our days are filled with volunteering, grandparenting, health maintenance, and helping my mother (Abbot ’36).” Susan L. Koster advises us all to be thankful we live in beautiful places and to give back to our community. She writes, “We have time to talk, to read, to go to the beach, to enjoy our families and friends, to travel. Every day is new.” Anne Howson wrote that she and husband Jeffrey had a great trip to Patagonia in November 2012. One highlight was revisiting the small church in Buenos Aires, Argentina, where they were married in 1970. Another highlight was landing on Cape Horn amidst 35-knot winds in inflatable Zodiac boats. Dot Tod has been intimately involved in the creation of The Vermont Movie for the past seven years. At this writing, it was about to begin its statewide tour. It is a six-part collaborative documentary produced by several dozen Vermont filmmakers that explores the history and contemporary culture of the Green Mountain State. Despite the doctors controlling our lives, husband Dave and I got in two trips to our little lakeside cottage in Calabogie, Ontario, this past
summer. Many thanks to all who sent news—it’s such fun to hear from classmates who have been silent for a long time. Until next time. —Lynne
PHILLIPS Dick Bourne 1503 McDermott Road Pylesville MD 21132 410-836-1100 rbourne@ubalt.edu Class website: www.1960pa.com
I received a nice note from Ted Martin from his digs in New Orleans. Ted reports retiring from law practice and having the chance, after raising five children, to travel and devote more time to the New Orleans Opera Association, the Churchill Society of New Orleans, and sundry other “non-billable matters.” He and his wife were happy about the baptism of their eighth grandchild in August 2013. He reports having developed a conservative outlook, which led him to scold me for misusing the word “kudos” in one of my more recent reports. I gave the noun a plural treatment (as in “Kudos are in order for…”), when I should have recognized it as a singular Greek word meaning “praise.” He tried to apologize for being a pedant, but quite frankly, I appreciated the correction—and was amused at the vision of Alston “Hurdle Curdle” Chase’s belated delight at the kerfuffle his instruction a half century ago could give rise to. Jerry Wood sent me a newsy note in late August. Jerry spent most of the summer on Martha’s Vineyard with his “new lady love,” Catherine. Jerry has been working with his various artistic offspring to help him clear his house in Weston, Mass., of gigantic stacks of artwork dating from their middle school days. Catherine, a librarian, brings to their relationship great skill in “ruthless deaccessioning,” and Jerry reports he is beginning finally to be able to find his way ’round the premises at home. (I wonder if she would come to my house to provide much-needed assistance in “deaccessioning,” as I suspect I am a much worse pack rat than Jerry ever dreamed of being and sorely need the aid of someone with Catherine’s much-heralded skills and experience.) Got a newsy note from Laird Smith, who reports attending old PA roommate John Nields’s 50th wedding anniversary celebration. John joined his two daughters (both professional singers) in providing the assembled multitude a mini concert. Laird says he found the performance “astounding.… A guy who never was in a group at Andover or Yale who really might have kept the Limeliters going after Glenn Yarbrough left.” A number of other friends were there, including Bill Brown, who Laird reports was in fine fettle. From London, Karl Ziegler continues to pursue his lifelong passion for development and conservation in sub-Saharan Africa, particularly in Kenya. In August, he wrote a timely letter to the Financial Times pointing out risks associated with
www.andover.edu/intouch the increasing investment by China in Kenya’s economy. He noted the rapid increase in the number of Chinese nationals working in Kenya on Chinese and multinational enterprises and points out how this is paralleled by a radical expansion of poaching of rhino horns and elephant tusks. As Karl points out, many Kenyans have differing opinions regarding poaching. Many actually favor poachers because of the short-term moneys the poachers spend while exploiting the country’s animal life; these people often disparage the tourism and foreign exchange Kenyan wildlife attracts to the country as simply the result of “white men’s infatuation.” Till now, at least, government efforts to curtail the illicit trade in horns and tusks have proven inadequate to halt or even substantially slow the destruction of wildlife the trade necessarily has caused. Stay in touch. Write, filling us all in on what’s going on in your neck of the woods.
1961 ABBOT
Carolyn “Cally” Butler Dow 44 Spruce St. Portland ME 04102 207-899-4178 Callydow365@gmail.com
Several Abbot ’61 classmates from the Boston area got together at the home of Molly Upton in Wayland, Mass., for lunch in September, including Marney Harriman Ives, Ann Tevepaugh Mitchell, Loring Low Stevens, Sybil Smith, and Ann Fahnestock Cody. Ann Cody said that they talked about their reasons for attending Abbot. “It was amazing to me to hear,” she said, “and more than I would have guessed, that the reasons had to do with various forms of family dysfunctional issues. Two of us actually loved the boarding school experience, and most gained great insights for use in life.” Ann said that she remarried three years ago, after her first husband died of a heart attack. Her children and grandchildren live in different parts of the country and are “doing their own thing. ... In the past few years,” she said, “my personal ‘travel bucket list’ has included a surf camp in Panama; a cruise down Alaska’s inland waterway; bicycling from a barge in Belgium; a trip down the Rhine; an intergenerational rafting/horseback/hiking adventure in Wyoming; a tour down the Danube from Budapest, Hungary, to Passau, Germany; a week in Colorado; and, of course, the place where I’ve lived for the past nine years, the most varied, active senior-living place on the planet at The Villages, Fla. My summers have been spent in Madison, N.H., where the 270 acres that in the mid-to late 1800s were an ancestral working farm are now timberland with a cabin.” She says, “It was great to catch up on former classmates. It seemed as though we were yakking as if coming back from summer vacation. How did we all get to be 70 years old?”
Sybil reports that she is now retired. “I cannot believe it,” she says. “So far I’m having a wonderful time with it.” Marlene Bourke writes, “This past summer was a family vacation—an Alaskan cruise for all 10 of us, including kids ages 9 to 14. Then I took a trip to Scotland with a few friends—wonderful natural scenery and absolutely lovely, friendly people. I am starting the sixth year of retirement and loving every minute of it. I don’t know how I ever fit in working.” Libby Holloway Fiene says she had another fantastic summer in the Northwest. Andrea Lynch Cole reported that she and husband Carlton had had three recent trips and were looking forward to a fourth in October. “In January 2013 we spent a week in New York City, visiting the Frick and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, taking in The Princely Furniture of the Roentgens at the Met. The trip was timed for us to attend a lecture by a Miami friend for the American Friends of the Louvre. Then in May, we visited our older son, Andrew, and his family in Annapolis, Md. While there, we went to the National Gallery of Art to see the Diaghilev and the Ballets Russes exhibition. In August, we went to Highlands, N.C., for a friend’s 50th wedding anniversary and to celebrate with our younger son, Edward, and his wife, Ruthie, their purchase of our former home there. We were thrilled that this special house could return to our family. In October, we plan to visit both London and Bath, England. Carlton and I continue to work and spend free time with grandchildren as often as we can. I keep up with Karyl Charna Lynn, who will be coming to Miami for the opera and has invited me to be her date for an opera. We so enjoy her company and were sorry she was out of town when we were in Washington, D.C.” As I was reviewing all these glowing accounts of travels, I was getting so envious. “How come I never get to travel?” I thought. Then I remembered: I had plans to go to Italy in October—spending 10 days in Rome and a few days in Florence, to teach a course on the amazing Michelangelo. I expected to be focusing on his work—if I were able to focus at all on this trip, with so much to take in. Right now, as I write this, I’m focusing on learning to speak Italian—or at least trying to! What is it with these 70-year-old brain cells? Well, I have committed to memory some important phrases, like “Dove un buon ristorante?” and “Un grandissimo cappuccino, per favore.” Many thanks to all who have contributed to these class notes. It’s always a pleasure to lace them together. So much diversity. So much common ground.
PHILLIPS Paul Kalkstein 42 Doubling Point Road Arrowsic ME 04530 207-443-5675 pkalkstein@gmail.com
One of my former students is Liliane and Jim Rubin’s son, Henry-Alex ’91, who, says his proud papa, released his first full-length fiction film, Disconnect, last spring. Jim reports that it “was selected as a critics’ pick by the New York Times, and Rotten Tomatoes had it at an 82 percent positive audience rating. His fiancée has also delivered our second grandchild.” Dave Murphy reports that he has been “subbing at [Andover’s] Bancroft School for the past two years (mostly in kindergarten). I’ve seen and had in class many of the PA faculty kids. What a nice way to spend these past two years! My wife, Martha, has been a wonderful love of my past eight years. She’s gotten very comfortable living in Andover and we go to her native Peru regularly (quite a change for an Andover native who never traveled outside the downtown). Martha has been fantastic in many ways. She spent 34 years as a nurse in Peru, and she has helped greatly with a few of my medical setbacks, which are now very well under control. I actually had my first kidney dialysis in Cusco, Peru (near Machu Picchu), at the hospital where Martha had worked on the first kidney transplant there! I’m still in downtown Andover and in the phone book. Hope that anyone in town will call or drop by.” Tony Vanderwarker sends exciting news. “My book, Writing With the Master, is being published by Skyhorse Publishing in February. I had seven unpublished novels rotting away on my hard drive, and then my friend and neighbor John Grisham took me under his wing and taught me the secrets of thriller writing. Writing With the Master is the story of the often agonizing, sometimes hilarious account of two years of writing under John’s guidance. The novel I wrote with him, Sleeping Dogs, will be issued as an e-book after the launch of Writing. I’m also bringing out two comic novels of mine as e-books, so I have four hitting the shelves and Web in 2014. And that’s after a 20-year drought of not publishing anything. “I’m also in my last year as chairman of the Piedmont Environmental Council. We’ve had a great run in my six-year term: We kept Walmart from building on the Wilderness Battlefield, prevented a power company from running a power line across our conserved land, halted two wasteful and ill-advised road projects, and put over 100,000 acres in conservation easements. It’s been fun and rewarding.” Perseverence + propinquity = success. Congrats, Tony! So hang in there, guys. As we age, events rule our lives more and more. Thus it was with Andrew Cohen, who fell backwards off his bike on sheer ice and decided it was time to retire—sort of. “I was going to spend Andover | Winter 2014
73
stay connected... another fall semester teaching at the University of Minnesota. Instead, my wife, Sabina, and I sold our condo on Lake Calhoun in Minneapolis and bought one on Lake Merritt in Oakland, Calif., near our daughter and her family. It’s lovely out here. We also visit our son and his family, still in Tel Aviv, Israel. We were there in May. “While I am retired from the academic rigors of busily teaching classes of 50 undergrads and seminars for grad students, I now have more time to write professional books, chapters, and articles, lecture at conferences, and engage in research projects. For example, I’m a consultant on a three-year research project to improve the reading strategies of Arabic-speaking Qatari middle schoolers reading science in English and in Arabic. I spent the last week of May in Doha, Qatar, a most futuristic city by anyone’s standards.” In October, Andrew lectured at Shanghai University and Fudan University, his seventh trip to China. So that’s retirement, eh? Every year, approximately 500,000 people die violent deaths around the world. Over three-quarters of these occur in nonconflict settings. Many people around the globe are working to change this depressing reality. The London-based organization Action on Armed Violence (AOAV) recently selected the 100 most influential people in armedviolence reduction, who are trying to change the world for the better. One of these is John Marks, head of Search for Common Ground. His companions on the list include Mo Ibrahim, Jeff Skoll, George Soros, Gabrielle Giffords, Michael Bloomberg, George Clooney, and Angelina Jolie. Upon learning about being chosen for AOAV’s list, John said, “I am honored, as are my colleagues at Search. Our mission is to prevent violent conflict, so this award provides validation that we are on the right track.” Earlier this year, Search for Common Ground was included in the Global Journal’s list of the 100 best nongovernmental organizations in the world, for the second consecutive year. Don’t you envy Leslie Stroh? He writes, “My new position at the Otsego County Fair [in Morris, N.Y.] is supervisor of the wine department. I have been promoted from judge. As soon as I buy the appropriate refrigerated display case, I will be named supervisor of the cheese department. Historically, this has been a cheese-producing area, primarily for the same reason that the French hinterlands produced cheese: It is easier to ship than raw milk. With about a dozen local producers, there is a range of choices, so one needn’t starve.” My wife, Marnie, and I had lunch this past summer with Nancy and Tony Accetta at the Osprey Restaurant in Georgetown, Maine, and with Dee and Wells Walker at Le Garage in Wiscasset, Maine. Wells beat me to the meatloaf stack, but it is mine next year. It is great to see classmates who love to come to Maine, even if for just a week. As you read this, I will be equipped with a rebuilt Achilles tendon and won’t be leaping around like a gazelle. Please send me an e-mail to ease or augment the boredom.
74
Andover | Winter 2014
1962 ABBOT
Kathrin Krakauer 405A Ridgefield Circle Clinton MA 01510 978-368-3348 kakrakauer@comcast.net
PHILLIPS Vic Obninsky 1101 Navarro St. Santa Rosa CA 95401 707-230-2271 707-843-5784 (fax) vpobninsky@comcast.net
The weather here in northern California is absolutely beautiful. We have settled on September–October 2014 in northern California for our 52nd reunion. We are seeking rustic casitas, informal dining, and an evening at a local vineyard/ olive oil factory. An evening of dancing to a country rock band is also being considered. There will be a minimum of programming, although it is likely that some discussion groups will be involved. A golf tournament is possible, if there is adequate interest, and there are also the vacation attractions of wine country, the Gold Rush foothills of the Sierras, Lake Tahoe, Monterey/Carmel, or the Pacific Coast villages. Jeff Hill, Hobey Birmingham, Chris Armstrong, and I have started the plans, with thoughts from Tom Israel and Al Blum. Dan Jenkins, Lee Allen, and Mike Davey have agreed to join our meetings by telephone; let me know if you want to help plan. The quickest source of information is joining the “PA classmates” mailing messaged through vpobninsky@comcast.net. I received the following e-mail from Bill Chickering and include it in full. Parenthetically, John Cowden allowed me to mooch a long stay with him at his Berkeley house when I was a student there in summer 1963. I spoke to John on the telephone some years ago and, as reported in this column, he was alive and well in Corning, N.Y., and was going back and forth between carpentry and the Corning Museum of Glass. Now for Chick: “Fifty years ago, John Cowden and I attended MLK’s March on Washington. We were both in NYC that summer and became infected by the excitement of converging with hundreds of thousands on Washington (a peaceable first, I believe). Because I (he?) had a car, we somehow got assigned to pick up two total strangers from different corners in Harlem and got gently ‘conscientized’ on the way down, arriving after midnight. Already the Mall was thronged, but John and I found some hardpan beneath bushes and went to sleep. The next a.m., I was struck, to my embarrassment, by how much better dressed everybody was, in Sunday dress, than we were, the only whites in our section of the crowd. As to the speech, I no longer know what I
really remember and what has been superimposed. I think I remember being thrilled by [MLK’s] rising cadence, so strange to me yet redolent of a great new world ahead. I joined the Army a month later, but, looking back, that day on the Mall seems an equal if not greater threshold. Cowden, where are you? Has anybody seen my friend John? —Chick.” Dan Jenkins and Woody Boynton have reported on the exploits of our classmate Bill Gardner in oceanic canoe races as “not bad for 69.” Bill also releases every year at the Treasure Island Regatta in Florida, according to Danny. He recently won a 20-mile open-water race in his class at the 2013 Blackburn Challenge off Gloucester, Mass., finishing in slightly more than three hours in an outrigger doubles canoe. I recently received a fascinating e-mail from Allen Anderson. One of our classmates wrote to him after our 50th Reunion. Allen was informed that “so many gracious citizens, when reassembled on their ancient campus, put on again the lupine truculence that, 50 years ago, was thought to be adult sophistication.” I am somewhat unclear as to the reference, but it is quite possible that my Irish whiskey and cigars did something to my mental acuity at the time. On the other hand, sophistication has never been my strong point, and at this stage of the game I doubt it ever will be. Allen and I do relate to the scourge of diabetes. Our classmate entered the diabetes research field 14 years ago as a principal in Amylin Pharmaceuticals; they have developed the drugs Byetta and Symlin. Diabetes treatment has come a long way since I contracted the illness more than 40 years ago, and it has come even further since my grandmother dealt with it by sharpening and boiling her needles, reusing them, and having to test her glucose level by very simple and unpleasant methods. The system that the school had for helping us contact each other has been closed, for some reason. Once again, I suggest that you join the 60-plus classmates on the “PA classmates” e-mail list described above. There is total freedom of speech, no reporting of anything to the school authorities, no requests for money, and lots of fun. Please contact me at my e-mail address, which is listed above, if you want to join. I am delighted to say that our class numbers have not been diminished since my last report and that everyone seems to be alive and more or less healthy; I am unsure if the reverse is true and our class is healthy and more or less alive. Hope you had a fine autumn and a blessed Christmas and holiday season!
www.andover.edu/intouch 1963 ABBOT
Cynthia F. Kimball 7 Thoreau Road Lexington MA 02420 781-862-6424 cynthiakimball@earthlink.net
We are lucky to have a PDF containing more detailed remembrances about our dear classmate, Jan Gleason, who passed away just before our 50th Reunion. Here are brief summaries of a few of the wonderful comments it contains. Helen Watson Collison wrote, “Some of us knew that she was facing a huge health challenge, but none of us expected the end would come so quickly. Jan was connected to and concerned for our world. She was aware, informed, a reader of many blogs/columns/ articles, willingly outspoken based on all the data she consumed, and a truly wonderful friend. Jan was funny, irreverent, and, oh, so vital! Her store of Abbot trivia was huge. Jan loved driving (what is the appropriate nautical word?) those big boats. It’s easier to think of her not being physically with us if I think about her being part of the waters of Seattle. Life is precious but so short.” Morley Marshall Knoll wrote, “Jan was one of the 12 of us on 3rd floor Abbey. She and I were the only two who did not have adjoining singles. I was so homesick the first semester at Abbot, and I bonded to Jan. And now 3 of the 12 of us are gone. How I miss each and every one: Ann Sample Bates, Mary Louise ‘Weezie’ Tackett, and Jan.” [Editor’s note: Please see Jan Gleason’s obituary in the In Memoriam section.] Though our reunion was glorious, there wasn’t enough time to explore fully—for example, to take in all the wonderful creative offerings. I asked some people to share what had led them toward creativity. Muriel DeStaffany Karr wrote, “When I began to take myself seriously as a writer, I thought I was going to write children’s stories; what came out unbidden was poetry. A poem in Cosmopolitan earned me $25—still the most I’ve ever earned from a poem…The Gloria Steinem quote ‘Writing is the only thing that, when I do it, I don’t feel I should be doing something else,’ really resonates with me. I feel superlatively alive when I write.” Bettina Proske Walker explained, “I have had a lifelong love affair with poetry, a love I probably inherited from my maternal grandmother. I used to love to listen to her as a young child. That probably instilled in my ear a love of the sound of poetry; correspondingly, it predisposed me to an inclination toward poetry. So, I really didn’t choose poetry as a favorite means of self-expression; it actually chose me.” Ann MacCready Northup commented, “My interest in art started in childhood, with my parents’ encouragement. Then Mrs. Powell’s art room at Abbot and Diz Bensley ’43’s classes at PA provided escapes to places of choice and possibility that challenged norms. Those memories stayed with me into the idealist ’60s, when I decided to be an art teacher.”
Said Morley Knoll, “Unlike many artists, my childhood did not include hours spent making doodles and drawings. I was the math lover, known for being logical, analytical, and a project manager. But after my retirement in 1999 from a 25-year career in the left-brained field of information services, a very small inner voice asserted itself. It wanted me to learn how to draw. This began my exploration into the right side of my brain. Over the next several years, immersed in watercolor and drawing classes, I discovered a deep-seated need for visual expression that I never believed I had. I particularly loved drawing with charcoal, and this led me in 2002 to pastels. I am drawn to painting places I’ve visited and landscapes that are dear to me.” Sue Burton contributed, “My love of art began as a child when I would watch my grandmother draw, paint, and work with pastels and ceramics. I was in awe watching while she created from the world around her. She taught me to be very observant, and my parents instilled in me a love of nature while encouraging me to study art. I now paint almost entirely in watercolor, enjoying painting from nature, creating moods from the sky and the sea, or painting from a particular memory.” Finally, from Mimi Dean McBride: “I’ve always loved nature and enjoyed painting. Working as an independent landscape designer, I suddenly realized that if I ever wanted to pursue painting, the time was now (before I lost my eyesight). I love capturing a moment in time and find the process of doing so challenging. With creative endeavors, one never stops learning, and being around other artists is truly stimulating (and fun!).” Freddie Moxon Heller writes, “Just wanted to say that [husband] Dick and I are delighted that Jonell Briggs Safford and her husband, Steve, have now booked on the same river cruise in December, so we can relax and spend some time with wonderful friends I don’t see often enough.” Iris Vardavoulis Beckwith updated us by saying that after her husband, Fred, died she moved back to her old family homestead in Owls Head, Maine. She is building the dream house that she and Fred had planned. Iris is still ballroom dancing, riding her horse, and looking forward to having visitors.
PHILLIPS John C. Kane Jr. Ropes & Gray LLP One International Place Boston MA 02110-2624 617-951-7775 617-951-7050 (fax) Jkane2727@aol.com
Alberto Pico e-mailed after the reunion, “Our home is open to all classmates who visit Puerto Rico. The invitation includes Abbot Academy graduates and partners.” A kind gesture by a kind man (with as kind a spouse), reflecting the positivity generated during those glorious three days in June.
Web Phillips has died. I received a forwarded copy of his obituary, quoted below. Web came to Andover from Upper Montclair, N.J., as a lower, as did Bob Burton, Web’s childhood friend and Andover roommate. Both were excellent students, leaders on the Phillipian, and admitted to Yale. Web was the musician; Bob, the debater. Burton and Phillips: two of the best and brightest in a place of best and bright. From the obituary on ObitsForLife.com: “Webster Belden Phillips…died peacefully at home of heart failure on August 16, 2013, two months shy of his 68th birthday. “Web…began performing professionally as a jazz drummer in seventh grade, and retained his passion for music throughout his life. He attended…Andover [and] enrolled at Yale College. [Note: Per Bob Burton, Web took a year before Yale writing for the Pottstown (Pa.) Mercury. The Yale alumni directory shows him as Class of 1970, with no degree listed.] Over the ensuing 25 years, [he] worked intermittently in journalism, drummed professionally, and traveled extensively. “In his late 40s, he completed his college degree at Montclair State University, learned several languages, and continued to travel. He found his skill in mathematics, when combined with his extensive vocabulary and exceptional memory, provided him with special skills in board games, Scrabble in particular. He competed for the final 20 years of his life on the international professional Scrabble tour, winning several tournaments, and maintained for many years a top-100 world ranking. Mr. Phillips also became a formidable backgammon player and a highly regarded chess player. “During this period he continued to play the drums professionally and was widely admired in the jazz community for his playing talent and his deep knowledge of the history of jazz. He recently served as associate producer of the soon-to-bereleased jazz album Black Elk’s Dream, for which he was involved in developing the recording’s concept, track order, and mixing and mastering. He worked with a number of other jazz musicians on their recording projects and enjoyed being in the studio. Over the years, he served as a mentor to younger jazz musicians and an advocate for the preservation of a vibrant jazz community in NYC. At the time of his death, he was writing a book on drum method that distilled his long experience of playing with big bands in the swing tradition. “Mr. Phillips had many interests that extended beyond music. He read voluminously, wrote poetry, corresponded broadly, and enjoyed his wide circle of friends and family. “Mr. Phillips was named for his maternal grandfather, Dr. Webster Belden…who was an early pioneer in the development and application of x-ray technology. His paternal great-grandfather, Charles G. Phillips, was a former mayor of Montclair and benefactor of many of its charitable organizations. His father, C. Gorham Phillips, was a leading corporate attorney in New York who was deeply involved in the civic affairs of Montclair throughout his life. Andover | Winter 2014
75
stay connected... Web is survived by his mother, Martha Belden Phillips, a resident of Montclair for 85 years; his sister, Tacey Carroll; and his brothers, Charles and Tyler.” There you have it, the life of a true Renaissance man, post-1960s version: observer (and reporter), artist/musician, polyglot, traveler, competitor, cultivator of the mind, correspondent. Not a conventional life as faculty, family, and friends might have predicted it in 1963; rather, a life formed without the restraint of convention. How many of us remember Reverend Fred Pease urging us to act “by the courage of your convictions” ? I for one didn’t show a lot of courage in choosing the well-traveled path. Web, it would appear, was listening, and lived his life as Fred urged we should. In 1982, Kai Erikson, sociology professor at Yale, spoke on the subject “Where are all the 1960s idealists, and why?” The answer to the first question: neurosurgical suites, psychiatry and dental practices, law offices, investment banks, and large corporations. The answer to the second: convenience, apathy, material wants, convention. Ours was supposed to be a unique generation, different from and better than our parents’ (subsequently dubbed “the greatest”), full of service, creativity, self-actualization, nonconformity, antimaterialism. I am sure some of those honorable ideals guided our adult lives, but rarely in full. It is my sense that Web never lost sight of them. Web’s father, C. Gorham “Doc” Phillips, predeceased him by less than two years, on Dec. 8, 2011. Google the father’s obituary and compare it to Web’s. The senior Phillips was a Williams graduate, WWII veteran, Wall Street lawyer, community leader, father, grandfather, and great-grandfather; he was also an artist (master needle pointer) and bridge player, aspects of his life that parallel his son’s. I don’t doubt Web could have become his Wall Street–lawyer father, his medical-pioneer grandfather, or his Montclair-mayor great-grandfather. Web simply made other choices. Bob Burton adds the following: “Web did not like to be called ‘Spider,’ but I have a spider-web-like network of memories about him from the first 30 years of our lives. Cub scouts; drum solos; ringside at the old Madison Square Garden; the original Birdland; horse racing; Mexico City; the house we shared in Madison, Conn., while at Yale; San Diego. At Andover, we competed for good grades. At Yale, we got off the competitive track. A few years later, we lost contact. Web had a clever, intricate, independent mind. Whenever I see a spider web, I will always think of my friend.”
76
Andover | Winter 2014
1964 50th REUNION June 12–15, 2014
ABBOT
Joan “Whippie” Whipple Trimble 16 Baldwin Lane Cape Neddick ME 03902 207-251-5554 whippie@maine.rr.com
Our 50th Reunion is approaching this June, and we hope as many Abbot ladies as possible will be attending. I have had e-mails from several classmates, and I will let them fill you in on their lives. Allis Brooks Hanley writes, “[Husband] Dan and I enjoyed a cruise up the Danube River with friends in July and a tour of Ireland with Dan’s brother and his wife in August. The best part of our cruise was in Prague, where we reunited with the Catholic priest, Father William Faix, we’d known when we were living in that city. Coincidentally, he was the Catholic priest at PA in 1963. He is now the pastor of St. Thomas’ Church in Prague. “We’ll go to Tampa, Fla., at the end of September to visit our oldest son, Jonathan, his wife, Katherine, and their son, Wyatt. They’re taking us to Disney World and to Cape Kennedy. Our other sons live in Boulder, Colo., and Atlanta, Ga. We’re looking forward to seeing all of them for Christmas. It’s been fun helping to plan our 50th Reunion. Looking forward to seeing many of you next June!” Carol Barker Guilford reports, “My husband, Gary, and I are planning to attend the reunion in June. We have lived in the Denver area almost since we were married 38 years ago, with a few early years in northern California. Gary has never been to New England, so I know we will both enjoy seeing Abbot and Andover and spending some time traveling north through New Hampshire and into Vermont and Maine. “I hope that many of our classmates will be in Andover for the June reunion. I am looking forward to seeing everyone! It has been a very long time since 1964, when I headed back west to Berkeley, leaving the East Coast and all of my Abbot friends behind. It will be fun to catch up with everyone!” Gretchen Overbagh Lord is uncertain whether she can make the reunion in June because she has a trip planned to the East Coast in September and one to the West Coast in August. Gretchen says, “I retired from insurance claims auditing in July 2012 in order to get some nice weather for retirement. Winter started early in Minnesota and went until the last snow in May! This year has been busy, with a few trips and work on my house, where I plan to stay for now. I enjoy the non-commute, especially during the winter, and not having to get up at 4 a.m. to get to work!” Gwyneth Walker writes to say that she is
planning on attending the reunion next June. She says, “I have enjoyed visits to campus quite often in recent years, due to the enthusiastic support of the PA music department. Thank you so much! We have collaborated on many new works for the chorus and orchestra. This has been a great joy for me. “I divide my time between my childhood hometown of New Canaan, Conn., and homes in the musical communities of Sarasota, Fla., and Randolph, Vt. New England travels have allowed me to keep in touch with Joanne Schwiebert Birge. I look forward to seeing other classmates in June!” Lucy Bingham relates, “I love how some of us have reconnected on Facebook; such fun to take brief glimpses into each other’s lives 50 years later. I’m still active, walking, kayaking, hiking, watching grandchildren, watching over several high-end real-estate listings, serving as president of a family land and farm trust, writing books, painting, taking photos, traveling extensively, and enmeshed in a large and complicated family. But above all else, I am aware of the fleeting nature of the days that rush by. Each day, in words and pictures, I try to capture the essence of the beauty that flickers past. I will be there next year for the reunion.” Nancy Poynter Sandberg recounts, “I’ve recently returned from a great summer cruising on the coast of Maine and am now catching up with the committee to help with our reunion plans. I remember what a great class of young women we had from 1960 to 1964 at Abbot, despite the trials with the school’s environment, so I can’t wait to see as many old classmates as possible next June.” Sue Trafton Edmunds, who has been in touch with Barbara Hugon Edge about the reunion, hopes to be there in June. Lee Porter expects to be at Andover for the events. Pat Morrill, our reunion committee head, and her husband, Ed Riegelhaupt, will be in Andover for the reunion. My husband, Terry Trimble ’64, and I will be at the festivities. We are looking forward to seeing many of you in Andover!
PHILLIPS Bob Marshall 846 Lilac Drive Santa Barbara CA 93108 rpm@marshall846.com
Shortly after you read this, you will receive our 50th Reunion book, with essays and pictures from about half the class, so I will dispense with classmate news in this column. A fuller, far more vivid picture will soon be at hand. I have thoroughly enjoyed working with those of you who submitted to the somewhat inelegant process of contributing to the book, and all your essays were a joy to read. Two common themes struck me: (1) no matter how difficult or unpleasant the Andover experience was, you felt it prepared you well for what followed (except, perhaps, relating to women); and (2) those of you who had Dudley Fitts for English were very lucky.
www.andover.edu/intouch To help fill what promised to be an empty column, intrepid reporter Randy Hobler initiated an extensive and unfunded anthropological research study to determine the origins of two trademark phrases from 1964: “Quite the class” and “in there.” I am afraid to say that despite brain-beating by numerous likely sources, no definitive answer has emerged as to the originator or date of first use of either term, although Tom Eastland’s name was frequently hoisted up. If you happen to have the answer, please let me know, and I will make room in a future, albeit newsier, column. Trolling for reminiscences, Randy received the following from his fellow Torque, Craig Bonda: “I was lined up behind one of the jocks—a ringer— in Commons when gravity liberated a glass from a nearby tray. The glass hit the floor, bounced up, hit again, and bounced up again, finally shattering when it hit the floor for a third time. The jock turned to me and, with all the seriousness befitting an important scientific discovery, said, ‘Have you ever noticed that glasses always break on the last bounce?’ ” Why is it, a Zen master once asked me, that you always find what you are looking for in the last place you look for it? I am sorry that Dan Badger will miss our reunion (see the book for his excuse), but he contributed the following multiple-choice question: “Who was it who first said, ‘Heckuva job, Brownie!’? (A) George W. Bush or (B) Frank F. DiClemente.” (Answer a bit below.) Randy recalled an evening in the Copley Wing when “Henry Hobson had us in stitches as he opened a string of Henry Steele Commager history books and signed, ‘To Andover, Henry Steele Commager,’ or words to that effect. We anticipated that many generations of students to come would marvel at the value of the wonderful books there.” Ken Gass offered a personal memory with a postscript: “Our senior year, Jeff Donat and I skipped the bus to the Exeter football game. I never meant to make any statement but just couldn’t pass up the rare luxury of a Saturday all to myself with nothing due, and besides, I remembered our lower-year trip when it rained and we lost. Some days later, I observed some classmates in Commons harassing Jeff for not going to the game. I have regretted all these years that I did not sit down at that table to support him. And Jeff ? He’s officially listed as ‘lost’ in PA’s alumni records. When I caught up to him through the wonders of the Internet, his response was, ‘I am very glad to learn that I wasn’t the only person catching rye the day of that game. Now, 50 years later, all that remains is an inclination to apologize to my classmates for being such a snob.’ ” On behalf of your classmates, Jeff, I feel the apology should go in the other direction. As for Badger’s question, the correct answer is B. He writes, “As anyone who played soccer or baseball under Deke will remember, ‘Heckuva job!’ was his favorite expression for patting a deserving player on the back.” Doug Brown was one of the few good players on the baseball team senior year, and Bush,
who occasionally pitched to “Brownie,” would, in Dan’s estimation, “have heard Deke utter the nowimmortal phrase dozens of times.” I am sorry to end these reminiscences with the sad news that Hunter John died at his home in Seattle on Aug. 4, 2013. I am grateful to his wife, Lies, for providing a remembrance of Hunter for our reunion book. By coincidence, as I write these notes in September, I have just received in the mail my 45th anniversary report from Harvard. I am struck by how much less interested I am in reading the bios there than the ones you’ve written. Maybe there really is something special about the bonds we formed during those formative years. I am looking forward to testing them this June, and I hope you will be there.
1965 ABBOT
Karen Swenson 20100 SW Peavine Road McMinnville OR 97128 503-472-2988 chezkren@gmail.com
With these notes I am sending excerpts from an amazing talk titled “Abbot Academy 1962–65: Recollections of Life at an All Girls’ School,” which Ellen Huntington Slade gave at the Brace Center for Gender Studies, on the Abbot campus, a few years ago. When you are contemplating whether to attend our 50th Reunion in June 2015, I encourage you to recall what we have in common from our Abbot experience, that time and place in our lives that affected us in many ongoing ways. After some introductory words, Ellen said, “I was a boarding student here from 1962 to 1965. I’ve thought a lot about the culture of this place during those years. That was a repressive time for women and for girls, and Abbot reflected that environment. ...I loved it here, but I’m not sure the skills that helped me survive then served me well for the real world of college or the world beyond. ...Our daily lives here were highly prescribed and extremely ordered—right down to what shoes we wore: tie shoes only. We were not allowed to wear jeans until our senior year, and then only in the dorm on Saturdays. We couldn’t wear pants, only dresses or skirts. We were expected to dress up for dinner, stockings and high heels. We had chapel every day, and we all had to attend church on Sunday. We wore hats and gloves. Of course, we were not allowed to go to Cochran Chapel. That’s where the Andover boys were. “You could have male callers after church for a two-hour visit. ...Phillips Andover boys could only call on Saturday. These Sunday or Saturday callers would first have to arrange for the visit with the Abbot students, but getting in touch wasn’t easy. We had one phone at the end of the hall in each dormitory. ...As many as 30 girls would be sharing one phone. ...Calls were limited to two minutes. These
boys could only come visit if they had called the Abbot switchboard by 6:00 Friday evening prior to the Saturday or Sunday visit to make a reservation. Finally, your name and your caller’s name would be posted in the front hall. It had to be an organized, confident young man who negotiated that maze. “When your caller arrived, you had to follow the elaborate check-in and check-out procedures outlined in the handbook. Then you had two choices: you could either sit in the formal drawing room on the first floor of Draper, or you could walk around the circle. There was no going anywhere else.” Ellen went on to describe our prescribed routes for walks and the fact that we could only go into shops in Andover that were on an approved list. Ellen continued, “We never saw men and women working together. ...I had no male teacher except Dr. Sidon, a minister who came and taught Bible studies once a week. ...Even how we spent our free time in the dorms was clearly controlled. Radios could be in your room if okayed by the house mother [but only played briefly during prescribed times]. ...We could chew gum in the rooms, but not in the corridor. “There were no counselors or mental health professionals on our faculty. The house mothers, in their own inimitable way, filled in. These house mothers were all single women of grandparent age, widowed or divorced, some very caring, but each carried her own emotional cargo. ...We would regularly get gratuitous unusual messages from these women. Many of us remember being called together in a group in May of our 11th grade year and being told ‘Spring is a bad time for men’ and ‘Men are wicked.’ “What complicated messages about men we received. We were almost being positioned as victims, objects men could act upon if we weren’t protected. Another message was that we couldn’t trust ourselves. If we were left to our own decisions, we would obviously make bad choices. This extreme watchfulness and control on the part of the administration undermined self-esteem. We were taught not to trust ourselves and certainly not to trust boys. ...For many of us, we were in a state of confusion and unease. “From Abbot, I went to Pitzer College in Southern California, where we could have men in our rooms 24 hours a day—total freedom. I was unprepared. I remember going to an English class freshman year and discovering that I was the only girl in the class of 40. I never opened my mouth. I was petrified. I dropped out of the class after three days. A lot of us had adjustment problems in college.” Ellen touched on other facets of our lives at Abbot. I am constrained by word limits, but I hope to include more of her talk in the future.
