The ReMarker | February 2016

FILLING THE SPOT

ST. MARK’S SCHOOL OF TEXAS 10600 PRESTON ROAD DALLAS, TX. 75230 MATEO DIAZ PHOTO

Chosen to be the next head of Upper School, Patrick Andrén gives us a look into who he really is and the impact he hopes to make on campus.

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TEAM AND

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SPC CHAMPIONS.’ - Sophomore Orlin Ware PAGE 31

As the newest member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Steve Miller ’61 says the organization needs to make some changes.

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INSIDE News Malecall Life Perspectives Buzz Commentary Sports Backpage

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GUN VIOLENCE

Barrel

You’ve seen the stats, the stances, all the sides of gun violence. But there’s one side you don’t want to be on.

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down the

HRIS LEWIS ’92 GRABBED THE STEERING

wheel as he caught a glimpse of the silver pistol.

With his life in danger, he had no choice but to do everything the man with the gun asked.

Chris’s instincts told him to make a run for it.

But there was one thing that stopped him from doing so: a gun pointed to the back of his head.

One object controlled his every move, decision and fate.

The man with the gun took Chris and his friends to an old, abandoned set of railroad tracks.

The thoughts of death entered into the 19-yearold’s minds.

The night was never supposed to go like this.

This was never supposed to happen.

After almost 20 minutes of driving, Chris brought his CRX to an abrupt stop at the abandoned train station.

A car door burst open as one of his friends exited the door of the car and sprinted

for his life into the darkness.

Chris tried to do the same. He made a move toward the handle and was almost out of the car.

But he was too late.

The last thing Chris Lewis ever heard was the cock of the pistol and the pull of a trigger.

Bang.

Chris Lewis’s life ended June 19, 1993. continued, page 9

STORY RISH BASU, ANVIT REDDY, ZACH G ILSTRAP ADDITIONAL REPORTING NICK MALVEZZI PHOTO ARNO GOETZ

N new s

CHRIS MCELHANEY PHOTO

MORE THAN A HOME

TEACHERLY LOVE

Two teacher couples found love this summer and tell their story.

The ReMarker looks back as students prepare to build their tenth Habitat for Humanity home.

STEM CONFERENCE RETURNS

Third annual STEM conference returns in March, featuring three alumni.

POLITICAL PREVIEWS

Get in the know about the top candidates and the primary dates.

NEW RELATIONSHIP

“Little Free Libraries” organization forms a relationship with St. Mark’s community service.

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PAGE 2 FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 2016 I REMARKER

o paraphrase Atticus Finch, courage is more than a man with a gun in his hand.

This idea may ruffle some feathers, especially here in Texas. But then again, if you’re not willing to make some people mad, why share your opinion?

If there’s anyone who needs to learn this lesson, it’s the group in Oregon who has been engaged in a weeks-long standoff for seizing government property using lethal force. Not only did their basis for protest lack conviction, but their use of force and coercion undermines their claims that their actions are motivated by patriotism.

I would like to send a message to those armed, white militiamen: toting a gun and hating the government doesn’t make you a patriot. It makes you a thug.

A patriot is someone who loves America and is willing to fight for our country’s values. Not someone who uses military-grade weapons to intimidate their fellow citizens and seize government property.

A patriot understands that in our country, a representative democracy, if you want change, you fight for it with DAVIS MARSH activism. Not with guns and intimidation.

A patriot respects those who disagree with him, and doesn’t meet opposition with fear tactics and coercion.

But a thug doesn’t care about the will of the people or believe in the inherent value of the democratic process.

A thug resorts to violence rather than peaceful protest.

A thug wants to circumvent the democratic process.

A thug hides behind violent weapons because he is a coward.

Imagine a situation where an armed group of Black Lives Matter protesters or Muslim-Americans seized a government building.

I’d bet anything that instead of a lengthy standoff, the militiamen would have been immediately gunned down, much to the applause of false “patriots” like Ammon Bundy and his co-conspirators.

They’d be labeled thugs, terrorists, anti-American.

Now I don’t say this to condone these coercive actions in any situation, or by any group of people.

I wish merely to point out that these men in Oregon benefited from a misconception that white men with guns are patriots and black men with guns are thugs: an insidious manifestation of white privilege.

As a white male, I feel a duty to understand how our society can so often be tainted by structural discrimination against any number of minorities. Especially people of color.

All this to say, just in case anyone was unaware: White people can be thugs, too.

stories around campus in brief

• ANNUAL COAT DRIVE SUCCESSFUL More than 400 coats were collected in the week of Jan. 11 by the Eighth Grade Community Service Board, an improvement of 117 more than last year’s total.

The coats collected will be donated directly to the Austin Street Centre, St. Vincent DePaul Thrift Store and Letot Juvenile Center.

“The goal of the Coat Drive is to help out people that are unable to buy coats on

their own,” said Devan Patel, a member of the Eighth Grade Community Service Board. “We donate coats so they can spend their money on other essentials.”

• HOLIDAY GIFT DRIVE REACHES GOAL More than 2,100 gifts were collected by the Student Council and the Community Service Board for the 2015 Gift Drive. The gifts, collected through Dec. 16, were distributed to underprivileged children through the Salvation

Army and other service organizations.

“It’s our job, being people who have a little more, to give back to the community,” Gift Drive co-chair Zachary Naidu said. “It’s a very doable goal, but, more than that, to show that we’re a caring part of the community” • SIXTH ANNUAL BLOOD DRIVE COMING UP The sixth annual Blood Drive will return to the school Feb. 24 in Nearburg Hall, available to students and faculty

age 18 and over.

The drive’s donations will go to support Carter BloodCare, a local blood donation organization based out of North, Central, and East Texas.

The Community Service Board expects to offer three service hours for blood donation and five for plasma.

“One of the points we make is an effort to communicate to our community is that ‘blood is life,’” Community Service Director Jorge Correa said. “Hopefully, none of us will need it,

but if they do, we’re doing our part to make sure it is there.”

• MATH TEAM HOSTS COMPETITION The Math Team hosted and operated the Metroplex Math Contest Jan. 7, which included 120 students from ten schools in the Dallas/ Fort Worth area and one team from Wichita Falls.

“Because we host it we don’t compete in it, all of our math team members wrote all of the problems for the contest, organized it, ran it, proctored tests and graded tests,” Math Team coach Amy Pool said.

— Andre Arsenault, Blake Daugherty, Zoheb Khan and Noah Koecher

in the

MOMENT events on campus told through photos

BUILDING Seniors Alden James (left) and Henry Goldberg (right) hammer nails as the Habitat for Humanity build begins to take form.

Say what?

the

Around corner

comments made by faculty, staff and students around campus

TODAY What World’s Original Indoor Rodeo When 7:30 p.m.

Where Cowtown Coliseum, 121 E Exchange Ave., Fort Worth

WEEKEND

What A Mid-Winter Night’s Dream When Saturday, 7 p.m.

Where 3630 Harry Hines Blvd.

NEXT WEEK What Food Bites!

Dallas Tour When Monday, 1:00 p.m.

Where 408 W. Eighth St.

CREATIVE COMMONS

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QUICKhits

CHRIS MCELHANEY PHOTO

DEAR FALSE PATRIOTS

What Jackson Pollock Exhibit When All-day Where The Dallas Museum of Art, 1717 N Harwood St. What Amazing Scavenger Hunt When Saturday, All-day.

Where Union Station, 400 South Houston St.

What Valentine’s Day When Next Sunday Where Everywhere

THE BIGGEST OF THEM ALL The World’s Original Indoor Rodeo will take place today at 7:30 p.m. The first of its kind ocurred120 years ago, 29 different events are scheduled for the night in Fort Worth.

Y’all just kind of sit there and pulsate — Nancy and Jeffrey Marcus Master Teacher Dr. Bruce Westrate on dancing Have you ever been on a subway in New York?

They’re literally filled with naked people.

— Sophomore Zach Landry

Mama’s hungry.

— Senior Henry Goldberg about himself before eating

Just because I hate usurers more than murderers doesn’t make me an unreasonable person.

— Senior Ward Rushton Estoy trabajando en un mixtape.

— Sophomore Abdullah Akbar

Puberty is a loooong process.

— English Department Chair Michael Morris after a voice crack

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NEW HEAD OF UPPER SCHOOL

A new captain at the helm After a year long search, the head of Upper School position has been filled. Patrick Andrén, coming from the Pomfret School in Connecticut, will bring ‘new energy’ and ‘new ideas’ to the job.

A NEW FACE After months of deliberation, administrators have chosen Patrick Andrén as the new head of Upper School, who they believe will bring a fresh new perspective to campus.

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ive hundred acres of rural Connecticut, lightly dusted with the first frostings of winter snow, spread, unadulterated, out from the school.

No car engines, no airplane motors, no city traffic intrudes on the silence of the northeastern pocket of the United States.

Teachers and students alike live on campus: the commute to the Pomfret School, home of recently announced Head of Upper School Patrick Andrén, is a two minute walk.

However, it’s a one hour drive to the nearest city.

“There are probably more cows per square mile than people,” Andrén said.

Andrén loved the land — but he knew he was ready to move into the bustling city life.

He found his opportunity in the center of southern commercialism: Dallas, Texas.

Buildings scrape the skyline. Dallas and its sprawling urban Metroplex loom over the horizon.

Just 15 minutes out of downtown, a small oasis of learning lies on 10600 Preston Road.

“This heavy emphasis on close-knit relationships between students and faculty, the safety that exists in this environment at St. Mark’s,” Andrén said, “was a bit nostalgic for me.”

Andrén, a graduate of the all-boys, Connecticut-based Brunswick School, continued.

“I felt like I had come home,” Andrén said.

As soon as the job opening arose, a search committee was formed, led by Headmaster David Dini, Associate Headmaster John Ashton and Rev. Bill Clarkson ‘66, a member of the Carney, Sandoe & Associates faculty recruitment firm.

From a huge pool of applicants, the committee narrowed the group down to a potential half-dozen candidates before beginning face-to-face conversations, with a specific goal in mind: find an applicant who, while respectful of the school’s history, would bring a new perspective to the school.

“We wanted someone who would respect the school’s tradition and history and foundations,” Dini said, “but at the same time come in with new energy, new ideas and would have strong, innate

leadership qualities that would bring confidence and experience and wisdom and perspectives that they would add to the strength of the school.”

For Andrén, his experience at the Brunswick School was the driving force behind his applying for the job.

“I had such a profound experience at that school that when I sit and reflect it resonates with me on a daily basis,” Andrén said. “When the opportunity to apply for St. Mark’s came up, I couldn’t resist. I know the environment: it’s one that you can’t really describe to people.

You have to live, you have to feel it, to understand it.”

DAVID DINI Headmaster believes there was no better candidate than Andrén.

As the applicant pool was narrowed, school administrators showed candidates around the school and went out for dinner with them in Dallas. Finally, during this selection process, it became apparent to Dini that Andrén was the perfect fit for the job.

“He fulfilled as much of the goals and aspirations we had for the role as I imagine we possibly could,” Dini said. “We set the bar pretty high, and we really wanted to knock it out of the park in terms of the kind of candidates we would attract and ultimately the kind of appointment we would make.”

••• ndrén began teaching straight out of college, a first job that jumpstarted his love for the classroom and the teacher-student bonds that come with that experience.

“I had no idea what to expect,” Andrén said. “I was petrified the first time

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I stood up in front of a group of seventh graders.

They tested me, but it was a lot of fun. I thought I was going to try this teaching thing out for a year or two, but 18 years later, here I am.”

Andrén learned early that building relationships with the school community was the most important part of teaching.

“We have so much fun together,” Andrén said. “The constant ways that you all surprise FAMILY TIME Andrén’s children (left to right), Wills, Peter, Niels and Henry, along with his wife, Heather, are “excited for a new me with your passions, life in Dallas,” according to the newly-appointed administrator. interests, ability to have fun with things. I compare ly having your own character besmirched, notes with my friends who sit in an office taken down a notch, is something that has all day, and I think I come out on top.” stuck with me for 30 years. That was one As an administrator, however, Andrén of the worst things that’s ever happened knows that, along with thinking about to me.” individual students, he must think on a In contrast, the best days of Andrén’s much broader scale as well. life are those when he comes up against a “My job is not just to think about the new challenge. individual student, or specific class, or just “My kids got this little thing for about a team, but to think institutionally Christmas called the Gordian Knot,” as well,” Andrén said. “When we think Andrén said. “I sat for probably five hours about what’s going on in the present, and before I untangled this thing. That’s a future, I have to look at individual interac- small window into my psyche.” tions and how I am setting precedent and Through their many conversations, the effects on the school.”