Andover | Winter 2014
77
stay connected... PHILLIPS Nick Marble 10674 North Osceola Drive Westminster CO 80031 303-439-7819 nick.marble@yahoo.com
The journey of 1,000 words begins with the activation of spell-check and a second cup of coffee, so here we go. I’m tryin’ to convince Nevada’s Dick Cromie that he and I should do a 50th Reunion road trip in his 1960s Mustang. Two thousand miles at eight gallons a mile and a case of cheap beer in the trunk…what could possibly go wrong? Bob Hoye enjoys retirement in Dover, Mass., and spends time puttering and gardening. Terry Kahn and wife Lesley travel extensively but maintain permanent residence in Truro, Mass., not far from where I made a feeble attempt to grow up. Mark Carnevale and wife Penny logged 4,200 miles, reliving the Martin Milner/George Maharis experience on Route 66. Green Mountain guy Ward Hinkle made the podium in a Fourth of July race and plans to run all the way to PA in June 2015. Out on Tobacco Road, Bob Young is in phased retirement from North Carolina State but resides mostly in Florida. Even with a wife (Suzanna) of 45 years, 5 children, and 13 grandkids, Bob finds the time to edit the quarterly periodical Modern Age. Colby Snyder recalled his rock ’n’ roll days playing bass guitar for the Spectres, with PA roomie Pete Mele (now a semiretired inventor) pounding the drums loud enough to cover the missed changes and the errant chords. I think Roger Daltrey copied Pete’s shaggy blond wig for his gig at Woodstock. The Class of ’65 really did have some serious musical talent (think Apostles, etc.)…but, darn it, along came the Beatles and the Stones and ruined our chance to make the big time. If only we’d had a garage for practice. Woulda, coulda, shoulda. Doug Pirnie and wife Roxanne bicycled in France and toured the D-Day beaches and the Normandy American Cemetery. Jeff Gardner shuttles between Glencoe, Ill., and the Big Easy, with lots of grandkids to keep him young. Sidney “Pepper” Sweet now lives in Austin, Texas, and runs a company that processes and sells raisins worldwide. Pepper’s whole family is nearby, and several of them help with the biz. PepSid (couldn’t resist) will try to attend our gathering in 2015. Take a look at the photo of the freshly scrubbed three amigos (Steve Seeche, Bruce Ganem, and Mac McCabe) on page 88 of this magazine. This was obviously before they degenerated to taped loafers, frayed collars, and wrinkled wheat jeans. Their parents must have been so proud! Andover had a way of sanding down the fine edges. Steve Finch and his wife, Nancy, find the livin’ easy, and the cost of that livin’ even easier, in “upstate” South Carolina. Steve remains a big doo-wop fan, so as your DJ-elect (in keeping with a longstanding tradition, the job has again gone to the lowest bidder), I promised I’d bring the whole
78
Andover | Winter 2014
lineup to our 50th for the sing-along. Jersey Boy wannabes are all welcome. All we need is a pack of Camels to roll up in our T-shirt sleeves, a tube of Brylcreem, and lots more hair. Steve’s last visit to the Hill was in ’68, when he and water-skier extraordinaire Jim Grew road-tripped to Camp Monadnock (N.H.) for a counselor gig. Pete Vanderwarker regularly catches up with Bud Kellett and Doug Woodlock. All are still able to put feet on the floor each morning. Randy Evans ran into Ted McLean and wife Ellen, plus Bob Gang and wife Adrienne, on Cape Cod. Sam Alberstadt’s polysyllabic vocabulary completely mystifies yours truly, but I think he and wife Eleanor are eating crab on the Maryland shore. Heavy-equipment operator (Bobcat) Kit Meade busied himself building a deck extension and patio, while wife Carolie completed her MS degree in nursing, so she could tend to Kit’s aches and pains. Steve Marshall’s mini-house company is thriving, as are his wife, Kathryn, and two daughters. Danny Samuels (at Rice University) is our resident architect (did he help Kit with the deck plans?), and he can still scramble up and around ladders and scaffolds. Danny says he’ll join us in 2015. Reminder from author Rick Bennett: His latest book, Daddy’s Little Felons (is it autobiographical?), is now on Amazon. Our own Lord Jim, Charlie Sheldon, packed his seabag again and shipped out on a container ship for Singapore. Closer to home (sort of), Mickey Jako explores the psychic world. Oilman Mike Madison keeps pressing the olives in California and plans to retire in 2032. He’ll be the last man standing! Ballroom dancers Michel Scheinmann and wife Brigitte continue their Fred and Ginger imitation, and the knees are holding out for lots of backhands on the tennis court. Derek Williams (we once knew him as Jack) put in 30 years as a history instructor at Andover, and we hope to pry him loose for one more visit in 2015. General (retired) Dave Herrelko checked in from the “West Coast of Ohio.” Dave says he has little to report, but his long career in the Air Force puts him squarely in the ranks of the many PA ’65ers who have achieved much in their 66-plus laps around the sun. June 2015 (50 years after the last pat of butter hit the ceiling in Commons) looms in the headlights. Stay tuned for details. In closing, I have sad news. Ralph Davis passed away in July, survived by his wife, Michelle; daughter, Lauren; stepchildren JP, Zach, Jeff, and Maggie; and numerous other close family members. Those who attended our 45th Reunion will well recall Ralph tickling the ivories on an ancient piano at the Log Cabin. After the reunion, Ralph and I kept in touch, and we shared many thoughts about the Andover experience: what it meant to us and how it could have been different and/or better, but mostly how we typically managed to handle the strain in silence and with a stiff upper lip. He was an extraordinary guy, and we will all miss his friendship.
1966 ABBOT
Blake Hazzard Allen 481 School St. Rumney NH 03266 603-786-9089 603-359-0870 (cell) blakemanallen@gmail.com ballen@plymouth.edu
Greetings from the turn of the fall, with heavy frost expected, putting a sharp end to summer. One of my neighbors referred to this as a “turning year.” For those of us who officially became senior citizens in 2013, that certainly qualifies. My former roomie, Lizzie Compton, pulled up stakes. She left her Maine base and decamped to DeLand, Fla., a cultural oasis and the home of Stetson University. Lizzie gave DeLand a trial run and decided to make it a permanent home. As Lizzie wrote, “This move feels like a definite ending to my life as I have known it. Yikes!” Lizzie’s art provides yet another wonderful vehicle for the move south. In contrast to Lizzie’s shift, Ida “Pinky” Rock Noll and her husband, Jon ’66, remain committed to Springfield, Ill. Her involvement in historic preservation initiatives provides a fascinating snapshot of the rich history of that area. The Noll Law Office issued the following announcement: “On March 1, 2013, the Noll Law Office LLC, of Springfield, Ill., relocated to the 1852 local landmark affectionately known as the Lincoln Depot. “Ida Noll, wife of Jon Gray Noll and mother of Daniel Noll ’01, both attorneys, purchased the decaying depot, formerly known as the Great Western Depot after the railroad of the same name that built it. Springfield’s first train station, the Great Western Depot helped pave the way for the advancement of motorized transportation of goods and services from the central part of the state to connecting lines. On February 11, 1861, Abraham Lincoln arrived at the depot to catch a special train for Washington, D.C., where he would assume the presidency of the United States. After receiving friends, well-wishers, and family at the depot, he boarded the train. Before departing, he spontaneously delivered what was to become one of his most endearing speeches, now commonly known as Lincoln’s Farewell Address. “Mrs. Noll completely renovated the building to bring it up to code. In the process, she preserved the old and historic feel and brought the building into the 21st century. To muffle the train noise outside, new windows were installed, and three layers of walls and ceilings laid. A new roof was put on, and bricks tuck-pointed and sealed. Offices and conference rooms were made private with the installation of glass panels. The result is a quiet, harmonious, and lovely law office with all of the amenities required of modern office space but with the feel of history in its bones.
www.andover.edu/intouch “The first-floor train passenger waiting rooms were also renovated and remain open to the public during weekdays. The National Park Service offers living history demonstrations on Wednesdays at 5:15 p.m. each week during the summer. “Dating back to 1842, when William ‘Billy’ Herndon, Abraham Lincoln’s junior law partner, practiced law, today’s Noll Law Office represents the fourth and fifth generations of lawyers in the Herndon-Noll family.” Shifting east to New England and Washington, our Abbot years and the subsequent merger with Phillips contributed to intensive far-ranging discussions on gender issues. I spent June with a State Department delegation of 19 remarkable Pakistani female educators, the latest phase in a 10-year project. The 19 are the voices of a resilient civil society that exists in spite of daily challenges. With the women representing many of Pakistan’s most sensitive and remote areas, dialogue focused on viable models of leadership—tangible, intangible, and sometimes totally unexpected. Having also engaged in discussions this past summer with women from Uganda and Eritrea, and with others who are involved with Rwanda and the Congo, I found that the summer was a direct reminder that countries may be different but core issues remain the same. Thanks also to Lee Sullivan ’68, who generously introduced the project to the wonderful Max Warburg Foundation, in which she is involved. “The Max” message of courage resonates as yet another universal theme. Beth Humstone, ensconced in Charlotte, Vt., for the summer, and I revived the 45th Reunion concept of a pre-Abbot reunion. If there is interest, please let us know. Input welcome! My New Hampshire farmhouse, river, and local lake are always on offer. Wishing you all a great “turning year,” wherever you may be. —Blake
PHILLIPS Ray Healey 740 West End Ave., Apt. 111 New York NY 10025 212-866-8507 drrayhealey@gmail.com
Dear friends, one of my favorite places to hang out is Facebook, in part because so many good friends appear to be doing the same thing, and also because a goodly number of our PA ’66 contingent are posting news and views and adventures on a regular basis. That’s how I learned about Kit Wise’s latest pastimes and endeavors, one of which was this posting in August 2013: “Here’s the race course at Sarasota [Fla.] for Masters Nationals. It looks like a really well laid-out venue. First race for me tomorrow is a mixed D8+ with Saugatuck.” I clicked on the message, and there was a fine photo of Kit, baseball hat on head, spray flying, as he rowed
vigorously in his scull craft in what was clearly a Masters race. He looked great, and I was reminded that this tall gent rowed valiantly for several years for the Andover heavyweight “eight,” which did pretty darn well, as I recall. Anyway, more recent posts by Kit reveal that he has been working hard and steadily as an architect, and that he clearly gets to practice his trade in scenic places. I clicked on his website, www.kitwisearchitect.com, and I found out the following: Kit “earned a bachelor of arts degree in architectural sciences from Harvard College and a master’s degree in architecture from the Harvard Graduate School of Design. He holds an NCARB certificate and is a registered architect in Massachusetts and Rhode Island. Kit began his architectural career with the Boston firm of Shepley, Bulfinch, Richardson and Abbott and gained extensive experience in historic restoration architecture with The Preservation Partnership and as a partner of Design and Conservation in New Bedford, Mass. He was a founding partner of Wise Surma Jones Architects in 1995. Over the years his work has focused on private residential projects, many of which have historic elements. Kit’s projects for additions, alterations, and new structures have been approved in many local historic districts including Cambridge, Newton, Brookline, Falmouth, Dennis, Westport, and New Bedford, Mass., as well as in Newport and Providence, R.I. “Outside the office Kit serves on the board of directors of the Waterfront Historic Area League (WHALE) in New Bedford and the board of governors of the Narragansett Boat Club in Providence, R.I. He enjoys competitive rowing, bicycling, and motorcycles.” If you would like to see wonderful photos of the kind of architecture Kit does, go to his website and browse. Let me whet your appetite with a few excerpts. There is the Cape Cod house: “A small addition to a Cape-style house hides a surprise within…an oak library with east and west alcoves and a Tudor rose detail on the floor.” There is the Woods Hole house: “This house, high on a small promontory, enjoys water views from every room. Naturally weatherproof materials and very little paint provide a nearly maintenance-free exterior. The interior, finished in cherry trim and bead-board paneling, has an open plan offering glimpses of the bay in every direction.” There is the farmhouse renovation: “An old, much abused farmhouse on a large site with pastures, woods, and millpond. After gutting, not much was left, but there was a preservation restriction on the house, and it had to be saved. A living room and master bedroom addition provides new spaces with better light and ceiling heights. A new horse stable and studio/garage were also built.” So, if you need some renovations on your current abode, or are contemplating building a new place, you know whom to call—and if you’re very lucky, Kit might arrive on a motorcycle. As I write this, I am turning 65, a sobering thought. One of my Facebook birthday wishes
came from Jim Pickering, our finest actor, who noted, “I am the player king, the ghost, and the first gravedigger in our Hamlet at American Players Theatre [in Spring Green, Wis.]. Every time we players enter and Polonius says of us, ‘Seneca cannot be too heavy, nor Plautus too light,’ I think of the Menaechmi at PA, way back in our lower year. What fun.” Another classmate with an informative website is Jeff Ryder, who can be found at www.drjeffryder. com. Jeff reports on his “multi-disciplinary practice utilizing physical and energetic approaches to health and transformation,” and adds, “In my 40th year of practice, I am a Rolfer, chiropractor, and acupuncturist. Additional focuses in my practice are cranial and visceral manipulation and the treatment of pelvic floor imbalance. With the exception of acupuncture, all of the systems I utilize in my practice are manual therapies: I use my hands as my main treatment modality. The therapies I utilize work with and through different fascial/connective tissue networks: myofascial, cranial, visceral/ organ, and joint. All operate on the principle that balanced, integrated structure leads to balanced, integrated function on all levels—physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual. I work with people who don’t feel good and with people who feel fine. I work with people whose primary issues are physical, and I work with people whose primary issues are emotional.” Jeff practices in both Portland and Eugene, Ore. After earning a BA degree from Amherst, Jeff trained at the following institutions: Rolf Institute in Boulder, Colo.; the Upledger Institute; the Barral Institute; Western States Chiropractic College in Portland, Ore.; and Oregon College of Oriental Medicine in Portland, Ore. About one aspect of his practice, Jeff writes, “Rolfing Structural Integration is a system of connective tissue manipulation, a physical approach to balancing human beings. Its effects are profound and long lasting. It begins with an initial series of 10 sessions of myofascial (the connective tissue of the musculoskeletal system) manipulation. It is not massage. The manipulations are firm and sometimes intense, but they are not painful. Rolfing Structural Integration can be used to improve function and performance as well as to treat a variety of physical problems and injuries.” Adios, amigos. Keep writing, e-mailing, and texting. —RFH
Andover | Winter 2014
79
stay connected... 1967 ABBOT
Anstiss Bowser Agnew 21 Canoe Trail Darien CT 06820 203-912-5264 aagnew@forestdaleinc.org anstissa@aol.com Catherine Hoover Petros 25119 US Hwy 40 Golden CO 80401 303-526-5202 chpetros@msn.com
PHILLIPS Joseph P. Kahn 28 Gallison Ave. Marblehead MA 01945 781-639-2668 jkahn@globe.com
Charlie Collier and his campaign to raise awareness about early onset Alzheimer’s disease were the subject of a front-page story in the Boston Globe this September. The piece (written by my colleague Bella English) coincided with a talk Charlie gave at the Boston Public Library with his partner, Susan Stover, a fundraising consultant, about coping with the illness. As many of you are aware, Charlie was diagnosed five years ago, prompting his retirement from the position of Harvard University’s senior philanthropic adviser and opening a challenging new chapter in his life. In a video shot two years ago, Charlie describes the disease as “a gift” that allows him to do “soul work” helping others. “I think about my life often, because I am trying to get it right,” he says in the video. “I have changed because of my illness, hopefully for the better.” Charlie, who recently completed an experimental drug trial at an Alzheimer’s research center, can be reached at ccollier724@gmail.com. A recent “How I Write” column in the Daily Beast probed the mind and working habits of Princeton history prof and prolific author Anthony Grafton. “My subjects announce themselves in the strangest possible ways,” Tony reflected in the interview. “My favorites are the ones I find falling down rabbit holes.” He credited his former PA English instructor Simeon Hyde ’37 with steering him away from writing in the passive voice. “I still feel a pang of guilt when I use [it],” confessed Tony, who keeps a (presumably stuffed) crocodile hanging from his study ceiling and wants his epitaph to read, “He was a pretty good teacher.” Scores of Princeton students would surely agree. Bob Cohan was among this year’s honorees at the New England Guardian of Israel Award Breakfast in Boston. Bob serves as national cochair of the Jewish National Fund’s Lawyers for Israel project. As I write this, my daughter Emma ’14 is in her senior year at PA, taking courses I wish I could
80
Andover | Winter 2014
take (except for upper level Spanish, which would not be pretty) and thoroughly enjoying her last few months on the Hill (except for the college apps, maybe). Having her on campus has been a wonderful reconnection for yours truly. If you feel like reconnecting—with this old scribe—do be in touch, please.
1968 ABBOT
Annette Davis Esteves 848 Brickell Key Drive, Apt. 1604 Miami FL 33131 305-377-2027 aedesteves@yahoo.com
My senior-year roommate Sharon Hughes Fiyalka shares this: “The past year has been a turbulent one for [husband] Art and me. Our house on Fire Island took on two feet of water in its entirety from Hurricane Sandy and had to be completely gutted and rebuilt. Fortunately, with a Herculean effort going against our insurance company (including a letter to the company’s CEO), we were granted enough money to rebuild. And we did. New floors, walls, wiring, appliances, and furniture—it’s like having a brand new house! We finally got back to the island in mid-July and are grateful to be here. Art and I are fully retired at this point and enjoying a slower pace of life. I’m active in animal rescue and president of our homeowners’ association on Fire Island...never a dull moment! We are taking our fifth annual European trip next April to Madrid and Barcelona. Can’t wait to see all the Goya paintings and Gaudi architecture.” Diane Russell checks in from global locations, writing, “Hello, old friends. I have nothing big to report, except that I’ve had a sweet summer. It started with a trip to France with my partner of 2 years, Michael, then continued with 10 lovely days on the lake in Maine with my daughter, sister, and our adorable Jack Russell. I’m not retired yet, so off to Congo in three weeks! This time I hope to fly out to a field site, test my Lingala, and maybe see a bonobo. Please let me know if you come to DC. Couch surfing is always welcome!” Juliana Hinckley Crane checked in to say she was anticipating a great Christmas. Her son was expected home from Thailand for a visit. Looking ahead to it in September, she wrote, “We’ll be with all three sons and all three granddaughters! It may be a little hectic, but we’ll enjoy the liveliness and love.” Julie says her husband is dealing with some tough health issues. So send good thoughts her way. Jane Brown Simeone writes, “Sorry I’ve been incommunicado for so long! I had the summer off, and then work resumed yesterday—I have the same schedule as my preschoolers! Everyone is well in my family. My mother, Mary ’38, still lives with us independently. At 93, she does at least half of our meal preparation. Husband Frank is still busy with his law practice. Our daughter, Annie Simeone ’99,
lives in Brooklyn, working on film and television projects as either art director or production designer. She is making good use of her love of art, which was nourished and guided by Mr. McMurray at PA. Our son, John Simeone ’02, just finished two master’s degree programs at the University of Washington and is on his way to Anchorage, Ala., with his fiancée to work. We want to visit him there and try the cross-country ski trails that run throughout the city! We recently had a family gathering at our farm in New Hampshire, with aunt (Nancy Elliot Stewart ’48), uncle (Gordon Elliot ’42), sister (Margaret Brown Coakley ’63), and various nieces and nephews. I come from resilient New England stock, most of whom benefitted from a wonderful Andover education, and went into teaching. Sorry I missed the reunion, ladies, but I appreciated the pictures and snippets. Hopefully I’ll be at our 50th! Yowzers!” As your class secretary, I’ll add, “Not ‘hopefully’—definitely!” And speaking of teachers, I am in my 21st year of teaching third, fourth, and fifth grades. I started at 40, making a gradual shift from my career as a performing musician, which was personally but not financially rewarding. I taught in Santa Barbara, Calif., for 10 years before relocating to Miami in 2001. It was a huge change coming from a tiny school district, where I knew the superintendent personally, to the fourth-largest district in the United States! The district creates benchmarks, pacing guides, and assessments in the name of accountability for both students and teachers, so significant amounts of potential instructional time are spent administering pretests, interims, and posttests. Alas, gone are the days of individual teachers interpreting and delivering the curriculum as they see fit for their student populations. I try to operate within the required parameters and still create fun activities that engage and motivate 9-year-olds. And the best feeling in the world is seeing the students grow. Success through effort and discipline builds high self-esteem, not the other way around. OK, I’ll step off the pulpit now! In closing, I hope all my classmates are doing well. If you are reading these notes but have dropped off the radar, please e-mail me. Some of your old friends are wondering how you are. You know what we’re doing, but we don’t even know where some of you are. Hello, is anybody out there?
PHILLIPS Gordon Baird 27 Fort Hill Ave. Gloucester MA 01930 978-283-0390 Gordon@rampartsfarm.com
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported that classmate Paul Michael Nelson of Chattahoochee Hills died on April 15, 2013, in a motorcycle accident in his beloved Georgia. He was 63. The obituary reads, in part, “Paul Nelson believed in being a good steward of the earth. He had a passion for
www.andover.edu/intouch Gil Talbot
Georgia’s state parks, which he incorporated with a career that would reward him with the opportunity to devote his life to sustaining and improving our natural resources. ‘It was his life’s work, and he was proud of what he did,’ said his wife, Carol Lucas of Chattahoochee Hills. A lover of the outdoors, Nelson often took to one of his favorite state parks for an afternoon of hiking, meditation, or journal writing. ‘He felt like it was important for people to connect with nature,’ his wife said, adding that they were married at an outdoor ceremony at Tallulah Gorge State Park. ...[Paul] earned degrees from Columbia University and Drake University. He spent most of his career working with the Georgia Department of Natural Resources, where he most recently served as assistant director of its parks, recreation, and historic sites division. ‘Georgia state parks had one of its best gifts through Paul Nelson,’ said Becky Kelley, DNR’s director of parks, recreation, and historic sites. ...Kelley said she selected Nelson as her assistant director several years ago, and noted that he was a critical part of DNR’s leadership and ‘the guy who everyone wants on their team.’ “ ‘He was a master analytical thinker,’ Kelley said. “He was always so focused on doing the right thing. I never had to second guess anything he gave me.’ “Despite Nelson’s wisdom and skills, he was described as completely unobtrusive and serviceoriented, both personally and professionally. ‘He was very quiet, but very powerful in influence,’ Kelley said. “Those who knew him said Nelson will be remembered for his love of literature, his curiosity, and his quirky charm. He was always learning, evident by his extensive library, and he never missed the opportunity to make note of interesting things. ‘He always carried a highlighter around with him, just in case,’ his wife said with a laugh. Nelson also is survived by sons Josh Nelson and Kenny Jones and daughter Laura Jones, all of Atlanta.” We’ll miss him. Peter Kneisel writes, “My father got hold of this movie from Coach Sorota: the Andover/ Exeter game of our senior year. Paste http://bit. ly/17GPaGy into your browser to get the game. The video comes from a 16mm film, which is being played a bit slower than real time, so it’s easy to make out the action. Howard Whitehead took the film and got excited, especially when Davis Everett intercepted in the end zone. I am #87, Bob Kruse is #34, Bobbie Havern is #11, and Mike Thomas is #12. Exie quarterback was Mel Anderson, brother of a Green Bay Packer. He was 1 for 11 with 4 interceptions. I will come up with more numbers. Lincoln Caplan was the Exie line backer, Verdi DiSesa was another standout, and Ron Suduiko was their big running back, who went nowhere. Arthur Smiley lined up as a running back, wherever and whenever he wanted. “Just to add: Denis Sullivan was #80, Dave Kibbe was #76, and Vincent Pullen #84. The reason there is only half a game is that the first half was shot in color, the second half in black and white. For reasons that are probably lost in time, the films
Stay in Touch! Visit our “one-stop Web page” that consolidates all the various ways of connecting with Andover friends and classmates. At www.andover.edu/intouch, you can link to Alumni Directory, Andover’s Facebook page, Notable Alumni, and lots more. Of course, you can still update your records in the traditional ways: ●
Visit www.andover.edu/alumnidirectory, and log in to update
●
E-mail alumni-records@andover.edu
●
Call 978-749-4287
●
Send a note to: Alumni Records, Phillips Academy,
your information
180 Main Street, Andover MA 01810-4161
were kept in separate cans. My dad only got the first half, but it has the great entrance of the cheerleaders, including Peter Evans leading the student body. Skip Jensen is the guy waving a tennis racket, I believe. “Howard also got too excited to record Vinnie Crowley’s opening TD.” On the game, Tim Overton wrote, “Yahoo! I’ve been waiting 45 years to see the film of this game. ... Where is the rest of the game? Howie shot the film and it must exist somewhere. ...#66 was Mike Irwin, my roommate senior year. He left school after the fall semester because there were not enough women in Andover to suit his needs—duh! He and I amassed something like 65 of the 85 yards of penalties assessed against us in that game. We were proud of that. I was #30 and was proud to play well, with my dad watching from the stands. We had a really good team, especially for those times. Defensive line averaged something like 240, unheard of then!
Joel Ristuccia, of course, was considerably lighter but had monstrous calves. Joel, if you read this, you know what I’m referring to. ...Walt Rogers, #42, was the best athlete I think I ever competed with, and his great run in that game must have been in the second half. Vinnie Crowley, #24, was a man/ boy among boys. What a talented guy whom we lost way too soon. Boy, I enjoyed watching that film. BTW, is there film of the A/E lacrosse game in ’68?” The irrepressible Carter Boynton asks if it’s time for another PA ’68 poll, such as “Who has the most grandkids of all kinds (natural, step, adopted)?” “I have two!” he proudly crows. Peter Quinlan chimed in with one. John Watkins adds, “It’s official! I am now allowed to broadcast the fact that I am going to become a grandparent in March 2014! Son Jesse and his wife, Jen, announced this fact publicly yesterday by way of a FB photo of their dog, Bella, wearing a sign that read, ‘I’m going to be a big sister!’ ” Not sure if that counts. But Richard Andover | Winter 2014
81
stay connected... Dumez wrote these cryptic words: “Four, at last count.” Congratulations to them, but howzabout the rest of you? Time marches on… Therefore your notesman, Gordon Baird, announces the reprise of his original 10-song musical Crazy Moon at the Gloucester Stage Company, Jan. 30 through Feb. 9, back by popular demand. The first eight shows sold out in September with GB in the lead role. Call 978-283-0390 for information.
1969 45th REUNION June 13–15, 2014
ABBOT
Madelon Curtis Harper 529 Poppy Way Aptos CA 95003 831-345-9111 (cell) mcurtis612@aol.com
Hi! Thank you to all of you who wrote in and gave me some news, however brief, for our column. I can hardly believe that in June we will be going to our 45th Reunion! Yikes! As all of you can attest, time is just going by way too fast. Mary Schiavoni, our wonderful reunion chair, wrote that her summer was great, eye surgery and all! She wondered if maybe some of you would be interested in a conference call to discuss working on a gift (artistic endeavor?) to donate at our next reunion. She seems to not be getting much interest from our class in this direction, so maybe we should just let PA guys carry this football. Please contact Mary if you have any thoughts on this! Katrina Moulton Wollenberg always writes to me. Thank you, Katrina! Here’s what she had to say: “I have just returned from a five-day visit to Boulder, Colo., where I enjoyed visiting my two sons and their wives and my two little granddaughters. I don’t often get them all together, so this was an amazing and true family time. We celebrated 4 birthdays, all within 10 days of one another. The only disappointment was that I returned to Dallas on my birthday and realized that I lost one whole hour of celebration as my watch turned from Mountain Time to Central Time! I am determined to recapture that lost hour sometime at an hour of my choosing— which would not be right now, as I have just had a crown prep at the dentist. All in all, however, I feel blessed to be healthy and happy, and my days are filled with sunshine (literally, here in Texas!). Hope all classmates are doing well. Do not hesitate to call if you are traveling through Dallas.” If you’d like to call her, I have her number and will be happy to provide it. Wendy Ewald wrote that she finds it a trip looking at colleges with her son! I heard from Deborah Elliott, who was excited about the exhibition on yogic art at the Freer and Sackler Galleries of Asian
82
Andover | Winter 2014
Art, a Smithsonian Institution in DC, where she is a docent. The exhibition ran from October 2013 through January 2014. In June, Sandra Winans retired from the Fairfax County Public Schools system, where she had been a reading specialist. She claims she doesn’t know what she is going to do with all the free time, but she loves the pace. She hopes to see everyone at reunion! She thanked me for doing this job (is it a thankless one? I don’t know) and said I should “feel free to make anything up, but to remember truth is always stranger than fiction!” I agree, Sandra. After six years of living in Bogota, Colombia, Mary Lambea and her husband are relocating back to Houston. She adds, “My children are living in Madrid, Norway, and Cartagena de Indias, Colombia, so visiting my five grandchildren is a trip! Looking forward to seeing everyone at reunion!” As for my husband, Stephen ’69, and me, we just got back from a lovely vacation at Turtle Bay Resort on the north shore of Oahu. We are very much looking forward to the reunion, as the two of us met on Reunion Weekend in 1999. We can hardly believe we have just celebrated our 11th anniversary! I spent the month of August in LA reconnecting with my acting friends and attending lots of workshops, networking, etc. Never-ending work on the acting career. It’s good to be home now, and I’ve resumed my ballet and Pilates teaching, practicing Bikram yoga, and working in San Francisco and LA when acting opportunities arise. I have also lunched with my old roommate, Gali Hagel, now and then. We love to reminisce about the old Abbot days!
PHILLIPS Hugh Kelleher 12 Atwood St. Newburyport MA 01950 617-448-8073 hughkelleher1@gmail.com
Just wondering: Who has spent time and money in Vegas? Howard Murphy was there for the MayweatherAlvarez fight, traveling with his brother, a strongminded retired Massachusetts judge. Says Howard, “The fight was awful, but what a show! Mayweather in a walk.” I don’t know how, or if, Howie mentioned the fight to his astronomy students at Peabody High School on Monday morning, since what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. But if you saw his course outline—actually a digital textbook on the galaxy and beyond—you would want to enroll in Mr. Murphy’s class. From my little perch up in northern Massachusetts (near the location of the PA ’69 45th Reunion next June), the West seems very, very far away. Every now and then someone gets on a plane and follows the sun across the green states where some of our classmates spend their days. When you pass over the Midwest, you might think of Henry Dieterich, who has focused his life on the devotions of
Catholicism. I think of the reflective, thoughtful John Morey, and of Jeff Hooper, both of whom were undoubtedly influenced by PA in ways that most of us were too young and dumb to imagine. They became theatre directors. When we Easterners travel in that direction, we sometimes end up in places like Vegas, or maybe Reno if a cheaper room is required. The West is a mysterious place to us, just as the East, to those who had the ambition to leave, must after all these years seem an odd place to spend a life. If you come back to the reunion, you will hear some tales from those who went west. Some had the creativity and imagination to work for Disney (Hal Richardson). Tom Mesereau, also of LA, has spent a career defending both the rich and the indigent, while occasionally being interviewed by Barbara Walters. Charley Donovan had the guts to take his law degree out there and prosper, as did Tom Kroesche. Architects Steve Sullivan and John Malick have made their indelible marks. Fred Adair crosses this grand landscape with some regularity, working with conviction on his business-consulting business. And another Fred—Fred Drake—is a school principal out in Golden, Colo., which must be somewhere near Boulder, where Warren Motte is a professor and scholar of French. Some who headed west had children who have been doing things like fighting forest fires in the dry terrain of northern California (Larry Gelb’s son, Richie). Many of us hope that such classmates might consider returning to the Hill when the next New England summer is coming on and the weather is becoming more California-like. Larry Uhl, of lovely San Marino, Calif., now owns hundreds of acres near the border of Zion National Park in Utah. He and a few other generous classmates are organizing the reunion. Whether Sid Stern (Greensboro, N.C.) will be accompanied by an entourage remains to be seen. Jeremy Bluhm, of Australia, expects to be there—and he’ll have stories about the trip he will have taken to India. Myself, I just got back from a couple of the best weeks of my life, traveling in France and Belgium with my 22-year-old son, Cameron, an industrial design student in Boston. We rode bikes all around Paris, visited museums and les marchés aux puces and Proust’s gravesite, and later went by car out to Normandy, where we stopped in to the former Gelb château (familiar to Nate Cartmell) and the war memorial beaches. Later we drove north, and we both agreed: Belgium is wonderfully civilized. Come June, with luck we’ll see Hubert Crouch, who has his own stories to tell. Maybe he will bring copies of his novel to autograph. Maybe Evan Thomas will be there with his latest historical work. Wouldn’t it be great to see Larry Glenn, John Strauss, Jim Hearty, and Bill Spitz, who could all teach us something about the markets? And how about Charlie Patton, Eric Chofnas, and Johnny Johnson—Southerners all, who once made the bold choice to come up the East Coast to Massachusetts?
www.andover.edu/intouch One thing you can be sure of: The East—and Andover—is quite unlike the place we departed those decades back. Boston has become practically unrecognizable, especially if you were one of the lucky ones who used to catch the bus back to PA at the Trailways bus terminal next to the Hillbilly Ranch, across from the Playboy Club. You should consider joining in—even if you had a lousy time once you got on that bus and had to be in a SamPhil history class the next morning at 8:20 a.m. (Speaking now of real estate developer Steve Cadogan, formerly of North Andover, more recently of West Hollywood, Calif., and Paris, who had no need for that bus.) Come—to witness not only the changes that have taken place at PA (a law-professor/techie head of school who went to Exeter!) but also the inevitable and fascinating alterations that have occurred in our bodies and characters. It might not possess the bright lights of Vegas, but there will be people you will be surprised and glad to see. Mail will arrive soon.
1970 ABBOT
Penny Snelling Sullivan 972 Summit St. Lebanon PA 17042 717-274-0498 sullivan@mbcomp.com Sandra A. Urie 38 Prospect St. Winchester MA 01890 781-729-4480 sandraurie@gmail.com
Virginia Knapp Cargill wrote that she had a wonderful evening with Sandy Urie and Sandy’s husband, Frank Herron ’70, at an Andover event on Nantucket in August. Virginia also related that she moved to a new house—smaller in size. She described it as the “big transition time to empty nest.” She is employed part-time, pursuing a new Internet venture with a group in San Francisco. Her sons are “doing well and off the payroll—yeah!” We can all relate to that sense of relief, and I have only one child. One of Virginia’s sons is in NYC at an ad agency, and the other is in Boston with a software firm. She also did some traveling with friends to Barcelona, Spain, and the Provence region of France this past June. In her words, it’s “a period of transition” in our lives, and we now need to figure out what we plan to do with the last third. The newest entry in Nan Quick’s armchair travel blog is titled “The Disparate Delights of Four Low-Country Plantations.” Exciting news for Sandy Urie: Her daughter, Katie, married Terry Kerr on Nantucket Island this past fall.