Dini could see Andrén would bring much Despite thinking on an institutional more to the position of head of Upper level, Andrén still feels his worst days as School than just experience. an administrator have been those when “It was clear every time that he students from his former school were brought that energy and creativity and forced to leave. strong leadership to his work,” Dini said. “[It’s worst] when kids make mis“And that really appealed to us. That he takes, and despite their best efforts, we was a poised, confident person, but has a have to part ways,” Andrén said. “Espelot of humility.” cially when it comes to kids I’ve forged close relationships to. Unfortunately, that BUILDING BONDS WITH THE has happened.”

PEOPLE AROUND ME IS THE MOST IMPORTANT THING I DO. Andrén feels that, overall, he has had RELATIONSHIPS ARE THE KEY. a pretty lucky life. However, he was once ´ detained in a Russian airport for sharing PATRICK ANDREN a resemblance to a wanted arms dealer.

Despite this, he considers the worst day of Andrén has learned many lessons his life to have been the day he was caught during his time as an administrator. And stealing a pack of baseball cards as a child. at the center of them all is the importance “It’s funny because the guy who of relationships. caught me, having to face him as a person “Relationship is king. Relationship that I knew and who trusted me, was before task,” Andrén said. “My job is to humiliating,” Andrén said. “That whole come form relationships with the communotion of letting people down, of essential- nity, and people in the community.”

STORY REECE RABIN, AIDAN MAURSTAD PHOTO ARNO GOETZ

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PAGE 4 FEBRUARY 5, 2016 REMARKER HABITAT FOR HUMANITY

A habit of service Students are now working on the tenth house, in nine years, a milestone for the school’s involvement in the Habitat for Humanity community service project, an international organization that builds houses for the underprivileged.

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house in which she can live.

“What’s most exciting for me is that I can finally have my own place to live,” Davila said. “It will be nice to be able to invite my friends and family over.”

For the students who work on the project, Correa feels that it’s about more than just learning how to work with tools. In addition to learning how to build a house, students also learn about the needs of the community.

“The other thing is it makes them more aware of a fact, this has to do more with the program, people in the community, very close to us, need help,” Correa said. “You can cross the new bridge and see lots of houses are collapsing. It’s about this sense of community, being aware that some neighborhoods need a little help, and Habitat is doing that. We are going over there and being a part of that community for some time and now it’s been almost a decade. So they’ve [the boys] become more aware of the needs of the community, and more specifically, of a family.” orrea says because of the student involvement in building a house, other homeowners nearby start to repair their houses.

“Sometimes, the neighbors start fixing their houses, and since we have a dumpster there and people working, then they get up early to do their work,” Correa said. “So it’s really a ripple effect, and if the boys and the girls realize whatever we do while we’re over there has an effect on that neighborhood, then I think it is very positive.”

According to Assistant Director of Community Service Kezia Stegemoeller, the Habitat for Humanity project is special in the fact that a student’s parents can experience the project first-hand.

“It’s also unique because unlike other projects Upper Schoolers might participate in, parents are actually invited to come to this,” Stegemoeller said. “So the boys can go home and talk about where they went to tutor or serve dinner, but your parents aren’t able to be there and see what you’re doing.

Habitat is special because you can work side-by-side with your mom or dad, and that really is unique.”

All in all, Correa feels that the impact goes far beyond just constructing a house.

“We’re not just building a house,” Correa said, “we’re showing that other people care.”

n the blistering cold, she picks up a hammer. Surrounded by strangers, she taps in nail after nail. Even before the project starts, she’s required to do 200 hours of community service. Take financial management classes. Work in a materials shop.

But for Martha Davila, this work is more than worthwhile; it’s all for the place she will soon call home for many years to come.

As the tenth house the school has built in nine years, Martha Davila’s house has started as all of the others have: just a slab of concrete. Over eight weeks, it takes its form as a house through the help of volunteers and professionals alike.

“Working with the students is very nice,” Davila said. “All of them have been very respectful, and I’m glad that so many came to help.”

Part of the long application process to get a home from Habitat for Humanity is a number of required service hours and classes the future homeowner must take to ensure they know how to take care of the house.

“I had to do 200 hours of community service and work on other classes,” Davila said. “I also had to take 10 classes about financial management. I’m also working with a group called Restore, a part of Habitat for Humanity. It’s a discount shop for home materials, and I really like working there. The people are very friendly.”

HAMMERING AWAY Carefully removing a nail, sophomore Jesse Zhong works during the build.

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JORGE CORREA Community Service Director explains “sweat equity”

In addition to the work the homeowners must do before their house is built, they must also work on the house themselves. According to Community Service Director Jorge Correa, this ‘sweat equity’ serves as an alternative method to pay for the home.

“There is this term that [Habitat for Humanity] have called ‘sweat equity,’ which means [the homeowners] have to be there, sweating with everyone else,” Correa said. “They can’t just say ‘oh I’ll be back in eight weeks when the house is done, thank you very much.’

They have to be there, they have to be working.”

Davila, who currently lives with her daughter and son-in-law in Duncanville, is most excited to have her very own

WORKIN’ HARD Standing on a ladder, junior Crawford McCrary (above) carefully taps a nail into the wood. Sunny Agrawal (right) inspects the wall for any mistakes.

BUILDING A HOME Teachers, students and parents move about the Habitat for Humanity site, trying to build a sturdy house that will become a home for Martha Davila and her family.

STORY CORDAY CRUZ ADDITIONAL REPORTING AUSTIN MONTGOMERY PHOTOS CHRIS MCELHANEY

Sophomore receives scholarship to study in Costa Rica

by Blake Daugherty

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fter taking the National Spanish Exam and placing in the 99th percentile across the country, sophomore Kannan Sharma received a scholarship to study abroad in Costa Rica. In order to receive this scholarship, Sharma had to fill out an extensive application form.

“I got a 99th percentile and applied for the interview and the program and so they just sent me a huge application which I had to type out and reply to different questions like ‘Why do you want to go?’ and ‘What do you think this will help you with and how?’” Sharma said.

Sharma followed this application form with an interview with his Spanish

teacher, Foreign Language Department Chair Nancy Marmion.

“After the application you have to have an interview with your Spanish teacher just in Spanish,” Sharma said.

“So I talked to Mrs. Marmion. She was really nice throughout the whole procedure and everything. We had to do it a few times because I kept stopping. It is difficult for me to speak in Spanish for an extensive amount of time, so it took some getting used to.”

The program will take place between July 24 and August 6 near San José, the capital of the small, Central American country, with a small group of other qualified students from around the

world.

“It is going to be four or five minutes from the capital, San José,” Sharma said.

“It is around that area because they want us to be in a secluded area away from the city because they want us to be safe.”

Sharma looks forward to the challenge of only speaking Spanish throughout his stay.

“They only let you speak Spanish, so no English at all,” Sharma said. “I think it is going to be really interesting to try and sort of be like the interview again but this time it’ll be nonstop Spanish.”

Another added benefit to this scholarship program is Sharma’s opportunity to experience the sights of Costa Rica.

“I also want to go there because Costa Rica is really well known for its natural beauty and forests, so I want to experience that,” Sharma said. “They have excursions as well where I can go to different places.”

Sharma attributes this rare opportunity to his genuine enjoyment of the Spanish language and study of the Spanish culture.

“I just really like Spanish because it allows me to talk to different people, who I wouldn’t usually talk to because of the language barrier, and learn from them,” Sharma said. “I guess what really helped me was actually liking the language and wanting to learn more.”

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TEACHER MARRIAGES

Tying the knot With faculty members Martin and Kezia Stegemoeller married in the school chapel, and instructors Geoffrey Stanbury and Amy Reck now engaged, there’s definitely more than oxygen in the air.

LOVE IN THE AIR Kezia (right) and Stegemoeller (left) take a romantic walk together before their marraige ceremony in the school’s chapel Nov. 21.

How did it start?

Martin Stegemoeller: I remember I was going to see Jim Bob [Womack], and he wasn’t there. So while I was waiting for him to come back, the then-Ms. Warner chatted with me until Mr. Womack came.

I knew I felt something right then, but I didn’t ask her out until a few months later. We started talking about stuff that was important to both of us, and we wanted to go out to continue those discussions. It was a while before we realized there was interest.

Geoffrey Stanbury: A carnival ride. I was new here and Amy wanted to go ride carnival rides at Addison Oktoberfest. I guess she saw something in me back then that made me seem like I wanted to ride carnival rides.

Amy Reck: I wanted to ride this ride called “The Zipper.” My friends wouldn’t go on it because it’s scary and a little crazy and I thought that new Geoff guy would like to do it. So I invited him to go ride The Zipper at Addison Oktoberfest.

When did it get serious?

Stegemoeller: We took a trip to Puerto Rico a while ago. We actually both got really sick — fever, exhaustion.

Even though we were sick, we still had the best time. We were spending like, every minute of every day together. It was the best vacation I’ve ever had, even though we were sick almost the whole time. I think it was then I realized that this was how I wanted to spend the rest of my life.

Stanbury: We were out at this one restaurant sitting at a bench outside of a bar. At the end we both ordered a drink and it was a drink that had some foam in it and the bartender put a heart into the foam.

We both kind of drank it down really quickly and all that. In a certain sense we thought that the bartender was just mistaking us as being out on a date, but I think the bartender probably recognized something that were both

starting to think about and feel.

How did he propose?

Kezia Stegemoeller: I hate Valentine’s Day. He knew that. He told me that we needed to reclaim the day with a positive memory, because I have had notoriously horrible Valentine’s days in the past.

So we went to the restaurant where we went on our first date, and that’s where he proposed on Valentine’s Day. We had talked about it, so it wasn’t a complete surprise. I was very surprised by my ring.

We found this ring that I loved everything about, so I thought I’d get something similar, but I didn’t think I’d be getting the exact ring that I wanted.

I don’t hate Valentine’s Day quite as much now.

Reck: We were in South Africa on a safari spending the day outside of Kruger National Park.

We spent the day seeing lions and giraffes and zebras and wild dogs eating carcasses. Then the vehicle broke down and we were in the middle of the bush and luckily the driver had a gun.

It was just the most adrenaline filled day and that night he proposed to me, which I didn’t expect, so my response was ‘What?’ and then I said yes.

Favorite part of the relationship?

Stanbury: While hiking Round Table mountain in Cape Town, having to decide to call it in and turn it back when the sun was about to set and we were looking up a cliff and we’d lost the trail was pretty intense.

There have also been other sort of quiet little things like sitting on the deck of my grandparent’s cabin in Maine. Those moments when things are just sort of still and feeling no pressure to fill any sort of silence and just being there. Long stretches in the car on road trips and stuff like that.

Kezia: We’ve been traveling a lot over the course of the summer—we went to the Bluegrass Festival in Telluride, and we spoke at the same conference

in South Africa. We went to the Wine Country together, and there was the Puerto Rico thing I talked about before.

It was almost like a pre-honeymoon.

TOGETHER FOREVER Warner and Stegemoeller embrace in the Amphitheater during a photoshoot before their wedding.

What’s it like having a fiance on campus?

Stanbury: It’s awesome! I think it’s cool.

I’ve never had a fiance anywhere else so I haven’t been able to compare it to anything. I am enjoying it.

Reck: You don’t get sick of me?

Stanbury: No. But we also don’t share an office or anything.

Reck: I think it’s really nice because throughout the day if I am having a bad day or if there is something I need to talk through or process, he is here to talk about it.

ON TOP OF THE WORLD Stanbury and Reck atop Round Table Mountain during a trip.

Stanbury: I remember reading somewhere maybe some story or newspaper article.

The main character maybe real maybe fictional was just one of those people who has the standard nine to five job and he spend the majority of his life with his coworkers and he spent just this little minimal fraction of his life with his spouse and it was written in such a way that it showed just how unfortunate that was.

Reck: Since he is in Upper School and I am in Middle School our school business doesn’t overlap. It’s not like we’re hanging out eight, nine hours a day. We have enough separation here so that when we do see each other it’s nice to catch up on things.

Stanbury: One thing that is interesting is that before we were engaged we weren’t keeping it strictly hidden that we were dating but some kids knew, some kids maybe wondered and some kids probably thought ‘ew that’s gross there’s no way that would happen.’

But I feel like since we’ve announced that we are engaged that’s made it in a certain sense easier because there is no secret about it.

PUT A RING ON IT Stanbury (left) and Reck (right) in Cape Town, South Africa, the same trip that he proposed.

STORY BLAKE DAUGHERTY, AUSTIN MONTGOMERY PHOTOS COURTESY STANBURY, RECK AND STEGEMOELLER

Alum Rowan ‘13 runs Harvard-MIT math competition

by Austin Montgomery

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n February 2012, the school’s Math Team, including then-junior James Rowan ‘13, traveled to Cambridge to compete in one of the most rigorous math competitions in the world — the Harvard-MIT Math Tournament.

There, members faced off against nearly a thousand of the brightest, most mathematically gifted students in the world. Four years later, Rowan, now taking command of the tournament he once took part in, throws down the gauntlet for a new generation of high school mathematicians aiming to rank among the best in the country.

“It was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done,” Rowan said of his experience preparing for the 2012 tournament. “We had to get lot more focused as a group, especially during those winter break practices. Even though we didn’t place as high as we’d wanted (the local team placed 41st and 39th during Rowan’s high school career), it was still a great experience for us.”

The student-run Harvard-MIT Math Tournament, held each November and February since 1998, draws students from as far as China and Honduras. Many of the attendees are also top scorers in national and international math olympiads.

Rowan, as the new tournament director, is

responsible for organizing a smooth, wellrun event that all of the many participants will enjoy.

“I’m booking the rooms, writing problems, ordering breakfasts from the catering company, arranging things with the hotels,” Rowan said. “Just making sure the tournament runs on schedule. I’ve been to some tournaments where they were two, three hours behind, and I want to make sure that doesn’t happen.”

Rowan, who initially signed up at the suggestion of his classmates, points to poor communication as his biggest obstacle in arranging the tournament.

“We had an issue with the hotels in

November,” he said. “We were trying to reserve hotel rooms for the students, but they were taking a really long time to get back to us. Fast forward to a week before the tournament, and they still hadn’t gotten back to us. That was a mess. Just goes to show how important communicating is.”

While the road may not always be easy, Rowan hopes to make his stint as tournament director a success.

“I remembered how much doing stuff like this meant to me in high school, and I really just wanted to give back to the community,” Rowan said. “It’s a very important job, and I’m honored to be doing it.”

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PAGE 6 FEBRUARY 5, 2016 REMARKER STEM CONFERENCE

Talking technology Alumni and visiting scholars will share insights and experiences during the annual STEM conference.

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he third annual Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) Conference will take place March 4 with four visiting speakers.

This year’s conference will feature Dr. Gary Weinstein, a Dallas pulmonologist, also father of Kyle Weinstein ‘15 and three alumni: Dr. Brad Hirsch ’97, a hematologist, Mark Stevens ‘05, a developer with Google, and Chess Stetson ’97, a venture capitalist with a medical background. This year’s conference, similar to past conferences, will offer a panel discussion and individual class presentations by the speakers.

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owever, this conference will be different in a multitude of ways, the first being the timing of the conference. Instead of the usual October date, the date has been moved to the end of the second trimester, a less dense part of the year.

“We’ve been struggling for the past few years to find a good time for the conference, and that’s why this one seems so late compared to the other two,” Green Master Teacher Steven Balog said. “One of the things that we discovered in the past was that the fall was just so packed that it makes it tougher for the seniors to organize and run it. So moving it to the end of the second trimester like it is lets the guys work together for a good conference.”

Similar to the Literary Festival, the conference will feature students’ achievements.

However, instead of a competition, they

will feature students’ research work.

“One of the things that we’ve been playing around with is where the literary festival did their competition with submissions, we are going to open it up to the kids who did summer research programs and give them a chance to put of posters and displays to show what they’ve been doing,” Balog said.

For Stephen M. Seay ’68 Science Department Chair Fletcher Carron, the STEM Conference is an excellent chance to expose students to some of the lesser-known STEM careers.

“There are some niche careers that are hard to get exposure to unless a family member has that particular job,” Carron said. “So it [the conference] just broadens that particular horizon for our guys, but it also allows them to see applications of the

TALKING TECH Guests answer questions about their respective STEM fields at last year’s STEM Conference, hosted by Forest Cummings-Taylor ‘15 and Vik Pattabi ‘15.

science or math they’re learning here.”

That being said, Carron believes this is an important chance for the science faculty to learn about new developments that they may implement in their own classrooms.

“I think it’s great for the science faculty to have that reminder of what’s going on in the world of science and get a fresh look at what’s new and be reminded of the cool things you can do in science,” Carron said. “Just getting that sort of fresh injection of energy from around the sciences.”

After careful consideration, conference co-chair senior Tim O’Meara said the speakers were chosen in order to represent a wide range of disciplines within the STEM field.

“We chose the [speakers] because they provided a wide range of interests from math and computational biology to engineering to medicine so that we could expose students to a diverse set of topics,” O’Meara said.

Three of the four guests are alumni of the school, with the fourth a parent.

“I think it’s really great that these are people with St. Mark’s connections because they know the types of things that the students are learning, so they’ll really be able to connect their career experience to the student experience,” Carron said.

In addition to the panel discussion, panelists will make individual visits to classrooms, allowing students to learn in a closer environment.

“The conference will hopefully get everybody a little more information about what’s out there that they could possibly do,” Balog said. “So hopefully they’ll come away with new ideas and thoughts about what they may want to do later on.”

A FUTURISTIC EXPERIENCE The logo (above) shows the four fields of the scholars: science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

THE SPEAKERS Expertise ranges from health and oncology to technology and medical analysis

Gary Weinstein

Pulmonologist at Texas Health Presbyterian, noted for being involved in the treatment of Dallas’s three Ebola cases.

Dr. Bradford Hirsch

Hematologist and oncologist at Medical City Dallas, graduated from St. Mark’s with the class of 1997.

Mark Stevens

Developer with Google, has worked on projects such as Google Glass, Youtube and Google Car.

Chess Stetson Co-founder of Helynx — a medical analytics group — and neuroscience expert.

STORY CORDAY CRUZ PHOTOS ARNO GOETZ, CREATIVE COMMONS

Next year’s budget approved by Board of Trustees after Executive Committee approval

by Zoheb Khan

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fter the annual process, the Board of Trustees has approved the budget for next year. The budget, two-thirds of which goes towards paying faculty salaries, was planned out early in the year.

To start the approval process, the Business Office sends historical information about the budget to the faculty and staff with budget oversight, so that they know what they spent the year before. Then, the Business Office gives them a detailed copy of the current year’s budget.

“Then, we give them a spreadsheet and ask them to submit requests,” Director of Finance and Administration Suzanne Townsend said, “and we ask them to explain any expense that varies five percent or more from the prior year’s budget.”

After the Business Office receives

the requests, Controller Jim Windlinger puts the requests in a spreadsheet and reviews them with Townsend.

“We’re fortunate because our people with budget oversight are very reasonable about what they spend,” Townsend said.

“They know that we want them to spend what they need to give the best programming and the best education.”

After reviewing the current budget and comparing it to the past year’s, the Business Office sends the budget to the Finance Committee for approval.

“Sometimes [the Finance Committee] sends it back to us and asks us to tweak it,” Townsend said. “They may say, ‘We would really like faculty salaries to be increased a little more, or ‘We would really like to keep tuition a little lower.’”

After the Finance Committee approves the budget, it is sent to the Executive Committee for their consideration.

“The executive committee will typically approve what the finance committee

has approved,” Townsend said, “but they have sent it back to us before and said, ‘We would really like for you [the Finance Committee] to lower your projected enrollment number or lower tuition or give bigger increases on the salary side.’”

Finally, the budget is sent to the Board of Trustees, who give the final approval.

“And in January, it goes to the full Board of Trustees for their consideration,” Townsend said, “and they’ve always approved it, at least in the 13 years I’ve been here.”

After the budget has been finalized by the Board of Trustees, two-thirds of it is spent on faculty salaries and benefits. The budget is geared towards providing faculty salaries that are in the top ten percent nationally for the National Association of Independent Schools.

“We’re comparing ourselves to the East Coast, West Coast, Hawaii,” Townsend said, “and aspiring to be in that top ten percent, and we’re always close.”

PAGE 7 FEBRUARY 5, 2016 REMARKER

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THE 2016 PRESIDENTIAL RACE

Politics, policy and primaries CREATIVE COMMONS — CRUZ, CLINTON, SANDERS. TRUMP PHOTO ARNO GOETZ

With the presidential primaries on the horizon, students and faculty members have started talking politics.

THE CANDIDATES Ted Cruz (left), Donald Trump (top), Hillary Clinton (above) and Bernie Sanders (right) sit atop the Republican and Democratic polls, respectively.

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s the presidential primaries quickly approach with many voters still undecided, Republican and Democratic candidates are stepping up their campaigns and are trying to make an impact during the debates, solidifying their platforms and voicing their stances on hot button issues.

Preliminary polls point to a victory for Trump in the Republican nomination, although he must fight off a late surge from Texas senator Ted Cruz. On the Democratic side, Hillary Clinton, once thought to be a lock for the nomination, faces an unexpected challenge from Vermont senator Bernie Sanders.

But with six months until the Democratic and Republican conventions, the primaries are far from over.

With many juniors and seniors able to vote in the upcoming election, they are obligated to take sides and form their own opinions on respective issues in the United States.

And with recent Republican and Democratic debates having featured discussions over a variety of problems, such as gun control, national security and immigration, it has become harder to determine which issues are the most important.

For senior Ashton Hashemipour, gun control will be a key issue in the upcoming election.

“I think, within in the Democratic party,” senior Ashton Hashemipour said, “gun control and how much of it we should have is definitely an issue, at least between Bernie and Hillary. Obviously, Hillary is saying Bernie hasn’t gone far enough, and Bernie is trying to defend himself by saying he’s from Vermont.”

While Hashemipour believes gun control is an important issue, he believes the discussions taking place are not productive.

“I feel like when somebody brings up having gun control,” Hashemipour said, “some people say, ‘you’re coming for my guns,’ and I feel like that shouldn’t be the conversation we should be having. We should be taking a more middle-ground approach, instead of sticking to two extremes.”

History instructor Claire Strange agrees gun control is an important issue, but also wants the issue of open carry to be addressed.

“Growing up, I never experienced anything like we’re experiencing today,” Strange said. “I have friends who go around open-carrying, and I think that there’s really no room for that. There’s no need for that, and it puts people in an uncomfortable position, especially for those people who believe that they have a right to open-carry, including someone’s home.” arcus Master Teaching Chair Bruce Westrate, however, believes gun control is a dead issue.

“Now, you’re trying to deal with terrorism by having gun control,” Westrate said, “which have nothing to do with each other. It’s become a surrogate for doing something more aggressive about terrorism. What help would it be? I don’t know.”

Hashemipour, who also thinks terrorism is playing a big role in the recent debates, believes the role of the United States with the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) is an important issue between and within the Democratic and Republi-

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can parties.

“And some other issues are what the United States really should be doing with ISIS,” Hashemipour said, “stopping ISIS, how we should play within the coalition, whether we should lead the coalition, and whether we should let other Middle Eastern countries lead the fight.”

For Westrate, the three biggest issues are security, immigration and the state of the economy.

“We have to differentiate between the issues that the party sees and the issues that are important to the public,” Westrate said. “And I think that those three issues are the ones that are the most important, within the public.”

With gun control being a hot topic, mental health has been on the table too, with many candidates calling for sweeping reforms.

“Another big part of this question is mental health,” Westrate said. “And that’s the huge elephant in the living room, that’s so difficult to deal with. Because you have HIPAA laws, you have all kinds of possible infringements on civil liberties.

At the same time, it’s kind of nuts, doing background checks on people not knowing if they’re insane.”

According to recent reports, 80 percent of people who receive help for mental health issues are unemployed.

“Well, here again we get to looking at our economy,” Westrate said. “If we step back and look at it, it’s kind of an anomalous situation. We have a 5 percent unemployment rate, but at the same time, we have the largest number of people being out of the work force since the 1970s.”

Along those lines, another prominent

issue concerns women’s rights. Strange, an avid egalitarian, strongly supports gender equality.

“Specifically, within the Democratic party, gender rights and gender equality,” Strange said. “Really, women’s pay rights and maternity leave. That’s something they are talking a lot about, probably between both parties, immigration and how to create, at least on the Democratic side, a fair and humane opportunity.”