PHILLIPS Peter Williams 3070 Shamrock North Tallahassee FL 32309 850-893-3342 Petewilliams1@hotmail.com Frank Herron 38 Prospect St. Winchester MA 01890 617-852-0126 ffherron@gmail.com
For the first time in the history of this column, we will use the word “Spotify.” That’s one of the places where you can download Alex Donner’s White Tie album. The compilation first came out about 2000, but the digital version available now is brand new (as of late summer/ early fall of 2013). In addition to Spotify, the album is available through iTunes and Amazon. The album includes the works of writers Burt Bacharach, Cole Porter, and Irving Berlin—none of whom are classmates. The blurb Alex distributed with his announcement included an enthusiastic recommendation from Frontstage Review in 2000. Regarding Alex, the reviewer said, “There are many self-styled ‘new Sinatras’ out there, but this guy is not copying anyone. He’s the real thing.” I liked it. I bought it. The photo on the album’s cover might have stirred Andover’s discipline committee out of its slumber in 1970. Alex’s left hand gently thrusts a glass of champagne to the viewer—an offer? A toast? The fingers of his right hand tweeze a lit cigar. Amazingly, Alex looks young enough to make us think the shot might indeed have been taken in the lobby of Stearns House in 1970—except for the white-tie garb. In addition to sending word about his album, Alex noted he and his music-making took a prominent place in the “400” edition of Quest magazine in August 2013. (The magazine is devoted to “society and culture in New York, the Hamptons, Greenwich, and Palm Beach.” It’s not to be confused with the Quest magazine of the Theosophical Society in America.) Alex, long a highly sought-after fixture at top-drawer soirées, is featured in a neat four-page spread titled “The Bandleader Played On.” In an interview with Lily Hoagland, he talked, among other things, about his early years (but not as early as Andover). The music and law-school training led him to handle “divorces during the week and weddings on the weekend,” he told her. Using the argot of celebrity watchers, the writer said Alex plays for the “boldest of the bold-faced names.” The photo spread in the magazine includes images showing Alex with, among others and at various times, George H.W. Bush ’42, Ivana Trump, Rudy Giuliani, Tom Cruise, Katie Holmes, and Queen Noor of Jordan (a Princeton classmate). (Note: Only one of those names is deemed worthy of bold type in this publication.) In discussing his interest in trying to keep up
with the times and tastes musically, Alex quotes a line from Bob Dylan’s “It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Bleeding)”: “He not busy being born is busy dying.” Nice sentiment. I hope we’re doing our best along those lines. On other fronts, Chip Boynton reports that Rob Christie’s daughter is in her second year at Wellesley College. Also, and I think this has been reported in this space in previous years, Chip and Burr Tweedy visited Norm Selby in August on Martha’s Vineyard. It appears that the crabs and clams were harder to discover this year, or maybe we’re just having a harder time bending over to look for them. Chip also acknowledges that he lost a Stanley Cup–related (Bruins vs. Blackhawks) bet to Rod Goldstein and that “both Rod and the Blackhawks showed a lot of class in winning.” Speaking of Rod, my wife [Sandy Urie ’70] and I enjoyed running into him and his wife, Keith, at a reception for John Palfrey at the Great Harbor Yacht Club in Nantucket at the end of July. The Goldsteins—all of them—are in fine form. On that same island (over Memorial Day weekend) we enjoyed having a drink with Bill Brenizer and his wife, Margi. Bill and his family have been going to Nantucket for decades. He does some great work with the Nantucket Land Council board, and, while still very busy with Wells Fargo, he also finds time to stroll and swing his way around the golf course. Bill Roth says he spotted Larry Remmel walking into a Barnes & Noble in Manhattan in late summer. (Has our class news really devolved to that level? Yes.) And Bill is in LinkedIn touch with Rob MacIver. And he went to an engagement party for one of Mark Kelly’s sons—Jed ’04. As you can tell by now, the news is on the thin side. So why not devote some space to personal news? Katie Thorpe (Sandy’s daughter; my stepdaughter) married Terry Kerr in September on Nantucket. Katie, who went to Duke, is still working and thriving at Sotheby’s in the contemporary art department; Terry is the owner and founder of Henley and Sloane, a menswear shop based on Nantucket. And some updates about my sons (Sandy’s stepsons): Andrew ’00, who went to George Washington and earned an MBA degree at Yale, married Yawei Zheng in Atlanta in early 2013, and they now live in Hong Kong, where Andrew is a global equity analyst for Invesco. Son Stephen, who went to Cornell, is in the final year of an MBA/JD degree program at the University of Texas in Austin. Son Edward, who also went to Cornell, has completed basic training in the U.S. Navy and will spend a year studying Russian at the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, Calif. He reports that his drown-proofing test at Naval Station Great Lakes might have been a bit easier than the one we all faced at Andover. Blub. Blub. Blub. —Frank Herron
Andover | Winter 2014
83
stay connected... Where Are the Archives? Alumni have long had access to past class notes via BlueLink. But now that we’ve phased out BlueLink, class notes archives are no longer available through that channel. We are in the process of determining the best way to house this archival material on Andover’s website, and we will alert the alumni community as soon as a decision has been made. We appreciate your patience and look forward to offering you a better online experience.
1971 ABBOT
Sara Ingram Apt. 12D 500A E. 87th St. New York NY 10128 212-879-4665 sara-ingram@earthlink.net Abby Johnson 1983 Maison Way Carson City NV 89703 775-885-0612 saged183@gmail.com
Sue Dampier King-Irwin wrote with loads of great personal and Abbot-related news. First and foremost, Sue’s daughter KT got married in June to a wonderful man in a lovely wedding. The excitement and work involved in a wedding would be enough for most, but this happy event occurred just two days before Sue started teaching an intensive eight-week summer session of freshman chemistry. To top off a very busy summer, Sue and her husband, Hank, visited Andover during a trip to New England in August. They met Adisorn “Orr” Techapaibul Webman and her husband, Richard, for lunch at the Andover Inn. Orr and Sue had a wonderful time visiting the Abbot campus and showing their husbands some of the special places of their teenage years. They stopped at French House and reminisced about living there during
84
Andover | Winter 2014
their 10th-grade year. After that, a visit to Draper revealed that renovations had removed the wing where their rooms had been. Sue and Orr enjoyed telling their husbands all about the classes they had had in McKeen and Abbot halls. The husbands were astounded by the sanctity of the “Sacred Circle”—where we all risked getting in trouble on many occasions by running across the grass. Beatriz McConnie Zapater celebrated turning 60 by traveling to Great Britain this summer. Some highlights in England included key Beatles-related locations such as the Cavern Club in Liverpool and Abbey Road in London. Scotland was also a focus of the trip; Beatriz went in search of McConnie roots, only to find there were none. Apparently the McConnies were probably exterminated, and Bea says she learned her “ancestors were probably sheep thieves.” No matter her forebears’ occupation, Bea concludes, “Perhaps the ‘clearances’ of 1850, when all the Highlanders were displaced to the New World and other parts, brought my ancestors to the Caribbean: to St. Vincent, where my grandfather was born. All I know is I have a profound connection to Scotland. I feel so fortunate to have such a rich diversity of roots, all which converged in Puerto Rico!” Congratulations to Linda Hynson’s son Nick on attaining a master’s degree in psychology. Sara Ingram and Nancy Phillips Peoples spent a summer weekend in New Hampshire with Heide Kropp Riess and her husband, Pete. Heide was a wonderful hostess, cooking up incredible meals and making sure there was never a dull moment (not that there was a chance of that!). Heide and Pete have carefully developed their land over the years into a veritable Garden of Eden, yielding fruits, vegetables, and flowers. There was also time to play with Heide’s beloved dogs and cat, whose shenanigans are often featured on Facebook. The highlight of the weekend was certainly a boat trip on the Connecticut River, where a juvenile golden eagle was spotted. Dory Streett writes that she was invited on a university visit to London and added on a couple of extra days to see Oxford, where she was able to connect with Julia Gibert ’72. They had a fun time drinking tea on Julia’s Oxford Canal narrowboat, where she lives in cozy splendor with her little dog. The boat is tied up in a lovely spot on the canal, and Julia has planted daffodils and maintains bird feeders on shore, all very bucolic and very English. Dory estimates that the last time she saw Julia was probably 40 years ago, but Julia hasn’t changed a bit! Dory the inveterate world traveler made it back to the U.S. with her husband for six weeks after finishing the first year of their contract in Shanghai. They spent much of the time in Maine and also visited for a week with their son Andy in Colorado, where they took a family float trip down a section of the Colorado River. In Maine, they drank up the clean air, ate a huge amount of Caitlin Owen Hunter’s cheese, and visited as many of their friends as they possibly could.
Ruth Raser Timbrell announced that at one point this summer her house was filled with family dogs. Her daughter, Margaret, and Margaret’s husband, Aaron, went on vacation, leaving their two “chiwienies” with her. Ruth wondered, “How can a dog be so small? It’s like a smarter, more demanding guinea pig (and leggier). And the attitude!” Sarah Gay Stackhouse and her husband, Charlie, spent a lot of time last summer exploring our country. The list of their adventures sounds a bit like the history of the opening of our country westward. Locations they visited included the Badlands, the Black Hills, and Mt. Rushmore in South Dakota; the Big Horn Mountains in Wyoming; Bozeman, Mont.; and western Montana. One stop, Glacier National Park, is grizzly bear country. Glad Sarah and Charlie made it back in one piece!
PHILLIPS Frank duPont 8 Nichols Drive Hastings-on-Hudson NY 10706 914-478-7818 dupont@wdfilms.com
Assembling news from various quarters: Tom DeMello writes from Falmouth, Mass., “Moved full time to Cape Cod about four years ago—had a summer home in Falmouth (my hometown) and we are now year-rounders.” Tom’s daughters, Mimi, 17, and Lizzie, 14, are happily ensconced, and Tom and wife Cynthia often work from home. He says, “My current version of multitasking is to lead a conference call [he’s responsible for executive hiring at BNY Mellon] and look at the ocean at the same time.” Tom’s “biggest personal news” was that he had a kidney transplant three-plus years ago and is very healthy today. Here’s the capper: Tom’s wife, Cynthia, was the donor! As he puts it, this “made for an incredible family experience as well. How lucky can one person get! Turning 60 felt more like a celebration than anything, because I can truly say I felt better than when I turned 40.” Tom sees Bob Kelley pretty regularly. Says Tom, “Bob has lived in Falmouth for some time, selling mortgages to people like me for a community bank. Always fun to drop in on him—he has some funny PA stories to tell. We threatened to take a road trip to Patriots training camp this summer but couldn’t pull it off. I still have fond (?) memories of my scholarship job freshman year when Ernie Adams and I sorted towels in the gym after sports for the laundry service. Good times.” Trip Anderson writes, “I’ve just last month reached the ‘30’ milestone: 30 months of marriage to my second wife, a wonderful lady, Anna Louise, originally from Louisville, Ky., but now (for 10 years) a nurse practitioner at DartmouthHitchcock Medical Center. We have four granddaughters between us. Hers are approaching ‘tweener’ status. Mine are both very recent arrivals, in 2013.”
www.andover.edu/intouch After five years developing and directing documentary films, primarily for museums and national parks, Trip has taken on the job of grants officer for the Worcester Art Museum in Worcester, Mass. Trip says, “[It’s] a hidden jewel of a mid-sized art museum.” Trip regularly touches base with Charlie Perkins and keeps in fairly frequent contact with classmates Bill Cahill, Bill Belichick, and Ernie Adams. Lawry Bump writes from North Carolina, where he’s been living for 40-plus years—33 of those years with his wife, Ann. His two children are college age: Kelley, who’s becoming a physician assistant, and McKelvey, who’s in engineering. About 10 years back, Lawry was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. He writes, “As things settled down, I realized how much worse it could be—e.g., ALS, cancer, etc. I was otherwise healthy and athletic, and that has helped to slow the progression.” He misses playing golf but otherwise is doing what he likes to do. And he keeps an amazing attitude. Ken Lacey writes from the UK, “My wife, Grayson, and I split our time between England (near Manchester) and Majorca. We have two children, who work in Liberia and Zambia. Stay tuned for further details.” Dave Cuthell caught me up, writing, “I’ve been in NYC since college. Spent 20 years trading fixed income and then did the logical follow on and got a PhD degree in Ottoman history at Columbia. I’ve been teaching since ’99 and ran something called the Institute of Turkish Studies in DC 2005–2011. Now doing Turkic things at Columbia and elsewhere. Been married to Cathy for 35 years. We have half a hockey team, David ’07, James, and Scott ’11. Spend a good deal of time in Turkey these days as well as the Hudson Valley. Charlie Keefe lives nearby on Riverside Drive, and I see Phil Kann from time to time.” I recently had the pleasure of joining Dave Winton, his wife, Charlotte, and their family for their son Judson’s wedding, a wonderful event on the waterfront in Red Hook, Brooklyn, N.Y. There were four Winton generations represented. I’ve also caught up recently with Stewart Crone and Pierce Rafferty. We’re coordinating a gathering next month in NYC: steak, scotch, and conversation. I haven’t seen Stewart since Pierce’s wedding to wife Vicki about eight years ago. Before that, I’d have to dial back another 20-plus years to around 1980—a period when Stewart lived with Pierce during production of Pierce’s film The Atomic Café. I still remember a mad car race—Stewart vs. Pierce’s brother, Kevin ’65—through narrow suburban streets, with Stewart at the wheel. I was holding on for dear life. We finished first at the house, braking from 50 mph into a perfect 90-degree stop in the driveway. Where the hell did he learn this? Stewart has worked as a printmaker, lithographer, and creative artist with paper. He lives near Glastonbury, Conn., with his wife, Peggy, a nurse practitioner. Their son Ian is in the second year of a master’s degree program in security studies at
Georgetown. Pierce continues orchestrating life on Fishers Island from his post as the head of the Henry L. Ferguson Museum. I received sad news from Linc Chafee about the death of David Knights on Sept. 24, 2013. Linc wrote, “We were freshman-year roommates at Brown after PA. It was a memorable year! What could be better than palling with David Knights for freshman year of college! He generated so much good energy and also, when needed, good solid wisdom. Others may win Nobel Prizes, Academy Awards, Pulitzers, and the like, but David won the Commons Worker Award our senior year. He was Andover, Brown, and Harvard but could also do a messy job with standout joy.” David devoted himself to local community leadership (as president of the Hopewell [N.J.] Borough Council), was active as an environmentally focused preservationist (president of Preservation New Jersey), and, through his job with Picus Associates, advised on land use and helped develop Princeton Forrestal Center. David is survived by his wife of 27 years, Linda, and three children. He was aptly described by a friend and coworker as “the best example of public service that you can find.” He is truly missed.
1972 ABBOT
Julia Gibert 300 Banbury Road Oxford OX2 7ED England + 44 0 7766 022832 juliagibert@gmail.com
Our venerable scribe, Julia Gibert, headed off to the wilds of Alaska with her mother in September and asked me, Brett Cook, to troll for news from you all while she panned for gold, fended off bears, and no doubt feasted on fresh salmon every night. I hope we’ll be reading about it in our next notes. Julia always seems to be embarking on some grand adventure. In August she left her Oxford narrowboat for NYC, where she had a great lunch with Andover pals David Schwartz ’72 and Chris Herzeca ’72. Julia’s four children and two grandchildren are scattered all over, providing ample excuses for her to rack up frequent-flyer miles as she darts around the globe. Beth Urdang Shiro kicked off my quest for news with a bang. She’d just heard that her daughter Nicki had given birth to a baby girl, and Beth was getting ready to head to Chicago with husband Art to welcome their first grandchild. Congratulations, Beth, and welcome to tiny Abby! K.T. Nourse Kiley, who lives in Newburyport, Mass., wrote to say she had just returned from a fantastic wedding on Nantucket. The bride was the daughter of Sandy Urie ’70, and K.T. was delighted to spend time with the other Urie sisters in attendance, Susan Urie Donahue ’73 and Karen Urie ’68.
Some of us, myself included, are a tad envious of classmates who are planning weddings for our offspring or welcoming grandchildren into the family. Marna Parke Borgstrom admitted as much, hastening to add that her two boys are great and there is still more than enough going on in her life to keep her busy as CEO of Yale–New Haven Hospital. Linda Rawson checked in from New Mexico. She wrote, “Everyone says life in the country is quiet and peaceful. To an extent, this is true, but it also has its own alarms and excitement.” She reported that an aggressive bear had attacked her birdfeeders, torn down a fence, and trampled the garden. I was happy to hear from another athlete, Linda Cooper, who is still playing hockey and made it to the over-50 nationals for women. Linda is a regional director for the New York state parks, overseeing the Taconic region, which includes the spectacular Walkway Over the Hudson. Eleanor Mish lives in Plymouth, Mass., helping her mother and continuing to look for museum work. Toward that end, Elly spent the summer working at the Howland House, built in 1667, where Mayflower passengers once lived. If you have any museum connections in Massachusetts, give Elly a call. She has a wealth of experience in all aspects of museum administration. Joanie Blaxter sent word from California, where she loves living in “Shangri-La, as Ojai is called—quiet, extraordinarily beautiful, a wonderful community.” She works in the local natural-food store and has started a health coaching business, called Follow Your Gut. Melissa Baird, activist and social networker extraordinaire, works overtime to keep a liberal conscience alive in Florida. She wrote, “Nothing much going on except trying to prevent a war in Syria. I knew I needed to get more active, but I never expected this mess to come along!” Our distinguished professor at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Maud Lavin, took immediate pity upon my eleventh-hour request for class news. Maud wrote, “I have only really boring things to report, but here goes. Given that I realize I can never afford to retire and also that I like my job, I am working on the whole live-a-balanced-life thing and try to combine work with lots of sleep, exercise—and also goofing off with friends.” Maud is far too modest about her many accomplishments, but this formula for balanced living might be a great claim to fame. Thank you, one and all, for your wonderful smoke signals, with special thanks to Debby Roth and Jessica Straus, who many months ago put a plan in motion to rendezvous last July. The three of us met up at Jess’s studio in Somerville, Mass., a marvelous place overflowing with the fruits of many years of her work. Jess retired from teaching at Concord Academy and is making the most of having a lot more time. Debby plans to retire this year after a fulfilling career as an elementary school teacher and is also looking forward to having more time. She went to Scandinavia over the summer with her family and was looking forward to visiting one of her Andover | Winter 2014
85
stay connected... daughters in Australia later in the year. Of the many things we shared that day, most compelling and inspirational to me was something Debby’s mother confided to her recently: that her 80s were the best years of her life. May we be as fortunate and intrepid in days to come.
PHILLIPS Tom Rawson P.O. Box 1361 Eastsound WA 98245 206-632-8248 tomrawson@spamcop.net
The Rawson family vacation home in Brownsville, Vt., sold this summer. Cleaning out the attic was like an archeological dig. I came across a box of artifacts from my Andover days. The lion’s share of the contents was letters from the dean’s office to my parents, but there were a few relics of the era, such as a poster advertising a peace vigil downtown. Took me back to lower year, when many PA students were asking to participate in nationwide “moratoriums” to draw attention to the Vietnam War. As I recall, after the tragedy at Kent State, in May 1970, we actually had a day when classes were cancelled and replaced with seminars and discussions on current events. Those were the days when we didn’t trust anyone over 30. Sobering to realize we’re now preparing to enter our seventh decade. Doug Hinman’s 60th birthday party took place in Warren, R.I., in June. Sam Butler, Chris Bretoi, and Walter Maroney were in attendance. Sam says it was “a great time, most of which was spent listening to Doug drum with two of his bands, The Fathoms and Rock House. Rock House was especially memorable, as they hadn’t gigged in 24 years. And they all played great!” Sam, by the way, is now Grandpa Sam. His new granddaughter lives in Brooklyn, N.Y., so Grandpa doesn’t have far to go to visit from New Hampshire. Big congratulations to Sam, wife Susan, and their son, Henry, who became an uncle at the tender age of not-quite-3. I had the great pleasure of meeting up with four PA/AA classmates this past summer. Jim Mayock and partner Tan chartered a 30-plus-ft. sloop for a sail through Washington State’s beautiful San Juan Islands. I accompanied them on the first day, sailing from Anacortes to Orcas Island. On a day with temperatures in the 90s in Seattle, we were very happy to be out in the breeze on Rosario Strait. Brenda Friend Brandt ’72 spent the summer in Vancouver, B.C., working on a film project. We met there for a delightful visit, deconstructing our misspent youth and otherwise solving the problems of humanity. Maud Lavin ’72 treated this weary traveler to a hearty Chicago lunch during my Amtrak layover there when I was returning from Vermont. Rounding out my Andover summer fun was a much-too-brief get-together with Bob Pfeiffer and partner Larry Parks on Labor Day weekend at the Tumbleweed Music Festival, on the banks of the Columbia River in Richland, Wash. They made
86
Andover | Winter 2014
the trip up from their home in nearby Pendleton, Ore. Larry is doing much better after some recent health problems. On the opposite coast, Chris Herzeca hosted an AA/PA ’72 gathering when Julia Gibert ’72 was in New York in August. David Schwartz joined the fun and reports, “We sat out on a lovely terrace at the Colony Club overlooking Park Avenue and regaled each other with stories about our children, which is pretty much par for the course for people of a certain age. It was a lot of fun to see Julia in our fair city, and of course she insisted we look her up if we come to Oxford.” A happy and healthy 2014 to all. May the new year bring much joy and great adventures— which you should immediately report to your class secretary. [Editor’s note: Geneticist George Church received the Andover Alumni Award of Distinction on Nov. 1, 2013. The award recognizes alumni who have served with distinction in their fields of endeavor. See story, page 42.]
1973 ABBOT
Jane Cashin Demers 43 Morton St. Andover MA 01810 978-470-1684 (home) 978-502-8733 (cell) jane.demers@gmail.com Noreen Markley 783 Wooddale Road Bloomfield Village MI 48301-2468 248-645-0536 noreenmarkley@aol.com Marcia B. McCabe 10 W. 66th St., Apt. 22B New York NY 10023 917- 796 -1594 mbmg55@gmail.com
A few snapshots of reunion (not previously covered by my partner in crime, Marcia McCabe): Quietly catching up with Kim Grecoe Sherwood, Amy Rogers Dittrich, and Robin Waters at Jane Cashin Demers’s house; walking between events with Connee Petty Young; listening to Connee, Ellen Hoitsma, and Anne Spader Byerly sing the Abbot songs at the Friday night dinner, including the class song. All were in fine voice. Talking to Dee DeLucia, who was “fairy godmother” to my daughter, Emily ’11, when Emily was at PA. Dee has a new job in pharmaceutical testing; her employer is lucky to have her. She is still the most positive person that I know. Seeing Debra Heifetz Stein, Elizabeth Rollins Mauran, Jenifer McLean Cooke, and Mardi Hudson Abuza, all laughing and looking great; being a blonde with Judith Webster; chatting with
Mindy Feldman, who is just wonderful; eavesdropping on a conversation between Aina “Phoebe” Allen and my husband, Maynard Timm. During the AA/PA photo, the photographer insisted that Maynard sit in the front row, surrounded by ladies. This happened because he was wearing an Andover polo shirt. That was in honor of our daughter; my husband is an Exeter graduate. In that photo, I must be laughing! “You are an Abbot Academy graduate. You can do anything!” I am not sure if anyone actually said this, or if it is a voice in my head, but it is still true. I will give a few examples. Kristine Jablonski Tomlinson has returned to school to get a doctoral degree in history. That is truly exciting, but there is more: Kristine has created a Wikipedia entry for Abbot Academy. She summarized the history and the traditions and listed some of the famous alumnae. Changes can be made to the entry, but for factual information only. Kristine has given us a gift that will only improve with age (like us!). Our unofficial archivist, Aina “Phoebe” Allen, helped get this news to the class. Phoebe has also shared some of her Abbot collection on Facebook, including the graduation program and her dried pink rose, which looks so much better than mine! While reading the September/October issue of Yankee magazine, I came upon a photo of Elizabeth Kent’s smiling face. The Yankee article discusses the traditions of the Head of the Charles boat races. Bets has long been a regular participant in these races, in a women’s boat, with a crew comprising former Olympians. She was a member of the 1980 U.S. Olympic team, which was unable to participate in the Games, because of a boycott. The article says lots of nice things about Bets. I am not surprised; are you? The Abbot Bazaar is going to occur on Saturday, May 31, 2014! I lack information about the format, but I am excited that this traditional event is returning. I am planning on attending, and I hope that many of you will make this trip, too. White elephant, anyone? Phillips Academy is celebrating 40 years of coeducation and has scheduled several events, along with extensive coverage in Andover magazine. There is also a research project that is interested in our memories and opinions. If you have not participated in the gender questionnaire, or in the Abbot memories project, please contact the alumni office. They can direct you to the correct people. At the reunion, several classmates were videotaped, sharing their memories. Finally, a plea: I wish to hear from the Abbot Class of 1973 members who could not make the reunion. We have a group on Facebook, Andover/ Abbot Class of 1973. This was originally used to assist with the reunion plans but has evolved into so much more. You can contact your new secretaries: Marcia, Jane, or me, Noreen Markley. Tell us what you are doing. Share your memories.
www.andover.edu/intouch PHILLIPS Pete Morin 41 Border St. Scituate MA 02066 pbmorin@comcast.net www.facebook.com/pete.morin2
My, how these deadlines creep up! I seem to have just sent off the reunion notes, and here it is time again to fill some space. First, let me urge all of you who use a computer to go on ahead and join Facebook. Really, it won’t kill you or pollute your mind. There is a group titled Andover/Abbot Class of 1973 where your classmates can stay in touch and tout your latest success. The 94 members of PA/AA ’73 who’ve already joined are clamoring for your presence. So, since the reunion only just ended, everyone seems to be all talked out, and I have received almost no news from you. That’s OK, I’ll make it up. Exactly one—one—classmate responded to my request for news. Dan Lasman reports that as of Labor Day, he is the CFO of Fish & Richardson, a preeminent national intellectual property law firm. He also reports that Phil Kemp is now at Natixis, marketing their private equity funds. I lied in my post-reunion column. I said Dave Swanson would never move from Red Oak, Iowa. Not only would he—he already did. He is now a resident of Massachusetts and a tenant of Dave Donahue. Swannie hopes to hook on at the UMass system for a few semiretirement adjunct professorships. As you read this, the first Stephen J. Sullivan Memorial Classic Invitational Golf Tournament, held in mid-October at the Monterey Peninsula Country Club, will be history. Will Schutte and I represented the class, but before rolling down the Pacific Coast Highway from San Francisco, we planned to tee it up at San Francisco Golf Club for a little warm-up round—that is, unless we stayed up too late having dinner with Craig Reynolds and who knows who else (when I wrote this, it hadn’t happened yet, you see?). The weekend following that extravaganza, I planned to head to Manchester, Vt., with John McDonald, Donahue, and Swanson, to join Steve Rooney for our annual few days of golf at the breathtaking Ekwanok Country Club. There was a comfortable old farmhouse waiting for us (courtesy of Steve’s wonderful friend, Matt Misisco), and I expected to don my chef ’s apron to ensure that all would be well fed. At the moment, I’m thinking ribs, or maybe a leg of lamb. We should all be in bed by 10:30, easy. Bill Robinson has a gift to all of you. He has very thoughtfully scanned the entire 1973 Pot Pourri and delivered it to me in a PDF. You would know this if you were a member of the Andover/Abbot Class of 1973 Facebook group. If you would like a copy of it, shoot me an e-mail and I’ll forward it to you. Or you can join Facebook and download it from our special group home. Thanks to Joe Smith for this: “My wife, Leslie
[Hendrix] ’73, and I visited Gene Dallago and his awesome new wife, Julie Singer, in Denver in late July. As many of you know, Gene had a massive stroke about three years ago and has been in intensive rehab therapies ever since. Gene is slowly getting his mojo back, and we spent a lovely weekend puttering around the Denver Botanic Gardens (don’t miss if you are in town) and stuffing our faces. Geno sends his best to all.” I had the pleasure of taking Gene and Julie to dinner back in May, when Gene was in Boston for some eye surgery. We had a fabulous time at Legal Sea Foods. Gene’s been through a lot, but like Joe says, he’s getting his mojo back, and he’s back to writing now. So that is it—short, as you can see. In this day of easy and instant communication, there are no excuses for the class secretary. One final coda: During the reunion, we dedicated a new elm tree to Sully and all our other departed classmates. Some folks asked who they were—only remembering a handful. Here are all of the members of our class who are no longer with us, according to PA records:Tom Munro, Ward Appleby, Will McConnell, Richard Phelps, Steve Bailey, John Coffee, Jesse Watson, Barry Cate, James Erkert, Larry Gaynor, John Banker, Joseph Flounders, George Mackor, Vernon Banks, Tom Waggaman, Frank Sandler, Cal Smith, Jon Kawano, Edward Hayes, and Steve Sullivan. To all of them, the elm of 1973 is dedicated. Faithfully submitted.
1974
Peter Ramsey [secretary of the Academy], Tavie Abell ’10, and me, as well as New Yorkers Sara Nelson, Betsy Gootrad, Margaret Downs, Kent Vogel, Ted Maynard, Tom Boyle, Bill Lewis, Julian Hatton, Bob Trehy, Doug Greeff, Marcia McCabe ’73, Michael Pierce ’73, Annie Spader Byerly ’73, Richard Hersh ’75, Chris Auguste ’76, Sebastian Becker ’10, and of course, Jack, there was much anticipatory talk of our upcoming 40th Reunion. We were all taken by the heartfelt tributes to Nina highlighting her sense of mischief, tenacity, and disarming sense of humor. Julia talked about the time she and Nina walked through Crate and Barrel setting off timers all over the floor. Alex revealed that his mother’s embarrassing habit of doorknob collecting was a source of abiding respect among his peers. Nina’s best friend, Terry Carbone, got a huge laugh recounting Nina’s response to a well-meant but inappropriate gift. Margi Hofer P’10 spoke eloquently of knowing Nina as a mentor before she’d even met her. Nina was such a part of our collective spirit as a class; we couldn’t help but be reminded that our connection is so strong, and we aren’t getting any younger. As Dana said, “Let’s get together to enjoy one another while there’s still time.” See you at our 40th.
1975 Mari Wellin King 1884 Beans Bight Road N.E. Bainbridge Island WA 98110 206-842-1885 marjoriewk@gmail.com
June 13–15, 2014
Roger L. Strong Jr. 6 Ridgeview Circle Armonk NY 10504 914-273-6710 strongjr@optonline.net
Jack Gray 80 Central Park West, Apt. 20F New York NY 10023-5215 212-496-1594 jackgray@BlueLink.Andover.edu
Peter Wyman 963 Ponus Ridge Road New Canaan CT 06840 203-966-1074 peter.wyman@merrillcorp.com
[Editor’s note: This issue’s class notes were written by Betsy Evans Hunt, filling in for class secretary Jack Gray.] There was a gathering of the tribe in New York on Sept. 16 to celebrate the life of Nina Rutenburg Gray. Aptly held at The New York Society for Ethical Culture, it was an elegant affair replete with eloquent tributes to our witty, courageous, independent, stubborn friend and scholar. Nina and Jack’s children, Julia and Alex ’10, were the opening speakers, both heartbreaking and hilarious. It was somehow very comforting to have the Andover diaspora (20-plus strong) in attendance. At the reception, attended by long-distance travelers Dana Delany, Gary Lee, Sara Grosvenor, Elizabeth Yoakum, Jonathan Meath, Katherine Keesling Newland, Barbara Goyer Rose, Sara Wedeman,
A special 2013 reunion convened in downtown Exeter, N.H., of all places. A group of eight former Andover hockey teammates gathered together to celebrate the 30th year Dennis Murphy ’76 has coached and/or taught at Exeter’s summer camp. Brian Burke sent word that Kelly O’Brien ’76, Dan Dilorati, Neil Rosenberg ’76, Bobby Fowkes ’76, Dennis Murphy ’76, Donny Bolduc ’76, and Dennis Driscoll ’76 joined him as they reminisced about the 1975 team that made the legendary trip to Sweden over winter break and played against eight Swedish teams. No doubt these guys had lots of stories and laughter to share. Frank Lavin is still based in Hong Kong, working on China e-commerce, and welcomes any classmates who are in Asia to get in touch. His recent effort: http://bit.ly/14MhUw4. And in Durango,
40th REUNION
Andover | Winter 2014
87
stay connected...
Andover alums have a way of finding each other. Betsy Wiedenmayer Rogers ’89, Geoff Perry ’65, and Steve Yamamoto ’51 connected last summer at a small international community on Lake Nojiri in Japan.
Colo., Gail Harriss writes that one of her summer jobs was race director of the Kennebec Challenge Mountain Runs there. Gail is hoping folks will come to Durango to join in the fun. Eben Gay e-mailed that he was busy preparing his home and yard for the 2014 nuptials of his son. The National Science Foundation Small Business Innovation Research that Eben worked on last year was funded, and he writes, “I will be working on software for automated translation of ancient carvings, starting with cuneiform tablets, for the next few years. Life is staying interesting.” While happily in his second marriage and living in Saratoga, Calif., Ben Connors is the worldwide head of alliances at Jaspersoft in San Francisco. He writes, “We provide software to make it easy for businesses, government agencies, etc., to report information from their databases. I have been in high tech most of my career and rode the Internet boom up and down. No children. I have taken up painting recently; you can see some of my works at www.magicreef.com.” Ben has also been active in real estate investing, gardening, and sailboat racing on San Francisco Bay, and has become an avid weekend cyclist. Annually, he heads to the Laguna Beach Pageant of the Masters (http://www. foapom.com), described as a “unique type of art theater” that Ben highly recommends everyone put on their bucket list. Congratulations are in order for David Briggs, who is living and working as a freelance sound editor in NYC. He was nominated for a Golden Reel award for his sound editing work on Moonrise Kingdom. David writes, “Worked on many great films including Concussion, We Are What We Are, The Inevitable Defeat of Mister and Pete, and Bottled Up, which, after premiering at Sundance and Tribeca
88
Andover | Winter 2014
This old photo from the Andover Townsman shows three future members of the Class of ’65 preparing for a trip to Canada with their Pike School French class. In front on the right is Mac McCabe; in the back row, Bruce Ganem is seated at the left and Steve Seeche is seated at the right.
Film Fests, are all due for release starting fall ’13. I’m David Briggs (II) at imdb.com. Also proud of a film I sound designed called Elliot King is Third, written and directed by Rose Troche, which interested folks can find on the Futurestates website in Season 4. In addition, last year I acted in a film shot in India called Papilio Buddha, which, after being banned in its own country due to controversial politics (it’s about the struggles of the Dalits, the ‘untouchables,’ for land rights), was released in a slightly censored version in Kerala, India, to critical acclaim and went on to receive Kerala State Film Awards.” David is also teaching sound editing in the graduate film programs of City College of New York and Tisch Asia in Singapore. Jon Alter also sends news from New York. He writes, “Larry Coben threw me a nice book party in his spectacular loft to celebrate the publication of my new book (The Center Holds: Obama and His Enemies). I’ve been branching out since the demise of Newsweek, still bloviating on MSNBC but now also an executive producer of Alpha House, a political comedy created by Garry Trudeau and starring John Goodman that will run on Amazon. It’s about four senators who live in a man cave on Capitol Hill. The Amazon studio head is Roy Price ’85. Shooting in Queens. Lot of fun.” Peter Cohan was in Santiago, Chile, for a talk at a university in August. He says, “After the talk, a member of the audience tried to ask me questions in English, but she was struggling. I know virtually no Spanish so we were at crossroads. Fortunately, she was fluent in French, and I had not forgotten everything I learned at Andover, so we were able to have a good conversation. Finis origine pendet.” Dennis Pratt and his wife are living in Westwood, Mass., with their 14-year-old daughter and two
Belgian Tervurens. Dennis writes, “After a turbulent telecom and information-services startup career, I now work on two charities: Parents Decide, urging parents to take greater leadership in their children’s education, and Personal Growth Network, which brings seekers and providers together. We’re thinking of retiring to New Hampshire as part of the Free State Project. The only problem is that my wife is demanding that I stop yelling ‘Boo!’ every time ‘Exeter’ is casually mentioned in a New Hampshire context. Old habits die hard.” None other than Rob Bramhall Architects (as in Rob Bramhall and wife Betsie Redman Bramhall) completed the spectacular renovation of PA’s Bishop Hall. They also designed a new dorm at Brooks School in North Andover. Their 20-yearold practice extends from the Canadian Maritimes to the American West. Their oldest daughter, Hannah, is thriving at the University of Vermont and their son, Charlie, is at Brooks School. Betsie writes that they are working to expand their business and exploring relocating to the West, dreaming of living half time in the Tetons and half on the New England coast. In closing, I share the sad news of the death of Jonathan Mudge. Jon died, after a prolonged illness, on July 15, 2013, in Alexandria, Va., of pharyngeal cancer. After graduating from UC Santa Barbara, Jon taught English in China and then earned an MBA from the Thunderbird School of Global Management. In 1990, he joined the U.S. Foreign Service, where he had a long, successful career that took him all over the world. Jon’s School Year Abroad friend Phill Fletcher e-mailed me about what a wonderful guy Jon was, and my husband, Dick King, who was Jon’s Will Hall roommate, seconded that. I spoke for our class and expressed my
www.andover.edu/intouch
In September, several members of the Class of ’77 and their offspring met at a Phelps House reception for alumni parents whose sons and daughters were entering PA. From left, Bill Yun with daughter Susan Yun ’17, Virginia Chapman Belser (son Noah Belser ’16 is not pictured), Asa Ackerly ’17 with mother Noel Schwerin, Jorge Virgili with daughter Adriana Virgili Alovisetti ’15, Rob Canning with son Krishna Canning ’16, and Olivia Durrett ’17 with father Bryan Durrett.
condolences to Jon’s sister, Magee Mudge. If any of you have any stories about Jon to share, please send them to me and I will forward them on to his family. Stay in touch. May the new year be good to all of you. —Mari
1976 Ruben Alvero 7875 S. Wabash Court Centennial CO 80112 303-358-8739 ruben.alvero@ucdenver.edu Lisa Barlow 530 9th St. Brooklyn NY 11215-4206 lisabnyc@gmail.com
The torrential rains in Colorado are finally subsiding as I get these notes written. I don’t know of any PA families who have been affected, but our prayers are with those who have suffered through this very unusual but devastating natural disaster. On a very sad note, Laura Richards ’74 sends notice of the passing of Pam Richards. Laura writes, “It is with enormous sadness that I tell any of you who were friends of my sister Pam that she passed away suddenly on Monday [Sept. 2, 2013]. She left behind her two daughters, Julia and Emily Cohan; her siblings, Laura, Tim ’81, Chris ’81, and C.C. ’82; and her parents, [faculty emeritus] Jack and Wendy Richards.” [Editor’s note: Please see Pam Richards’s obituary in the In Memoriam section.]