By the time election season reaches its peak on Super Tuesday, most voters will be decided, and the nominees will be clear as America buckles down for another four years.

“I think what you have,” Westrate said, “is an electorate that really wants to return to that vibrant middle-class base that just isn’t there anymore.”

must-know DATES • • Feb. 1: Iowa caucuses (both parties) Results not known • • at press time.

• Feb. 9: New Hampshire pri• mary (both parties) • Feb. 20: Nevada Democratic caucuses and South Car• olina Republican primary • Feb. 23: Nevada Republican • caucuses • Feb. 27: South Carolina • Democratic primary • Mar. 1: Super Tuesday: Primaries/caucuses for both parties in several states, including Texas.

STORY ANDRE ARSENAULT, ZOHEB KHAN

Math teachers compete in annual Dallas marathon

by Noah Koecher ath instructors Paul Mlakar, Valerie Davis, Janis Oprea, Jeff Hale and science instructor Lukas Rahlson were spread out across downtown Dallas.

But they weren’t going about their typical weekend activities. They weren’t shopping, seeing performances or catching the train. They weren’t apart.

They were a team.

When the gun went off at 8:05 a.m., Mlakar and 194 other runners sprang into the first, 4.25-mile leg of the Dallas Marathon.

Davis took the next leg, of 6.25 miles, before passing it off to Oprea, who ran the third leg of 4.75. The fourth leg was 5.25

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miles, and Rahlson held the baton through the downtown route.

Four hours, 14 minutes and 38 seconds after the gun, Hale brought the fifth, 5.7-mile leg home, securing the “St. Mark’s Mathletes” team a 69th place finish in the race out of nearly 200 competing teams Dec. 11.

“For the past few years, no one initiated forming a team,” Oprea said, “so I decided to start the tradition again this year.”

Although the math program hasn’t had a showing in the marathon for the past few years, the participation of faculty teams is not a recent tradition, but rather boasts a history of over two decades of

teams which have competed in the annual marathon.

The teams of old were often led by former Head of the Computer Science Department Dean Baird, and featured such runners as Associate Headmaster John Ashton and Headmaster David Dini, among many others. But rather than just mathletes, teams usually consisted of many departments.

“In the past, our five-member team was always made of individuals from different departments,” Oprea said. “However, this year, I thought it would be fun to have a team of mathletes, but when we found ourselves short one runner, we asked Mr. Rahlson to join us.”

And while the compilation of different departments into one team was enjoyable, Oprea believes having departmental teams affords team-building and competitive opportunities.

“We have built camaraderie,” Oprea said, “and now other faculty members have even mentioned an interest in forming their own teams so we can have friendly competition.”

And for Oprea, the rebirth of this old tradition means many more marathons to come.

“Now that we have started up the tradition I inherited again,” Oprea said, “we are definitely committed to enter our relay team every year.”

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FEBRUARY 5, 2016 REMARKER LITTLE FREE LIBRARIES

Free to read Teaming up with Little Free Libraries, the Community Service Board will build and maintain free book exchanges in DART stations.

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ith aimlessly wandering minds and faces glued to the screen of a phone, tens of thousands of people pour through the Dart Station every day. But looking up long enough to notice a small freestanding bookshelf, one man, boarding the 7:35 Green Line to his downtown job, pockets his phone to take a book.

While a simple scenario, this is the dream Head of the Community Service Board Jorge Correa believes the Dart Station can fulfill for Little Free Libraries, a nonprofit organization that has put more than 36,000 freestanding bookshelves across America.

“The integration of the community the Dart Station brings is great,” Correa said. “In itself it’s like the nucleus of a city where many, many people travel through each day. I hope that these bookshelves will be able to give people a chance to pick up a book and maybe even find an interest in something they didn’t even know they were interested in.”

With the mission of Little Free Libraries being “to promote literacy and the love of reading by building free book exchanges worldwide,” Co-Chair of the Community Service Board Alden James sees the organization building skills and creativity through anyone who will use the book exchanges in Dart Station.

JORGE CORREA Believes bookshelves will create new interests

“By providing these materials for self-education and entertainment beyond electronics, Little Free Libraries hopes that they will help increase the mental activity

NEW OPPORTUNITIES Little Free Libraries, an organization that collects books to give back to underprivileged people, has started a new relationship with the school to help promote their cause. Marksmen will collect donations and run drives to gather as many books as possible for the organization.

of people generally,” James said. “Obviously, this is a high traffic area too, so we are expecting these bookshelves will be heavily used.”

With preparations to start building the bookshelves underway, Little Free Libraries has allowed members of the Industrial Arts class, along with other local artists, to pitch design plans for the bookshelves.

“A lot of the libraries that have already been placed around Dallas have actually been designed by a lot of aspiring artists,” James said. “But now that St. Mark’s is involved, they are opening up to suggestions from the Industrial Arts guys. This being said, the bookshelves may not necessarily be designed by one of our guys, but if we do a good job, and they like our design they will leave it.”

ALDEN JAMES Sees the new book program prompting mental activity

Once built, there will be plenty of other volunteer opportunities for members of the Upper School to participate in.

“One possibility I see becoming a volunteer opportunity in the future is setting up a table and some chairs by one of these bookshelves in a neighborhood or the Dart Station and talking to the community and gathering opinions on whether a bookshelf would be good for that area or not,” Correa said. “Then after the bookshelf is built, students could be involved in the maintenance of the area around the bookshelf or the documentation of the popularity of the books taken from the shelves.”

While the bookshelves are designed so that people will be able to take a book or leave a book, there is the possibility that

many of these bookshelves will begin to run low overtime due to high demand.

In order to counteract that problem, the Community Service Board is considering holding book drives and reaching out to the Dallas community to restock the shelves.

“Through book drives and donations from Dallas’s libraries, we plan to collect enough books to keep the shelves amply supplied,” James said. “With that being said, there will most likely be more volunteer opportunities available with the book drives and the consequent restocking of the shelves.”

As volunteer opportunities begin to arise, Correa hopes that St. Mark’s students will take charge and help the book exchanges become successful resources for people using Dart Stations.

“I want our whole school to be the leader in this project, and I want the upper school students to take the initiative and become involved in our city,” Correa said.

“There is a saying in Spanish that translates to ‘everything begins at home,’ meaning that it is very important to go out and help the people around you before you can go out and help other people. Simply, we are here first.”

STORY JAMES HANCOCK PHOTOS COURTESY LIBROS LIBRES

School’s DADYO chapter to host diversity discussion March 9

by Rett Daugbjerg

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or Link Lipsitz, Will Garden and the Dallas Area Diverse Youth Organization (DADYO), open discussion about diversity and acceptance in society is essential.

To that end, DADYO will hold a conference on campus to discuss diversity March 9. They will play games and present different topics of diversity and acceptance.

Students from multiple independent schools around Dallas will gather at the conference.

About every month, DADYO chapters from different Dallas independent schools gather to converse about diversity and acceptance, and this month, the conference is coming to campus.

“It’s a great time to see what other DADYO chapters from others schools talk about diversity and what their thoughts are on our topic.” Link Lipsitz, president of the St. Mark’s DADYO chapter said. “The world is more diverse than ever, so it is important to jump into the

narrative.”

Because of the recent controversy found in the lack of diversity in the categories at the Video Music Awards, the topic of “Diversity in Music” has been talked about frequently. The DADYO chapter hopes to get a lot of different perspectives about this diversity at the conference by naming it as their discussion topic.

“We are trying to hear from each person and hear their own personal experiences and stories and learn about diversity in music from other people’s unique experiences,” Will Garden, vice-president said. “We’re trying to get a lot of different opinions from a lot of different students from a lot of different high schools.”

The conference will start in Graduate Hall at 6 p.m., following afternoon athletics. Lipsitz and Garden are excited for the conference to be hosted on campus. hoping it will draw a larger school crowd, and are even more excited for the topic and sequence of events.

“We will have pizza, an ice breaker game, presenta-

tion and then break off into small groups for discussion about the topic,” Lipsitz said. “We aim to be a safe place for open discussions on diversity and acceptance in music.”

The DADYO club encourages anyone and everyone to come to the conference, wanting to hear from people with different perspectives and different opinions and insisting everyone is welcome and diversity needs to be talked about, according to club officials.

PAGE 9 FEBRUARY 5, 2016 REMARKER GUN VIOLENCE — CONTINUED FROM PAGE ONE

TAKING CONTROL The United States has a long and persistent history of gun violence. It has even affected the community at 10600 Preston Road, taking the life of an alumnus. With new federal and state laws, the nation has never been more divided on the issue.

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ut the shooting of Chris Lewis isn’t the end of it.

Sandy Hook. Aurora. San Bernardino.

These are just a few of the major, nationwide shootings that have received a large amount of coverage.

These shootings are not too far from penetrating the bubble that surrounds 10600 Preston Road.

Chris was shot in south Dallas 23 years ago.

And now, 23 years later, Sara Mutschlecner, a student at University of North Texas, was shot and killed on Jan. 1 while leaving an off-campus New Year’s Eve party.

And just two weeks ago to the date, three female runners were shot at on the intersection of Preston and Royal during their normal 6 a.m. jog.

Denton. Dallas. Preston Hollow.

These incidents are inching closer and closer to the school, coming within just a mile away from campus. It is a nationwide epidemic. With 3,065 total gun violence related deaths in 2015, it has sparked polarizing reactions and legislation debates.

It isn’t just a social issue or a political issue.

It’s a matter of life and death.

For Chris’s brother, John Lewis ‘97, the news of Chris’s death came as a complete shock.

“My brother was murdered when I was a teenager,” John said. “I don’t care what age you are, when something is taken away from you that is that important, it has an everlasting effect on your life. It’s just a sad, sad event, and you GUNS IN THE U.S. go through that, you will never be the same.

While the U.S. makes up a small part of the world population, Americans I don’t know what to own more than 40 percent of guns. compare it to. I don’t The U.S. is 4.43 percent of think there is really such the world’s population... a comparison. There’s such a difference in my life, and it is such a profound impact.”

Having gone through this traumatic experience 23 years ago has given John a completely new perspecbut has 42 percent of worldwide civilian-owned guns. tive and the ability to sympathize with others who have experienced the same loss of a loved one.

SOURCE: UNODC, Small Arms Survey “I can’t imagine being a parent of a child whose kid just went to school, and all of a sudden, he or she doesn’t come home,” John said.

“It has such a profound impact on your life. It will change the way you think and the way that you change the world. And the fact that there are so many people out there who have to experience the same thing as me almost makes it hurt worse.”

And given the prevalence of gun violence as a national issue, President Obama announced specific executive actions to be made in order to curb the epidemic in a speech made Jan. 5.

According to Congresswoman Eddie Bernice Johnson, Obama’s recent executive action against gun control will make it harder on those attempting to purchase a firearm.

“The goal is to attempt to do a background check on people who attempt to purchase guns, in order to keep guns out of the hands of irresponsible people,” Johnson said. “It affects the federal agencies, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and the FBI to close loopholes through processes that overhaul the federal background check system.”

The aspect of checking emotionally unstable people trying to purchase weapon gives Johnson a reason to believe that this action will have an impact on the safety of our country.

“We have observed that there are people who

are mentally deranged that have killed multiple innocent people without provocation,” Johnson said. “I think a number of people, including me and the President, think that if you do a background check including people who are not emotionally stable at the time, they should not be able to purchase a gun at that time. All kinds of murders can be prevented.”

IN ADDITION to the national change in gun laws, there was a considerable change in the state gun laws of Texas. As of January 1, 2016, a Texas native can carry any handgun openly or concealed as long as he or she is licensed.

According to Director of Security Dale Hackbarth, there are some frequent misconceptions associated with this law.

“The biggest problem is the misunderstanding of the new law — the perception of the new law,” Hackbarth said. “Nothing has changed of the new law came into effect open carry and people don’t understand exactly what that means.

It’s still illegal and prohibited to carry a weapon in all places that was illegal and prohibited before the law. You still need a concealed handgun license to carry it open. That’s where it gets all bogged down and confused, but nothing has changed.”

For Hackbarth, the open and concealed laws can elicit different reactions. Though people convicted of a crime cannot acquire a weapon, Hackbarth is concerned with the danger involved with the open carry laws.

“If you pass a test you should be able to carry it concealed,” Hackbarth said. “But there’s some evil people out there. If they see a weapon that somebody’s carrying and they’re having a bad day: evil people do evil things. I am in favor of the concealed weapon, just not the open weapon.”