We are all extremely saddened by this loss. The Richards family was such an important presence for our class from many perspectives, and our thoughts and prayers are with them in this difficult time. [Editor’s note: Jack Richards passed away on Oct. 5. Please see his obituary in the In Memoriam section.] Perry Flanagan and her husband became empty nesters with the graduation of their youngest from Northwestern in December 2012. When Perry’s daughter Katie moved to NYC this past summer, Karin Genis and Dave Dumais very generously welcomed her to stay with them while she hunted for an apartment. At Andover, Perry counted Karin and Dave among her good friends, but she is impressed and grateful for their generosity toward her daughter 35-plus years later. “Lifelong friends are the best!” she writes. With the newfound flexibility, Perry and her husband have downsized from a house on a lake to a smaller condo with all the latest and greatest finishes, overlooking a wooded wetland. She invites anyone in Michigan to come by. Her new address is 3731 Wabeek Lake Dr. West, Bloomfield Hills MI 48302. George Chadwick writes from Silicon Valley that he is still a prosecutor there and intends to run for judge soon. He’s raised four boys—one of whom is still in high school—essentially by himself for the past several years. He adds that he’s kept in touch with Labeeb Abboud, Steve Harrington, and Millard Tydings, but that “the East Coast is pretty far away.” We wish him luck in the upcoming elections. “Judge Chadwick” has a nice ring to it. Sue Chira wrote from NYC. She is still with the New York Times, now as assistant managing editor for news, helping oversee the daily news report after nearly eight years as foreign editor. Sue and her
husband are new empty nesters (an emerging trend for our class): Their son just went off to college, and their daughter, a journalist, just switched jobs after a year in the workforce. Their apartment feels too quiet, but she writes that they are trying to take advantage of it by traveling, staying out later, and cramming in more cultural events. Things are extremely busy with Tim Draper and his family. He recently founded Tim Draper University of Heroes, an eight-week boarding school for 18- to 26-year-olds who have the potential and the risk profile to change the world. Those interested can find out more at www.draperuniversity.com. Tim’s family practices what they teach at Draper U.: Son Adam ’04 started Boost.vc, a technology accelerator in San Mateo, Calif.; son Billy ’07, who is still dating his Andover sweetheart, recently left Facebook to join Apartmentlist.com. Daughter Eleanor is studying art at USC Roski School. Not all is work with the Drapers. When Tim walked daughter Jesse down the aisle in June, a “Call Me Maybe” flash mob combusted and the YouTube video went viral, with 250,000 hits. Julie O’Donnell Allen’s life continues along the same lines it has for 30-some years in Chicago— same husband (Ron Allen), same job (practicing law at Sidley Austin), and almost the same house. Like many in our class, Julie and Ron are coping with newfound freedoms as they, too, become empty nesters. She writes, “Our boys have flown the coop. My older son returned from a few years in China to begin a PhD degree program in government at Cornell University. My younger son signed with the New York Rangers and had his NHL debut Tuesday. Hope to see my classmates at a rink someday.” We look forward to seeing young Mr. Allen’s exploits on the ice. Since the Avalanche have Andover | Winter 2014
89
stay connected... had poor seasons of late, I now have a new reason to follow the NHL. Pam Eaton reports that she is still working for School Year Abroad. The office recently moved from Lawrence to North Andover, so the commute is longer but surroundings are very nice. She notes that everyone in her family is healthy and productive, so she is feeling pretty lucky. She keeps up with local classmates; she saw Dan Malis, Michael Krumpe, and Naomi Rush Olson at a party at Dan’s this summer and also had lunch with Wendy Cleary in Maine recently. At the time of her missive, she was off to the Addison for the fall opening, one of the benefits of living so close to PA. Jason Fish is not certain he has ever contributed a blurb for the class notes. After 37 years, he writes that the youngest of his three red-headed children is finishing high school in San Francisco. Jason has lived in the Bay Area for the past 28 years, married almost all of those years to his wonderful red-headed wife, Courtney Benoist. The company he cofounded 13 years ago, CapitalSource, is in the process of being sold to a bank, having been public for 10 years. Jason continues to dabble as a financial services entrepreneur and investor and spends lots of time and energy focused on educational excellence and equity, but he is hoping to move in the direction of less desk work in anticipation of a pending empty nest next fall. He suspects that his next posting will be of more unusual tales, but to date it has been a wonderfully enjoyable life. I ran into Tanya Luhrmann at my daughter Erika’s Stanford graduation in June. Erika was an anthropology concentrator, the same department in which Tanya is a distinguished professor. Tanya and I were able to catch up for a few minutes, but unfortunately we had other graduation events, and too soon it was time to move on to the next obligation. Tanya continues to receive deserved recognition for her recent excellent book, When God Talks Back, on evangelical religion in America. Those who go to our class Facebook page will also benefit from her frequent insights there. That’s all the news for now. Hope to see you all very soon. —Ruben
1977 Buck Burnaman 222 Nod Hill Road Wilton CT 06897 203-834-9776 bburnaman@msn.com
Many classmates, including myself, have this past fall sent our precious progeny off for the first time to the hallowed halls of higher learning, PA included. Certainly they did not depart without some anxiety, a sleepless night or two, and perhaps some investigation of the latest “tiger parenting,” “momlogic,” or “Zen parenting” theory. To paraphrase the English poet John Wilmot: Before fatherhood, I had four theories about raising children; now, I have four
90
Andover | Winter 2014
children and no theories. The practicality of this I can attest to from personal experience. One theory is to stay with what you know works well. The truth of this is evidenced by a photograph of our classmates who reconnected in Head of School John Palfrey’s garden (Phelps House) while dropping off their children at Andover in September. And so, at 226 years and counting, Phillips Academy hums along matriculating children of our classmates, including Rob Canning (son Krish ’16), Bryan Durrett (daughter Olivia ’17), Jorge Virgili (daughter Adriana ’15), Virginia Chapman Belser (son Noah ’16), Noel Schwerin (son Asa ’17), and Bill Yun (daughter Susan ’17). Bill reported to me that he had also run into former lacrosse teammates Lee Apgar ’78 and Tad Flynn ’79, who were also dropping off their sons. Lundy Bancroft wrote to me with apologies for “waiting 36 years to send an update.… I’ve been a little behind. I just spent the weekend rock climbing in New Hampshire with my two children, who are 20 and 16—they started climbing when they were 6 and 2, respectively. I am a writer currently finishing my fifth book, thanks to Bill Cohan, who was quoted in the alumni notes about 15 years ago inviting classmates to send manuscripts to his wife. I barely knew Bill when I was a student at PA, but my pride did not stop me from leaping to accept his assistance. My books have all been about domestic violence so far, but I’m hoping to soon break out in brave new directions, such as prevention of violence by lions and tigers, who have been proven to show no guilt. I’ve been divorced for several years and am currently single—this is regrettable, but nobody seems to be doing anything about it. My activist tendencies remain, drawing me now into radical environmentalism. I’ll try to remember to warn all my old friends who now work in banking before we blockade your particular place of business. I just visited Scott Tice ’76 out in Wisconsin when I was on a work trip. I’m not sure how many people will remember him, though, because he got in an impressive amount of trouble in a short time and so was not with us at PA for very long. He is still a great guy, and he fed me venison that he had hunted himself. He’s the first Andover person I’ve seen in quite a few years.” Buoyed by getting so much information from Lundy, I turned my (often stone-cold unsuccessful) hand to seeking more news from our class and managed to hear from Joe Zeoli, who is looking good and living and teaching in Connecticut, not far from me. I will buy you a beer, Joe, commiserate again about your broken leg in the fall of ’76, and get your life update of 36 years in person, please. Arthur Housianitis is in Greece working for Raytheon, and I desperately want to go visit him, with or without an invitation. Perhaps I will surprise Jorge in Madrid and collect him on my way to a Grecian isle. I am sure my neighbor Rab Ker is not in Greece, but he admitted on Facebook that he may be using Grecian formula; Rab and Bill Yun somehow manage to avoid even a hint of gray. Gerry Harrington, too. As to islanders,
I heard that Jackie Bracy and Ellen Jewett got together on Martha’s Vineyard this summer for lobsters, but that is only hearsay. I know that Bruce MacWilliams recently directed and shot spots titled “Punk Rock Pizza” and “Roller Girls,” and I am deeply saddened that I did not get a casting call for the latter. Chris Randolph also declined to cast me in the theatrical production he is directing in NYC. Perhaps by not telling me about it, he was hoping I would not show up for the open casting call. If I could find an agent who would agree to represent me, I would audition. Who needs talent? Finally, in the always-looking-for-news category, I understand that Tom Rothschild is not running for president in 2016. Nor will he be trying out for the wide-open Yankees bullpen (hat tip to Peter Collery). And he won’t be one of the first half-dozen people to plunk down $1.5 million to become a “space tourist.” I know this because Tom sent me an e-mail allowing that he had nothing to report. Keep them coming, classmates, and I will do my best to keep you entertained. Only four years to our 40th Reunion, and I am confident Merry Reymond will attend because I will offer to personally escort her! Please be well and write.
1978 Jeff Strong jstrongnyc@gmail.com
Hoping to deliver news more frequently and consistently, I have volunteered to take over class secretary duties for ’78. Space is limited this edition, so quick news follows. Please send me updates—or else I’ll be forced to troll Google, Facebook, LinkedIn, and local police blotters for the latest on your (and your kids’) lives. Pretty good turnout for reunion last June (50 folks, based on drink ticket sales); in case you missed it, highlights included two of our über athletes being inducted into the Andover Athletics Hall of Honor: Lee Apgar (10 varsity letters in four years) and Judy Morton Bramhall (11 varsity letters—sorry, Lee). The Hall of Honor does not require PED testing, but you know they both would have passed with flying colors. Perhaps in tribute to Lee and Judy, the class dinner was held in jockish Lower Right, which many ’78ers visited for the first time that night. (A few months after reunion, Lee dropped off his son, Alex ’17, for preseason soccer camp—though not sure if his varsity letters will match Lee’s total.) Besides Apgar and Morton, reunion attendees were a motley crew: Shelly Guyer, Mike Cannell (writing and fighting Asphalt Green garbage transfer station on the Upper East Side), Bill Vandeventer (still architecting in Seattle and living on a houseboat), Peter Tobeason, Mary Buttrick Burnham (also architecting in NYC—don’t ask for a bid, she’s too busy), Caroline Sheahan (from the wilds of Wyoming), Sasha Chermayeff
www.andover.edu/intouch (between gallery openings), Colin McNay, Winston Wyckoff, Bruce Conklin, Jon Olson, Kirk Doggett, Maeve Walsh Hill, Mark Resnick (with three of his four teenagers), Rich See, Steve Bailey, Niel Bainton, Jon Belinkie, Peter Bennett, Rich Bissell, Bob Blanks, Julian Chang (still can’t find that commencement speech on YouTube; someone must have video), Tony De La Rosa, Andrew Eisenberg, Peter Frisch, Austen Furse (who couldn’t quite remember where his driverless car was parked), Beth Fitts Gutwin, Susan Prochniak Helms, Nobu Ishizuka, Jonathan Justice, Stephen Keogh, Jonathan Lee, Ieun Mahony, John Margolis, Ken Miller (still chief of urology at Memorial Hospital of Rhode Island and teaching aspiring MDs), Bill Mudge, Gwen Page, Warren Patterson, Chris Prenovost, Wayne Robinson, Bill Sellers, Chris Shaw, Greg Soghikian, Mark Upton, Bill Wall, Rich Ward, and Jamie Clauss Wolf. Attempts to reopen the pub at the Andover Inn were unsuccessful, but we did get served (and not carded) on the terrace. Personally, I visited the Peabody Museum for the very first time—what a great space and collection (and apparently, once upon a time, a perfect place to spend time with potentially significant others, I heard). Among those who didn’t make it this time were Charlie Schueler, who is recently remarried, apparently tracking either Phish or Further across the country (not to be confused with Phish Food), dropping spawn off at USC and Taft, and still cheerleading for the Dolans (go, Knicks!). Perennial presence Joe Tatelbaum also didn’t make it—he’s also fairly recently married, considering a move back to the States from Shanghai, and exploring colleges for his new son (conveniently skipping toddler and tween years)—though there’s a rumor Joe’s still a credit short at Northwestern. Don’t forget to check out Jim Spader (complete with buzz cut and fedora) on NBC’s new hit series The Blacklist. He’s so Spader on that show—is he actually acting? (He still hasn’t made it to a reunion.) Finally, though he’s memorialized elsewhere in this issue, I wanted to add my condolences (and happy memories) to Jack Richards’s family. Wendy and “Jack Dick” were truly “in loco parentis” in the best of ways to many in Rabbit Pond and throughout PA. Forty years of teaching and coaching won’t soon be forgotten. [Editor’s note: Please see Jack Richards’s obituary in the In Memoriam section.] Send news or I’ll have to make it up. Thanks!
1979 35th REUNION June 13–15, 2014 Amy Appleton 2201 Hall Place N.W. Washington DC 20007-2217 202-338-3807 Applta9@aol.com Rick Moseley 7703 McCallum St. Philadelphia PA 19118 215-275-5107 rdmoseley@gmail.com Doug Segal 1556 North Orange Grove Ave. Los Angeles CA 90046 323-969-0708 dougsegal@earthlink.net
I hope everyone is doing well and that, if your life is in one of those inevitable down cycles, there is light ahead. With due respect to David Ulin and our other friends at the higher end of the literary spectrum, one of the best books on the adventure of life I’ve ever read is We’re Going On a Bear Hunt, with the refrain “We have to go through it.” Yes, we do. So, I read a note from Ranie Crowley Pearce this morning, about dropping her youngest off at UCLA and then going for a dip somewhere nearby. Sounded nice, although the “13:48” struck me as a bit precise. So I read it again and recalled vaguely, ah yes, the Catalina Islands. They are waaaay off shore, and sometimes folks even try to swim out to them. Ranie swam the Catalina Channel in 13 hours, not 13 minutes. I’m reminded that when talking with one of our PA friends, it often behooves one to pay a little closer attention, because they might be talking about something run-of-the-mill or something extraordinary. Sukey Bryan had an exhibition in Washington, D.C., called Sukey Bryan/Glacial Visions at the Stanford in Washington Art Gallery, showing large paintings, monotype prints, and etchings of glacier ice and melt-water derived from an artist residency in Denali National Park and Prince William Sound. She has been exhibiting a lot in the mid-Atlantic area in the past six months, with a final show in the fall in Alexandria, Va. Her sons are sophomores, one at Gunn High School and the other at University of the Pacific. Her husband, Jim Brooks, is doing well in his research, clinical, and deanery work at Stanford. Sukey’s studio is in their home on campus, and she invites everyone for a visit. Daniel Wheeler finished a two-year project building a chapel that he designed on the campus of an Episcopal school. Take a look: www.wheelermade.com. Michael Starratt’s oldest daughter graduated from DePaul in June and has a real job, in advertising. Fine parenting!
Guy Chirico and James Marquand ate Thai food together somewhere. I have not seen James in 30 years but have seen a fair bit of Guy, who has hosted us a few times at his beautiful little hotel, Scribner Hollow Lodge, up in Hunter, N.Y., in the Catskills. My girls (especially Ava, 8) think it’s a big treat to visit Guy in the mountains. Parker Rockefeller’s son Connor is a senior at the University of Maryland, College Park; son Jake is a junior at College of Charleston having way too much fun, and daughter Abby is in 11th grade at McDonogh School, near Baltimore—“stuck at home with me and her mother, Jeanette,” he writes. “We are celebrating our 24th anniversary!” Susan Jenkins Warren, in a synopsis worthy of 56 Up, writes, “After a brief post-college stint in investment banking for Merrill Lynch in Manhattan, I went into magazine publishing. My new career landed me in LA, where I remained for nearly two decades. I was an advertising director for a variety of companies including American Express, News Corp, and Time Warner. While in LA, I was visited by Taiyi Greaves, attended Daniel Wheeler gallery openings, shared tacos with Doug Segal, was introduced to Mel Gibson by Brian Linse, did business with Sarah Moore in SF and Joey Sutherland ’81 in Beverly Hills, hung out with Chris Bonbright ’78 somewhere, and even ran into Cindy Farrelly Gesner ’80 at the OB/GYN office. I was blessed to have past roommates/dear friends Victoria Hull Sharp ’78, Maureen Walsh Hooft Graafland ’78, and Connie Barrett Dawson ’78 attend my wedding in Malibu in 1999.” Susan has been back in Duxbury, Mass., for 10 years now, and since being back, she writes, “did embarrass myself terribly” playing in the coed alumni hockey game with Lee Apgar ’78 and Danny Janis. That takes courage. Some of you may remember that my second child, Leta, has special needs. (She is mobile but nonverbal: A Lilliputian with a host of physical and behavioral challenges, she is a sweet girl and a force of chaos.) Leta had several big milestones this year: She had her Sweet 16th birthday, and she entered high school at the Camphill Special School (one of the most special places on Earth). According to her lead geneticist at the paragon of pediatric medicine, Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, Leta also has become “one of the most thoroughly examined children in the world,” genetically speaking (which I was surprised to hear, but I guess the years add up). This year, on the 10th anniversary of the sequencing of the human genome, the CHOP team identified the genetic mutation that makes Leta who she is, a new syndrome (to be named shortly) shared with three other children in the world, so far. It is comforting to know she is not alone. We have a reunion coming up! —Rick
Andover | Winter 2014
91
stay connected... What ’s new with you? Get married? Move? Change your e-mail address? Let PA know! You can update your information in any one of the following ways: ●
Visit www.andover.edu/ alumnidirectory, and log in to update your information
●
E-mail alumni-records@andover.edu
●
Call 978-749-4287
●
Send a note to: Alumni Records Phillips Academy 180 Main Street Andover MA 01810-4161
1980 Kate Thomes 158 Commercial St., Apt. 2 Boston MA 02109 katethomes@gmail.com
As I write this, the U.S. Tennis Open is coming to a close, and I have notes to report that were given to me back in June and July. The class notes are not yet on “text” time. Dan Jacobson attended a party in April in Manhattan in honor of Jon Dee’s latest novel, A Thousand Pardons. From Dan: “Kathleen Dooley Weathers was there, of course. She’s long been a literary groupie of Jon Dee’s. She brought greetings from Nathalie Valette, who lives in the San Francisco Bay area. The two apparently talk constantly, a tradition begun in their Phelps House days. When I’m out west, I make it a point to visit Nat. She has an elephant-like memory of our times at Andover, with a recall of obscure fascinating details of our lives as teenagers. I think she just makes the stuff up. My fellow Jersey Shore native Bob Feinberg, the general counsel for public television station WNET in New York, was not in attendance. However, Bob, Jon, and I remain close. We continue our periodic gatherings over Peking
92
Andover | Winter 2014
duck in New York City, a now 30-year tradition. Bob and I continue our 40-year friendship, which started long before Andover—we grew up together in the Asbury Park area on the Jersey Shore. I continue to publish an alternative newspaper in Asbury Park, after escaping the practice of law more than a decade ago. Jon Dee is the slacker among us—his previous book, The Privileges, was a Pulitzer finalist in fiction. He discovered that honor when he went online to see who was nominated that year. Apparently, there’s no notice beforehand letting you know that you’ve been put up for the award. Jon, being himself, told none of us. I discovered it months later when his wife forced him to cough it up when we were out to dinner. Every time I read our class notes, I think how more of us should contribute in this age of easy communications. So I’m doing my part with this info. Others should do the same. You know who you are, Michael Lee.” Mike Lee has really enjoyed getting reconnected with Andover the past four years. He writes, “My daughter just graduated [from PA] and my son just finished junior year in Rockwell. I got the chance to catch up with Nathalie Valette and Murrey Nelson at a dinner in SF and had a great lunch with Hyun Park on the same trip. I speak with Jon Dee and Bob Feinberg fairly regularly as well. I am enjoying the empty nest with my wife, Laurie, and enjoying my work, which is a combination of general pediatrics and medical information technology.” Ed “T” McKinley wrote in June, “I have just published a memoir on Amazon titled Boy in the Ivy: The Inner Child of a Buried Man. It crystalizes around the suicide of my older brother four years ago and details my own journey through depression to hope.” Peter Carley has started a master’s degree program in occupational therapy (OT) at Tufts. Not bad—some new updates. Thank you all.
1981 Warren Jones Houston Texas 281-450-6457 wcjonesllc@gmail.com Stefanie Scheer Young New York NY 917-287- 6111 stefanie.scheer@gmail.com
We really appreciate the updates we received from three friends. Send in yours! We know you’re all turning 50. What did you do to celebrate? Alex Sox-Harris writes, “Living in Palo Alto, Calif., with my wife and two kids, doing research at the VA and Stanford. ... Perhaps more interesting (and diagnostic), I recently quit ultra-running to pursue a multiyear goal of swimming the Catalina Island Channel. If nothing else, it keeps me going to the pool regularly. I also had a nice visit with
the always interesting and intrepid Steve Kane ’80 and his son, who is currently at PA. We had a good debate about the value of going to college right after high school. Damn, this is making me realize how boring I am.” Not at all—fantastic debate topic, and good luck with the swim! Jack Liebau is now working in Times Square, as president and CEO of Alleghany Capital Partners, which manages equity investments for NYSE-listed Alleghany Corp. From Halmstad, Sweden, Peter Leuhusen reflects, “Yes, I am 50 years old, still skating, zero gravity, skiing, and working with lots of big artists, but this is my call: www.childhood.org.” Also, check out the link to the Oliver Wendell Holmes Library if you haven’t had a chance. There are loads of great resources easily available at http://bit.ly/I1AmX5. There are also links to the Addison Gallery and the Peabody Museum of Archaeology at http://bit.ly/dpzHD9. Stay in touch! —W&S
1982 Graham Anthony 2502 Waterville Drive Champaign IL 61822 434-989-5800 grahamanthony@earthlink.net John Barton 480 Hulls Highway Southport CT 06890 203-254-7751 (home) 212-230-3235 (work) jwb@tfm-llc.com Parker L. Quillen 170 E. 87th St., Apt. PH1B New York NY 10128 917-923-7400 parkerlq@yahoo.com
Ah, the joys of print media existing alongside the virtual world! As your newly chartered class scribes, Parker Quillen, John Barton, and I [Graham Anthony] learned there is a four-month (or so) lag between our submission of class notes and that data arriving in your mailbox. As Parker Quillen aptly put it, “We appreciate Andover’s sense of tradition, but must we live as Andrew Jackson in the early 19th century and fight the Battle of New Orleans in complete ignorance that the War of 1812 had already ended (alas, the Treaty of Ghent’s signing had not yet reached his or his English adversary’s ears)? I know what an MCF of natural gas just fetched in Perth this morning, but the year will almost be done before we learn what our classmates are doing.” More surprising than this lag is perhaps learning that one of our classmates was paying attention in History 35!
www.andover.edu/intouch Here are the latest updates on our classmates as of early last fall: Chandri Navarro looks great, living in Old Town Alexandria, Va., and is fighting the good fight in international law as a partner at Hogan Lovells. She writes, “Daughter Bianca ’15 is in her third (11th grade) year at Andover, so I get to visit often and relive my good old days. Twin daughters Sofia and Gabriela are in boarding school at Episcopal High School in Alexandria, Va., for 9th grade, so I am an empty nester! Yalda Tehranian-Uhls and daughter Chloe came to visit for the presidential inauguration. Yalda is getting a PhD degree in psychology at UCLA and working on fascinating issues on children and media. John Nahill owns a liquid natural gas company that is going gangbusters in New England. He is happily married and has four daughters and one son. The older three have gone to Georgetown, Johns Hopkins, and Colgate, and two are still at home. Kudos to John! When I went up to move Bianca out of her dorm last spring, I went to a cocktail party at John’s beautiful beach house in Gloucester, Mass., with Jennifer Scheer Lieberman and Tiffany Cobb Bradlee ’83 and their families.” Jane Pollard has had a busy year maximizing celebrations for hitting her half-century, including trips to Oman, Barbados, and various European countries. She writes, “The EU still counts as abroad since Britain resolutely refuses to join the Euro! I saw Marie Helene Oddo, who is unchanged and still stunning. She is successful in the insurance business in France and happily married with two nigh-on grown-up sons. It was great to see Graham Anthony in London, too, and I would love to see anyone else who is passing through.” Catch Jane near her home in South Kensington at her favorite gastropub, The Cadogan Arms, where, like Cheers, everyone knows everyone else’s name. After years of journalism, first in the U.S., then in Prague in the 1990s, and finally as a wine reporter for a few years, Walt Devine is now celebrating almost a decade of teaching high school. Asked his approach to teaching, Walt responded, “I introduce them to the club of the ancient questions—and hope the lessons from these age-old struggles provide interest in the classroom and useful insights for life.” Write a book, Walt! We could all benefit from revisiting those lessons—as perhaps would our leaders. In 2012, Dutch Miller moved from Guernsey, in the Channel Islands, to Washington, D.C., as a relationship manager for the Northern Trust Company offices there, which strikes us as moving from a haven from taxes to the source thereof. Dutch and I met up with George Canellos in DC for a very enjoyable dinner. In 2012, George left private practice to become the SEC’s über cop, helping run enforcement operations. While dining, two of the five SEC commissioners came over to say hello, which we took as a sign George was on top of his game. Just after that dinner, the Wall Street Journal confirmed George had been named codirector of enforcement at the SEC. George currently spends
the weeks in DC and weekends with his wife and young daughter in Brooklyn. Paula Lee writes, “I have news, I suppose: four books published this year, including the forthcoming books about hunting: Game: A Global History, and my memoir, Deer Hunting in Paris: A Memoir of Guns, God, and Game Meat. Already picked up by Target and Walmart, and stocked by all the usual bookstores.” From UK bookseller Waterstones’ website comes the following blurb on Deer Hunting: “What happens when a Korean-American preacher’s kid refuses to get married, travels the world, and quits being vegetarian? She meets her polar opposite on an online dating site while sitting at a cafe in Paris, France, and ends up in Paris, Maine, learning how to hunt. A memoir and a cookbook with recipes that skewer human foibles and celebrate DIY food culture, Deer Hunting in Paris is an unexpectedly funny exploration of a vanishing way of life in a complex cosmopolitan world. Sneezing madly from hay fever, Lee recovers her roots in rural Maine by running after a headless chicken, learning how to sight in a rifle, shooting skeet, and butchering animals. Along the way, she figures out how to keep her boyfriend’s conservative Republican family from ‘mistaking’ her for a deer and shooting her at the clothesline.” Clearly Paula is no deer in the headlights—nor has she lost her sense of humor! This scribe, Graham Anthony, moved from Charlottesville, Va., with wife Angela and 2-yearold son, Thomas, to Champaign-Urbana, Ill., in 2013. Despite Andover touching on quantum theory alongside Newtonian physics, I was nonetheless unprepared to understand the strong gravitational pull between grandparents and their first grandchild—capable of moving whole families halfway across the continent. Fortunately, we have found Champaign a lovely town with great restaurants and a broad and deep engineering and scientific community. Come visit anytime! Thanks to a lot of philosophical and actual bandwidth here tucked amidst the cornfields, I am able to continue working with my companies. Personally, I have also found that a happy wife, child, and grandparents = a happy life.… Now that they should teach at Andover! —Graham
1983 [Editor’s note: We are currently seeking a member of the Class of 1983 to take on the role of class secretary. It’s a great way to stay connected to PA and to your classmates. If you are interested, please contact Laura MacHugh at lmachugh@andover. edu or 978-749-4289.]
1984 30th REUNION June 13–15, 2014 Alexandra Gillespie 52 Amelia St. Toronto ON M4E 1X1 acoonpie@gmail.com William P. Seeley Department of Philosophy 73/75 Campus Ave. Bates College Lewiston ME 04240 wseeley@bates.edu Adam Simha 84 Rice St. Cambridge MA 02140-1819 617-876-0103 adam@mksdesign.com
My fellow mid-lifers, Thanks for providing variety to the occasionally tedious litany of weddings, births, and job descriptions that are the class notes. I would like to particularly thank the two poets, the DOMA crushers, and outstanding achievers. You brought humor, beauty, and awe to this round. Well done. In their own words: Paul Murphy: “Adolescents are fun human beings; just added 1,129 of them back into my life. Twenty-sixth year. Kids in the ninth-grade class were born in 1999.” Chris Yerkes: “I (well, my wife, Susan) am expecting my second child in January. Girl.” Murchelle “Murri” Brumfield: “I’m tickled pink to have been awarded a Fulbright Distinguished Award in Teaching. [Congratulations!] I’ll be heading to Singapore with my husband and two small sons for eight months to research how they prepare their exceptional-needs learners for college and career opportunities. Who would have thought that my scheme to avoid intramurals many years ago by assisting in a local special-education class would have turned into a lifelong passion of mine?” Claudia Kraut Rimerman: “I’m living in Stamford, Conn., with my three children and my husband, running a boutique consulting firm, often feeling like I am living a Talking Heads song (“How did I get here?...This is not my beautiful home...This is not my beautiful life...”). So I fight the middle-age blues with muay Thai, obstacle races (Warrior Dash, Rugged Maniac), and the occasional gig with a local classic-rock cover band. Then I feel young and rebellious again, until I have to pack a suit for a client meeting and my 5' 10" teenager asks me what’s for dinner.” Stephen Jones: “I love you.” (He means me. Spontaneous declarations of love always get ink.) Carlotta Mills: “The mention of our ages in your request reminded me of this random thought Andover | Winter 2014
93
stay connected... I had when I was at a concert last weekend (Psychedelic Furs—don’t judge!). I wondered if I was the only one with custom orthotics in my ancient Chuck Taylor high-tops.” Nancie Pageau: “In July we traveled from Sydney, Australia, to the States and had a great time catching up with a few classmates: Lisa Moreland Pagana, Julie Crosson, Caroline Ren Jackson, and Jen Tessier Antonucci. We organized dates and reconnected with glee: For our 30th we’re planning to bust a move / Surely our families will all approve / I’m hoping to swan to the US of A / On my new Aussie passport, to say g’day.” Mike Bayer: “My wife and I are walking in the Santa Barbara Avon Walk for Breast Cancer. Fifty miles in two days. ‘Save Second Base’ is my T-shirt motto!” Soraya Chemaly: “All I really have to say is that, at this stage, getting enough sleep again after years of deprivation makes me realize how truly not functional I was for at least an entire decade. Really very happy to be properly awake again and get some serious and seriously fun and interesting stuff done! Most recently involved in organizing a social movement to raise awareness of and fight online misogyny.” Bill Seeley: “All right. Funny? Maybe. True? Mostly. Four sentences? Unlikely. ... I crossed paths this summer with several of our fair fellow colleagues from the year David Bowie wrested from George Orwell—you know—and when Russia skipped the Summer Olympics. First, I saw Pat McCormick ’83 at the wedding of Einar Westerlund ’82 in the Berkshires (3 days, 10 bands, 75 people, 37 tents, and 1 outdoor shower). Second, I didn’t see Sam Shinn at our 25th reunion at Columbia, but he reports that he is thriving. I did get a chance to chat with Claudia Kraut Rimerman over lunch on South Lawn. More recently, I crossed paths with Geoff Wagg, who briefly regaled me with some tall tales about the secret to staying young, and Alfred DuPuy. I saw Susan Conley ’85 at the same event (Geoff was orienting us to life in the fourth, fifth, and seventh grades). I also heard from Dewi de Luxembourg. She e-mailed a visual demonstration that she was not in Maine. Honestly, the sea looked nicer (and warmer) where she was. The only other news to report is that Alex Gillespie failed to invite me to enjoy the summer breezes Downeast this year [this is the part where Bill is lying like a rug]. I’m sure it’s either something I said or a rumor I failed to pass along. ... She was kind enough to transport some lobsters across state lines to Adam Simha’s house in East Cambridge, where we convened a panel to decide what to write about you all this year. They were delightful.” (He means me and Adam.) Perry Hewitt: “The best part of having had more husbands than children is that I’m an empty nester at 46. If anyone needs me, I’ll be in the bar at the Connaught.” Kathy Mulvey: “My spouse, Patricia Lambert, and I were on the steps of the U.S. Supreme Court when the landmark marriage equality rulings came
94
Andover | Winter 2014
down in June. Patricia is South African, and we were married in South Africa in 2007—but until the court struck down DOMA, our marriage wasn’t recognized by the U.S. We had our 15 minutes of fame when we told our story to reporters from NPR, Reuters, and the Sunday Times of South Africa. Now that we have equality, we continue to raise our voices in support of those in the U.S. and around the world whose rights are still denied.” In November, former Cambridge city councilor Sam Seidel was back on the ballot...for Cambridge City Council. But it was a crowded field, and he was unfortunately unable to find the needed votes. Paul Palandjian: “I just dropped off my oldest two to start college. Nineteen-year-old son to Ohio Wesleyan and 18-year-old daughter to Bucknell. I only have foggy-glasses rink days left with my 14-year-old son. The older two are scholarship athletes, but for lax and field hockey. Life is family and work...somehow, my wife still likes me. Moving from Boston to NYC.” Sarah Jane Cohen Grossbard shared a haiku: “Thirty years passed now / summer sun and grass wafting / i wish i could go.” Thanks again to one and all for doing your part to save this archaic rag from complete redundancy. Agent 99, out. —Alexandra
1985 Chris McCarthy 8 Wilkie Terrace #09-05 228031 Singapore +65 9864 7918 chrismccarthy@gmail.com
1986 Christine Balling 22 James Farm Road Lee NH 03861 603-479-6829 (cell) cballing@msn.com Kathleen Campbell DiPaolo 2516 Vista Drive Newport Beach CA 92663 949-689-3314 (cell) 949-209-2043 (fax) Kathleen@kathleendipaolodesigns.com Caroline Langston Jarboe 3124 63rd Ave. Cheverly MD 20785 301-322-4241 (home) 301-379-6572 (cell) caroline_jarboe@yahoo.com
Dear friends, dear friends—I’m afraid that sometimes, you just have to phone it in. But here I am, and even though I am a day late and a dollar short, I do have a bit of news.