In essence, the new Texas laws change your “concealed handgun license” into a “license to carry”. But it is still illegal to carry in places like schools, churches and government buildings.

Anything that was illegal before January 1st is still illegal by the law.

Regardless, Hackbarth acknowledges the opinions of those advocating gun reform but realizes that it can never be entirely prevented.

“Some people feel that taking away guns can stop violence,” Hackbarth said. “I still think there will be violence there. It is a felony to posses and sell drugs, but people still do it and there’s a black market for it. So if you take away guns, there will be a black market in which anyone can get guns. Evil people who have intent to hurt people, they don’t need guns. They will use another method. So I don’t think guns kill. People kill.”

Chief of Police for Dallas ISD, Craig Miller, thinks that the open carry law does not drastically change the likelihood of a mass shooting.

CRAIG MILLER Chief of Police for Dallas ISD

“Unfortunately, when Texas on Jan. 1 went to open carry, we were one of only six states in the country that don’t already have open carry,” Miller said. “I know there is a lot of predictions of doom and gloom, but the facts are that you don’t hear of anywhere around the country of incidents happening of necessarily open carry. So at this point we are 21 days into this year and I’m unaware of any incidents that are directly related to open carry.”

Miller feels, more than anything, the open carry law has contributed to a spike of the population’s fear of a mass shooting.

“Most of the people who have committed mass murders in our country are in possession of guns legally,” Miller said. “The fact really is that you are more likely to be struck by lightning than you are to be involved in a school shooting.”

In addition to the Open Carry Act being applied to Texas in general, the act will apply to Texas campuses in August 2016. Senior Kent Broom will be attending Texas A&M University in the fall and has mixed feelings toward the inclusion of college campuses into the parameters of the act.

“When it comes to gun control,” Broom said, “I’m not a big fan of limiting people on how they use guns. But, when it comes to something like campus carry, I don’t know how I’d feel with a classmate right next to me with a gun.”

Senior Ammar Plumber has yet to select a college to attend but has the University of Texas at Austin in his list of choices. His decision to attend the university isn’t affected by the inclusion of the campus carry act because he believes the occurrences of school shootings are rarer than made out to be.

“I know that most students do not feel the need to carry guns on campus,” Plumber said, “but it would be slightly different if I knew that there were people actually holding guns. A shooting happened not too long ago at UT, so I wouldn’t be surprised if someone had guns there.”

THE MULTIPLE MASS SHOOTINGS in the past years have incited fear in our society, increasing demand for gun control measures. According to Hackbarth, this fear is natural, but can be alleviated through education on gun laws.

“Everyone is afraid of the unknown,” Hackbarth said. “People are getting scared of the active shooter. It’s because they don’t understand what they can do and what they’re supposed to do. And they don’t understand what the first responders can do. You can subside that fear by understanding your role. Once people educate themselves on the law, when people can carry and how they can carry, the fear will subside.”

JOHN LEWIS ’97 Brother of Chris Lewis and St. Mark’s alumnus

Lewis believes fear is common even within those people who feel compelled to carry guns.

And that fear, from both sides of the spectrum, is what causes gun violence to be such a heated topic in our country.

“Most of these guys who walk around the street with guns wouldn’t want to fist fight,” Lewis said. “They’re scared. They think that they want to strike fear in someone else. That’s just the way it seems to me. I think the way that we approach those things needs to go in a drastically different direction.”

For Lewis, the open carry law fosters fear rather than the security that some of its proponents promise.

“It’s not something we need. It’s not something that breeds love and security. It’s the antithesis of what we strive for as a country. To me, it shows that a lot of us are afraid. We think that if we put something on our hip, we’ll be safer.

That’s not the reality.”

Despite the pain that the loss of his brother brought him, Lewis has now realized that harboring fear towards each other can impede one’s appreciation of something that gun violence can trivialize through numbers and statistics: human life.

“With the pain and everything I’ve dealt with, the one thing I don’t have anymore is a fear of death,” Lewis said. “To me, life is a celebration.

When you go, the world doesn’t stop. None of us are that important. Through the passing of my brother, I’ve gained a different outlook on life, and in many ways it is a positive one. You have a really important gift of life, and we should do our best to make this place better than it was when we found it.”

STORY ANVIT REDDY, RISH BASU, ZACH GILSTRAP PHOTO ARNO GOETZ

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PAGE 10 FEBRUARY 5, 2016 REMARKER

MALECALL

THIS ISSUE

WHAT MAKES A MAN?

Taking you back to the basic fundamentals of all things manly.

MAKING A MAN

MANHOOD

Traditionally, MaleCall gives you tips and tricks on manhood. But this time, we explore the question — what makes a man?

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esquite trees and tall grass cover the landscape between the blind and the deer feeder. It’s 6:30 p.m., and the early evening air is crisp at the ranch just outside of Brownwood, Texas.

Adrenaline flooding his veins, the alert eight-year-old prepares to pick up the lethal .270 mm rifle and shoot the grazing doe.

But he doesn’t shoot. In fact, the third grader Taubert Nadalini ’13 doesn’t lay a finger on the rifle, curling up into his chair in shame instead, knowing he has let his father and the rest of his family down.

He has been on hunts with his family many times before and enjoys skeet shooting fondly. Yet all he wanted to do when he was told to shoot the innocent deer was watch.

To Nadalini’s surprise, his father is not the least bit disappointed. Rather he turns to his son and says, “I don’t want you to shoot one for me. I only want to shoot one if you want to. We can just sit here and watch them and I’ll be fine with that.”

Nadalini’s grandfather was just as accepting of his grandson’s displeasure at shooting an animal, making Nadalini all the more proud.

“In that moment I gained so much respect for my dad and my grandfather,” Nadalini said, “because they didn’t scold me for not following a traditionally manly path that the family prior to me had set.”

Nadalini’s experience introduces the discussion of what it means to be a man, a definition that is changing now more than ever.

For him, the answer to the question “what defines a man?” varies greatly.

According to Nadalini, actors and other celebrities play an integral role in demonstrating this social standard.

“In the majority of society,” Nadalini said, “I would say that the standard for manhood in celebrities would be someone like Leonardo DiCaprio, who plays roles like he does in Wolf of Wall Street and now in The Revenant – a kind of aggressive personality and a very aggressive character who doesn’t take weakness for an answer.”

Harold Montgomery ’78 believes there was a much more definite and firm example of who embodied manliness back when he was growing up in the 70s and 80s: Bruce Jenner.

“He was handsome,” Montgomery said. “He was strong. He was on the Wheaties box; the guy was the pinnacle of masculinity of my era.”

TAUBERT NADALINI ’13 Says there is not simply one definition of manhood.

Stephanie Barta, who taught here for more than 40 years, feels that the understanding of manliness has significantly evolved.

“Back when I first started at St. Mark’s, manliness was more macho in the

ROLE MODELS From Dwayne Johnson to Dirk Nowitzki, there are many different icons and celebrities who embody the various aspects of manhhood.

common vernacular of the school,” Barta said. “Boys were supposed to be strong and never cry and not necessarily be in touch with their more feminine side.

People who were more feminine were definitely not as accepted.”

HAROLD MONTGOMERY ’78 Attributes change partly to shift in gender roles.

Nadalini also acknowledges the fact that the definition of what makes a man is changing in a positive way.

“In my time at St. Mark’s,” Nadalini said. “I could see a shift from certain stereotypes and standards that now people might see as obsolete.”

Montgomery partially attributes this shifting of the scales to the development of gender roles in society over the years.

“The other thing that’s happened is the role of women has evolved tremendously,” Montgomery said.

He also notes that there is an increased number of women in the work place and in college than there were during his youth as a result of this evolution.

“There are far more women making a lot of money, and in many cases more than their husbands,” Montgomery said.

“And that’s an inversion of a pattern that was there in my day.”

The involvement of women coupled with an ever more intellectually-dependent society has also significantly affected in what ways men are expected

to operate.

“The world we live in is an intellectual world,” Montgomery said. “It’s a world that’s run by people’s minds and their ability to program or operate computers.

It’s not built on killing a deer or killing an elephant to feed the family — which emphasizes brute strength or physical skill.”

Barta feels that a truly manly person is more open and accepting of individuals who do not fit the stereotypical definition of manliness that reigned supreme for so many years during her and Montgomery’s time at St. Mark’s.

“Finally, I feel like over the last 40 years people who are truly manly can cope in a non-threatened way with their friends who are not of the same as they are,” Barta said. “I think the school has evolved in a positive direction with that.

The more sensitive well-rounded human was missing at the macho end [of the spectrum].”

STEPHANIE BARTA Sees positive change in the past 40 years.

Similarly for Nadalini, acceptance of traditionally feminine qualities in men is a vital component to the changing understanding of what makes a man.

“I would say instead of womanhood or manhood,” Nadalini said, “there is a universal person-hood that I think a lot of times men don’t want to subscribe to because that does encompass qualities that are traditionally associated with women.”

STORY ZACH NAIDU ILLUSTRATION JOON PARK

MANHOOD IN REAL LIFE the importance of fatherhood

71% The estimated number of fathers across the nation.

The percent of high school dropouts who do not have fathers present in their lives.

70.1 million

2

Children who grow up without fathers are two times as likely to commit suicide.

The percent of single-parent families that live in poverty.

44%

SOURCE: National Center for Fathering, fatherhood.gov

14 15 18

FIGHTING SPIRIT

THE ROCK ’N ROLLER

PECULIAR PROGRAM

After having played music for more than 65 years, rock star Steve Miller ’61 has been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Director of Communications Katy Rubarth details her fight against breast cancer.

Senior Grant Uebele reveals why he chose his unique major — hotel management.

WELCOME HOME

Study abroad program participants describe the transition back to the routine of school.

A DIFFERENT AMERICAN

Facing forced military participiation, junior Liam Sohn looks deeper at his nationality.

page 12

L

COURTESY CREATIVE COMMONS

13

li fe

PAGE 11 FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 2016 I REMARKER

QUICKhits • UNICEF MEMBERS TO ATTEND D.C. SUMMIT Five UNICEF Club members will attend the National UNICEF Student Summit in Washington D.C. Feb. 19-22. President Henry Goldberg, vice president Bradford Beck, junior Todd Murphy, sophomore Davis Bailey and freshman Jayan Joshi will attend along with humanities instructor Jason Lange.

During the summit, the students will meet with experts, celebrities and veteran congressmen who represent the organization in Washington D.C.

HANGING OUT WITH

stories around campus in brief “The point of the summit is to show students the other side of UNICEF and other ways to get involved,” Goldberg said. “The goal for us is to bring something back from the summit and contribute it into the community.”

film instructor Jennifer Gilbert said. “It’s even better because the students have the chance to go to the festival with all-access passes and enjoy the different showcases and film screenings. It’s a good time.”

• SXSW FILM SUBMISSIONS The film program entered eight films into South by Southwest (SXSW), a film, music and technology festival held in Austin March 1120.

“It’s really exciting that [the students’] films are entered in,”

• ALL-STATE RESULTS Members of orchestra, band and choir traveled to a competitve rehearsal for All-State on Jan. 30.

The Texas Music Educators Association selected more than 1,600 students from a pool of over 64,000 applicants for All-State.

All-State Marksmen included seniors Jake Byers, Leighton Okada, Eugene Song, Eric Li and Kevin Kim, juniors Daran Zhao, Victor Barton, Rohin Maganti, Eric Shang, Matthew Yang, Christopher Chen, Patrick Magee, Chirag Gokani, Rahul Maganti and Liam Sohn and sophomores Cal Rothkrug and Andrew Li. Along with these members, several other well-performing choir members were selected for All-Region.

• LOWER SCHOOL FINE ARTS EVENING The Lower School is hosting the Third

Grade Fine Arts Evening Feb. 24 to display the third-graders’ talents.

The event will begin at 6:30 in Decherd Auditorium.

The evening will include an art display and a performance of You’re A Good Man, Charlie Brown, put on by the Class of 2025.

Lower School Drama Teacher Shannon Schnaible looks forward to the performance.

“We started a few weeks ago, so we got the show locked and are working on running it,” Schnaible said. “Soon we’ll start working on choreographing dances.”

RYAN NORMAN One of the most naturally funny guys on campus, sophomore Ryan Norman talks about his experience as a comedic expert.

in the

MOMENT events on campus told through photos

For the love of the word S

peaking to English 9, singer/songwriter Lisa Loeb teaches students about songwriting and performance techniques during the ninth annual Literary Festival Jan. 9.