These are some momentous times in which we are living. By the time you read this, Christine Yoo’s film Wedding Palace—which we have been trumpeting here for a while now—will have premiered in major locations across the country. So many of you, I know, have supported this effort both spiritually and emotionally—so be sure to send me some really good chisme about the premiere parties you attended (caroline_jarboe@yahoo.com)! You can also look forward, during the coming months, to the new long-form edition of Politico, which will be edited by our own Susan Glasser, formerly of the Washington Post and more recently of Foreign Policy, where she completely invigorated the journal and made it relevant. At this new Politico venture, Susan will be putting together a collection of must-read, in-depth journalistic pieces and opinion columns. Finally, I wanted to offer, in toto, an account from Kirk Hamill, who was present recently in front of the Supreme Court on the day that DOMA was overturned. Kirk wrote, “I don’t know if you know that I am on the national board of directors of the Human Rights Campaign, and we have been waiting for this day for years. Arrived at the Supreme Court at 8:30 a.m. to a growing crowd with my straight ally Kristina and her 19-year-old daughter, Jessica. Kristina had a sassy sign about wanting gays and lesbians to be able to make their spouses as miserable as she makes her husband, while I held a sign that mentioned that Jesus said nothing about gay marriage. I proudly stood my 6' 5" frame behind the Westboro Baptist nutbags with that sign to drive the message home. We left as the crowd gathered. Church groups were marching and singing spirituals in support; fire-and-brimstone preachers were screaming about eternal damnation; a very flamboyant ‘YMCA’ dance routine blocked the Westboro Baptist protesters from the cameras. Very exciting. Truly a historic week for the LGBT movement and very proud to be there.” Are there notable moments, passages, and changes that you want to recount for us—alongside the sightings of fellow ’86ers and happenstance meetings and planned-for vacations? And just like KK—I have been calling him that ever since we both went to PA and Tulane—perhaps you want to write a real and discursive account, rather than simply social-media-ese? Write these to me, Kath, and Christine, and we will continue to chart the history. —Caroline
www.andover.edu/intouch 1987 David Kopans 2 Princeton Road Arlington MA 02474-8238 781-646-4515 617-947-2454 (cell) dave@kopans.com
It’s almost fall as I write these notes, and it will be winter when you are reading them. In an era of instant blogging, the time lag of the paperpublished word is, I must say, refreshing. And so are poems. Huh? you say. What is Kopans talking about? Well, if you don’t know, then you are not getting my requests for class notes contributions, so send me a quick e-mail now with your contact info. You see, in my last e-mail I asked for news delivered straight up or in a haiku. Liz Vega (2), Penny Windle Kline (1), Charlie Strout (2), Liz Kinder (2), and Travis “El Presidente” Metz (1) provided the following, which were all great: I never write notes / but haiku tempts me beyond / so for class notes, this: A summer road trip / Girls in van, memories packed / CA 2 MI N BK. John making music / Lila starting second grade / Penny feels lucky. Request for class notes / So many memories speak / But what to say now? The Kopans threw brunch / Perfect Boston summer day / Old friends reunite. 7, 5, and 3 / Taylor Swift is our soundtrack / oh trouble trouble. All before 7:00 / Five lunches, two “healthy snacks” / then crazy breakfast. I knew a classmate / He had a very large head / And then he fell in. In the more traditional form of notes, Brian Lamkin reports, “My older son will be starting at PA as a junior. Needless to say, I am gushing with both parental and PA pride, and if there are other ’87ers out there who are PA parents, I would love to hear from them.” E-mail him at brian_lamkin@hotmail.com. Continuing on the private school theme, Bob Whelan, everyone’s favorite kettle corn–eating tall man, has become head of school at Lake Forest Country Day (north of Chicago). Bob encourages folks to give a shout and visit. He can be reached by e-mail at bob.whelan@lfcds.org. Tom Powers made me happily jealous with his notes, I must say: racing motorcycles, chartering sailboats in Mexico, and getting a cool scar on his foot as a result of an encounter with a stingray. Add to that the starting up (seven years ago) of a mental-health-services and educational consulting company. Check out his cool company and picture: http://brookspowers.com/our-approach. Mike Jung is, no surprise, also up to interesting and exciting things out in Menlo Park, Calif., starting a new venture fund called Founders Circle Capital (www.founderscirclecapital.com/). He also
gets to see Artis Montague (formerly Artis Tague) and Aimee Vincent Jamison from time to time, since all their kids are in the same school district. Alex Chandy has returned to the U.S. after globe hopping through the likes of Rio de Janeiro, Dhahran, Singapore, Brisbane, Luanda, and Bangalore. Houston must feel very different! Or not. Texans like Andy Bowman and Randall Kempner sometimes have that foreigner flavor, I must say (just kidding, guys—and please write in, as it’s always great to hear from you!). In addition to being a managing director in Accenture’s global energy practice, Alex is a proud father of two daughters (ages 11 and 8) and recently welcomed a little boy to the family. If anyone—especially the guys from Adams Hall South—is traveling through the Houston area, feel free to drop him a line at alex_chandy@yahoo.com. Julie Rosicky reports in that she has qualified for the Boston Marathon and is setting her sights on the Lake Placid Ironman. As if that were not cool enough, she reports that her oldest son also has the triathlon bug, and they regularly share training tips. This time, I happily heard from Chuck Mathewes. Chuck, his wife, and two kids are now back outside Charlottesville, Va., after spending the last academic year on leave at Cambridge University, where he reports he “learned all too much about wine.” At UVa, Chuck runs across Greg Hays, who teaches classics. There’s a standing offer from Chuck to buy ’87ers who visit a beer or coffee and show them around Mr. Jefferson’s lovely university. A great offer, I must say, although personally I think he should throw in a grillswith at the White Spot (inside C’ville reference that has been featured by at least one POTUS in a speech). On the short news front (almost haiku-like), Nick Simon reported that The Rocket, a film produced by his company, has gone on to win at Berlin and Tribeca film festivals. Holly Milton spent the summer practicing her putt-putt golf swing with husband and son, and James Lee was running for a seat on the Cambridge City Council. Eric Magnuson is happy to be on sabbatical from his position as a sociology professor. He is writing a nonfiction book titled Utopia 1.0: Burning Man and the Future of the World and is shopping around for a good literary agent. If you have any leads, give him a shout at emagnuson@lmu.edu. Rebecca Rabinowitz reported in for the first time (super!), and as a writer for the children’s section of Kirkus Reviews (11-year veteran) she kindly pointed me to the shiny new Kirkus site. I must say I think it’s a much better resource than Amazon, since you get Rebecca and other smart folks providing summary, flavor, analysis, and assessment info. Check it out, and when doing so, take a peek at this nice-looking haiku book: http://bit.ly/1bv5Ltw. Laura Robertson was kind enough to drop us a line at the start of a new school year and a new job. After eight years working for the U.S. Geological Survey, where she looked at the effects of contaminants on frogs and fish, she switched jobs in August and is now an assistant professor of biology at Shepherd University. She is raising two sons (11 and 13),
beef cows, and Jacob sheep on her farm. A smart way, I must say, to feed and clothe strapping lads! Andrew McNaught also wrote in for the first time, and I noticed that the list of folks attending his October 2012 wedding to Natasha that was just printed in the fall notes was short. Find that copy and please pen in John Stein ’88, Jay Jamison ’89, Aimee Vincent Jamison, and Suzanne Sizer, who, according to Andrew, “took incredible photos.” I, for my part, recently had the pleasure of hanging out with a newly replanted-to-Massachusetts Selena Seto and her husband, Ravi, at a PA event, along with Yvonne and Paul Marston, Jenn and Travis Metz, and Stevie Nezhad ’88 and his awesome fiancée, Aimee Whitlock. Good times.
1988 Terri Stroud 800 4th St. SW, Unit N418 Washington DC 20024 202-486-4189 terri.stroud@gmail.com Laura Cox 21 Merced Ave. San Anselmo CA 94960 415-302-7709 laurajeancox@gmail.com Matt Lavin 324 14th St. NE Washington DC 20002 202-365-8593 mattlavindc@yahoo.com Heather Ross Zuzenak 16 Essex St. Medford MA 02155 781-874-1747 hrzuzenak@yahoo.com
Greetings from northern California, where I embark on my 17th year teaching at Marin Country Day School, a great independent K–8 school. This year I’m teaching English and history to a bunch of fabulous sixth graders, which ameliorates the pain of separation from my sweet 8-month-old, Joseph, born in December 2012. I brought him to our 25th Reunion, where he joined Polly LaBarre and Bettie Teasley Sulmers’s beautiful baby girls as the youngest in attendance for the Class of 1988. The reunion still looms large in my mind; our impressive turnout made it impossible to catch up with (or even see!) everyone who came. One of the highlights for me, as an English teacher, was going back to class with Lou Bernieri and Rich Gorham ’86. Hearing a bit of Elee Kraljii Gardiner’s beautiful writing and goofing with John Kline at the back of the classroom made getting up early totally worth the effort. If you haven’t already checked out Chris Wiedemann’s wonderful photography project on the address book, be sure to go to our Class of 1988 Facebook page. Andover | Winter 2014
95
stay connected... If you’re like me, when you read the class notes you marvel at the accomplishments and news of our peers. Please let us hear from you even if your life is how my husband lovingly describes our days with our young boys: MOTS—“More of the same.” Stay in touch! Warmly, Laura
1989 25th REUNION June 13–15, 2014 Emily Muldoon Kathan 18 Laurel Terrace Somerville MA 02143 emily@kathandesign.com Christian Parker 11 Berkeley Place, Apt. 3 Brooklyn NY 11217 cparker39@nyc.rr.com
Hitting the mountain bike trails near Moab, Utah, in May 2013 are, from left, Guido Sandulli, Ben Lumpkin, Zander Evans, Rajen Parekh, and Ben Ranney, all Class of ’91.
Congratulations are in order for David Richeson, who married LaTrisa Harper in December of last year. Andover classmates and friends Peter Reese, Nick Sims, Ivar Bazzy, James McLain ’89, Ed Jasaitis, Bob Gibbons, Courtney Gibbons, and Jennifer Winingder El-Mattrawy attended the wedding. Shannon Smith Meyer is still living in Carbondale, Colo., near Aspen, with her husband, Dave, and two kids, who are now 10 and 12. They live at the boarding school where Dave teaches. Shannon works for the Land Trust Alliance as the southwestern representative and travels around seven states helping land trust board and staff do their good work. To keep things interesting, she ran her first marathon this summer. Rebecca Alberg Olson, her husband, Jay, and their 5-year-old son, Matthew, live in Houston, where she is “loving the heat and the cheap TexMex but missing Boston.” Rebecca is an IT project manager for Caradigm. Allan Reeder lives with his wife, Ginna, and two kids—Jesse, 4, and Maisie, 2—in Arlington, Mass. Combining his work as an editor with his experience over the past 12 years as a writing teacher at Walnut Hill School for the Arts, he is launching a new business coaching high school students who are seeking their stories and finding their words for college-application essays. A new website is in the works, but for now the old one suffices: www. allanreeder.com. Check it out! Perry Pownall also has a new business venture. She partnered with a friend to launch Pilates ProWorks Oakland, a fitness studio.
96
Andover | Winter 2014
Doug D’Agata recently purchased a company from his previous private equity firm. He writes, “It’s called National Protective Systems, and anyone with kids approaching college age will be glad to know we exist.” Tanya Selvaratnam’s book The Big Lie: Motherhood, Feminism, and the Reality of the Biological Clock was released Jan. 7, 2014, by Prometheus Books, distributed by Random House. Advance praise has started rolling in. Feminist author Amy Richards writes, “The Big Lie will leave readers with many big truths—about women’s wants and desires and revelations about our limitations.” Hillary Jordan, author of Mudbound, writes, “This enlightening and empowering book should be required reading for every woman.” Christy Turlington Burns, founder of Every Mother Counts, says: “There is great potential in Tanya Selvaratnam’s journey to bring similar stories of disappointment, frustration, and hope to light. In sharing there can also be healing.” You can see more info and order at http://bit.ly/1dnif I9. Tanya also recently launched her website at www.tanyaturnsup.com. I can’t close the notes without a nod to our esteemed former class president, Henry Smyth, who was installed as the 14th headmaster of Gilman School in Baltimore, Md., this past August. The board president remarked, “With Southern charm, good cheer and humor—as well as his ever-present bow tie—he connects with our boys, our parents, our alumni, and our faculty. He consistently demonstrates a deliberate, collegial, and collaborative approach to leadership.” Way to go, Henry! When will you lead the school in “Father Abraham”?
Gina Hoods 7477 Commons Blvd., Apt. 326 Chattanooga TN 37421 423-892-7140 404- 667-4939 ghoods@yahoo.com
Hello ’89ers! The familiar sound of correspondence crickets gave way to a few brave voices, which I am happy to share with you herein. Pauline Koh-Banerjee went from “tenure track as an assistant professor at UT Medical to mommy track” when she decided to stay home with her children. She has just returned to the workforce and recently launched SacCitySports, a website which spotlights the best in sports and fitness in Sacramento. She writes, “It’s been a blast and I’ve had the chance to meet some awesome athletes and try some cool fitness classes.” Matt Patrick is busy racing with Team Novo Nordisk Running (http://bit.ly/Hjo4Ir) to raise awareness of diabetes treatment management, support, and research. He and his diabetic teammates were heading to Barcelona, Spain, for a 5K at this writing, and he plans to run his 10th Boston Marathon this coming spring. Brian Sullivan lives in LA with his wife (a sorority sister of Margie Block Stineman ’92) and four children. He cofounded ForwardLine.com 10 years ago and says, “Now we are one of the largest direct lenders to Main Street businesses in the U.S. If there are other Andover alums who are involved with companies who service small businesses, we are always on the lookout for synergistic strategic partnerships.” Shellee Hendricks and her family have returned from many years of living overseas to New York—Brooklyn, specifically—where she has taken up a new post teaching English and doing college counseling at the Berkeley Carroll School.
www.andover.edu/intouch Christian Parker had a fantastic late-summer dinner with Mirabelle Kirkland and her astoundingly impressive children while she was on a N.Y./ New England visit. Still based in Paris, Mirabelle has a burgeoning screenwriting career and is in the midst of a screenplay about Dusty Springfield, among other writing and producing projects. If I could, I would fondly affix a fuzzy, fake moustache to this installment of ’89er news. Alas, we’ll just have to don them in June when we mark the (almost unfathomable) 25th. Will you be there? Hope so. With affection, Emily
1990 Regina A. DeMeo 1666 Connecticut Ave. NW, Suite 250 Washington DC 20009 240-621-0559 reginademeo@yahoo.com Thomas W. Seeley 1572 Heifer Road Skaneateles NY 13152 315-263-0052 (cell) 315-685-3416 (work) twseeley@gmail.com
It was so great to see so many alums helping to keep the spirit of our fallen classmate alive at the Todd Isaac memorial basketball game in September. I enjoyed the first half of the game with classmates Wanda Mann, Mark Ramsey, and Rob Milton. Bobby Edwards inspired us all with his touching words about Todd at halftime. More importantly, the game pitted youth against wisdom, and guess who emerged victorious: wisdom, of course! Special thanks to all who organized the event; I hope to see many more Class of 1990 faces next year. Great to hear from Chris Weber, who continues to live and teach in Colorado. Chris kept in touch with many Andover friends in 2013. On Memorial Day, Chris reconnected with Josh Porter in the Moab, Utah, area. Over the summer, he hosted a barbecue with the families of Adam Galvin, Max Caulkins, and Jean Coulter. Finally, in September, Chris caught up with Andre Gardner in NYC, spending a wonderful evening with Andre and his wife. Regina “Gina” DeMeo reconnected with Roberta Ritvo and Meredith Persily Lamel recently. Roberta is still at DLA Piper in Washington, D.C., and Meredith is continuing to expand her consulting business in the Washington, D.C., area. Meredith’s group Working Mamas will be featured in an upcoming segment on Gina’s TV show, Making It Last. Gina also caught up with Jennifer Giles Adams, who married Shawn Adams, an editor at ABC News, in 2011. Together, they have a son, West, born in February 2013. Jen and family live in LA, where they frequently see former Abbot
Cluster president Corey Sanford ’89 at, among other things, an infant swim class at the Rose Bowl attended by their sons. Jen planned to attend the September wedding of Josh Davis ’92, where she hoped to catch up with Kenny Davis ’89. Kenny, Jen reported, is the marketing genius behind the return of the Furby. In August, Anna Ivey celebrated the publication of her latest book, How to Prepare a Standout College Application: Expert Advice That Takes You From LMO* (Like Many Others) to Admit. Anna previously wrote a book about the law school admission process and continues to own and operate Ivey College Consulting, based in Cambridge, Mass., an admissions coaching firm that helps applicants from around the world get into top U.S. colleges. Also celebrating the publication of her newest book in 2013 is Regina DeMeo. Her first children’s book, Gina the Gymnast, is about a talented young girl who achieves many things but does not find true joy until she finds her family. Sound familiar? Dan Lennon embarked last year on a 12-month adventure from Boston to the San Francisco area, where he will be a stay-at-home dad for a year. Dan plans to remain with Five O’Clock Shadow during his year-long hiatus from New England. Baby news to report from Oliver Schwaner-Albright and family: Oliver and his wife, Christine Muhlke, celebrated the birth of Maximilian in 2013. The happy family is cozy in their Manhattan apartment. From Down Under, Alastair Bor reports plans to travel to Europe, Vietnam, and Hawaii, which is quite the undertaking with a 3-year-old. Living in Australia, Alastair doesn’t have many opportunities to catch up in person with PA folks, and he encourages anyone visiting to look him up. I can certainly relate to living far from Andover graduates. Most people in my neck of the woods assume I was sent to boarding school because I lit a fire in the basement or committed some similar youthful indiscretion. I have grown used to the notion that staying connected outside of Facebook requires me to travel, which I did a few times last summer. In July, I had the pleasure of visiting with Carl Smit, wife Jacquelyn Coles, and their three beautiful children, Olivia and twins Charlie and Jamie. The Smit-Coles family recently traded the Silicon Valley for Annapolis, Md., where Carl now works in retail marketing for Under Armour. My boys— Tommy, 15, and Jackson, 10—had a great time romping around and generally getting piled on by the Smit-Coles children at their family’s temporary lodging. I’m told the family has since purchased a home and is now settling into a more permanent arrangement. I also was thrilled to spend time with Ricky Shin and his family at the home of John Berman in August. Ricky and wife Hay-Won Byun also are the proud parents of twins, who, along with their big sister, helped me tear up Berman’s home for a day. That’s all for now. Please don’t be a stranger. Would love to hear from one and all! —TWS
1991 Hilary Gershman 6124 SW 104th St. Miami FL 33156 305-467-6581 hilarygershman@yahoo.com Matt Fleming 221 Edgevale Road Baltimore MD 21210 410-375-8302 Mattfleming91@bluelink.andover.edu
Dear classmates, This past summer, I found myself wandering around the Andover campus with my four little boys. After the requisite lunch of cheese steaks and pizza at King’s Subs, they were further impressed by the ropes course, baseball diamond, tennis courts, football field, Morse and SamPhil and Bulfinch, and of course, the library, which, like everything else on campus, is gorgeously maintained and updated. A few weeks later, in August, Stephen Matloff brought his wife, Susan, and kids Isabelle, Daniel, and Edie for a campus visit. They enjoyed a picnic of King’s on the Great Lawn side of the library before they walked all around campus: from GW into the Sanctuary to the science center and finally to the playground named in Dickie Thiras’s honor, next to Paresky Commons. The following day, the Matloff crew drove up to the Topsham Fair in Topsham, Maine, where they met up with Nicole Graber Stephenson, her husband, Rob, and their kids, Lilly and Gavin, as well as Eric Stockman, his wife, Julie, and their daughters, Maxine and Willa. They all indulged in lots of fried dough and ice cream, and there was a heated fry-pan competition (that is, the pans were not heated, but the competition sure was)! Earlier in the spring, Steve was a guest at Mara Raphael’s home in LA for dinner, joining Blair Lawson, Ben Stout, their spouses, and Todd Lubin ’92 and wife Aimée Cook Lubin ’92. The evening included a special viewing of a video project that Mara and Ben had done as uppers, featuring many of our classmates. According to Steve, it was a cutting-edge film about people’s favorite bathrooms at school! The Moscow mules flowed generously, and everyone raved about the vanilla ice cream with olive oil and sea salt. Speaking of Moscow, Josh Tulgan recently celebrated his 20th anniversary of living in that fine city. He and his wife, Dina, spent the end of the summer on an amazing trip to Sicily. To celebrate our 40th birthdays, I traveled west in September to visit Mara and Blair, and Victoria Farley Hostin flew in from Denver. While I am not at liberty to share all the details of the weekend (what happens in Laguna Beach stays in Laguna Beach!), it was a fabulous reunion full of laughs and funny stories, and we promised to make it an annual event. Mara had also seen Elena Bagas Giammarco, Ali Fitzgerald Dodwell, and Hilary Driscoll Price around Andover over the summer. Andover | Winter 2014
97
stay connected...
Several friends from the Class of ’91 gathered in Delray Beach, Fla., in April 2013 to celebrate the wedding of Josh Tulgan. From left are Charlie Glass, Matt Reid, Hilary Gershman, Max Hoover, Josh Tulgan, Win Burke, Hilary Driscoll, Sasha Kipka, and Christoph Cushman.
In East Hampton, N.Y., in August, Blair bumped into David Sprindzunas at a 40th-birthday getaway for a mutual friend. In May, Zander Evans drove up from New Mexico to Moab, Utah, and reunited with Ben Lumpkin, who flew in from LA, Guido Sandulli from Salt Lake City, Rajen Parekh from New Jersey, and Ben Ranney from Chicago. The five got out on some of Moab’s famed mountain bike trails and found, according to Zander, that “40 doesn’t move quite as fast as 18 did.” Ascha Drake lives in Berkeley, Calif., with her husband, Scott, and their dog, Lola. She is teaching painting, drawing, and sculpture at The Bay School of San Francisco, which is located in the Presidio. Ascha is also on the education staff at the de Young Museum and the Contemporary Jewish Museum. Kinn-Ming Chan de Velarde e-mailed from Kalamazoo, Mich., with lots of news. She was so happy to see Erin Twomey on Cape Cod for a short visit in June. She wanted to drop in on Alex Techet, too, but Alex was sequestered at home in Cambridge on bed rest; her healthy and beautiful triplets (yes, you read correctly!) Lydia, George, and Henry were born in September. Congratulations, Alex! Kinn occasionally sees Steve Trivers ’57 at Sunday Mass, and Steve Lee has visited several times when traveling with his family between Chicago and Detroit. Both families have children all around the same ages, so it is always a fun reunion. Kinn’s son Bo was included in a short segment on Michigan Public Radio in August about drug shortages and their effects on his health. Bo was born with the rare congenital disorder currently known as Microvillus Inclusion Disease, which requires IV fluids and other medications. Thankfully, Bo
98
Andover | Winter 2014
remains stable and just started first grade. Kinn’s daughter, Ahn, started preschool this fall. Kinn and Nat Furman both wrote about William Tong’s campaign to be elected mayor of Stamford, Conn. Willy worked hard to achieve his dream, but he lost the primary by fewer than 200 votes. He is currently a fourth-term Connecticut state legislator who is known for his diligence. During the race, Willy was endorsed by the governor of Connecticut, as well as by several local representatives and El Sol News, which called Willy an “outstanding person.” Finally, congratulations are in order for two of our classmates, who have new positions and have made big moves. In June, Desmond Butler was named chief correspondent in Turkey for the Associated Press. Desmond joined the AP in 2004, first working as a reporter in New York and since 2006 as a foreign affairs correspondent in Washington. Before joining the AP, Desmond was a reporter for the New York Times based in Berlin. Desmond, his wife, Miriam, and their sons have settled in to life in Istanbul. After 14 years teaching high school chemistry in Bangor, Maine, Sasha Alcott has donned the Exeter maroon and gray as the school’s new chemistry teacher. In addition to her job change, Sasha got married in June to Christopher Viner. The two are bandmates in the rock duo known as When Particles Collide, and in September they released their fourth set of recordings, a five-song EP called Ego. That’s all the news for now. As you live, work, travel, and learn this year, please don’t forget to write and tell us what you have been up to. Looking forward to hearing from you! —Hilary
1992 Allen Soong 1810 Burnell Drive Los Angeles CA 90065 allen.soong@bluelink.andover.edu
Here’s hoping everyone had a great summer. Alex Wolf rented a place in the Hamptons for a few weeks for his family of six, which I learned when I bumped into him on a Southwest flight back to LA from San Francisco. I took my family of five to Maui in August and suddenly realized I’m well past “relaxing” vacations when I started geeking out over the dual power sliding doors on the Dodge Grand Caravan I rented. It was quite the comedown from my two days of Teutonic thunder at the Porsche Sport Driving School in July, when I got to fling around the track several mechanical beasts that will probably never grace my garage. I’m currently rocking the Toyota RAV4 and Nissan Leaf—my dream of joining Jeff Gregg Bennett and his Lotus Elise SC on the track in a Cayman S with all the trimmings drifts ever further out into the future. I couldn’t have asked for a nicer reentry upon my return from paradise, however, than attending the lovely seaside wedding of Josh Davis and Daniela Sloninsky in Pacific Palisades, Calif. (just below Malibu), along with Dylan Seff, Christian Lentz, Sam Endicott, Robert Feldstein, and Jennifer Giles Adams ’90. Josh’s brother, Kenny Davis ’89, served as best man. It was unseasonably warm for LA, so dancing the hora turned into quite the sweaty affair. After catching their breath, Dylan, Christian, and Robert relayed their latest. Dylan, wife Jordan, and their 100-pound Great Dane
www.andover.edu/intouch “puppy,” Delilah, live in Houston, where Dylan is now the head of North American power trading for a large independent energy trading firm. Christian and wife Adriane are both history professors, Christian at UNC Chapel Hill and Adriane at Duke. No word on which school colors adorn the house or their two youngsters, Zora and Langston, on the weekends come basketball season. Robert is in New York, where, as of this writing, he was a policy advisor to Mayor Michael Bloomberg, covering gun control. The mayor was out in front on this issue, even in the waning days of his administration, keeping Robert quite busy. I later caught up with Sam, who left New York for Hollywood and is taking a break from leading his band The Bravery. He has a new project that debuted in November. Dylan showed me the Andover alumni mobile app, which you should all download (iOS and Android)—the entire alumni directory is now literally at your fingertips. We all need much better excuses now for not connecting with one another. In case you weren’t already aware of the app, any profile information you have not specified as hidden is likely visible to the app, so you may want to log in to the alumni site and confirm your preferences. Speaking of connecting, in July, Amanda Adams ’93 organized quite the cocktail party for 1990–1995 alums at Rodeo Bar in Manhattan. Ellie Miller reports that several ’92ers and others were there, including Kate Seward, Shanti Crawford, Jeremy Robins ’93, Daphne Matalene, Christy Johnson Bancone, Rebecca Howland Granne, Susan Abramson, Todd Lubin, Lucie Flather ’91, and Leila Jones Shields ’93. By the way, congrats to Ellie for finishing her nursing degree at SUNY Downstate! She asks that anyone who might be able to help her find a post on a maternity ward, please reach out. From across the pond, Monisha Saldanha writes that she and husband Deba Banerjee welcomed their son Rishi Banerjee in March 2013. Mo lives and works in London, where she is head of brand extensions for the Guardian News and Media. Look her up in the alumni directory; she’d love to meet up with any classmates swinging through town. Katie Porter dropped me a line saying she’s in Irvine, Calif., and on the faculty of UC Irvine’s new law school. This is just the latest stop in Katie’s cross-country academic law career, which has taken her through Nevada, Iowa, and Massachusetts. You’d think between that and having three kids ages 7, 4, and 1, Katie would have barely enough time to sleep, but for the past year she’s also managed to serve as California monitor of banks for California Attorney General Kamala Harris, overseeing the national mortgage settlement for the Golden State. Fellow Angeleno Billy Kheel has a new outlet on www.etsy.com. According to the online description, “Bkheel Industries is your one-stop Etsy shop for all things felt and felt appliqué—pillows, mesh hats, and pennants—plus so much more! Bkheel takes the gritty and the urban (such as LA strip mall signs, profane pennants, and the Los Angeles skyline) and turns them into delicately crafted products for your
Members of the Class of ’91, along with their children, visited the Topsham Fair in Topsham, Maine, in August 2013. Adults, from left, are Eric Stockman, Stephen Matloff, and Nicole Graber Stephenson.
home and wardrobe.” Search for “bkheel” on Etsy and browse his store to see—and, as I did, acquire a piece of—Billy’s unique urban-inspired visual style. Based in Santa Cruz, Calif., Kerry Kriger founded Save The Frogs! (www.savethefrogs.com) back in 2008 as a charitable organization dedicated to the conservation of amphibians. His efforts have taken him around the world as he leads and supports efforts to protect amphibian populations, which are critical elements of the planet’s ecosystems. He wrote, “I recently spent five weeks in Colombia giving presentations on frog conservation at universities and started the first South American branch of Save The Frogs! (Save The Frogs! Colombia). In July I head to Belize for a few weeks to lead our first eco-tour.” Although he wasn’t in our class, many of us knew or otherwise felt the outsized presence of Todd Isaac ’90, who perished at the World Trade Center during the 9/11 terrorist attacks. For the third September in a row, his life was fittingly celebrated with a basketball game at Stuyvesant High School in Manhattan, followed by dinner at The Palm Tribeca. The Todd A. Isaac Memorial Basketball Game and Reception was organized by Chris Auguste ’76, Andreas Buchanan ’90, Tiffany Chanel Corley ’91, Rejji Hayes ’93, Andrew Hoine, Maggie Klarberg Kennedy ’96, Marcia McCabe ’73, Uche Osuji ’91, Dan Raedle ’91, Marcella Viktorin ’05, and Chris White ’93. Mark your calendars for next year’s gathering and watch for it on Facebook or the alumni events calendar in 2014. Aloha and mahalo, everyone. Until next time, please pass along any news to me directly or connect with your classmates on the Class of 1992 Facebook page, where you can also stay in the know about events like the ones mentioned above.
[Editor’s note: Nigerian civil rights activist Hafsat Abiola received the Andover Alumni Award of Distinction on Nov. 1, 2013. The award recognizes alumni who have served with distinction in their fields of endeavor. See story, page 42.]
1993 Susannah Smoot Campbell Susannah.s.campbell@gmail.com 301-257-9728 Jen Charat jcharat@yahoo.com 619-857-6525 Ted Gesing tedgesing@gmail.com 917-282-4210 Hilary Koob-Sassen hksassen@hotmail.com +44 7973775369
Friends, Ted Gesing, Jen Charat, Hilary Koob-Sassen, and Susannah Smoot Campbell are thrilled to be your new class secretaries. Many thanks to Nick Thompson and Amanda Adams for their indefatigable service. Beth Canterbury, on the voice faculty at the Walnut Hill School, lives with her husband and two kids, and juggles mommyhood and work with aplomb. Heather Brown Lewis, a physical therapist at Winchester Hospital, lives with husband, Jeff, and two kids. Their daughter, Katie, is an accomplished artist; her drawings decorate Andover | Winter 2014
99
stay connected... their dining room. Alexander “Sasha” Opotowsky is a cardiologist at Boston Children’s Hospital. He sees a bit of Nils Vaule, who works for children’s theatre nonprofits. Victoria McEvoy Khanna wrote from Boston, where she is a director for Bain Capital and the mother of three boys. She enjoyed lots of family time this past summer in the Hamptons. Alexis Dittmer visited her after reunion. Alexis, who lives in Santa Monica, Calif., with her husband, had lunch and “lots of laughs” with Steph Johnes and Zeke Farrow. The class secretaries eagerly await news of Zeke’s latest script, which he dreamt would star Mila Kunis. An expectant (and radiant) Michelle Choi and her husband await a little sibling to their son. Eloyse “Ellie” Milner Ellerman works for Intuit and lives in Lexington, Mass., with her husband and two kids. She caught up with Johan Aasbo at reunion. Johan, a cardiac electrophysiologist, lives in Toledo, Ohio, with wife Abby, an ordained minister and former hospital chaplain, and their two sons, Soren, 3, and Christopher, 1. Susannah Smoot Campbell and her husband live in Atlanta with their 4-year-old, George. She and Alison Wheeler Kennedy just started a business, First Line Strategy, providing developing businesses and private investment groups with marketing strategy and capital raise services. Alison lives in Lexington, Mass., with husband Pat and daughters Lauren and Peyton. Alison sees Lara Slachta Phimister in Boston, where Lara started a new law firm. Alison also may see more of Gus Quattlebaum, who just moved around the corner from her. Gus confessed at reunion that it was strange to be back on the campus that, for most of his life, he called home. His parents have retired and are doing well! Mark Jaklovsky launched a coffee brand, Café Jose, which can be found in 71 Market Basket supermarkets and dozens of Boston-area independent grocery stores. Brandon Schwartz reported in for the first time since graduation! He shares, “I’ve been a grad student, computer programmer, Navy officer, scientist, teacher, and tax lawyer, and now I’m in San Francisco, running my own business and trying to learn Russian so I can talk to my grandparents-in-law.” He and his wife, Yanina, enjoy traveling and recently held hawks at a wildlife sanctuary in Europe. Ying Liu, an exchange student from China during her time at Andover, reported that she is safe, sound, and living overseas. Rabbi Marc Baker wrote in from Waltham, Mass., where he leads Gann Academy, a pluralistic Jewish independent school where, he writes, students experience “much of what [he] loved about Andover, in the context of a caring, purposeful, intellectually engaging Jewish community.” He and his wife, Jill, have four children. He was “thrilled” to walk in John Palfrey’s investiture. Samantha Appleton reports that she and her partner, Brian Mathis, welcomed a daughter, Beatrice Mathis, in July 2013. Steve Kokinos is an IT entrepreneur in Arlington, Mass. Sadly for all the
100
Andover | Winter 2014
former groupies of his band, he doesn’t play much anymore. He invests his days in building a business and nurturing a lovely wife and three kids. Alison Crawford works in advertising and seized reunion to spend time with Kim Valentine Washington, who works for P&G in Cincinnati. Making a brief appearance before reunion was David “Dave” Jackson, who lives in Seattle with wife Kat and two kids and happily toils at Amazon. On his way to his Dartmouth reunion, he supped with friends, including Carole Reid Bird. Carole, married to classmate Willett Bird, journeyed to reunion from Hong Kong with her daughter, leaving Willett at home with son Atticus. Carole caught up at reunion with Arian Giantris Clements, who works for human rights in Portland, Maine. Quick notes on the folks of Newman House, where Dave and Willett lived: Matt Macarah is rumored to be headed for Alaska. Asher Richelli lives in NYC, where he is general counsel at DF King Worldwide and founder of Page 73, a nonprofit that develops and produces the works of early-career playwrights. Gi Soo Lee is a married doctor in Boston. There’s a cache of PA folks in Texas, including Ore Owodunni, who lives with his wife and family and hopes to visit family in Lagos soon. Mary Olivar, who works for Whole Foods headquarters, lives in Austin with her three children. Chris Keady lives in his college town of Chapel Hill, N.C., works for Home Depot, and raises his family. He enjoys being in the military reserves. Elizabeth Bissell Miller serves as an international communications coordinator at the University of Missouri, and she’s also the ambassador for the Timbuktu Libraries in Exile project. She lives in Columbia, Mo., with her husband and two cats. Andrew Frishman returned to campus as a speaker commemorating the 25th anniversary of PALS, a mentorship program with Lawrence middle-school students. Andy is director of program development for Big Picture Learning Network, and he and his wife, Leigh, have two children. Ted Sterling shared tales of child-rearing and sustainable living. He lives and works at the Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage in Missouri with his partner and daughter. Mike Schulte is an entrepreneur in Chicago, leading the innovative Thinking Fan Design, which is able to capitalize on memes and trends with organizations like the NFL Players Association, crowdsourced designs, and just-intime productions. Colton Brown is the regional marketing and sales director at DuPont Fabros Technology, which provides data storage to the likes of Facebook and Google. He lives in NYC with his wife and son, John. Ramona Gittens Morgan is a beauty and fashion entrepreneur. She lives in upstate New York with British husband George and daughter, Eve. Melissa Clapp Johnson is a writer and editor outside of NYC, where she lives with husband Chris and three children.
Tina Ver Foley wrote in from Paris, where she lives with her husband, Paul, and son, Rowan. Tina leads fundraising and external relations for the American University of Paris. She was back on the Andover campus a few months ago with her mother and son. Tina missed reunion because she was preparing for the university’s 50th anniversary celebrations. Ted Gesing recently moved back to NYC, where he produces documentaries and has made the delightfully insane decision to become one of your new class secretaries. Class—especially those who have been silent lo these past decades—our goal is to provide an update on every classmate in the next five years. Please tell us your news!
1994 20th REUNION June 13–15, 2014 Moacir P. de Sá Pereira +1 774 473 9856 Google Voice moacir@gmail.com
Maybe everyone is keeping a bit mum so that there is more news to report at our upcoming reunion, but it was especially difficult to get news from my classmates this time around. I considered filling up our allotment with tales of my own preparations for winter (the house in which I’m staying just had a delivery of 20 cubic meters of firewood, and I’ve got to help stack it), but, instead, I’ll stick to what the others have said and come in comfortably below the word limit. Speaking of the reunion, Aaron Flanagan wrote in to remark that he had recently eaten a burrito, and shortly thereafter he was looking forward to bringing his toddler, Silas, to Andover in June, so that he may meet his future classmates. Sachita Shah and husband Andrew Reichman had a daughter, Ayla, in December. Sachita’s doing well as an emergency medicine doctor at Harborview Medical Center in Seattle. Another new parent is David Callum, whose first child, Sophia Diannarose, was born last summer. He decided that being a first-time parent wasn’t sufficiently challenging in and of itself, so he also moved to Milton, Mass., just before her birth. Jessie Clyde had her second child, daughter Annecy, in June as well. Jessie spent most of her maternity leave on the picturesque Massachusetts beaches with Liz DuBois and her baby, Sabine, and then celebrated three months of Annecy’s life by taking the baby camping on an island. In July, Beth Crowley had a baby girl, Virginia. The previous month, Beth and her husband went to Andover to watch their niece Emily McKinnon ’13’s graduation. Ivan Barry also recently visited Andover to see his parents, who will be retiring next summer from PA, meaning that our reunion will, sadly, be their last. Ivan still teaches history at the Cate School,
www.andover.edu/intouch near Santa Barbara, Calif. While he was visiting his parents, he managed to catch up with Byron Chiungos and Andy Logan. Byron is practicing law in New York, and Andy lives in Amherst, Mass. Erin Lentz and husband Jason Cons ’93 are both now assistant professors in international relations at Bucknell. Finally, on the education beat, Laura Rahe wrote that she and her family are spending the academic year in Mountain View, Calif., while her husband is on sabbatical. Andy Warner wrote to let me know that he’s moved back to San Francisco from Singapore, and he’s now working at Google X. According to him, the initial shock of being surrounded by so many people smarter than he is at Google X took him back to his first few days at PA. In April, Michael Hackmer started a marketing firm, Social Web Tactics, that specializes in social media and business development. He’s also working on an education startup, a secondary school that blends business, technology, and apprenticeship. Brock Savage also wrote to let me know that he’s left digital production behind and is now working as a business analyst in Brooklyn, N.Y., for digital agency Huge. He also recently lost a plant. Alana Petraske sent a message from London, where she works as a lawyer advising charities and philanthropists. She shares her living space with an Australian chef and some Burmese-mix cats. At the time of writing, she and her partner, Jodie, were expecting a baby, so maybe we’ll hear more about that in time for the next installment. And, finally, Berk Nelson wrote on our Facebook page that he hasn’t had anything to write in some six years. Yet moments later, Dan Ingster wrote to me to announce that he (Dan) got married over the summer in Park City, Utah, to Melissa Pawlak. None other than Berk was the best man at the wedding, and then Dan, Melissa, Berk, and Berk’s girlfriend, Aubry, went to Napa in August, where Berk proposed to Aubry as Dan filmed. Aubry said yes, so I suspect Berk will have something to write about soon, after all. That’s all the news I’ve gotten, and the firewood still needs stacking, so I’ll finish up here. As always, please consider joining our class’s page on Facebook: http://bit.ly/17nDfx1.
1995 Lon Haber P.O. Box 907 Topanga CA 90290 323-620-1675 lon@lonhaber.com Margot van Bers Streeter +44 077 393 77700 margotstreeter@gmail.com
Huge gold stars to Daniel Marks and Delphine Rubin McNeill: Dan for writing in on the same day his new company launched in LA, and Del for
Enjoying a beautiful day on Martha’s Vineyard in July 2013 are, from left, Scott Brooks ’57, Elizabeth Gagliardi ’95, Katherine Stewart ’97, Hannah Brooks Weiner ’97, Kenneth Weiner ’96, and Jean Ritchey Ross ’47. Scott is Hannah’s uncle, Elizabeth and Katherine are her closest friends, Kenneth is her husband, and Jean is her cousin. “We are truly an Andover family!” says Hannah.
cobbling together a two-page update in the middle of a transcontinental move. Though Del’s submission may have been prompted ever so slightly by the announcement that we’d recently stumbled upon as-yet-unpublished Exeter Geek Day photographs from 1994 (and might have been threatening their release should news not be forthcoming), we remain extremely impressed. So what did they have to say? Well, for starters, we learned that South District Films, Dan’s new venture, is currently producing high-end sports content, and that he’s codirecting and editing an ESPN 30 for 30 documentary on “sneaker marketing legend” Sonny Vaccaro, which is scheduled to air in early 2014. Also, as a sidebar, our dashing classmate has traveled to some very interesting places lately. But that’s a story he’ll have to tell you himself, unless, of course, he clears us to include it in the next issue. (That’s a hint, Marks.) And what was in Del’s two pages? Lots. First, it turns out that she and her husband managed to catch Head of School John Palfrey’s talk on “The Future of Andover” in Hong Kong and that they toted along their son (in a PA sweatshirt, no less). All idyllic and “Go Blue!” and Class of ’27, etc.—except for the slightly awkward fact that said tot opted to sleep through the entire speech. Del insists that “he won’t do that at Andover,” but only time will tell… She also tells us that her brother (filmmaker Henry Alex Rubin ’91, of Murderball fame) had a double premiere earlier in the year, welcoming into the world both a daughter, Georgia Rose, and his first fictional narrative film, Disconnect. Congratulations, Henry! In other news, we learned that, taken together, the wedding of Morgan Madera Baroni ’99 combined with a luncheon at Alison Coughlin Averill’s house triggered a mini Boston-based reunion, including Meghan Madera Bent ’94, Meggan Haarmann Newmarker ’94, and Megan O’Keefe Manzo ’94, as well as our own Caitie Madera
Fawcett, John Fawcett, Stefanie Santangelo, Vanessa Kerry, and Charlotte Kendrick Rowe. (Oh, and that Ali included entertainment by an animal trainer who trotted out a python for the amusement of the assembled tots. As one does.) In other child-entertainment-oriented news, Shannon Marvin Brown wrote in to tell us that she “spent an unforgettable vacation at Disneyland” celebrating her daughter Charley’s fifth birthday— an event made even more memorable by the attendance not only of myriad princesses but also of her daughter’s “fairy” godmother, Tiffany Freitas. Ted Powers also wrote in to tell us that he and his wife Megan welcomed a second daughter, Madeleine Lily Powers, in August (weighing in at “a whopping 9 pounds, 7 ounces”) much to the excitement of his older daughter, Charlotte. Dede Orraca-Tetteh got in touch to let us know that she’s expecting her fourth child. What else has Dede been up to for the past few years? After working as a litigator, she said, she “decided to get back to doing what [she] really love[s]—global health/ development consulting.” Now “doing just that,” she describes her role as “kind of a public/private partnership broker within the health-care sector.” These days, Dede and her family are living in Wellesley, Mass., and she’d love to get back in touch with “any/ all PA folks living out this way”—so drop her a line! In the world of the arts, Vanessa White was gearing up for the sixth season of her critically acclaimed theater production The Slutcracker and traveled to Czechoslovakia earlier last year to record, edit, and mix her own version of the Tchaikovsky score (with a full orchestra, no less). Vanessa writes that she now owns the rights to her very own Nutcracker/Slutcracker score—and we’re proud to say that it got serious shout-outs on BBC Radio 3 and in the Times when it hit the airwaves. She also wrote that she’s hoping to release a full, standard Nutcracker recording with a Creative Commons license so anyone may use it without the worry Andover | Winter 2014
101
stay connected... 1996 John Swansburg 349 Adelphi St., Apt. 2 Brooklyn NY 11238 john.swansburg@aya.yale.edu
In July, a group of alumni gathered on the Île d’Oléron in France to celebrate the wedding of Dave Holmes ’97. From left are Steve Tsou ’97, Neil Kumar ’97, bride Alice Mulard and groom Dave Holmes, Julia Lloyd Johannsen ’96, Steve Dise ’97, and Alan Ginsberg ’00.
of paying royalties. We think that’s very generous, given the time and energy she’s put into the work. But, she says, “Such is this slut’s gift to the universe.” Amen, sister. Want to hear what all the fuss is about? Go check it out on iTunes—it’s available now. Huge congratulations to Peter Nilsson, who was recently invited to join the South by Southwest Education (SXSWEdu) Advisory Board. He wrote that he “would love to [hear from] any classmates in the tech or ed-tech space interested in connecting in Austin this coming March.” So if that’s you, definitely be in touch! Further kudos go to Laurie Coffey—a.k.a. the new deputy director of the United States Naval Academy Sailing Center. Upon receipt of this news, one of your secretaries had a flashback to her shared college tour with Laurie, in particular a visit to Annapolis that involved the (rather questionable) decision to join in a varsity sailing team practice race. Three things related to that race remain indelibly imprinted on her mind: (1) that it took place in what was basically a hurricane; (2) that the crew was so hardcore that it made the grizzled Viking marauders of lore seem like LOL kittens; and (3) that Laurie, in typical Laurie fashion, was
102
Andover | Winter 2014
utterly unfazed by all of the above. Considering these memories, her appointment comes as no surprise—nor, given the modesty of our wildly talented classmate, did it shock us that in writing of it she said simply that it was “an amazing opportunity…to wear khaki shorts and boat shoes for the next three years.” Have a blast, Coff—if anyone deserves it, you do. But really. As we’re connected to lots of you on Facebook, we know that many of you will be up to some very cool things over the next few months—from weddings and company launches to welcoming new babies and wrapping up grad school. As promised, we won’t go all PRISM on you and snatch things we see on your pages without your permission, but it’s not easy for us to know that you’re up to so many exciting things that we can’t share (we’re looking at you, Brenna Haysom, Kemal Sadikoglu, and Russel Taylor)—so please write! Finally, for anyone who’d like to stay in touch on Facebook rather than by e-mail, we’re Lon Haber and Margot VBS Maltzahn, respectively. Come find us—the more the merrier. That’s it for now, guys. Onwards and upwards.
Andover dormitories are great cauldrons of bubbling linguistic experimentation. There’s something about the close quarters, the late nights, and all that intellectual stimulation that inspires young men and women to play with the language with Joycean irreverence. I happen to know that a certain dorm, otherwise known for its lax-bro leanings during our PA tenure, hosted impromptu games of Balderdash, the official board game of word nerds. The Phillipian’s weekly “J.V. Roundup” was always full of clever, occasionally cruel punning. (Ian Schaul was a particularly gifted practitioner.) It was surely a waggish Cold War–era student, not a staid faculty member, who first dubbed the school’s most distant playing fields “Siberia.” My favorite bit of Andover wordplay was a turn of phrase coined by Colin Bradley ’95, who pioneered the use of the word “documented” as an expression of certitude. As in: Are you really going to eat both of those roast beef sandwiches? Documented. Or: Are you really going to sew that Grateful Dead patch onto your hat? Documented. I loved Colin’s notion that he could back up even the most trivial piece of information with a paper trail, a dossier of sworn testimony and signed affidavits to support his plan to finish that second roast beef sandwich. It was in the spirit of documentation that I undertook an experiment this past summer. Instead of soliciting word of your latest achievements, I asked you all to send me a favorite Andover memory. I thought it might be interesting to collect our recollections—to take stock of what’s stayed with us—and to file these memories away for safekeeping. Your responses were wonderfully diverse. Naturally, several of you described eye-opening academic experiences. Brendan Hare, for instance, recalled with relish Ed Germain’s seminar on the aforementioned Irishman, James Joyce: “In the spring term, we read all of Ulysses. I remember cracking it open for the first time in the library, during the cold weather, and reaching page 700 or so on the Great Lawn, under the sun, a few days before graduation.” Sometimes, however, it was not completing the assignment that provided the lasting memory. Libby O’Hare remembered a time when she put off work on a paper in the hope that she’d be granted an extension by a Head of School Day. Libby lingered in Commons, waiting for the rumored arrival of Barbara Landis Chase’s fieldhockey stick of mercy, but the head of school didn’t show. So Libby repaired to the Garver Room and settled in for a long night. Just as pen was about to hit paper, word arrived that BLC had indeed issued
www.andover.edu/intouch
Jonathan Hoffman ’97 married Megan Drahos in August 2013 on the New Jersey side of the Hudson River overlooking Manhattan.
her annual discretionary day off. “I remember so clearly the elation I felt at being given this undeserved reprieve!” Libby writes. “Of course, I immediately packed up and left the library, off for an evening and day of shenanigans. The paper could wait another 24 hours!” Some memories, like Melissa Dana’s, were more impressionistic, less a recollection of a specific event than of a feeling. Melissa conjured a lovely image of “night walks in deep Abbot when the fog made backlit bare trees appear like great spider webs. Something about that stillness and the curious sense of wonder that came alive in the darkness.” Mike Gagliano, too, described an ineffable Andover spirit, and one that has stuck with him. “I was a PG my senior year at Andover, so my memory of the school is not as layered as some—but I remember the tradition and pomp and circumstance of the school with fondness—the respect for the past that you could feel while standing on campus; the place had a certain air of great things happening. Perhaps that respect for tradition and history led me to choose my job as a medical sergeant with the U.S. Army 18th Airborne Corps in Fort Bragg, N.C.” Mike hopes to be commissioned as an Army medical officer in the next two years. Chris Czarnecki also went on to serve in the Army. He fondly recalled sneaking his girlfriend, Mary, into Carter House lower year. When an unsanctioned parietal was not an option, Chris and Mary would exchange letters—a quaint reminder that our years at Andover were among the last before the advent of e-mail. Chris is now the chef/ owner of The Joel Palmer House, a restaurant in Dayton, Ore.—and he’s married to Mary. Serving in the military is a consummately selfless act, but it’s not the only way to take Andover’s
Natalie Harvey ’97 married Patrick Williams in New York City on July 6, 2013.
noble ethos to heart. Consider this memory, from Peter Saji: “After having failed yet another Dr. Watt physics test, I was stomping down the GW steps, which were covered in ice. I slipped, fell, slid on my back across the landing and plopped down the next flight of stairs. Daveen Chopra was kind enough to come outside and inform me that it was conference period and the entire school bore witness to my clumsiness. In true non sibi spirit, I cut the rest of my classes to watch other people eat it.” For a slightly more magnanimous interpretation of the school motto, let’s press Play on Josh Mann’s cinematic memory, set on a Western Massachusetts soccer pitch: “JV soccer game away in Deerfield. Deerfield brats were coming in for extra credit shots against the (exceptional) goalkeeper all game. Took a few to the groin. Eventually, the referee blew the whistle on the game because it was too rough. Immediately after that, Eli Dubin turned and slugged the nearest kid in green, a shot across the bow that catalyzed a melee on half the field. I had never felt so protected or loved by anyone outside of my immediate family until that moment. The act may have been violent, but the sentiment was as gentle and generous as could be.” On my morning commute, I often walk against a tide of students streaming out of the Lafayette Avenue subway stop and toward Brooklyn’s venerable Bishop Loughlin Memorial High School. I’m always struck by how young these kids are, and reminded, in turn, of how young we were during our time at PA. It’s the great comic irony of your high school years—the yawning gap between how mature you believe yourself to be at 17 and how immature you are in fact. Mark Rickmeier’s memory captured this disparity wonderfully, a portrait of boys playing at being men. He remembered “Carmelo Larose stealing my backpack and refusing to give it back
until I (finally) got up the guts to ask Colleen Reid to prom.” Mark asked. Carmelo returned the knapsack. Colleen said yes, I will, yes.
1997 Jack Quinlan 514 S. Clementine St. Oceanside CA 92054 760-415-9054 illegalparietal@gmail.com Kelly Quinn 2538 NW Thurman St. #205 Portland OR 97210 919-949-0736 illegalparietal@gmail.com
Come, faithful classmates of old ’97, and let us first celebrate the weddings: Lt. Cmdr. Luis Gonzalez married Lauren Patterson of Manitowish Waters, Wis., in October, traveling from his port of call in Lisbon, Portugal, to NYC to celebrate. He was honored to have Michael Napolitano and John Hyon stand beside him at the altar. Natalie Harvey got married this summer, and her old roommate Michelle Kalas was in attendance. Natalie’s husband, Patrick Williams, is the curate (assistant priest) at St. Philip’s Episcopal Church in the Harlem neighborhood of NYC. Jonathan Hoffman married Megan Drahos this past August in New Jersey, on the Hudson River overlooking Manhattan. Justin Felt served as a groomsman, and Addisu Demissie was also there to celebrate the nuptials. Jonathan and Megan had a whirlwind honeymoon exploring the West Coast, from hiking up in British Columbia (Whistler Andover | Winter 2014
103
stay connected...
Several alums made it all the way to Lanai, Hawaii, for the August 2013 wedding of Drew Gallagher ’99. From left are Justin Gallagher ’03, Halsey Coughlin ’99, Brendan Gallagher ’06, Drew Gallagher, Patrick Sheehan ’99, and Robert Ramsey ’99. Justin and Brendan are brothers of the groom.
Blackcomb) to touring Seattle, then winding everything down in Southern California. Last issue, we mentioned Dave Holmes’s wedding; he married Alice, a French woman he met in China, in November 2012. Dave and Alice celebrated in their home countries and in Guangzhou, China. The civil ceremony was held at Dave’s parents’ house in Andover, Mass., the site of a number of delicious meals for many of us during our school days. In attendance were Steve Dise, Lisa Galluzzo Borgatti, and Alan Ginsberg ’00. A larger celebration took place in downtown Andover, where Dise, Lisa, and Alan were joined by Neil Kumar and wife Shruti Haldea, as well as Sandra Lopez-Morales. Helping Dave celebrate in China was Steve Tsou, who also joined the lucky couple’s final wedding celebration on the Île d’Oléron, France, this past July, along with Neil and Dise. Dave still works for New Balance and continues to be a world traveler, often traveling to Vietnam, Bangkok, Singapore, and Yangon, Myanmar. Sounds amazing! Also taking her vows in Europe was Alexis Olans. Alexis sends greetings from Germany, where she works for Adidas and has lived since graduating from the University of Michigan’s MS/MBA program in 2007. She spent one year on a professional fellowship (under the Robert Bosch Foundation Fellowship Program) in Germany working on sustainability and business topics at IDEO and Adidas in Germany. Thereafter, she joined Adidas to lead the company’s product sustainability program, and she has been growing the program and increasing the amount of sustainable product for the company for the past six years. Alexis loves Germany and is
104
Andover | Winter 2014
Alexis Olans ’97 married Philipp Haass in Germany in August 2013.
quite fully assimilated, as she just married a German man, Philipp Haass, this past August, surrounded by friends and family in the Alps. We hope she will look up Henry Wu and Ida Hattemer-Higgins in Berlin. In domestic news, Hannah Weiner and husband Kenny Weiner ’96 are still living in St. Louis and plan to continue to make it home for the next two years. Hannah continues to work as a nurse practitioner in bone marrow transplant, while raising one of the cutest kids we’ve ever seen. Hannah did get to catch up with Katie Stewart and Rebecca Gutner Forter on Martha’s Vineyard this past summer. Katie recently added a new puppy, Packer, to her family, and Rebecca welcomed her second daughter, Cordelia, in July. Also summering off Cape Cod was Julian Dimery, who was on Nantucket with wife Laura and daughter Rosemary Grace. Jules hit Murray’s Toggery Shop for a pair of Reds as soon as he got off the ferry. Rasaan Ogilvie likes his summer a bit hotter and escaped to Mykonos before beginning his 13th year as an educator and administrator at the Urban Assembly School for Applied Math and Science in the Bronx, N.Y. Seth Moulton was sweating it out on the campaign trail, stating that it’s exceeding all of his expectations. The race in the Massachusetts 6th District is considered by some to be one of the top five primaries in the nation. Seth extends many thanks to several of you who have been extremely supportive of the campaign. Next issue we should have an update for you!
Ben Chen completed his residency and fellowship training in pathology and hematopathology at Boston’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital and started a new job as an assistant professor in pathology at UMass Memorial Medical Center in Worcester, Mass. On top of all of this, Ben and his wife, Becky, and kids, Eli and Aaron, recently decided to settle in Sudbury, Mass. In the Far East, Web Coates reported from Japan, where, after 10 years of working for Citi, he decided to take a new job as head of strategy management for MetLife Alico. It’s been quite a while since we’ve heard from Caroline Whitbeck, and she had wonderful news to share. Caroline received a PhD degree in comparative literature from the University of Pennsylvania this past August. Olga Massov is in the process of starting work on two cookbooks, one with Chopped judge Marc Murphy and another with New York artisan ice cream brand Van Leeuwen (work hasn’t started yet on this). Olga also has a cookbook coming out in April 2014 with Iron Chef Marc Forgione (in fact, at this writing Olga was sitting on the first-pass copy, which arrived in August and was awaiting edits). Julia Galaburda Henderson and husband Andy Henderson always put smiles on our faces. Andy’s woodworking business—Rain King Woodturning—has taken off, with his work appearing in galleries in Concord, Mass., and Denver, Colo. The Hendersons stepped out for a double date with Joaquin Escamille and Heather Barry back in July. Julia said it was like old times, hanging out at the Park Street Pub. Julia also caught up with
www.andover.edu/intouch Krystle Dunwell in LA way back in May. They had brunch at The Tasting Kitchen and caught up. Julia said it was absolutely “awesome.” Dana Parnes Stulberg and husband Jonah welcomed their daughter, Maya Isabelle, in August, sharing a birth date with her 4-year-old brother, Ethan. They live in Cleveland, where Jonah continues his surgical training. Last, here’s some free advice: If you’re not reading Gerald Mitchell’s blog, Beautyful Ones, look it up (www.beautyfulones. wordpress.com). If you’re not listening to Jennifer Bassett Sherman’s band, The Living Kills, catch a show in NYC. And if you’re not sending updates to your class secretaries, snap to it.
1998 Zoe Niarchos Anetakis 75 Waltham St., No. 4 Boston MA 02118 781-475-9772 zbniarchos@yahoo.com
I think I may have overdone it on our reunion edition—I had to do some pretty serious stalking to get the good gossip gems this time around. Thankfully, I had a few saving graces to boost my word count. And by saving graces, I mean perfect little bundles of joy! Noa Elizabeth Koplik may have deterred her mom, Helen Struck, from attending reunion, but she arrived with joy in August and all was forgiven. Helen and her husband, Rocky, have properly introduced Noa to San Francisco, where the new family of three makes its home. Anne Bartlett Fender and husband Christopher welcomed their third child, Vivian Reese, in August. Vivian joins big brothers Cole and Lane, who adore having a baby sister to fawn over (smart boys). After living all around the U.S. during Anne’s journey through dermatology, the Fender brood are now home sweet home in Golden, Colo. Emma Soichet and husband Ari Vampolsky welcomed baby girl Maya in September. Before Maya came on the scene, Emma and Ari made the move from LA to Nashville, Tenn. I think Nashville is a good choice for the new family of three. The city provides a vibrant music scene, fantastic Southern food, and, if we’re being honest, a chance at meeting Connie Britton in the flesh. (Priorities, people.) Cooper William MacBride attended reunion with his mom and dad, Andrew and Allison MacBride, albeit in utero. He promptly came into the world in September, joining big brother Winn. The MacBride brothers are such an adorable pair—watch out, world! The MacBrides live in Arlington, Mass., and Allison works for Greenpeace, in annual giving. Fred Papali and wife Tanu Chandra welcomed son Liam in the spring. Fred—like most parents, I would guess—is surprised at how much he is
Morgan Madera Baroni ’99 celebrated her wedding day at the Harvard Club in Boston on April 20, 2013. More than 20 PA alumni were in attendance, including Meghan Madera Bent ’94, Joisan Decker DeHaan ’99, Kirsten Lewis Riemer ’99, Fred Flather ’99, Morgan Madera Baroni, groom Roland Baroni III, Liza Trafton ’99, Tysie Sawyer ’99, Meggan Haarmann Newmarker ’94, Stefanie Santangelo ’95, Delphine Rubin McNeill ’95, Caitlin Madera Fawcett ’95, John Fawcett ’95, Meghan Hayes ’00, Megan O’Keefe Manzo ’94, Matthew Kalin ’99, Tiffany Horne Noonan ’99, Paul Penta ’99, Marlena Montanez Penta ’99, Nathaniel Fowler ’99, and David Constantine ’97.
basking in the wonder of all things giggles and poop with baby Liam. Fred is continuing his journey in medical training (11 years, friends, 11 years). In his current role, he is in pulmonary and critical-care training, focused on global health, and has set up a clinical research project in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Last spring, Meagan Prahl married fellow Cleveland native Austin Krauss after a four-year courtship that began, of all places, in an airport. In film, it would be called a “meet cute,” which Meagan knows a little bit about since she recently played opposite Joelle Carter as “best friend Sarah” in an independent film, It’s Not You, It’s Me, also starring Vivica Fox (!). While I was stalking Meagan’s career in film on imdb.com, I noticed that she was in a mini docu-dramedy, What I Can Do For You, along with Lon Haber ’95. Here is a little piece of throwback trivia—Meagan and I were in the same Blue Key group our junior year, and Lon was our advisor! Adding to our nuptial news, last August Margaret Cantrell married David Danielson in Charleston, S.C. Margaret and David live and work in Washington, D.C.; Margaret is a senior legislative officer in the U.S. Department of Labor and David works in the Department of Energy, where he started an organization to fund the development of early-stage disruptive new clean-energy technology. Last September, Patrick Curtis married Terry
Farsani on the Deerfield Academy campus, where Patrick’s mother, Margarita Curtis, is now head of school. Pat and Terry live in Boston, where Pat runs Wall Street Oasis, an online investment banking and finance community he founded following his stint in banking after college. There are two additional career bits to report. John Tarantino is working in real estate development full time, but also has a fun side project developing a small-batch watch company called Martenero, which launched in November 2012. Martenero watches are hand built in New York and individually customized. It also must be said that John was at reunion, but we missed each other! I feel terrible about it, since we are dual alums of Andover and Emory, but my oversight was probably a consequence of my herding everyone for our group photo, so, you know, sacrifices happen. Lastly, Veronique Prado-Lacoste Smondack is living the dream in the south of France. She is now president of Golf de Chantaco in Saint-Jean-de-Luz, Aquitaine. Chantaco is the Lacoste family course, founded by French tennis legend René Lacoste. Both Veronique’s mother and grandmother were accomplished golfers, and Veronique now carries the torch for her family quite brilliantly. And that’s a wrap. Wherever you are, I hope you, too, are living the dream. Stay cool, and stay in touch. Andover | Winter 2014
105
stay connected...
Five friends from the Class of 2000—three with their infant sons—got together in July for a mini reunion at Hillary Fitzpatrick Peterson’s Cambridge, Mass., home. From left are Aynslie Accomando, Katie Witman, Laura Fitzgerald Clark, Hillary Fitzpatrick Peterson, and Anne Bernard Arnett. Babies, from left, are Aynslie’s son, Gus; Laura’s son, Connor; and Anne’s son, Spencer.
1999 15th REUNION June 13–15, 2014 Marisa Connors marisaconnors@gmail.com
The countdown to our 15th Reunion continues! There are only a few short months until we are back on campus. I can hardly believe so much time has passed—it seems like only yesterday we were all trudging back and forth between classes and hanging out in the Ryley Room. Well, maybe it doesn’t quite feel like yesterday…but it certainly doesn’t feel like 15 years have passed! How is that even possible? Faran Krentcil e-mailed while in the middle of what she dubbed “fashion month: the fourweek sprint, in heels, that magazine editors make from New York to London, Milan, and Paris.” Faran reports she “had a blast covering the collections for Elle (you can see some of the stories on www.elle.com) while also working on a side project illustrating a book on British fashion for my friend, UK stylist Lou Teasdale. Guess all those runway drawings I sketched during math class actually paid off!” Carrie English had a busy year. She writes, “Last December I quit my job at Boston’s WGBH, sold my condo, and proceeded to spend the next seven months traveling and working in Asia. I visited Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos, Malaysia, Singapore, Korea, and Japan and lived in China. After returning to the United States, I continued my
106
Andover | Winter 2014
travels and visited friends all over the country.” Heather Collamore has lots to celebrate these days—she became engaged to her significant other, Ari, and completed her ninth season with the New York Mets organization. She recently caught up with Brooke Currie and Catherine Kannam in Washington, D.C., and attended the Citi Open tennis tournament. Thanks to all who sent in updates. If you have anything you’d like to include in the next notes, please feel free to e-mail me at marisaconnors@ gmail.com. Looking forward to seeing everyone in June!
2000 Jia H. Jung 550 11th St. #4R Brooklyn NY 11215 917-589-5423 (cell) jiajung@alum.berkeley.edu
All right, class, the day that I’m turning this in is my birthday, so I’ll just get right to the good stuff this time—starting with myself. After a really annihilating bout of unemployment through much of 2012, I am glad to report that I am now working at a new job that pays a living wage and provides health insurance. It really doesn’t get much better than that. Last August, I attempted the eight-mile Boston Light Swim but was one of nine (in a field of 22) folks who were shut out by the Boston Harbor tides. I didn’t give up, though, and was at the maximum
five-hour limit and within sight of the finish when the turning tides prompted the Coast Guard to remove everyone from the water. Nowhere like Boston to suffer heartache. Shortly thereafter, on Sept. 14, I attempted a 15.1-mile circumnavigation around Cape May, N.J. (home of the oldest boardwalk in America). Seemed stupid after an incomplete swim of half the distance, but the water was supposed to be 10 degrees warmer and the course was supposed to be parallel to the shore and less subject to outgoing tides, funky winds, or chop. I guess you’ll all see if I made it in another four months, when the next class notes get published. Now, enough about me. In August, Poyuan Chen and Sam Sherry got married in true style at Boston’s Wang Center. In the main hall of marble, the couple’s personal vows rang clear and true. Po’s moving speech mentioned his arrival in the United States as a new lower at Andover and went on to describe his journey to finding his identity, his home, and the American dream in the love of his life. Not an eye was without tears of emotion, particularly given the presence of so many Andoverites, who very well remembered Po’s first days here: Praveen Kankanala, Mindy Lo, Mabel Ning, Alicia Wagner Larsen (who’d been wed over Memorial Day weekend up by the sea in Maine), Yiyun Tsai, Maria Tellez, and Susie Wager. Po’s brother Leo Chen ’04 was also present. A little while after the joyous event, Po reported, “Married life is kind of the same as unmarried life. Except our next vacation will now be called a honeymoon.” The newlyweds had a “mini moon” in Quebec City shortly after their wedding and were planning a bona fide trip to Thailand in January. Good luck, both! This past fall, Kate Mason and her wife, Jen, both began working as professors at Miami University (located in Ohio, not Florida). They’re still learning what it means to teach at an institution whose “party school” reputation is well earned, but they enjoyed the lead-in from a rural Ohio summer and were battening down for the winter at this writing. Pam Williams-Cheers is happy to announce that she has recently transitioned into working on her business, Party Prep, full time. She considers it her duty to ensure that the entire world has a glitter tattoo, if it’s the last thing she does! Pam’s daughter, Eleanor Olivia (and yes, she’s named after Pam’s big sis Eleanor Williams Erinna ’97), began attending school at a dual-language Spanish kindergarten, so mom Pam is loving every minute of surprising her child with her Español when helping out with the homework. Pam herself is shocked to find that she knows any Spanish at all! Meanwhile, Pam celebrated her 10th wedding anniversary with her husband with a tropical and warm brief getaway from central Illinois, which has grown on the family after eight and a half years—six and a half years longer than they had planned to spend there. Ursula DeYoung has emerged after many years to reveal that, post-PA, she spent several years in academia. Upon graduation from Harvard, she
www.andover.edu/intouch taught for a year in New York and then earned a PhD degree in history at Oxford University, across the pond. Throughout, she managed to keep up with her fiction writing. Two years ago, she found a fantastic agent in NYC, who sold her manuscript to Little, Brown. Her debut novel, Shorecliff, was released at the end of this past summer! The nowpublished author of the well-reviewed family drama set in 1920s coastal Maine resides in Cambridge, Mass., and spends most of her time writing, with some tutoring and editing on the side. Biz Ghormley, another mover and shaker, has started surfing. Despite her claim of not being particularly skilled, she displays great determination to improve in the sport on the waves of Rockaway, Queens, and elsewhere around the world. Tell Kelly Slater we say hi, Biz! After three years in The Hague working on war crimes prosecutions at both the International Criminal Court and a United Nations tribunal, Steven Arrigg Koh is now back in the U.S., working as a fellow at the American Society of International Law in our nation’s capital. Finally, proving that the sky is literally the limit for what our classmates can achieve, Jess Garcia is working as a subcontractor at NASA down in Houston, Texas, doing astronaut health surveillance. She says it’s a blast working with a bunch of people who are even nerdier than she is. All day, she gets to interview astronauts about their health exposures and their experiences in space. Since she talks extensively with retired astronauts, she’s met the famous ones. She can’t name names, but, yes, they have been to the moon, which they say is a nice place because of the weaker gravity but a bit dirty because of all the lunar dust. Don’t let the dust—earthly, lunar, or otherwise—settle on our communications, class. It’s great to be hearing from more and more of you, and I hope the trend continues this year.
2001 Misty Muscatel 203-569-9713 mistina.muscatel@gmail.com
I always love this time of year, because I get the updates and the gossip and get to see what everyone’s up to. A few more engagements, moves, weddings, and babies are entering the ’01 world! I’m realizing we’re in that reunion lull where we’re not due for crazy Knoll shenanigans for two more years, so I’m taking it upon myself to get something big on the books for spring ’14. Get excited and start busting out some blue apparel. Andrew Tucker got engaged at the end of the summer. In his words, “Sounds like a good life event to have as my first class notes post.” I agree, and huge congrats to Andrew! Another first to submit updates was Christian Sjulsen, who is just across the river from me in
Misty Muscatel ’01 hosted a group 30th birthday party for her classmates on her rooftop patio in New York City last April. Attendees, from left, included Mihir Patel, Vikas Goela, Amita Singh, Adam Sklar, Sarah Kline, Ramesh Donthamsetty, Misty Muscatel, Daniel Ahn, Matteo Natale, Rachel Weiner, Amanda Barash, Sophia Walter, and Kat Russell.
Williamsburg, Brooklyn, and who opened a cycling studio in July called Torque Cycling & Fitness (www.torque-cycling.com). All you New Yorkers, go check it out! Greg Kimball and wife Kate Bartlett Kimball welcomed daughter Cora in March 2013. Andover Class of ’31, here she comes! Greg and Kate’s fifth wedding anniversary was on September 6, and they are starting their new adventure as parents in Boston. Greg has been busy as an active Andover volunteer through his involvement with the Abbot Academy Association. He’s also in the process of setting up a way to infuse entrepreneurship more deeply in PA. Greg and Kate caught up with Spencer Washburn recently, who is living it up in New Jersey, coaching at Princeton, and taking care of his newborn son, Teague, and energetic toddler, Caden. In addition to keeping up with his work with Andover and becoming a new dad, Greg has had an incredibly busy year after finishing an MBA degree program at Dartmouth’s Tuck School and launching his startup www.Nifti.com. We’d love to get as many Andover alums as possible to check it out and sign up to show support! Raquel Leonard Moreno is doing great in Philadelphia, where she is working on new healing art therapies. She offers an open invitation to any alums in the Philly area to share these techniques to develop inner balance and experience personal growth. Chris Callahan is living and working in West Palm Beach, Fla. He spent much of the summer in NYC, Boston, and Cape Cod and pursuing a couple of new ventures: building an app called Surfr to journal your surfing life and helping launch an
initiative to create an entrepreneur resource center in West Palm Beach. The app (www.surfrapp.co) is soon to be in the App Store, so tell your surfing friends and keep an eye out! The other venture, an incubator dubbed Startup Palm Beach (www. startuppbc.com), has garnered support from both the public and private sectors and, at this writing, was in the process of securing 6,800 square feet of retail space in downtown West Palm. Chris and his team are building a network of partners—entrepreneurs, startups, sponsors, investors, mentors, and advisors. Chris saw Joe Maliekel and family while in NYC, and he continues to keep in touch with Nick Ma, Lawson Feltman, and Tyson Reist. I love these kinds of updates because they crack me up, yet get to the point. From Nakul Patel: “Eric Chase married.” Another great update from Joe Maliekel: “We have a baby! He’s cute!” Congrats to the Maliekel family for welcoming George Lindsey (“Gil”) Maliekel into the world. I got to meet Gil in person as I ran into the Maliekel family in the streets of Hell’s Kitchen, where Joe and I learned we are neighbors. Gavin McGrath’s family welcomed Charlie Walter to their family this past July. Wife Amanda is doing great, and Charlie’s sister, Caroline, went from jealous to thrilled in roughly 12 hours. Congrats! Lex Renwanz became a certified nursing assistant and home health aide. Jim Cunningham moved from NYC to LA to find film production work and has met up with James Shin and his fiancée, Janet, who were planning to tie the knot in January 2014. John Pearson works for the Saudi Arabian Oil Company and is based in Texas. Allison Colbert Andover | Winter 2014
107
stay connected...