PHOTO ALDEN JAMES

— Mohit Singhal, Zach Gilstrap, Crawford McCrary and John Gunnin

I know you’re really involved in the photo program, so what’s one of the craziest things you’ve shot in photography?

PHOTO ARNO GOETZ

I took a picture earlier this year for the heaven assignment in which I made my sister look like she was floating up to heaven. I put a fire poker right next to her, and it looked like she got stabbed.

What about something you’ve shot with a gun?

ArtistsinAction

the Around corner What you need to know in the coming week

Shining a spotlight on a student artist at St. Mark’s

TODAY What An Evening with Yo La Tengo When 7 p.m.

Where Granada Theater, 3524 Greenville Ave.

What Mental Health Awareness Night When 7:05 p.m.

Where Allen Event Center, 200 E. Stacy Rd.

Another thing you’re known for is your crazy quotes. So tell me a joke.

Two fish are swimming in a lake, and they both hit a concrete wall. One turns to the other and says, “Dam.” If I were really going to tell a good joke, then it would need some set-up. I don’t really tell too many jokes. I just say stupid stuff and hope it’s funny.

WEEKEND What 2016 Boudin Ball When 8 p.m., Saturday Where West End Event Center, 2019 North Lamar St.

What Pass the Chocolate Now Tour When 1 p.m., Sunday Where 5118 Greenville Ave.

What Cooking Class at Sea Breeze When 3 p.m., Sunday Where Sea Breeze Fish Market and Grill, 4017 Preston Rd.

What Monte Montgomery Concert When 7 p.m., Saturday Where Granada Theater, 3524 Greenville Ave.

What Fauré Piano Quartet Performance When 7:30 p.m., Monday Where Caruth Auditoriam, 6101 Bishop Blvd.

What’s a recent thing you’ve said you hoped was funny?

THE ARTIST

Daniel Garcia

THE ART

Paintings and sketches he made for 2-D Art.

HIS WORDS

NEXT WEEK What Rock and Worship Roadshow When 7:30 p.m., Friday Where American Airlinces Center, 2500 Victory Ave.

Actually, I shot water skis at camp one time. We were shooting this hunting rifle, and there were water-skis set up with an apple in between the skis. I missed the apple but hit the water skis.

Art is a way to express myself and to put in a picture what words can’t describe.

When someone asked what the jaguar’s name was in The Jungle Book, I said, “Hakuna Matata!”

Tell me a crazy story about your life.

One time, I fell off a staircase at camp and broke my face. True story. I had a fracture in my ocular bone. I was in the only cabin with a staircase going up to it, and I managed to fall off and get care-flight-ed to San Antonio.

We’ve all been there.

I’m not sure we all have been there.

L LIFE

PAGE 12 FEBRUARY 5, 2016 REMARKER

ROCK AND ROLL HALL OF FAME

It’s the

ROCK in him

THE SPACE COWBOY In February 2015, Miller ’61 was the featured performer at the Celebrate St. Mark’s Auction.

Foreground, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum in Cleveland, Ohio.

After creating 18 studio albums and three No. 1 singles, rock star Steve Miller ’61 has been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

A

t 5-years-old, he knew chords, strums and harmonies like the back of his hand. As guitarist Les Paul’s godson, he knew how to own a stage — and he knew he would.

In a home filled with rocking noise and inspired sound, he learned how to create tracks with the earliest German tape recorders, fresh from enemy territory after World War II. Then, at 12, he created his own band with his classmates and started booking shows. He’d make $300 [$2000 after inflation] every week, and if a gig didn’t pay what he wanted, then he simply hung up.

They always called back.

Now, at 72, rock star Steve Miller ’61 got a call he never expected — from Rock and Roll Hall of Fame officials, informing him he was among this year’s inductees into the Hall of Fame.

Since the Hall of Fame wasn’t something he’d been working for all his life, his acceptance into the prestigious organization was totally out of the blue.

“I heard about [my selection] through the news,” Miller said. “It was sort of like being in a reality television show for about a week.”

But unlike other artists, who just simply accept the selection, Miller has issues with the way the organization is run. The problems run deeper than communication or appearance—they arise from the heart of the Hall of Fame.

“I stopped paying any attention and caring about the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame,” Miller said. “I felt like they were using my name and my career to sell the Hall of Fame. The whole thing seems like a promotion and a hype, not really honest and not really true. I don’t want my personal life being smeared around in front of people.”

Although his experience with the Hall was tainted, there were gratifying aspects of being inducted.

“All that being said,” Miller said, “you start going, ‘This is kind of cool, even though the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is run in a very elitist, narrow-minded way.’

People really do love it, and it’s a big deal around the world. I’m going to be in this room of people like Les Paul and Jimmy Reed, people like the Beatles and Ben Morrison, all the great Motown groups. And so that, that feels pretty good.”

Regardless of the award, for Miller, it’s always been about the music. The chords, the beats, the strums.

His life, since he started hearing Les Paul play and work with his father, has been focused on one thing: jamming out. “[His father’s German tape recorder] was a really cool machine, and my old man got one, Miller said. “He ran into Les Paul, and asked if maybe he could record while he was rehearsing his act, and Les said, ‘Yeah!’ I would go see Les Paul play every night, and he was an unbelievable guitar player and musician.”

Paul taught Miller chords and many other things.

“By the time I was 5-years-old, I understood what he did, and I wanted to do it. It seemed like so much fun,” Miller said. he music didn’t stop there. When he went home, he was surrounded by his mother’s “Ella Fitzgerald” voice and his family’s love for everything harmonic.

“I just hit the ground running with music in my veins,” Miller said. “I grew up going to St. Mark’s and getting a good education, and I supposedly had to go to college and get a real damn job, be a doctor or something. But I’ve been playing every Friday and Saturday night since

T

1956. It’s what I like to do.”

Many criticize the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame for expanding its boundaries too far, for awarding artists who don’t even claim to make rock and roll.

One of the 2016 inductees, N.W.A, is a group that has never made a classic rock and roll song. But in Miller’s eyes, rock and roll isn’t simply a musical genre — it’s way of life.

“There’s a spirit to rock and roll: rebellion,” Miller said. “Hard as it may seem to understand, in 1968, when I wrote ‘Living in the U.S.A,’ it was written to be played at the National Democratic Convention in Chicago where the police were beating everyone. We were radicals. What N.W.A was doing was a lot like what we were doing. They were getting beat up much worse. Their world was ten times worse than ours. But we were getting kicked out of hotels, we were being called queers, we were being threatened.”

That rebellious soul of his music also extended to Miller’s life as a “hippie” and as he decided to board a bus and become a freedom rider.

“When you see racism, and you’re young, you can’t stand it,” Miller said.

“I got on a bus and headed out to Selma, AL. Luckily for me, my bus was diverted and sent to the White House. But it was so scary.”

When the bus stopped in Chicago, half the people got off and went back to Madison.

“Those of us who stayed on the bus, we were going to be beaten or killed, but we were fighting for civil rights,” Miller said. “We were fighting in the streets, and our music and culture were fighting for it.”

Although the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame isn’t extremely important for Miller,

Steve Miller’s greatest hits “The Joker” • No. 1 on Billboard’s Hot 100.

• Certified ‘gold’ by RIAA. • Topped U.K.’s single chart 16 years after release.

Fly Like an Eagle • Certified quadruple platinum by RIAA. • No. 1 on Billboard’s Hot 100.

• No. 445 on Rolling Stone’s list of “The 500 Greatest Alburms of All Time” “Rock’n Me” • No. 1 on Billboard’s Hot 100.

• Featured in Grand Theft Auto V. • Top 30 in Canada, U.K., Austria and New Zealand.

“Abracadabra” • Topped charts in six countries.

• Second time one of Miller’s songs knocked out Chicago’s No. 1 song.

COURTESY STEVEMILLERBAND.COM

he believes it is extremely important for it to change, for it to evolve and become an organization that has a real impact on the lives of young musicians. “[The Hall of Fame Museum] should be a place where you can really go and do some research,” Miller said. “There are some people who are really into the education as well. That work should really be supported. We need as much art, creativity and freedom of expression as the human race can tolerate.”

STORY GOPAL RAMAN PHOTO ILLUSTRATION GOPAL RAMAN, DAVID CARDEN, IMAGE COURTESY THE ROCK AND ROLL HALL OF FAME MUSEUM

in his words

Steve Miller ’61 reflects on the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in this essay penned for The ReMarker

F

ounders Ahmet Ertegan, Susan Evans, Jann Wenner, Seymor Stein, Bob Krasnow, Noreen Woods and Allan Grubman did a fantastic job pushing the Hall into existence.

Their hard work in raising funds and convincing the city of Cleveland to accept and help pay for building a beautiful museum says these are exceptional people who worked hard to bring an impossible project into being.

Their creation of music education programs and trust funds that help musicians in need is meaningful and appreciated by the entire music world.

Yet in spite of all this hard, selfless work, the Hall has been criticized for its lack of transparency. To the original founders, this issue has to be the ultimate definition of “No good deed goes unpunished.”

The organization is changing as more time passes, and a fresh look at who should be inducted is indeed taking place.

I’m encouraged to see the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame broadening its range of participants and restructuring its induction process as it moves forward.

So where do we go from here?

First, I recommend a serious program for the induction of more women and the inclusion of more genres into the Hall of Fame.

Is Kenny Chesney putting on some of the greatest stadium rock shows in history? Sure, he is. Is Chaka Khan bad to the bone? Yes, she is.

The more inclusive and less exclusive the Hall becomes, the smarter and broader the musical education programs become.

What isn’t commonly known about the Hall of Fame induction ceremony is the cost to the artist.

For many artists, being inducted is somewhat like being held by the nose, kicked in the a-- and patted on the back all at the same time.

So my fellow Marksmen, my dilemma is: should I keep my mouth shut, accept my award with humility and grace, attend with just my wife, play one song on my acoustic guitar and get out of there as fast as I can?

Or should I read this note minus the cost of the tickets, bring my band and kick out “Fly Like An Eagle?”

Now you know the whole story.

What would you do?

- Steve Miller ’61

PAGE 13 FEBRUARY 5, 2016 REMARKER

L LIFE

KATY RUBARTH’S BATTLE

It’s the fight.

A working single mother of three, Director of Communications Katy Rubarth has battled through two rounds of cancer over the course of nine years, but now she faces a troubling prognosis after her second period of remission.

FOR HER FAMILY Although she faces a deeply intimidating challenge, Rubarth has the support of her family and friends like Kathy Mallick.

K

aty Rubarth is scared.

She doesn’t know what’s going to happen or who is going to take care of her boys or even how long she has left.

She’s scared of the future.

She takes her boys to Connecticut to spend some time with them. Her three boys Andy, Charlie and Oliver sit making handprints in still wet concrete plaster, laughing, unaware of the battle taking place inside their mother.

The boys don’t know that only weeks before, their mom had been told that she didn’t have long left to live.

They don’t know that she brought them to this spot so that they would have a place to remember her.

They don’t know that their mom is sick. Again.

Seven years before that sunny day in Connecticut, Director of Communications Katy Rubarth was diagnosed with breast cancer.

At the time, she was volunteering full-time for the Red Cross, assisting people displaced by Hurricane Katrina.

After going in for tests that she had been putting off, the doctors found a tumor.

After several surgeries and countless rounds of radiation, Rubarth was cleared by her doctors.

“Usually they say if you’re out and healthy for five years you can put it behind you.” Rubarth said. “I went seven years.”

Seven years later, Rubarth had just

finished with Baccalaureate and Commencement when she felt something in her back.

“I remember thinking the next day I must have pulled something,” Rubarth said. “We were running everywhere trying to make it a good experience for everyone. It wouldn’t go away. It felt odd, like a muscle strain.”

After a visit to both the school trainer and nurse, neither of whom could figure out what was causing the pain, Rubarth went to her doctor. When the first X-ray signified that something was wrong, Rubarth had to undergo further

‘

AS IT SUNK IN, IT WAS THIS OUT OF BODY EXPERIENCE. YOU’RE HEARING ALL OF THIS BUT YOU CAN’T REALLY PROCESS IT.

KATY RUBARTH By the numbers:

BREAST CANCER

1 0.9 2.6

out of every eight women will be diagnoesd with breast cancer at some point in her life.

percent of patients diagnosed with breast cancer in the United States are men.

million female survivors of breast cancer live in the United States.

testing.

The tests weren’t good.