At the October 2012 wedding of Aaron Stroble ’04 and Pam Risseeuw ’03 in Boston, Andover alumni celebrated in numbers. In the front row, from left, are Drew Ward ’03, Malika Felix ’04, Katie Regner ’03, the groom and bride, Diana Grace ’05, and Jed Kelly ’04. Back row, from left: Matt Ward ’06, Scott Ward ’01, Dean F. Boylan ’03, Dean M. Boylan, Nick Ksiazek ’03, Mark Kelly ’70, Shaun Blugh ’03, Phil Risseeuw ’98, Dan Koh ’03, Alan Ginsberg ’00, Bill Smith ’04, Tom McDonell ’04, Pat Seidensticker ’04, Hobie Boeschenstein ’04, John Freker ’04, and Jamie Neuwirth ’06.
did a whirlwind trip to NYC for the wedding of Ryan Coughlan ’02, where she saw a handful of ’02ers and got to have brunch with Claire Constantine Larson and her whole family. Allison is in the middle of getting an Erasmus Mundus master’s degree in public health, living in Sheffield, England, for the 2013–2014 school year and Paris, France, for the 2014–2015 school year. She’d love any tips or visits from local alumni. Ben Hogan is now working for the hedge fund Orange Capital and celebrated his wedding to Casey Bauer (now Hogan) at the end of the summer. Big year for Ben! Ashley Paige White-Stern is in her second year in Columbia’s postbac premed program, where she is serving as the president of the postbac premed association. Although extremely challenging, it’s also very fulfilling, and Ashley is enjoying the program. She’s continuing to write, mostly about health, community, and food (and general reflections about the process of professionalizing in medicine) at her blog The Spoon and the Sword. James Kenly is still rocking life in Denver. He started an MBA degree program at Denver University this fall and is excited to join the ranks of Andover grads with advanced degrees! As for me, I’m still living in NYC and seeing Rachel Weiner and Sarah Kline on a weekly-tobiweekly basis, which has kept me sane in this crazy city. Amita Singh moved back home to Chicago this summer to complete her fellowship year, so our foursome is now a threesome, but we manage to send Amita pictures of the food we’re eating whenever we get together, to give her some NYC FOMO! We also e-mail with a whole handful of Andover gals upwards of 100 times a day, which allows the Big Blue love to continue every hour. We met up with Meredith Hudson Johnston a few
108
Andover | Winter 2014
weeks back; copious amounts of red wine and lots of laughs were had. Life at Google is going well, and my new job as head of industry for the consumer packaged goods sales team keeps me on my toes, working late hours and managing 13 people. I was elected vice president of Andover’s Alumni Council last year so, at this writing, I’m busy preparing for the Leaders’ Weekend in November and will be excited to see so many ’01 faces who are coming back. Keep in touch, tell me what’s up, and come visit us in the Big Bad Apple. Go, Big Blue!
2002 Paul Crowley 919-724-5868 Skip.crowley@gmail.com Lauren Nickerson P.O. Box 2118 Volcano HI 96785 Lauren9@gmail.com
Thank you to all of the Class of 2002 alums who submitted updates this quarter. Your response was incredible, and it was exciting to read about all of the joyful moments in your lives. Thank you also to everyone who donated to the Andover Fund! Erin Kerrison is looking forward to completing a PhD degree in criminology at the University of Delaware in the spring. Emily Kumpel received a PhD degree in civil and environmental engineering from UC Berkeley. In August, she moved with her fiancé, Jay Taneja, to Nairobi, Kenya, where she took a job with Aquaya, conducting research to help improve access to safe drinking water. Emily welcomes anyone visiting Kenya to stop by for a visit.
Stephanie Hackett was elated to share that the art exhibition that she has been working on for the past three years (Theresa Bernstein: A Century in Art) opened at the James Gallery at the Graduate Center, CUNY, on Nov. 12 in New York. It will then travel to various locations for about a year. A book by the same title came out on Nov. 1 to accompany the exhibition, and Stephanie’s essay is included in the book, which can be ordered on Amazon. Azeem Ahamed moved to Boston from Vancouver, B.C., in March and is currently working in the investments division at the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center. Since moving, he has connected with a bunch of classmates, including Doug Tower, Eric Liu, BiNa Oh, Vikram Bellapravalu, Pawan Deshpande, and Freddie Martignetti. Freddie is still coaching for the Andover football team. Go, Big Blue! Sam Takvorian is also based in Boston, where he is an internal medicine intern at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Jessica Duffett received an MBA degree from NYU Stern School of Business and is now working at First Republic Bank in NYC. She was looking forward to celebrating Cassie Kaufmann’s wedding to Tom Quick in Brooklyn this fall with Tisse Takagi and Sam Spears, among others. Ryan Coughlin married his longtime partner, LaMont Barlow, in August. Many Andover folk were in attendance at the festive New York ceremony and reception including ’02ers Niki Roberts, Tisse Takagi, Louisa Butler, Cassie Kaufmann, and Kate Planitzer. Victoria Yu had a destination wedding in Ko Samui, Thailand, on Aug. 10. Jeehae Lee, who is currently a student at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, planned to marry James Kuk in January 2014. Lots of baby news! Nicole McLaren Campbell and her husband welcomed their second baby in January 2013. Luke Basta and his wife, Jessica, welcomed their son, Jonah Sebastian Basta, in March. Gauri Kirloskar and her husband, Chris, welcomed their new baby girl in May. Meghan Whitehead Perry and her husband, Christopher, welcomed their son, Logan, in July. Dan Leavitt and his wife recently purchased their first home in Marblehead, Mass., and were expecting their first child in October. Kaitlin McCann spent a few months exploring the United States after quitting her job at J.P. Morgan in May. Matt Roman is currently working as a writer’s assistant on See Dad Run (a Nickelodeon television show) and living with Harry Boileau. Patrick O’Brien is loving his vegan lifestyle and is busy working on the release of the fourth album by his band, Aunt Ange. If you’re in the NYC area, be sure to meet up with Patrick for a soy kale smoothie. The always lyrical and eccentric Dean Felch wrote to report on his shenanigans in the French Quarter of New Orleans with Jeff Sandman and Kate Bach. Dean and Stevie Brock experienced an epic road trip on their motorcycles to California, where they met up with RoseMarie Maliekel.
www.andover.edu/intouch 2003 Will Heidrich wheidrich@gmail.com
Still riding the high of a fantastic 10th Reunion, our class continues to grow and connect with one another. At last count, NYC can claim the largest share of this activity, with 41 classmates in the area, followed by Boston with 32 and the Bay Area with 27. Wherever we land, we tend to find one another. Over Labor Day, Margaret Ramsey, Janis Rice, Michael Ruderman, and I welcomed Viraj Navkal to San Francisco at the Ferry Plaza Farmers Market. Viraj recently moved to the Bay Area after finishing graduate school in LA. Not a week later, Janis kicked off the 2013 NFL season with a Patriots-themed brunch at her Nob Hill apartment. She cooked delicious blueberry waffles for Morgan Intrator, Tara Anderson, Viraj, and me, among many other Bay Area friends. Alex Jamali is also among the growing number of classmates in the Bay Area, working at UC Berkeley with students with psychological and psychiatric disabilities. She caught up with Sarah Carden in New Jersey, where Sarah has her own plot of community supported agriculture, complete with chickens and tilled land. These days in the Bay Area, it is tough to avoid seeing our classmates—at the very least, I usually share the bus with Ashley “Jina” Corneau on our way to work. The week after Labor Day, Emily O’Brien married Marco LoCascio in NYC, with many of our classmates cheering her on. Her longtime pals Tara Gadgil, Ali Rosen Gourvitch, Stephen Fee, Michael Ruderman, and Matt Lindsay were among the 2003 contingent rejoicing with the couple. In August, Katie Regner married Matt Cannan in Boston, where many more of ’03 celebrated the wedding. Katie’s longtime friend Pam Risseeuw Stroble served as a bridesmaid. Former soccer teammate Kate Takvorian was also in attendance, along with her fiancé, Dan Hegg, as were classmates Jackie Brown and Tara Gadgil. Katie graduated from Harvard Business School this past spring, and she and Matt now live in Boston. Rachel Rapp is also in Boston. She recently signed on as program director for a Boston-based ed-tech startup, PrepNow, founded by Andover alumnus Rich Enos ’94. Marianna Kleyman wrote from Hanover, N.H., where she is finishing up her thesis and working toward publication. This summer, Marianna traveled to the Middle East, vacationing in Jerusalem for a cousin’s wedding before returning to finish her last year of graduate school. Simon Hawkins wrote from LA, where he and Tony Pucillo remain good pals. Simon and his brother, Zeke Hawkins, recently directed a film that premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in September. The film is called We Gotta Get Out of this Place; check it out on imdb.com. Phil Caruso traveled to Hong Kong in late August as part of a University of Chicago Booth
A large Andover contingent turned out for the wedding of LaMont Barlow and Ryan Coughlan ’02, behind the banner. In the back row, from left, are Tisse Takagi ’02, Allison Colbert ’01, history and social science instructor Christopher Shaw ’78, Louisa Butler ’02, Katharine Planitzer ’02, David Whittemore ’78, Cassie Kaufman ’02, and Nicole Roberts ’02.
School of Business orientation program. While there, he ran into classmate Soojin Park, who works in investment banking in HK. Phil and his wife, Kaitlin Caruso, still live in Chicago, where they keep tabs on longtime friend Tom Oliphant, who is beginning his second year of business school at Northwestern. The ’03 Chicago group continues to grow, recently adding Chicago native Jordan Williams to the Carusos, Amy Stebbins, Arielle Schmidt, Steph Kim, and Andrew McManus. In July, I just missed Chris Skipper, who visited San Francisco for the Fourth. After stints in Germany with Bosch, Skip has returned to greater Detroit, where he is working as an engineer. I did get to see Andy Hattemer in northern Michigan for a few days on Lake Michigan. That’s it from here; stay in touch, and stay safe!
2004 10th REUNION June 13–15, 2014 Emma Sussex 214 Court St., 3rd Floor Brooklyn NY 11201 702-378-6695 emmajcsussex@gmail.com
I hope everyone had a wonderful summer! It sounds like some of you went on fabulous summer trips. Jacqueline Latina finished medical school this spring. Following her graduation, Jackie traveled with some of her medical school friends to Morocco, Berlin, Copenhagen, and Paris. She particularly enjoyed the food and people in Morocco. She is currently working as a resident in
internal medicine at Mount Sinai Hospital, on the Upper East Side in NYC. Lolita Munos Espinoza traveled this summer to Switzerland. Alanna Hughes moved to Cambridge, Mass., and started an MBA degree program at MIT Sloan School of Management this fall. Now that she is living in Massachusetts for the first time since 2004, she looks forward to reconnecting with high school friends. Alanna ran into Sarah Wendell at a restaurant in Menlo Park, Calif., this June. Ian Hafkenschiel graduated from a JD/MBA degree program at Santa Clara University in December 2012. He took the California bar exam in July and celebrated by attending Burning Man. He is currently looking for jobs and pitching his startup, Social Wimzy. Logan Patrick got his CFA charter and is working in investment management in Boston. He enjoyed the summer, living in Cambridge and spending a lot of time on Martha’s Vineyard. Darren DeFreeuw is living in Houston and recently started working with the Houston Astros as an analytics developer. He works on the code for the company’s database and is focused on player analysis for the draft. Alex Thorn moved to Raleigh, N.C., to start another job with Fidelity. Jami Makan has one year left at Queen’s University until he graduates from law school and writes the Ontario licensing exams. He will then article at a law firm in downtown Toronto called Aird & Berlis LLP. He is spending the current semester in India on exchange, studying at a law school outside of Delhi called Jindal Global Law School. He is having an amazing experience and looks forward to traveling around the country in the months ahead. Taylor Yates spent the summer in Cambridge and will begin the second year of an MBA degree program at MIT Sloan this fall. Taylor was excited that Jamie Bologna moved to Boston this summer. Additionally, Taylor sees a lot of Jesse Bardo ’03, Andover | Winter 2014
109
stay connected... Mariah Russell, Jisung Park, Lars Trautma, and Patrick Callahan. Patrick is also studying at MIT, where he is entering the third year of a PhD degree program. He spent the summer doing research at a particle accelerator facility in Hamburg, Germany. While in Germany, he caught up with Johannes Knuth in Munich, where Johannes is making a career for himself in sports journalism. Congratulations to J.J. Feigenbaum, who married Alexandra Steinlight this past August in New York. Derrick Kuan, Uzoma Iheagwara, Bill Beregi, Dan Serna, Olivia Oran, Jenny Wong, and Ali Schouten were all there to celebrate. I graduated this past May from law school in New York, and then my father, my dog, and I set off on a cross-country road trip bound for LA. I spent the summer there studying for the New York bar exam. Despite all of the studying, my time in LA was wonderful and greatly enhanced by the friends from Andover I had a chance to catch up with, including Ali Schouten, Scout Kingery, Anthony Green ’05, and Anthony Pucillo ’03. Jenny Wong even flew out from New York for a weekend visit! I did a bit of traveling before I started working last fall. I flew to England at the beginning of August, then traveled to Helsinki, Finland, and Copenhagen, Denmark, with some friends from law school. From there I set out on my own for Berlin, where I caught up with Filip Dames ’01. I then went to Croatia for a week to cruise around the islands. While there, I bumped into Harry Goldstein ’05 and Cotton Harrold at a beach club in Hvar. I wound up in Barcelona on the last leg of my European travels. It was a fabulous summer, and I have particularly enjoyed getting to catch up with old friends. I hope that you all enjoyed the summer, and I look forward to hearing from you soon!
2005 Matt Brennan matthew.s.brennan13@gmail.com Alex Lebow alexlebow@gmail.com
Hey, folks, there’s much to report and an all-tooshort word count, so let’s dive right in: Chris Zegel and Megan Scarborough got engaged to each other in late summer. Victoria VanStekelenburg also got engaged; she met fiancé Christopher Bianco at Georgetown. Victoria sees her maid of honor, Catalina McCallum, regularly and works as an attorney at Latham & Watkins in Washington, D.C., doing transactional work. Congratulations, all! Also in DC, Natasha Midgley saw Nate Scott and Pat Shannon to break bread, grab drinks, and enjoy good company in July. Amy Sticklor and her fiancé closed on their first home this summer and moved into a beautiful row house in DC. They also visited Massachusetts, where Laurel Sticklor, Alex Doty, Bridget O’Sullivan, and Katie Minott
110
Andover | Winter 2014
threw them a surprise engagement party on July Fourth. Amy started graduate school at Georgetown in the fall. Alison Wheeler recently left the hustle and bustle of DC for the woods of New Hampshire, where she attends the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth with Nell Beattie and Ben Grant. Also in New England, Christian Vareika left his job as chief speechwriter for Rhode Island Governor Lincoln Chafee ’71 to start law school at Boston College. He lives with Zach Sandman, who’s also at BC Law School and who made an admirable attempt to punk the class notes. (He never really appreciated how smart and attentive to detail Matt Brennan is, despite having known him since the first grade.) Erica Christensen is working for Keller Williams in Andover as a realtor and coaching figure skating (private, group, and off-ice conditioning) at the PA rink. Bridget O’Sullivan finished her clerkship in bankruptcy and started as an associate this past fall at Ropes & Gray. She will be working on investment management, as a bar certified lawyer in both Massachusetts and New York. Jenny Drucker finished her third year as an elementary school teacher in Atlanta and moved to Boston to pursue an MS degree in medical sciences at Boston University School of Medicine. Laylah Mohammed returned to Andover with a photo album Chloé Hurley and Meta Weiss had made for her 16th birthday and visited Sarah Donelan. She saw Peter Nelson, Grant Yoshitsu, Vanessa Parkinson de Castro, Alex King, and Jason Duffett at the Addison Contemporaries event in early summer. In New York, where Laylah works for the architecture firm WCA, she attended a surprise party to celebrate Chloé’s acceptance into NYU School of Law with Morissa Sobelson, Billy Doyle, Laura Sciuto, Lindsay Baker, and Tom Church, and met up with Charlotte Steinhardt for a concert in Prospect Park. Meta Weiss and Arianna Warsaw-Fan ’04 released their first CD as duoW, Entendre, on Aug. 27 (available through iTunes, Amazon, and the label, Sono Luminus Records); they toured the West Coast, mainly California, in November and January. Meta also spent a month in Moscow doing research for her doctoral dissertation at Juilliard. Morissa Sobelson left the health-care consulting world to serve as chief of staff to Dr. Irwin Redlener, who heads both the Children’s Health Fund and the Columbia University–based National Center for Disaster Preparedness. In the evenings, she is working toward a master’s degree in public health at Columbia’s Mailman School of Public Health. Recently, Meta, Morissa, and Laura gathered at Chloé’s apartment to flip through the original spiral-bound ’02 to ’05 facebooks. Laura is working as senior manager of business development at a startup called Ivy Exec. In addition to the aforementioned people, she keeps in touch with Ian Schmertzler. Nina Beinart Kunkes is still working with Luke’s Lobster, bouncing between NYC,
Philadelphia, DC, and Maine. Sarah Hong worked as a front-of-house manager with Hillstone Restaurant Group in East Hampton, N.Y., then in Manhattan, and now Winter Park, Fla. Mac King moved to New York in June to begin a job at the city’s Fox affiliate and has seen Billy Doyle, Grant Yoshitsu, and Steve Sherrill. Dan Fromson works as a copy editor for the website of the New Yorker and wrote a short e-book, Finding Shakespeare, about a Vietnam veteran’s unlikely search for the legendary English accent spoken by Shakespeare himself. Dan also saw Krishna Gupta in New York. C.C. Donahue left New York in August to give the student game a second try; he’s at the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business pursuing an MBA degree. Stephen Severo lives in the New York metropolitan area and welcomes visitors. Elsewhere, Miles Canaday conducts a women’s choir at a state college in Denver and began a new job in public relations at the Lamont School of Music at the University of Denver. Angela Tenney spent the summer hanging out with Sarah Waldo in San Francisco during a summer fellowship at the Natural Resources Defense Council and recently moved to Houston to work in chemical consulting. Hilary Fischer-Groban works at a sustainable fashion company, The Reformation, in LA, where she’s seen Ali Schouten ’04 and Scout Kingery ’04. Sims Witherspoon works in advertising and as a social impact project manager for Google Giving. She is currently managing Huffington Post editorials and live segments that feature grant recipients, and she also completed therapy dog school with her puppy; they visit hospice facilities every other Saturday. Kaitlin Alsofrom finished her stint in Teach for America in Chicago and is now living in Brazzaville, Congo, teaching preschool there. She has an extra bed for an ’05er! Harry Goldstein moved to Singapore and will start a new role with Amcor, a packaging company. Katie Nadworny lives in Istanbul, Turkey, photographs and travels as much as she can (including trips to Georgia, Armenia, Serbia, and Montenegro), and showed Adam Holt around during the occupation of Istanbul’s Gezi Park. She also maintains a blog, www.KatrinkaAbroad.com. Here in New Orleans, Alex Lebow and Matt Brennan moved to an antebellum-era carriage house in the French Quarter, host Nate Kellogg and wife Meg Coffin ’03 regularly for dinner, and saw visitors Sarah Donelan, Nate Scott, and Ben Hoerner. Alex recently received a promotion in the mayor’s office and hired an executive director for Youth Run NOLA, a nonprofit youth development organization of which he is cofounder and board president. Matt continues his graduate work at Tulane, where he teaches U.S. history to freshmen and sophomores. He writes for Indiewire, contributed an essay to an upcoming e-book about Woody Allen, and served as a juror for the New Orleans Film Festival. Drop us a line if you’re in New Orleans: Our door is always open, and the bourbon is always cold. Until next time, much love, PA ’05. —Matt and Alex
www.andover.edu/intouch 2006 Jeni Lee 18228 Mallard St. Woodland CA 95695 925-846-8300 jeni_lee@bluelink.andover.edu Paul Voorhees 345 West Berwicke Common, N.E. Atlanta GA 30342 404-402-4869 pauldvoorhees@gmail.com
It is, as always, a pleasure to compile the notes from our class—to hear about the thrilling travels, the alumni-filled celebrations, and the exciting things you are all up to next! Congratulations to all those who have found wedded bliss, completed advanced degrees, and found new callings. We hope you have a wonderful 2014, and we can’t wait to hear more updates from you soon. Last spring, Ginia Sweeney completed a master’s degree program at Williams College in the history of art. Immediately after graduation, she moved to Atlanta, where she is currently a Kress Museum Interpretation Fellow at the High Museum of Art, the largest art museum in the Southeast. Ginia loves the position and living in Atlanta. She hopes that any ’06ers who find themselves in the area will look her up. Victor Kim graduated from Drexel University College of Medicine and has started his general surgery residency at Lahey Clinic in Burlington, Mass. He now lives in Somerville, Mass. Lisa Donchak started an MBA degree program at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, alongside Jeff Zhou and Alison Murphy ’05 (Gordon Murphy’s older sister). Melissa McDonald is in graduate school at the University of North Carolina, working toward a master’s degree in Russian and East European studies. Her roommate is Christa Vardaro, who is earning a master’s degree in health administration at UNC. Melissa spent the summer doing research and traveling in the Balkans before a two-month stint in a Croatian language course in Zadar, Croatia. After two years of working in finance in New York, Eunice Hong went to Korea for a time, where she met up with Jasmin Baek. Following a summer in North Carolina, Eunice returned to New York and is studying at Columbia Law School (as is Jessica Alcantara ’04). Michelle Miao, also studying law, is in her second year at NYU. Eunice recently traipsed around Brooklyn with Rachel Isaacs, ate ramen with Anne Renner and Gina Kim ’07, and explored the Met with Marysia Blackwood, who is starting her third year in a PhD degree program at Harvard. Anne, also at Columbia University, started a two-year master’s degree program at the School of International and Public Affairs. Alex Wolf also returned to New York for school.
Also in New York is Jane Henningsen, who moved from Virginia to NYC over the summer to start working in HR at Dow Jones. She is excited to partake in Andover alumni events throughout the city. Olivia Mascheroni continues her career at Creative Artists Agency in LA, where she has been for two years. At the beginning of the year, she moved to the motion picture department. Over the summer, Olivia traveled to Narragansett, R.I., where she spent some time with family during the Fourth of July and Labor Day. In July, she partook in the annual San Diego Comic-Con International. In the fall, Olivia traveled to Chicago before landing in Andover for the biannual meeting of the Alumni Council. Emily Pollokoff and her family have returned from Morocco and have commenced their homesteading adventure near Syracuse, N.Y. Her husband, Elliott, is teaching, and their daughter, Hazel, is learning how to color. When Emily is not chasing Hazel or editing, she takes over the counter space with various ferments and sprouts and freshly baked bread. Anyone who is in the area, she says, should feel free to visit. While in NYC, Andrea Coravos visited Becky Agostino ’07. Over the summer, Andrea and Marina Warsaw-Fan ’07 hung out in Berlin. Late in the summer, Andrea moved to San Francisco to begin a new job at KKR Capstone, which is Kohlberg Kravis Roberts’s operations team. She had lunch with Sims Witherspoon ’05 at Google in Mountain View, Calif. Andrea and Jeni Lee met up with Olivia Pei ’07 at Olivia’s flat in San Francisco for a fun-filled Andover evening, with fellow alumni James Watson, Allen Cai ’07, Charles Francis ’07, Katharine Matsumoto ’07, Victor Miller ’05, Chris Li ’07, Laura Minasian ’07, and Sarah Guo ’07. Conor Sutherland moved to Hong Kong from New York for a six-month rotation in Apollo Global Management’s Hong Kong office. He will be doing the same type of work he did in the New York office (private equity investing) but focusing on the Asian and Australian markets. Conor will stay in Hong Kong until February or March and then move back to New York. He has been hanging out with Charlie Frentz, who has been in Asia for a few years since graduating and who just moved back to Hong Kong from Jakarta, Indonesia. Mia Kanak, Katherine Adams, and Katie Faulkner all attended Karl Hirt’s June wedding to Mary Pat Wixted, with whom Katherine and Mia were on the crew team at Yale. Congratulations, Karl! Dina Burkitbayeva and Ishani Vellodi were bridesmaids for Parla Alpan Ergan’s wedding to Hürrem Ergan at the Feriye Palace in Istanbul, Turkey, on July 7, 2013. Dina raves that the venue was superb—right on the Bosphorus—and that Parla was the most beautiful bride. Congratulations, Parla! Merit Webster celebrated her 25th birthday in Boston with Tom Tassinari and his girlfriend, Melissa Chiozzi, Owen Remeika, Emily
When Parla Alpan ’06 got married to Hürrem Ergan in July 2013 in Istanbul, Turkey, classmates Ishani Vellodi (left) and Dina Burkitbayeva were bridesmaids.
Chappell, Justin Yi, and Tobey Duble. The group also went out to Cape Cod to celebrate the Fourth of July. Merit visited Denver on a business trip and met up with Simon Keyes. Justin now lives in New York with an Exeter graduate who works with Colin Touhey. Jeff Bakkensen similarly celebrated his birthday with fellow Andover alumni, singing karaoke with girlfriend Jen Bender, Tobey, Justin, Aaron Weisz and girlfriend Rachel Wilson, Gordon Murphy, Cornelia Wolcott, Alex King ’05, Claire Collery, Eric Bakkensen ’01, and Eric’s fiancée, Lark. Nick Bowen was in the Virgin Islands this past winter and spring with some friends. One evening, as he was drinking at Castaway’s on St. John, all of a sudden he found Derek de Svastich sitting next to him! They had a great time together and met up in the following days. Nick reports that it was great to see his former dorm-mate and forever friend. John Lippe continues his search for the meaning of life in Seattle, while starting a company with Ben Schley ’08 and Eric Feeny ’01. He encourages any and all to come visit him (and Pete Kalmakis, also in Seattle) to explore the Pacific Northwest! Andover | Winter 2014
111
stay connected...
In September 2013, a group of alums met at Olivia Pei ’07’s San Francisco apartment for a housewarming party. In the front row, from left, are Andrea Coravos ’06, Olivia Pei, Katharine Matsumoto ’07, and Sarah Guo ’07. Back, from left, are Jeni Lee ’06, Allen Cai ’07, Charles Francis ’07, Chris Li ’07, Laura Minasian ’07, and Victor Miller ’05.
2007 M. Conner Stoldt 94 Saddle Hill Road Hopkinton MA 01748-1102 508-954-9185 conner.stoldt@gmail.com Catherine L. Crooke 61 Eastern Parkway, Apt. 2C Brooklyn NY 11238-5916 917-375-5551 catherine.l.crooke@gmail.com
Katharine Matsumoto is wrapping up a master’s degree program at Northwestern and spent much of the summer living and working in San Francisco. Although Katharine loves her classes, she currently has designs on heading back to the Bay Area upon graduating. She also saw Michaella Chung, who has returned from Asia to earn an MSc degree and, she hopes, a PhD in civil engineering at Berkeley. David Curtis finds himself immersed in the noblest of studies, hot in pursuit of his law degree at Harvard. When not nose deep in textbooks, Dave spends his free time honing his writing and pursuing his passion, free-verse poetry. Colleen Thurman spent this past summer as a graduate research assistant. In her second year at the Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine at Tufts University, Colleen enjoys her studies and her time spent practicing on her puppy patients. Danny Silk still lives in Cambridge, Mass., and works for Forrester Research. Danny spent some time at the shore this summer, and he often travels to New York, where he recently hung out with Jocelyn Gully. Jocelyn is living and working in Washington, D.C., with her roommate and sister Hanna Gully ’09.
112
Andover | Winter 2014
Last June, Chip Schroeder ’08 married Marcheta Marshall in San Francisco. From left are Jake Bean ’08, John Bukawyn ’08, the groom and bride, and Sara Ho ’08.
Having visited Danny in Boston earlier this year, Conner Stoldt spent much of the fall traveling between New York and Charlotte, N.C., for work. He also found time to take a long weekend hunting up in the mountains. And though Conner and Sam Gould rarely talk, their mothers keep in touch. Nate Flagg spent half a year studying calligraphy in Hangzhou, China, and now lives in Brooklyn, N.Y., working as an artist’s assistant. He spends his off hours making artwork and running an art space out of his sizeable home studio. Nate is also teaching Chinese calligraphy there, so if anyone’s interested, drop him a line! Nate’s former roommate Brooks Canaday is a senior staff photographer at Northeastern University and recently ran into Eliot Wall, who’s now living in Boston with Henry Frankievich. Brooks also recently caught up with Carter Boyle. Ben Feng spent this past school year working as a teaching fellow back at Andover. This summer, he coached a U19 Boston Ultimate Frisbee team (which included two recent PA graduates) to a national championship. Miles Silverman recently returned from a monthlong excursion in the Yucatán, spelunking ancient Mayan cave burial sites. He is now back at UCLA doing graduate work in science. Ryan Ferguson started a job in August in Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick’s federalstate relations office. He is still in Washington, D.C., and is living with his girlfriend. Ryan has seen a lot of Komaki Foster and Stephen Stapczynski and sees Lauren Kelleher from time to time. Lauren recently moved to DC for law school. Nico Lanson recently finished up an undergraduate degree in interdisciplinary education at Naropa University in Boulder, Colo.; her degree combines religious studies with ecology and creative writing and was designed to address her interest
in mapping states of consciousness in relation to place. Ale Moss successfully embarked on overseas adventures several months ago, moving to Australia to travel and work indefinitely. Alex Clifford is working as a corn-options trader for Consolidated Trading LLC at the Chicago Board of Trade. In his free time, he takes improv lessons, plays soccer, and enjoys an obsession with his fantasy football team. Alexa Reid graduated from Yale in May and now lives in Brooklyn and works as a curatorial assistant for the private art collection of the owner at MacAndrews & Forbes Holdings, Inc., in NYC. Giacomo Chiaro graduated from medical school in July and is now applying for residency training in the UK; Catherine Crooke fell in love with him over the course of several adventures around London this past spring and is eagerly awaiting his return to Britain. Catherine will be in the UK for another year, completing an MSc degree in refugee and forced migration studies at Oxford. She recently enjoyed drinks, dinner, and charades with Dominick DeJoy, Evan Moore, Tasha Keeney, and Becky Greenberg at Emma Wood’s apartment in Manhattan. Lola Dalrymple was there in spirit. Devon Zimmerling is now also based in the UK and recently spent two weeks traveling with Stacey Middlebrook: They hit London; Istanbul, Turkey; Mykonos and Athens in Greece; Dubrovnik, Croatia; and Munich, Germany. Claire Voegele currently works in Charleston, S.C., as a paralegal for Motley Rice LLC, focusing on the BP oil spill settlement. James Flynn spent the summer working at the U.S. Department of Justice and saw a number of alums, including Mary Grinton and Sara Nickel, at the summer DC alumni event. Lily Mathison is completing a PhD degree program in counseling psychology at Iowa State University. Billy Cannon lives in San Antonio
www.andover.edu/intouch
Tucker Mullin ’08 is one of the driving forces behind the Thomas E. Smith Foundation, and in August 2013, he and several Andover classmates participated in the foundation’s fourth annual Just Cure Paralysis golf tournament. From left are Jack Walsh, Bobby Farnham, Tucker Mullin, Pat Keegan, and Ryan McCarthy.
and works for the U.S. Air Force. Helal Syed has completed Air Force Commissioned Officer Training and is now a 2nd lieutenant in the U.S. Air Force; he is currently a medical student at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, Md. Kara Hollis left her job at Goldman Sachs to pursue a dual JD/MBA degree at Stanford. Melody Pao recently organized the Celebrity Series’ Street Pianos Boston Festival, with 75 vibrantly decorated pianos available for anyone to play and enjoy in public spaces all over the city. Thao Nguyen recently started her position as a foreign service officer with the U.S. Department of State and will be serving her first tour as a diplomat in Beijing. Lauren Johnson just finished her first semester of grad school at Boston College’s Lynch School of Education, where she will be working toward a degree in mental health counseling. She has also been enlisted in the U.S. Army Reserve for two and a half years as a behavioral health specialist. Jared Cheatham has spent the past two years teaching English at a rural primary school on the tiny island of Tanna in the Republic of Vanuatu as a Peace Corps volunteer. During the course of his Peace Corps service, he completed a grant to secure water access to his village and ran several workshops on phonics and parental involvement in students’ education; at this writing, he was getting ready to paint a world map at another local school. He hoped to travel to Bali, Indonesia, at the start of December once his Peace Corps contract was finished. Best of all, Jared recently gained new enthusiasm for returning home when he met a fellow PA graduate from the late ’90s at the local Alliance Française on Tanna. Stay Blue, kids!
Malik Jenkins and Victoria Sanchez, both Class of ’09, were all smiles at their Yale graduation in May.
2008 Mary B. Doyle 327 Noe St. San Francisco CA 94114 781-439-5209 (cell) mbdoyle@gmail.com Lydia Dallett 399 River Road Andover MA 01810 508-265-1005 (cell) Lydia.Dallett@gmail.com
We’re baaaack! Here’s a little update on what ’08 has been up to since last we checked in: You heard about her engagement photos, now read about the real wedding: Lindsey Branson became Lindsey Crosby on Sept. 14 when she married Kyle Crosby in a beautiful ceremony in her home state of Indiana, witnessed by Madeleine O’Connor and Kate Foley, among others. You didn’t see any photos or know of his engagement, but Damian DeSousa also tied the knot, marrying his sweetheart, Brandae Swailes Belanger, on June 21 in Montreal before sweeping her off to Lyon,
France. Big congrats to the newlyweds! Save us some cake. In September, yours truly left her low-paying job as a production assistant on a documentary to take an even lower-paying job as an editorial intern at Business Insider. (Follow my life in the proverbial food-stamps lane on Twitter: @Ldallett.) And finally, Simone Hill had an underwhelming experience with a cronut. And that’s all we’ll say about that. Tucker Mullin didn’t have a cronut (at least not to our knowledge, and if he did, it certainly wasn’t underwhelming). But he did end the summer on a particularly high note, and given how exhausted our class is from its recent reuniting, we thought we’d depart from our usual “who’s seen who” gossip rag to take some space here to tell you about it. This past August, fresh off a successful college hockey career (two-time team captain) at Saint Anselm College, Tucker joined fellow Andover hockey veterans Pat Keegan, Ryan McCarthy, Jack Walsh, Bobby Farnham, and Chris Kreider ’10 at the Andover Country Club to participate in the fourth annual Just Cure Paralysis golf tournament. More than 120 golfers turned out for the event, and the Thomas E. Smith Foundation raised more than $32,000. The Andover ’08 crew—who Andover | Winter 2014
113
stay connected... have played in the tournament every year—had a great time, Tucker reported (despite the fact that Jack couldn’t defend his crown as last year’s longdrive winner). The tournament—and what it represents—has become a fixture in Tucker’s life since he finished his PG year at Andover. In 2010, Tucker cofounded the Thomas E. Smith Foundation with his friend Thomas Smith, a Pingree School hockey player whom Tucker had known primarily as a high school opponent. In 2008, the two found themselves trying out for the same Boston junior hockey league. During tryouts, Thomas lost control and went headfirst into the boards, becoming paralyzed from the neck down. Despite having spoken to Thomas only a few times, Tucker was one of the first people to get to the hospital, and as Thomas entered months of rehab and hospitalizations (including, unbelievably, for a second spinal cord injury), Tucker kept going back. Two years later, the two former opponents teamed up to form an organization dedicated to providing emotional and financial resources to those affected by and living with paralyzing injuries, with the goal of enhancing their mobility and access to the daily world. Since its founding, the Thomas E. Smith Foundation has awarded nearly $50,000 in grants to recipients, whose inspiring stories can be found on the foundation’s website. In April 2013, Tucker won the prestigious Hockey Humanitarian Award for his work with Thomas and his involvement through Saint Anselm with Team IMPACT, an organization that works with children facing life-threatening diseases. He’s since moved to New York to work for BNY Mellon Wealth Management, and for the first time in a long time he’s taking a break from hockey (though he’s cheering on Bobby Farnham, now playing for the Pittsburgh Penguins). Thanks to incredible teams of doctors, physical therapists, and a strong support network of friends and family, Thomas is no longer confined to a wheelchair and is now the director of the 1st Round Foundation, a diverse sports, music, and entertainment brand that started in a college dorm room and now operates a burgeoning record label. Despite their increasingly busy schedules, the two founders remain focused on growing the foundation and strengthening its impact. “I really want to see this through,” Tucker told the Eagle Tribune after the golf tournament. “We’ve only started. We have a lot of growth ahead of us, getting the word out and making this tournament bigger every year.” Sounds to us like an excellent excuse for a future ’08 reunion. To learn more about the Thomas E. Smith Foundation and how you can help, please visit http://justcureparalysis.org. That’s all from us! Have a wonderful winter, and keep sending in those updates! Much love. —Lydia
114
Andover | Winter 2014
2009 5th REUNION June 13–15, 2014 Alexander McHale 30 Waterside Plaza, Apt. 29J New York NY 10010 703-786-3330 arxmchale@gmail.com Deidra Willis 550 East Holly Ave. #39 Pitman NJ 08071 347-342-7447 willis.deidra@gmail.com
2010 Sascha Strand Metcalf Hall W205 Tufts University Medford MA 02155 316-371-9053 (cell) Sascha.Strand@Tufts.edu Courtney King 343 15th St. Santa Monica CA 90402 310-984-0882 (cell) courtney.king116@gmail.com Faiyad Ahmad 978-289-3584 (cell) faiyad_ahmad@brown.edu
This just in: Two girls in our class have gotten engaged! Annie Rao reported that she and Zahra Bhaiwala attended Zainab Doctor’s engagement party in May, celebrating Zainab’s engagement to longtime boyfriend Nabeel Dahod. Annie says that they’re planning to get married next summer, after Zainab’s college graduation. Annie has been teaching power yoga at Dartmouth and “suffering through a bio major.” She’s considering pursuing pre-dental or nutritional biochem. She reports that she recently met up with Ryan Marcelo and “had a great time catching up on recent Andover gossip.” Sources tell me that Anne Hunter also got engaged this fall, to longtime boyfriend Aaron Oldweiler. Congratulations, ladies! Margaret Bonaparte spent last spring semester in Paris, studying history and French. “It actually turned out that Audrey Adu-Appiah was there the same semester on a different program, so we ended up meeting up,” she reports. Now she’s back at Scripps, writing her thesis and enjoying the sunshine. Riley Gardner spent last spring semester in Italy. In Europe, she got a chance to meet up with Tavie Abell, who was studying abroad in Morocco.