“The next day the nurse called, I was sitting right here in my office, and she said, ‘the doctor wants to see you.

And she wants you to bring a friend to drive you,’” Rubarth said. “That’s not good. I knew something was going on and bad news was probably coming.”

Recently divorced, Rubarth’s schedule was overburdened between her career and being a single mother of three boys.

She hadn’t had much time to develop many close friendships. Not knowing where to turn for help, Rubarth turned to the community.

“I had gone on the Frank Jordan trip to Wyoming the year before as one of only two moms,” Rubarth said. “The other mom was Kathy Mallick. I called her and said, ‘I need to ask you a favor, and it’s probably going to be a big favor; it may be bad news, but I need someone to go to the doctor with me,’ From that day on, Kathy has been at my side.”

Walking into the doctor’s office, Rubarth didn’t know what to expect.

She had made it seven years in remission, so cancer wasn’t something she expected.

Rubarth’s doctor sat her down, and burst into tears as she tried to explain that the cancer was back, spreading all throughout her body.

“You have cancer, and it’s bad,” Rubarth’s doctor said. “It’s in your bones, it’s in your organs, you have a

spot on your spine too. I would take this time and spend it with your children because this doesn’t look good.”

Rubarth took her boys to Connecticut several days later, filled with uncertainty and not knowing how she was going to tell her boys.

“Things just sort of pop up randomly, you wonder how it happens.” Rubarth said. “At that point I was wondering why is this happening, and what am I going to do. I was feeling very lost.”

During the trip, Rubarth’s college roommate insisted that Rubarth meet with a deacon from the Catholic church who was in town for one night.

“I didn’t want to go anywhere, I sure didn’t want to talk about faith.”

Rubarth said. ”But my roommate said, ‘we’re going to his house.’”

Rubarth had yet to cry due to her diagnosis, but this time was different.

“This stranger deep looked in my eyes, and I just melted,” Rubarth said “I hadn’t cried, I was being really strong, I had to buck up for my boys, but I just melted.”

The deacon asked what she was most afraid of.

“I’m most afraid of leaving my boys without a mother.”

To be continued.

• The second and final part of Director of Communications Katy Rubarth’s story in the upcoming issue of The ReMarker, which will be distributed March 11.

STORY CRAWFORD MCCRARY PHOTO ALDEN JAMES

Curtains debuts tonight at the Eisemann Center

by Kobe Roseman fter months of preparation, the Upper School Hockaday musical, Curtains, is set to premiere tonight at 7:30 at the Eisemann Center in Richardson.

The initial stages of planning began as early as February of last year when the new director of the show, drama teacher Emily Gray, was hired.

According to Gray, this Broadway murder-mystery was chosen due to the many roles available to students. “[The musical] has a lot of roles that are like lead roles,” Gray said. “There’s not just one male and one female lead role.

There are several male roles and several female roles. So it gave some pretty good people some good opportunities.”

Along with this, Gray also wanted to choose an upbeat musical that could serve as a release from students’ academic lives.

A

“It’s very funny, silly, lighthearted and upbeat,” Gray said. “I think people audition for the musical, and it’s an extracurricular thing at school, I don’t think people are looking to do something really desperately depressing.”

But when the musical was announced to the students, many were surprised and had expected something more well known.

“It was sort of a curveball,” senior Link Lipsitz, who will play detective Frank Cioffi, said. “We were all expecting something really fun, and then they were like, Curtains, and we didn’t know what to think. But it’s going to be fun so we are excited.”

With the current construction at Hockaday and a new musical director, the preparation has been running at a different pace than years past. “[The practices] are extremely busy,” Gray said. “We really don’t have a lot of downtime. We have just enough time to do

everything we need to do. Every practice is no taking breaks and stuff. We really use every minute we have.”

With the craziness that most practices have been, Gray tries to motivate everyone to stay positive despite the threat of falling behind.

“My thing is always stay positive,” Gray said. “Even if you are behind or concerned about getting behind, there’s no point in wallowing in negativity. It doesn’t actually produce anything useful.”

But ultimately, Gray hopes that the musical will become a large event for both schools’ communities.

“I hope it will be something that people can come to in big groups, have a lot of fun together and have a really good, uplifting night out,” Gray said. “I think people will be surprised as to just how many talented students — boys and girls — we have between our communities.”

CURTAIN CALL With a varied cast of both Marksmen and Hockadaises, Gray hopes to put on a show that will both entertain and uplift her audience.

L LIFE

PAGE 14 FEBRUARY 5, 2016 REMARKER GRANT UEBELE AND LUKE SMITH

Managing dreams While many Marksmen pursue careers as lawyers, doctors or businessmen, some, like senior Grant Uebele and Luke Smith ’12, have aspirations that are a little less traditional.

HAND-STAND Balancing on one hand, Smith ‘12 (above) performs a challenging move in one of his contemporary dance routines.

W

hen senior Grant Uebele was asked what he wants to be when he gets older, he didn’t respond astronaut, or ballerina or doctor.

Since he was in fifth grade, he wanted to do something different. Uebele has aspired to work in the business of hotel administration.

There was a perfect opportunity to get into the business, the Cornell School of Hotel Administration.

At first, Uebele dismissed the thought of pursuing hotel administration, but now he has recognized that it suits him.

“I’ve realized that I really like to be the host,” Uebele said. “I like to provide all these different things and be that resource that people go to.”

One of the reasons the School of Hotel Administration appeals so much to Uebele is how broad it is, with a multitude of classes and areas to specialize in.

“Something that a lot of people think when they hear ‘hotel administration’ is that I’m going to college to be a front desk person at a hotel,” Uebele said. “On the contrary, it has a lot more to do with the entire business of hospitality, so anywhere from private equity, to real estate, to event planning or even culinary pursuits.”

There are classes offered that teach about food science, human resources or event operations.

“Basically, it’s everything to do with catering customers, in one way or another,” Uebele said.

Rather than learning in only the classroom, the students in the program work in the on-campus, Triple A rated, Four Diamond Award-Winning hotel, the Statler. Run exclusively by students, they learn vital skills of the industry working in all facets of the hotel.

“I like how with every course and every class they have you in the actual industry itself,” Uebele said. “It’s very engaging and it gets you out there.”

Uebele’s older sister, Kaitlin Uebele, also attended the School of Hotel Administration, graduating in 2012. It was her experience there that spurred Grant to apply.

“I had that exposure to it, and then especially last year, deciding what I want to do with my life, I remembered that, and looking more into it I decided that was the path that I wanted to follow,” Grant said.

There are less than 1,000 students in the program.

“It’s small enough to feel like you’re in highschool again,” Grant said. “Everyone knows everyone, all your classes are in one hall. It’s in the nature of the business as well, it’s really easy to make friends. My sister still connects with people she went to Cornell with. I think that the size and the intimacy of the program builds on that as well.” ut Grant isn’t the only Marksman to branch out or follow a unique career path.

In a similar situation, Luke Smith ’12 was at a great disadvantage. While he watched his classmates gracefully leap into the air, he doubted his decision.

“How can I ever compete with someone who’s been training their whole lives, and I’ve only started as a college student?”

B

LUKE SMITH ’12 Pursuing a career as a professional dancer

But he learned from what happened the summer before. Performing provided that balance between art and athletics.

Smith’s connection to dance sprung from a visual arts requirement at Davidson College.

“It was basically an introduction to dance, like a dance history class,” Smith said. “And that class just piqued my interest in it and I’ve fallen in love with

it from there. I guess why I picked it was for the combination of arts and athletics.”

While Smith understands the competitive atmosphere of dance, he decided he would rather face it now than regret it later, and his parents have supported him through it all.

“I know it’s a unique career path, but for the near future that’s what I want to try to do and try to get into,” Smith said.

“Of course it’s extremely competitive, but there’s no way of knowing if you’ll make it until you try. I mean my parents have been with me every step of the way up to now with even coming to some of the performances up in North Carolina to support me and my choice.”

One summer, Smith felt he lost his bond with dance. While interning at the Charlotte Ballet, he was encumbered with the busy work he had hoped to avoid.

“Last summer, I wasn’t interested in performing professionally and I got into more the administrative side of dance,” Smith said. “So, I interned at the Charlotte Ballet. While I was there, I felt like I sort of lost the art. It was just a lot of paperwork and administrative tasks that you could find at any business. I just never wanted to lose that connection to dance. I knew the only thing that was going to give me the connection I want was performing.”

While Smith has faced adversity for his decision to choose dance, he encourages anyone to pursue it if it’s their passion. Despite the fear of looking silly or not having an alternative career path, the possibility of success is worth the leap.

“For something like dance, you don’t have much to fall back on,” Smith said. “I guess people just have a fear of looking silly. I say that it’s okay to feel that way.

You’re not the only one who’s ever felt like that. I definitely encourage people to push through that and see where it can lead them because you never know unless you try. I mean who knows? You might discover a new passion.”

SERVICE WITH A SMILE Recently accepted into Cornell University’s School of Hotel Administration, Uebele stands welcoming like the hotel manager he aspires to be.

A CLOSER LOOK Stats behind career choices after high school

Of all students taking the ACT last year, only one in three high school graduates select a major that suits their interests.

Nationwide, four out of five college students will change their major at least once while attending a four year college.

After college, only one in four college graduates pursue a career relating to their major.

SOURCE National Center for Education Statistics

STORY JOHN GUNNIN, DANIEL COPE PHOTO ARNO GOETZ, COURTESY LUKE SMITH

Upper School students go to Indianapolis for Diversity Leadership Conference

by Daniel Cope

H

e stepped forward with some of the others in the group of 40 students.

The rest stood by the wall in the empty hotel conference room. The step separated him from the others. The step represented his privilege. The step conveyed his cultural background. But despite the differences these steps meant, senior Link Lipsitz knew they were his equal.

Lipsitz travelled to Indianapolis for the annual Diversity Leadership Conference. With no information prior to his visit, he had no idea what to expect.

“I had no idea what it was going to be and the days were just long and

arduous,” Lipsitz said. “We’d get up at 6 a.m. and maybe come back at like 11 p.m. or 12 a.m. I feel like I’m definitely closer with my teachers. I still keep in touch with some of the kids from my home group and we still see each other.”

The first day was spent exploring the city of Indianapolis and listening to Rodney Glasgow, Head of the National Diversity Directors Insitute who is also a Harvard graduate and notable activist in the areas of diversity, equality and social justice.

Close to 1,600 students attended the conference and were then split into groups of 40.

The groups partook in activities that would show how similar and different the members in each group are.

“We got notebooks and pens and did activities like privilege walks where it’d be like ‘if both of your parents went to college step forward, or if you don’t have a cell phone take a step back,’” Lipsitz said. “It could be stuff as mundane or as extreme as that.”

They also participated in activities to differentiate each individual’s opinions on controversial subjects.

“There was also a game where they would read an opinion out loud that has a lot of social controversy behind it,”

Lipsitz said. “And they’d say like this side of the room is you agree the other is if you disagree and the middle was like lukewarm so it’s like a spectrum. And you got to see a lot of the different backgrounds people came from.”

On the last day, there was a celebration where all the groups filled with boys and girls of all different races and ethnicities joined together for a final ceremony.

“When we had the big party at the end, everybody got along,” Lipsitz said.

“So why can’t the world be like that, you know? Like turn some music on, hit the disco lights, and everybody could just have fun.”

PAGE 15 FEBRUARY 5, 2016 REMARKER

L LIFE

RETURING STUDENTS

Worldly wanderers Just as the school year reached its halfway point, students who participated in semester-long abroad programs returned to their regular schedules.

Junior Zach Cole and sophomores Walker Mullen and Matt Power spoke with The ReMarker on their experience away from home. .

What was the hardest part of your trip?

I think the biggest thing is that New York is such a different place from Texas.

It’s a different kind of city. Everyone is so anonymous, and nobody has their own identity, in a weird way.

So I think the hardest thing was dealing with that culture and getting out alive, with some semblance of still being a person.

What was the hardest part of doing a travel abroad program in a foreign country?

I would really just say that it was a new life to get adjusted to, living without my family in a foreign country with a completely different schedule.

You’re adjusting to new people, and it’s really hard at first, but it’s good after you’ve adjusted.

What was the hardest part of the entire trip?

Well, there were a lot of hard parts.

Acclimating to the altitude and the time difference really took a toll on me the first two weeks.

But, I’d say getting used to not being in St. Mark’s and making new friends, that’s always been a struggle for me, but I did my best and it turned out alright.