Riley described their adventures in Barcelona: “We saw all the Gaudí architecture and went to the Dalí museum and explored the city. We especially loved the Gothic Quarter. Oddly, we found a great sandwich shop run by a woman from Morocco, and in Barcelona Tavie still got to use Arabic.” Riley was back at Syracuse in the fall. Lucy Arnold spent her third summer in Washington, D.C., where she did research at the Brookings Institution, assisting fellows with books and papers on the financial crisis and health-care implementation. She spent a lot of time with Sophia Bernazzani, who was working across the street. They both graduated from their respective schools in December. Lucy also traveled to Paris and Amsterdam this summer with her boyfriend and met up with Jenn Schaffer there. This summer, Lauren Kim interned with Alex Du in investment banking at Credit Suisse in NYC. Lauren says, “It was awesome to visit Andover in June when I attended my sister Stephanie Kim ’13’s graduation.” There, she ran into Anna Fang and Helen Lord, whose sisters also graduated this year. Anjali Narayan-Chen says she “basically watched computers play Angry Birds all summer.” Jokes: She spent it with her artificial-intelligence professor, writing code that “learned how to play Angry Birds on the computer without human help.” They submitted the code to an international Angry Birds AI competition in China and got third place. She’s now back at the University of Wisconsin Madison, double majoring in computer engineering and computer science. She says the project will be part of her comp sci thesis, so she “will be playing Angry Birds all year!” Good luck, Anjali! Ziwe Fumudoh had a summer reunion with Tebs Maqubela ’11, who shared the same building at NYU. Ziwe just finished an internship at Comedy Central, where she worked as a writing intern, and I believe at least one original joke of hers was used on The Colbert Report. Now she’s back at Northwestern, starting her thesis, in which she’ll “write a poetry manuscript in African American studies.” In more summer news, Maggie Law spent this summer in NYC as an intern for ABC’s World News with Diane Sawyer, where she worked alongside Tess Scott ’06. She enjoyed catching up with many Andover friends at Sophie Fourteau’s 21st birthday party in July. In addition to studying at Amherst College, Maggie interned this fall for Fox Sports, where she had the chance to work at several MLB and NFL games along the East Coast. Khalid McCaskill attended UCLA for two years and, after winning a Pac-12 basketball championship, decided to transfer to Lehigh in hopes of getting more playing time. He has been studying economics. He enjoyed seeing Trevor Braun, Kyle Franco, and Charlie Walters over this past summer. Khalid spent the summer in New York training and teaching basketball to kids. On a brief visit to the city, Courtney King ran into a slew of Andover people spending the summer in New York, including Ben Prawdzik, Caroline Gezon, and Tim Ghosh, who were all interning in
Avery Stone ’10 finance, Alex Farrell, who was working ridiculously long hours as a nursing student, and Caitlin Aylward, who was interning at Vogue. Courtney spent the rest of the summer in LA, where she hung out with Juliet Liu and Andrew Townson, both doing big things in the film industry, and Claire King, who was interning at a clean-water nonprofit. Courtney also ran into Mia Rossi and Ben Romero ’12 while visiting Wesleyan University this fall. Courtney is currently interning at a social education nonprofit in NYC. Alec Bingaman is playing for the Princeton club ice hockey team and recently reunited the legendary foursome (himself, Peter Hetzler, James Poss, and Alex Muresanu) for dinner in NYC. He is an economics major, with only a couple of requirements and a thesis remaining. Curtis Hon has been dominating in the pool at BU—he’s captain of the club water-polo team this year and just walked onto the swim team. He was also just accepted into BU’s MMEDIC program, so after senior year he’ll be going straight to BU School of Medicine. “And this semester I will start a new research project in optogenetics,” he added. Over the summer, he ran into a bunch of Andover classmates, including Josh Feng and Chelsea Quezergue. Dan McMurtrie is finishing his senior year at Notre Dame, majoring in finance. He says, “Some partners and I are in the process of starting up a new type of hedge fund that we’re calling Tyro. We have a unique business plan—most notably that we will be devoting a significant portion of earnings to microfinance, which I initially became involved with at Andover with John Yang-Sammataro.” Will Winkenwerder worked for the summer in the investment banking division of Goldman Sachs, where he ran into Charlie Walters and Ram Narayan, who were both working in trading. In NYC, Will was living with Bennett Carroccio, with whom he’s also living this year at Yale. He planned to travel to South America over winter break, perhaps with Julian Chernyk, to do research for his dual thesis in economics and Latin American studies. And finally, J.P. Harrington was looking forward to senior year at Dartmouth, where he’s enjoyed editing the Dartmouth Review (a “biweekly conservative rag”) and making lifelong friends both inside and outside of his fraternity, SAE. —Courtney King
www.andover.edu/intouch
A rising force in the fight for equality among athletes
I
n a breakout article cold-pitched to the Huffington Post, Avery Stone recounts a defining moment in her world as a gay athlete dedicated to a social cause: “I was minutes away from speaking to first-year students (at Bryant University) about being an out LGBT collegiate athlete. ...Jeff Sheng, photographer and creator of Fearless, an acclaimed exhibit featuring portraits of out LGBT athletes Photo credit: Jeff Sheng like me, was set to speak, too.” As Stone was making her final preparations, she learned that 60 of Sheng’s Fearless photos—on display in the university’s student center—had been torn down and stolen. The title of her Huff Post story was “From Fearless to Afraid at Bryant University” (http://huff.to/1bZiRUb). Stone composed herself and persevered through that visit, but seeing firsthand the results of a hate crime hit sharply. The experience did not, however, diminish the Amherst College ice hockey player’s determination to work for the day when an LGBT athlete coming out was not the story. “That’s the place I want us to be,” she said during a recent interview. One of her role models, U.S. Olympic ice hockey player Caitlin Cahow, shares that view. GoAthletes.org recruited Stone to interview Cahow about the 2014 Winter Olympic Games in Sochi, Russia, and Russia’s anti-LGBT policies—policies that have prompted some to ask whether the United States should boycott the Winter Games. No way, Cahow told Stone: “The fact that American athletes will be in Sochi representing a country that has made the most dramatic shift on this social policy issue in the last few decades is what matters most.” “I can definitely relate to her answer,” said Stone. “A lot of LGBT athletes struggle to balance their identities. Which comes first, athlete or advocate?” More importantly, she added, why must a person choose? Stone faults mainstream media for forcing the question. When Brittney Griner was drafted first in the WNBA, her sexual orientation got nearly as much attention as her athletic achievement. In her own writing, Stone strives to illuminate the nuances of advocacy. “How can we normalize the culture and make it a safer environment for LGBT athletes?” Stone’s social media platform has attracted a following. She has been described as courageous, even heroic, for her “Fearless” story but drew criticism for an edgy post comparing chef Paula Deen’s use of the “N-word” and actor Alec Baldwin’s homophobic rant on Twitter. Critics said the juxtaposition of racism and homophobia was unfair. “It’s remarkable to me how certain pieces hit a nerve,” said Stone. “I wrote a piece on the importance of acknowledging the Stonewall Riots that saw very little traffic, while Baldwin’s blew up. ...Regardless, it’s so important to continue to attack these issues from different angles.” Whether it’s on social media or college campuses, Stone’s point is to stir conversation, not necessarily controversy. “It’s been frustrating, it’s been rewarding,” she said, crediting her time at Andover for building her confidence to “live my life clearly, visibly, openly, and honestly.” —Tracy Sweet Andover | Winter 2014
115
stay connected... 2011 Christopher Batchelder 4 Raymond St. Manchester-by-the-Sea MA 01944 batch@unc.edu Oriekose Idah 8 Sycamore Lane Rolling Hills Estates CA 90274 oidah0608@gmail.com Kevin Song 1 Windy Hill Road Green Brook NJ 08812 kevin@andover11.com Edith Young 470 Park Ave., Apt. 2D New York NY 10022 edithwyoung@gmail.com
Kristen Faulkner cofounded a health-care startup last spring, aptly named Prevently, and worked on it full time this summer. The company has raised significant funding and signed several major contracts, so Kristen planned to take time off from Harvard this past fall to work on the company. In California for her brother’s graduation from Stanford, she spent time in the Bay Area, where several Andover alumni have taken up residence, including Chris Batchelder, Matt Appleby, Paul Donovan, and Yuto Watanabe. Batch designed and modeled for Chubbies this summer in San Francisco, hosting parties with Matt, Paul, and other Stanford and Berkeley folks—from sailing trips by the Golden Gate Bridge to grilling at Stanford. Matt continued to pursue product design in Palo Alto this summer, not too far from Kevin Song, who worked for eBay in San Jose. Matt, Batch, and KSong had a reunion in Palo Alto early in June to start the summer off right. Tim McLaughlin and Michael Berube ventured to the West Coast to visit Matt and another Andover alumnus pursuing tech: Wesley Cao, who’s working at the Dropbox headquarters in San Francisco. Back on the East Coast, Denzil Bernard had the opportunity to participate in the 2013 equity sales and trading class of interns at Credit Suisse. He joined a number of other alumni pursuing finance and other disciplines in New York. Mike MacKay is pursuing academics with his education startup, Pegasus, operating from Columbia University. When he isn’t working or taking classes, you can find him at home in Massachusetts with Austen Novis or procrastinating at key times in Manhattan with Batch. Max Queenan went to Electric Zoo music festival in New York, following in the footsteps of Batch’s mark on Electric Daisy Carnival New York with T.J. Lenzo ’12. Cammy Brandfield-Harvey spent the summer as an editorial intern at Philadelphia magazine, where she unearthed a small-town murder from the late 1960s, befriended a couple of mayors, and incited controversy online over a
116
Andover | Winter 2014
recommended sushi restaurant. Cammy headed off to King’s College London for a fall semester abroad; she joined Batch, MacKay, Cal Brooks, and Teddy Drake in the UK. Other ’11ers in Europe for the fall included Natasha Vaz, Elizabeth Kelly, Aube Rey Lescure, Connor Hickey, Peter Heidrich, Eleonora Petrulli, Kerry Lynn Lanzo, and Manuel Fernandez. Beyond Europe, Hana Kim caught up with Sky Yoo, Laura Lee, Ben Brodie, and Will Park in Korea. Kristina Ballard had a great summer working as a marketing intern, spending time in Vermont, and traveling to Zurich with Fred Shepard ’10. Both are now back at school in Amherst, Mass. In other happy news, Erica Morales-Jobse is now married! Erica and Joe Figueroa happily wed in August.
2012 Kennedy Edmonds kennedyedmonds@gmail.com Miranda Haymon 197 Clare Ave. Boston MA 02136 617-308-6252 mirandahaymon@gmail.com Lauren Howard P.O. Box 1352 Lexington MA 24450 860-682-4641 (cell) howard116@mail.wlu.edu Ryan Ramos 700 Commonwealth Ave., Box 3232 Boston MA 02215 917-841-0294 ryan.alexander.ramos@gmail.com
2013 MJ Engel 414-477-5563 mjengel8@gmail.com Connor Fraser 9 Scotland Drive Andover MA 01810 978-857-4443 cfraser142@gmail.com Chiamaka Okorie 347-981-0429 okoriesc@ymail.com
Chris Amendano interned for J.P. Morgan and worked closely with students from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. Rozenn Carrio had a French Kemper Scholars reunion
with Alina Bekka ’12 and Misty Montéville ’14 in Rennes, France, to advise Misty on her amazing future at Andover. Later, Rozenn met Ayaka Shinozaki for lunch and a movie in Tokyo. Arianna Chang met Julius Ross and Susannah Hyde to work at Julius’s uncle’s production company in New York. Now she and Saroj Gourkanti are dinner buddies at NYU. Christopher Hedley had an internship at recruiting firm Henkel Search Partners and spent a lot of time with Sam Green. Caitlin Clancy, Andrea Vargas, Jimmy Hunter, and Tori Morgan spent the summer together at the beach, watching movie marathons and hanging out. David Crane, Haonan Li, Suzanne Wang, and Reva Nohria traveled to Spain together. They spent an evening in Madrid with Esperanza Mata, Rolando Bonachea, and Rachel Wittenberg. Jessica Lee hosted Emily Carrolo, Julia Kichorowsky, Pearson Goodman, Brendan O’Connell, Jason Nawrocki, Hemang Kaul, Ross Bendetson, Eddie Ellis, Michael Queenan, Jack McGeachie, Connor Fraser, Greg Cameron, Cara Daly, Susanna Rademacher, Dylan MacDonald, and Scott Livingston in Weston, Mass. After Ping-Pong, pizza, and s’mores, they said goodbye to those heading to college. Jing Qu and Susannah Hyde went on a European trip; they met Sam Green, Justin Yan, and Alasdair McClintic in Paris. They also met Katherine Lee, Corbin Lee, M.J. Engel, Quinn Daly, and Nicole Ng at a John Mayer concert in Milwaukee. Later, Jing and Lauren Kim had dinner in Chicago. Kana Rolett and Darlina Liu had a mini reunion in Hawaii when Darlina visited. Haonan Li is in Singapore, where he is preparing for his military service and working for a law school at night. Ayaka Shinozaki spent time with her family, saw some old family members, and had a special visit to Hiroshima, Japan. Anjali Krishnamachar caught up, explored, and had great food in NYC with Raeva Kumar in July, and with Stephanie Kim and David Crane in August. Lazola Nyamakazi went to Tainan City, Taiwan, to visit Edward Mole and his family. After sightseeing in places like Kaohsiung, the two flew to South Africa. They spent a few days in Laz’s home city, East London, and then drove to Johannesburg via the KwaZulu Natal Midlands, seeing the countryside and city.
FACULTY EMERITI George and Pat Edmonds 45 Martingale Lane Andover MA 01810 978-475-3193 gandped@comcast.net
[Editor’s note: We are sad to report the deaths of faculty emeriti Jack Richards and Hilda Whyte. Please see their obituaries on the facing page. George and Pat Edmonds have graciously agreed to serve as faculty emeriti secretaries. Please send them your news!]
I n M e mor i a m FACULTY EMERITI
John Richards II Exeter, N.H.; Oct. 5, 2013 Jack Richards, beloved teacher, coach, house counselor, and dean, died peacefully on October 5, 2013, at 81. The son of a Groton classics teacher, Jack came naturally to teaching. After Groton, Harvard, and service as a captain in the U.S. Air Force, he arrived at Andover as one of the first teaching fellows in 1957. For the next 40 years, Jack and his wife, Wendy, were central figures in the Andover community and in the lives of thousands of students, modeling the independent school tradition of the “triple threat”: teacher, coach, house counselor. After Jack’s death, the Academy website was showered with tributes from alumni, whose memories of living in the Richards’s dorms, of Jack’s classes in Russian and European history, and of his gifted leadership of the track and field program all made inspiring reading. As Tony Maranto ’75 wrote in a post, “Jack was an ambassador for the satisfaction that comes with learning.” Jack spoke and acted with authority, grace, and humor and never lost his excitement at embarking on the great adventure he believed education to be. JR—as he was known to his colleagues—taught his students to develop interesting historical questions, to trust their interpretations of the evidence, to assert their conclusions with confidence, and to have fun doing it. He peppered classes with stories of Khrushchev pounding his shoe at the U.N., of Anthony Blunt casually betraying his country while appraising old masters for the Queen, of the BashiBazouks, and of the Sanjak of Novi Bazar. Students thrilled to his accounts of the defenestration of Prague and Rasputin’s grisly last hours. Many still treasure tattered copies of Palmer’s History of the Modern World, and an astonishing number followed him into teaching, including, at the time of his retirement in 1997, four Andover history colleagues. His passion for Russian history led him to coauthor From Russia to USSR and Beyond in 1983. Captain of the 1954 Harvard track team, Jack coached winter and spring track at Andover
beginning in 1958, turning the program into a perennial New England powerhouse that won interscholastic championships in 1971 and 1972 and four times between 1980 and 1984. After resigning as head coach in 1984 because of his administrative duties, he remained an assistant coach, helping Andover teams win additional interscholastic crowns in 1989, 1991, and 1996. House counselors for 30 years, Jack and Wendy opened their homes and kitchens, becoming substitute parents to legions of kids away from home. Considered strict but scrupulously fair, the Richardses formed strong relationships with students, many of whom remained close friends throughout their lives. In 1965, headmaster John Kemper appointed Jack to a steering committee to review the Academy’s broad educational program. This group produced the 1967 report that initiated more basic changes at Andover than at any time in its history: coeducation, second-chance discipline, the cluster system, trimester courses, 0–6 grading, increased interdisciplinary learning, and diversification of both the student body and the faculty. During the 1970s and 1980s, as dean of students and then dean of faculty, Jack assumed responsibility for overseeing implementation of these goals, fulfilling the committee’s intention that Andover adopt “a spirit of optimistic venture.” Few teachers in the history of the institution have had more influence on the Academy’s development. Jack’s devotion to service ran well beyond Andover. In retirement he took an active role in educational activities in his adopted towns of Sunapee, N.H.; Naples, Fla.; and Exeter, N.H. First among his many commitments—what he once called his “cause of a lifetime”—was the Mayhew Program for at-risk boys on Newfound Lake in New Hampshire. Jack joined the then Groton School Camp at 17, serving for years as counselor, assistant director, and director before playing a central role in GSC’s transition to the Mayhew Program in the 1960s. He remained an active trustee until his death. Above all, Jack’s family was the center of his life and love. He leaves Wendy, his wife of 58 years and former cluster dean at Andover; his children, Laura ’74, Christopher ’81, Timothy ’81, and C.C. ’82; and 13 grandchildren. He was predeceased by his daughter Pamela ’76. As Jack taught the past, he shaped the present and guided the future of thousands of students and colleagues and of the Academy itself. If we agree with Yeats that “teaching is lighting a fire, not filling a bucket,” Jack built bonfires. A memorial service celebrating his life was held on campus in Cochran Chapel on December 7.
—Catherine Richards Stockly ’82 & Victor W. Henningsen ’69, Independence Foundation Instructor in History and Social Science Emeritus [Editor’s note: For more about Jack Richards, see Tales Out of School, page 120.]
Hilda S. Whyte South Yarmouth, Mass.; Sept. 12, 2013 Hilda (Stroop) Whyte filled her 90-year-long life to the brim with enriching pursuits. A devoted and supportive helpmate to her husband, Jim, who served as Andover’s protestant chaplain in the mid- ’60s and ’70s, and mother to three children, she taught physics and science at Abbot Academy beginning in 1967. After the school’s 1973 merger with Phillips Academy, she taught science at PA—eventually chairing the department—until she retired in 1985. In retirement on Cape Cod, she was an inveterate traveler, a volunteer (she helped shingle a house for Habitat for Humanity), and a participant in classes as well as a teacher and volunteer at the Academy for Lifelong Learning at Cape Cod Community College. She was also an avid and talented amateur photographer and artist, a gardener, and a patron of the arts on the Cape and in Boston. In 1929, when Ms. Whyte was a young child, her family emigrated from Germany and settled in Michigan. She earned a BA degree at Michigan State University, and later earned an MS at Tufts University while concurrently teaching, coaching tennis, and performing the usual cluster jobs of chaperoning, academic advising, and Commons duty, as well as helping Jim through a serious illness that eventually claimed his life in 1975. “She was a remarkable and talented individual,” said her daughter Kristin ’70. “Her active and engaged life was an inspiration to those who knew her.” Along with her children, Robin, Eric, and Kristin, Ms. Whyte is survived by six grandchildren.
ABBOT AND PHILLIPS 1928 William H. Frank Jacksonville, Fla.; Sept. 19, 2013 William “Bill” Frank died just eight days after celebrating his 104th birthday. He attributed his longevity to faith, family, and friends, but most of all to Ruth (Abbot Academy Class of 1928), his wife of 74 years, who died in 2010 at age 99. Mr. Frank was active in mind and body up until his death. He went Andover | Winter 2014
117
to the gym almost every day, participated in retirement community activities, e-mailed friends, and traded stocks online. A gas company executive, he founded Countrywide Gas Corp., in Westchester County, N.Y., in 1946. After the company was bought out, he changed careers and was appointed a director of Kensico Cemetery in Valhalla, N.Y., in 1965, later becoming its vice president. He retired in 1995 and moved to Jacksonville. Active in Yale alumni affairs, he chaired several class reunions and was elected secretary for his class of 1932, a position he held until his death. He also was appointed an associate fellow of Yale’s Berkeley College. At the outbreak of World War II, Mr. Frank volunteered for the Army Air Corps Officer Training School and was stationed at Hickam Field in Hawaii. He rose to the rank of major on the staff of the U.S. Army Strategic Air Force while stationed in Guam and was awarded the Bronze Star. In his later life, he enjoyed writing poetry and letters to the editor of the Florida Times-Union of Jacksonville—so many letters that he had them published in two booklets. In the winter 2013 issue of Andover, Dan Adler ’05, one of Mr. Frank’s newest friends, wrote about him in Tales Out of School. Mr. Frank is survived by his daughter, Molly Ball; four grandchildren; and six great-grandchildren. His son, Timothy ’56, predeceased him in 1975.
1930 Pierre de Beaumont Manchester, Mass.; Dec. 4, 2010 Francis A. McClellan Wellfleet, Mass.; June 25, 2013
1932 Ruth Tyler Smith Needham, Mass.; June 6, 2013 Ruth Tyler Smith followed her mother, Ethel Perley Tyler (Class of 1898), to Abbot Academy and then attended Smith College, where she majored in economics. She participated actively in community life, World Affairs Council and League of Women Voters organizations, Smith College clubs, Museum of Fine Arts volunteer committees, garden clubs, and Episcopal churches in each of the areas she lived, including Boston, Cleveland, and the Vero Beach, Florida, area. She is survived by two daughters, identical twin sons, nine grandchildren, and eight greatgrandchildren. She was predeceased by her husband of 57 years, Everett Ware Smith, who served as treasurer of Abbot Academy in the late 1960s. —Pamela Smith Henrikson
1935 Pliny H. Hayes III Kenmore, N.Y.; Nov. 5, 2013 1936 Robert W. Hewitt Hillsdale, N.J.; Aug. 21, 2013
118
Andover | Winter 2014
1939 Ernest A. Holthausen Easton, Md.; Aug. 7, 2013 Melvin I. Shoul Newton, Mass.; Sept. 30, 2013 Eleanor Daniels Tower Houston, Texas; Oct. 5, 2013 Arthur C. Williams Fairfield, Conn.; Sept. 28, 2013
1940 Thomas H. Beddall Jr. Paris, Va.; Sept. 3, 2013 Donald B. Cole Exeter, N.H.; Oct. 5, 2013 Patrick A. Grove-White Essex, England; Oct. 28, 2012
1941 Dexter R. Hunneman Jr. Cape Elizabeth, Maine; Oct. 26, 2013 A 1945 graduate of Amherst College, Dexter R. Hunneman Jr. prepared for college at St. Paul’s School in Concord, N.H., and for a year at Andover. During World War II, Mr. Hunneman served in the European Theater, 56th Armored Infantry Battalion, 12th Armored Division, and was awarded the Bronze Star, Combat Infantry Badge, and two Unit Citations. He was a vice president of Canal Bank (now Key Bank) in Portland, Maine, for 30 years, retiring in 1977. He also was treasurer and a director of the Maine Publicity Bureau for 25 years, a corporator of the Portland Savings Bank, treasurer and member of the Cape Elizabeth Fire Department’s Hose Co. #2 for 25 years, and treasurer of the Maine March of Dimes, serving as state chairman of that organization in 1970. An avid golfer, Mr. Hunneman also enjoyed skiing, fly-fishing, and duck hunting, and traveled extensively across five continents. He is survived by his devoted wife, Alice; his children, Dexter, Robert, Damaris, and Melissa; and five grandchildren. His first wife, Damaris, died in 1999 on their 55th wedding anniversary. —The Hunneman Family
Ruth Bondy Lowy Larchmont, N.Y.; Oct. 29, 2013
1942 Eugene F. Williams Jr. St. Louis, Mo.; Aug. 7, 2013 1943 Judith Hawkes Landaker Lake Forest, Ill.; Jan. 29, 2013 Rexford R. Cherryman Hartfield, Va.; July 25, 2013 F. Frederick Jordan Jr. Beverly Hills, Calif.
Stuart P. MacLaren Dana Point, Calif.; Aug. 4, 2013 Clifford R. Wright Santa Barbara, Calif.; Aug. 8, 2013
1944 John C. Bailey Discovery Bay, Calif.; Oct. 31, 2010 David A. Eagleson Naples, Fla.; Oct. 3, 2013
1945 Kenneth Sutherland Marstons Mills, Mass.; Sept. 28, 2013 1947 James F. Cooper Youngsville, La.; Oct. 31, 2013 Charles M.S. Osborn New York, N.Y.; Sept. 2, 2013
1948 Frances M. Brumback Orlando, Fla.; July 28, 2013 1949 John L. Runyon Middlebury, Vt.; Aug. 17, 2013 Deborah Williams Troemner Medford Leas, N.J.; Nov. 4, 2013
1950 Kevin McKibbin Santa Fe, N.M.; June 13, 2010 Ann Lindamood Twyford Jackson, Tenn.; Sept. 8, 2003
1951 Merilyn Teasdale Abbott Glenwood, Md.; Jan. 2, 2009 William H.L. Anderson Ann Arbor, Mich.; Sept. 1, 2002 Edwin B. Dooley June 7, 2008 N. Richard Hueber Hamilton, N.J.; Oct. 31, 2013 Richard C. Vance St. Louis, Mo.; June 9, 2013
1953 Jane Wilson Mann Oldsmar, Fla.; July 28, 2013 Larry G. Heppes San Antonio, Texas; June 16, 2013
1955 Daniel H. Blatt Sherman Oaks, Calif.; Oct. 9, 2013 Daniel Harry Blatt, the son of German immigrants, was a lawyer, a prolific Hollywood producer, and an accomplished golfer. He died of pancreatic cancer at the age of 76. Dan grew up in the small town of Haverstraw, New York. When he and his father were headed to Andover for the 13-year-old’s interview, Douglas MacArthur’s Korean War speech happened to be on the radio. His wise father insisted that Dan listen to the speech—instead of the much-preferred Dodgers game—and discuss its implications. “Young Daniel, what did you think of the MacArthur speech?” turned out to be the first question asked by the admission dean. And that is when Dan’s excellent memory, knack for storytelling, and ability to think on his feet all came together. A few weeks later, he was welcomed to Andover. Dan went on to graduate from Duke in 1959 and Northwestern Law School in 1962. In the early 1960s, he worked as a Legal Aid lawyer in New York and took pride in serving with the activist group Lawyers Constitutional Defense Committee during that era’s civil rights confrontations. In the 1970s, Dan became vice president of Palomar Pictures, producing feature films, movies for television, and television series. His credits include The Heartbreak Kid and The Stepford Wives. He then went on to independently produce pictures such as I Never Promised You a Rose Garden, The Howling, Cujo, Common Ground, Kissinger and Nixon, Sadat, and Raid on Entebbe. In the mid-1980s, he also produced, with partner Robert Singer, the popular miniseries and subsequent television series V: The Final Battle, for which he and Singer gained a bit of a cult following. Most recently, Dan produced The Wishing Tree— somewhat inspired by his years at Andover—starring Jason Gedrick, and Twist of Faith, starring singer-actress Toni Braxton. He had great passion for his work and for golf, but his deepest loves remained the two daughters he shared with his second wife, Judy Brown, and his third wife, literary agent Marti Blumenthal. Dan is survived by his loving wife, Marti; his daughters, Jessica and Chelsea; a grandson, Benjamin; and siblings Ruth Merkatz and Philip Blatt ’61. —The Blatt Family
1956 Peter R. Knipe Sea Girt, N.J.; Oct. 7, 2013 1957 Mary Ann Spurgeon Lewis Gladwyne, Pa.; May 27, 2013 1959 G. Gregory Gates Scottsdale, Ariz.; Nov. 10, 2012
1960 Carolyn V. Kent Loudonville, N.Y.; Oct. 26, 2013
1968 Paul M. Nelson Atlanta, Ga.; April 15, 2013
1963 Jan A. Gleason Seattle, Wash.; May 31, 2013
1971 David H. Knights Hopewell, N.J.; Sept. 24, 2013
Jan Arlene Gleason was born to Clair Arlene (Whelan) and Marshall Tiebout Gleason Sr. in Orlando, Florida, on May 25, 1945. She passed away on May 31, 2013, in Seattle, Washington. She is survived by her brother Marshall Gleason, as well as many other family members and friends. She will be dearly missed by all who knew her. Many of Jan’s Abbot classmates were able to wish her a happy birthday prior to our 50th Reunion. On the occasion of her burial at sea on August 8, 2013, her friend, Meg Gerkan, spoke for many who knew and loved Jan, as she eulogized, “Thank you, Jannie, for being in my life and all of our lives, for your wonderful expressions of peace, love, fun, and courage.” Please see our class notes in this issue for more remembrances of Jan, especially those written on June 7, 2013, by Morley Marshall Knoll and Helen Watson Collison. —Cynthia Kimball ’63
Webster B. Phillips Montclair, N.J.; Aug. 16, 2013
1964 Hunter E. John Seattle, Wash.; Aug. 4, 2013
1976 Pamela M. Richards Allendale, N.J.; Sept. 2, 2013 Pamela Richards Cohan died unexpectedly on September 2, 2013, at her home in Hinesburg, Vermont. She was an ardent cyclist and kayaker and an accomplished cook who authored several cookbooks, including the popular I’m in the Kitchen, Now What?! The daughter of longtime faculty members Jack and Wendy Richards, Pam leaves behind her daughters, Julia and Emily; her mother, Wendy; her siblings, Laura ’74, Tim ’81, Chris ’81, and C.C. ’82; and 11 nieces and nephews. —The Richards Family
1977 Christopher A. Fox Califon, N.J. 1990 Michael D. Pechinski New York, N.Y.; May 22, 2013
Tirachai Kambhu Washington, D.C.; Oct. 13, 2013
1965 Ralph P. Davis Fredericksburg, Va.; July 31, 2013
In Memoriam Protocol Please notify Alumni Records at alumni-records@ andover.edu about an alumna/us death. Andover welcomes obituaries written by family members or classmates. Submissions should be no longer than 150 words and will be edited. Please e-mail questions or submissions to Jill Clerkin at jclerkin@andover.edu or call 978-749-4295.
Andover | Winter 2014
119
Tales ou t of school
Jack Richards and the End of Communism by John Berman ’90 Jack Richards tore down the wall. Most historical accounts do not note the central role of a prep school history teacher in ending communism, dismembering the Soviet Union, and shredding the Iron Curtain. But in my head—based on my recollections of autumn 1989—that is exactly what happened. That fall, Mr. Richards’s Russian history class was supposed to be focused on serfs, tsars, Trotsky, and Turgenev. But with the entire world changing minute by minute, with regimes falling all over Eastern Europe, and with the existence of the Soviet Union hanging in the balance, the class was preoccupied with then-current events. The pace of change was virtually inexplicable. I say “virtually” because Jack Richards could explain anything. And he did, to us, almost every day. My memory gives him credit for making history, not because he claimed credit, but because anyone who could discuss and untangle history with such simple elegance had to be at least a little responsible for causing everything to happen. That is the only plausible explanation. Also, it could not have been a coincidence that he cofounded the nation’s first-ever high school exchange with the Soviet Union. That fact was known to all of us taking his class, so we could be forgiven for assuming that it played a role in what ultimately happened there. As perhaps you can tell, I don’t remember much detail of what was actually taught in that class, but I do remember much of what I learned. I learned about kindness. I cannot conjure an image of Jack Richards where he is not smiling. And it was such an easy grin. It was so overwhelmingly pleasant to be in that room, I am not sure it even counts as education, except for the fact that we probably inhaled and processed more information than we ever had in our lives.
Teacher and Student Jack Richards in 1986 and John Berman in 2009 Jack Richards died on October 5, 2013. Please see his obituary on page 117.
There is one other thing I think all of his students learned: respect. He treated us like grown-ups, which at the time we all were certain we were, but now I am fairly certain we weren’t. Though if we were not quite as complete as we thought at the time, he helped give us the courage to believe we could be. I vividly remember the opening comments he wrote when grading my term paper that fall: “A bit polemical at times,” he told me, “but otherwise an excellent effort.” I did not know what it meant to be polemical before I read that. I had to look it up. Essentially, he was telling me that I was being a bit of an ass, but made some good points. He was, no doubt, correct. But he also was partially responsible. The only way I could have conjured the self-confidence to be a polemical ass was because Mr. Richards created the environment where I believed that what I said actually mattered. In the end, I suppose, I learned I could make a lot of good points without being an ass. Jack Richards did it all the time. In truth, I hit the Richards jackpot at Andover. Wendy Richards was my academic advisor. I am eternally grateful for all the advice she gave, especially to take her husband’s class. I am so thankful for everything he taught me. And we are all grateful that he ended communism. John Berman ’90 anchors CNN’s Early Start. As a reporter at ABC News and CNN, he has covered everything from presidential campaigns to wars to barehanded catfishing.
120
Andover | Winter 2014
Andover Ties That Bind by Eric “Ric” Redman ’66 Bad behavior got me to Andover. At my junior high in Seattle, Miss Boyd unfurled the wall map and began searching for Iceland around Antarctica, presumably because Antarctica is where one finds the most ice. “Miss Boyd, you are so stupid!” I blurted out. She lifted me by the ear, marched me to the principal, repeated my insult, and stormed out. Miss Peterson, the principal, thought a moment and then asked two questions: “Miss Boyd really is stupid, isn’t she?” and “Have you considered Andover or Exeter?” I had, actually, but my parents disapproved of private schools, and worse, Mom headed the local parent-teacher association. “Leave it to me,” Miss Peterson said. Soon I was back in her office, where she supervised my admissions test.
Gratitude for his Andover experience moved Ric Redman and his wife, Heather, to provide for Andover in their estate. They recently were welcomed into the Samuel Phillips and Sarah Abbot Society in recognition of their thoughtful and generous planning.
When I graduated from Andover, I went home to spend my summer as a logger. The Northwest was built on logging; that world was vanishing, and I wanted to experience it before it did. Fortunately, John Watzek (Class of 1910) had become a friend when Headmaster John Mason Kemper deployed us students to persuade him to fund Nathan Hale House. “Uncle John” was a timber baron. He called Frederick Hayes ’45, who ran Weyerhaeuser’s biggest logging operation. Fred put me into the woods. One day that summer the mightiest logger—the “bull buck”— surprisingly asked me to meet his son. Why? “He gets sent home for insulting teachers. Fred Hayes thinks you might have a suggestion.” Soon Steve Fury ’70 was at Andover, too.
Yuto Watanabe ’11
Of course, what matters isn’t the old school tie but ties to the school and its academic environment, the best I experienced, even though I was fortunate (thanks to Andover) to attend great universities. And what is that environment built on? An intergenerational partnership of John Watzek, Fred Hayes, and thousands of others. In gratitude (including to Miss Peterson!), I’m honored to join that partnership—and perhaps atone, belatedly, for my bad behavior to Miss Boyd.
To learn more about Andover’s gift planning options, contact David Flash at 978-749-4297 or dflash@andover.edu.
WINTER 2014
Periodicals postage paid at Andover MA and additional mailing offices
Households that receive more than one Andover magazine are encouraged to call 978-749-4267 to discontinue extra copies.
Phillips Academy, Andover, Massachusetts 01810-4161 ISSN 0735-5718
WINTER 2014
Chris Daze Ellis will be the Addison Gallery of American Art’s spring 2014 Edward E. Elson Artist in Residence. For more about the Addison, please see page 38.
iPad Pilot Transforms PA Classrooms Kemper Negotiates the Hair-Raising ’60s Chris Daze Ellis (b. 1961), Life in the Fast Lane, 2012, oil, acrylic, spray paint on canvas, 66 x 82 inches
Stella ’54, Church ’72 & Abiola ’92 Honored