What is your favorite memory of the trip?

There was one day, towards the beginning, we were climbing a mountain—like an actual mountain — and we had crampons on our feet and we were tied with a rope.

I didn’t really know these people at the time, and I was just climbing up a mountain with them. And you sort of reach the top of the mountain — the summit — and you feel like you are a new family.

What is your favorite memory from the trip?

So, I remember one of the last days of skiing on one of the few days right before we left, I was with one of my friends and we went up to the top of one of the lifts.

The entire mountain range is connected by ski lift, so you can ski from one end all the way to the opposite of the valley. We started at one end of the valley and skied all the way over — we hit three major lifts and then went down to a mountain restaurant called “Chez Vorny,” we had a great meal there.

How different was the school from St. Mark’s?

Way different. So, St. Mark’s is a very classical-type education place, so we do a lot of memorizing and it’s a very wide and classical range of topics.

CITYterm was less about the topics and more about the learning: so thinking about how you think, figuring out what you do best, and then finding ways to use these different ways of thinking to do something you would normally do at school.

Zach Cole: Took part in So, there’s a large CITYterm in New York. focus on thinking and analyzing yourself and evaluating yourself as well as working with other people and having them the same to you and doing that to them.

Basically they say, “Here’s some skill you can use,” and they give you something to do. They’d say, “So, we want you to make a podcast about immigration — go,” and you have to drop in and figure it out yourself.

What would you say to someone who wants to try a travel abroad program, but isn’t sure if they’d like it?

Definitely do it. It’s not just about the actual place, it’s about the people you’re going to meet and what you’re going to do with them there. One of the greatest things with Swiss Semester was my classmates and the teachers there, we just got really close.

What would you say to someone that might want to try a travel abroad program, but isn’t sure if they’d like it?

You will, you’ll like it, I promise. Even if you have problems with anxiety and being away from home and all that, it’s such a valuable thing and it’s really worth it — living in a different place [and] seeing new things.

What has been the most difficult thing adjusting back to St. Mark’s, and becoming readjusted to the normal routine?

One thing that’s weird is that I was never alone there, so I’d go back to my room and I would have my roommates, but here I go back home and it’s just me. I’d say that’s really weird — and sort of sad.

Matt Power: Took part in the Swiss Semester program.

Walker Mullen: Took part in the Swiss Semester program.

How different was the school from St. Mark’s?

It was a lot harder, actually. You basically had the same amount of homework as St. Mark’s, and instead of just two hours in the day that are dedicated to physical activity, you have four hours of it, and then you only have two hours at night to do your work. So, learning how to manage my time was really hard, but I got used to it.

Final thoughts?

If anyone wants to talk to me about what my experience was over there and [if] I think they would enjoy it, whether they should apply, they can ask me questions.

STORY WASEEM NABULSI PHOTOS OWEN BERGER STORY WASEEM NABULSI ILLUSTRATIONS ABHI THUMMALA

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PERSPECTIVES

PAGES 16-17 DECEMBER 11, 2015 REMARKER NEW SCIENCE BUILDING

PLANS FOR THE FUTURE

World renowed architecture firm Robert A.M. Stern Architects to design the new science building. Construction will likely begin in the summer of 2017.

OUT WITH THE OLD Although the McDermott-Green Science and Math Quadrangle was once a landmark facility, places like the Lower School entrance (above), planetarium (right), and front entrances (far right) will soon be renovated and reimagined.

THE VISION — A BUILDING TO EDUCATE THE BEST t started with a vision: if the school were to become one of the best in the country, it needed to specialize in a certain area.

And in the 1960’s, the administration decided math and science would be that area.

Hoping to become a pioneer in the two fields and reach its vision, the school sought Texas Instruments founders and school board members, Eugene McDermott and Cecil H. Green, to help make the vision a reality.

With their help, a brand new building was constructed.

Equipped with state-of-the-art labs, classrooms and a planetarium, the McDermott-Green Science and Mathematics Quadrangle was recognized across the country.

But 50 years later, the school has changed. The fields of science and math have expanded to the field of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) education. And the school is entering a new era — with a new vision.

To be one of the best in the country, the school must create an exemplary building incorporating not only science and math, but also technology and engineering.

And to help carry out this vision, the school began work with world-renowned architecture firm, Robert A.M. Stern Architects (RAMSA), based in New York City.

The firm’s namesake and senior partner, Robert A.M. Stern, is both an award-winning architect and the

I WE ARE GOING TO BE LIKE THE MIT OF HIGH SCHOOLS. WE ARE GIVING THE PROGRAM FOOTING FOR ANOTHER 20 YEARS. SCIENCE INSTRUCTOR DOUG RUMMEL

Dean of the Yale School of Architecture. With such a distinguished reputation, Headmaster David Dini says the firm has not disappointed.

THE BUILDINGS — THE SCHOOL’S SCIENTIFIC PAST AND FUTURE ime magazine applauded the success of the original vision in 1961 when the science building was featured in an article.

“In that article it said, ‘St. Mark’s School of Texas has cut off Andover’s business in Texas,” David Dini said. “It was because of that really ambitious vision that I think set the school on an important course that we continue to build on.”

All those years ago, that article put the school, then a little-known allboys school, on the map.

Instead of boarding school, boys seeking state of the art education in Dallas needed to look no further than 10600 Preston Rd. Now, as the school transitions to this new era, the administration hopes to replace the once-innovative building with a structure equally as influential for its time.

This building will provide students with state-of-the-art-labs and classroom facilities to experiment and learn in a hands-on experience.

“We could inhabit [the current] building and survive,” science instructor Doug Rummel said. “It’s a beautiful facility. Other schools would die for something this nice. But the 1961 space is obviously needing a lot of work, time, and love. It’s needing to be updated. The issue is that how

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you learn is different. The idea is that it’s not so much everyone in a line and memorizing and regurgitating as much as we are trying to do active experiments.”

Science Department Chair Fletcher Carron sees the potential of the new building, providing students with new opportunities like a state of the art robotics lab, a new greenhouse, a maker slab for engineering and a biotechnology lab.

“There are a few things that [the current building] can’t do,” Carron said. “There are a few things that this building can do that the new one will just do better.”

In terms of campus layout, the building will replace the west wing of the science building and have entrances on the north and east sides, while also connecting the outdoor space behind and in front of the building.

“The design maintains and improves both the courtyard to the south of existing McDermott-Green building and also the currently-underused courtyard to the west of the Library and south of the Lower School building,” architect Graham Wyatt said. “The new building will open directly onto both of these outdoor spaces. The new building will also open to a walkway leading to the Lower School drop off and will serve as an important symbol of the St. Mark’s School when viewed from Preston Road.”

With this layout, the new structure will increase the Lower and Middle School’s involvement, making it a hub of activity for students on

campus.

“The building will allow us to bring Lower School science in here, so we’ll have a dedicated Lower School lab, and that should allow the lower school also more access to things like the planetarium, the greenhouse and the courtyard,” Carron said. “We’ll have a new and modernized planetarium. We’ll also have more classrooms, so for example there’s only one physics lab right now and there’s a real scheduling nightmare to try and get all the labs in there, so it will allow us to spread out and get what we need done.”

While the new structure will be the focal point of STEM studies on campus, many thought certain aspects of the current building should also be incorporated into the new science building.

“The two story building will stay,” Carron said. “Everything on the south side of the periodic table comes down, and the new building gets built in its place. So we’re not rebuilding the entire science facility, but the new one will be much larger than the part we’re raising.”

While construction will likely start at the end of the 2016-2017 school year, the building will be done in stages because the school will have to balance classes with construction time.

“It will probably be a phase project,” Carron said. “Most likely, there will be new construction first while we continue to occupy the two story building, and then once this new construction is complete we can do a lot of classes in the new building while

STORY KOBE ROSEMAN, PHILIP MONTGOMER

BUILDING A DIFFERENCE After working on the design for months, architects Graham Wyatt (near left) and Silas Jeffrey (far left) walk on the grounds that will soon become a constuction site.

THE ARCHITECTS — FROM FORGING CITIES TO NEW THE SCIENCE BUILDING

H A CHANCE TO REIMAGINE HOW STEM DISCIPLINES ARE TAUGHT AT ONE OF AMERICA’S GREAT SCHOOLS — HOW COULD ONE NOT BE EXCITED ABOUT THAT? ARCHITECT GRAHAM WYATT

we renovate the two story building. A goal would be to get all of the classrooms to the same level rather than having state of the art classrooms over here while some of them are 26 years old.”

Rummel believes the building will provide students with even more opportunities, especially kinesthetically as three-dimensional printers and other devices will allow students to experience learning in a new way. “[We could be] three-dimensionally printing a skull that was found two weeks ago in Johannesburg as soon as they scan the stuff in the cage in South Africa and it’s posted up online, we will be able to 3D print it.”

Rummel said. “Do our own measurements, do our own hypotheses. Our main job is to make sure you are safe, but also to give you the stuff you need and just watch you run.“ Another improvement on the old building will be its service to members beyond student and faculty.

Administrators hope the building will be more inclusive to family members and people beyond the community here at the school.

“We want to have build nights where we can say, ‘Okay fifth grade build night. Come in the lab. Bring your whole family,” Rummel said.

“Saturday afternoons we will come in and we will just have an astronomy day, a build day. We want it to be very community-based and want it to be a place where people can come hear lectures from outside of the campus.

A place where we might even be able to teach other science teachers the best way to teach labs.”

THE LEGACY — A MAINSTAY FOR DECADES TO COME hen Dini first walked on campus in 1994, the Alumni Commons was under construction.

Hicks’s Gym, Nearburg Hall, Hoffman Center, Centennial Hall, the Mullen Family Fitness Center — all staples of today’s campus — nowhere to be seen.

Now, as the school, so different from the campus he first visited more than 20 years ago, is wrapping up preliminary planning for a new two story, state-of-the-art science building, Dini is looking towards the future.

“I’m just excited that it’s happening and excited that it’s going to make St. Mark’s better,” Dini said.

“I feel like we have an obligation to always look to the future with high aspirations and we’ve inherited a great legacy because so many people looked to the future and said, ‘We should dream big, and we should set the highest standards.’”

Wyatt hopes the building will be an intellectual hub for students on campus that will last for decades to come.

“We hope that the new building will become a destination for all students on campus; that the lounge and atrium become desired locations to meet, study and work on projects; that all students want to see the exciting work taking place in the maker lab and robotics studio; and that the planetarium will take full advantage of the latest in projection technology, allowing students to explore and ex-

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RY, MIKE MAHOWALD PHOTOS ARNO GOETZ

plain the cosmos, and also to visualize the structure of proteins or the latest in digital art,” Wyatt said.

The RAMSA firm hopes to add to the school’s style and blend the building with existing structures to fit seamlessly with the rest of campus.

“The St. Mark’s School is blessed by an architecturally coherent campus. While many schools build buildings that express the design fad of the moment, St. Mark’s has largely stuck to one architectural palette: rosy brick, warm-colored stone and pitched copper roofs,” Wyatt said. “These materials, and the ways in which they have been organized and detailed in the campus’s older buildings continue to serve as inspiration for us as we design. We hope that anyone viewing this new building on its completion will say ‘Oh, that is clearly a St. Mark’s School building.’”

Dini credits the school’s culture as the force behind building so soon after the school finished the Centennial Challenge fundraising effort and the construction of the Hoffman and Centennial buildings.

“I really look at it as a collective school,” Dini said. “Priority and focus and aspiration and something that we’ve been thinking about for a long time and obviously with a lot of people working really hard and people that have supported it and obviously very grateful to the Winns and others who have been involved in helping make it a reality. So we still have a lot of work to get it done but it’ll be fun in a couple years when we are able to cut the ribbon on that building when it’s finished.”

eadmaster David Dini didn’t know if they would even want the project.

Their team designed skyscrapers, college campuses and plans for entire towns.

The 50 Connaught Road Central building in Hong Kong, China. The master plan for Celebration, Florida just outside Orlando. The George W. Bush Presidential Library on the SMU campus — all the regular scale of projects that Robert A.M. Stern Architects (RAMSA) work on.

Dini was amazed by the firm’s work.

So when the RAMSA team came to present ideas to a group of board members, volunteers and administrators called the Architecture and Construction Committee they were just as amazed as Dini was.

“They really impressed our committee,” Dini said. “They left the room and you could tell there was a real consensus in the group. There was an overwhelming enthusiasm for the RAMSA team and what we thought they would bring to St. Mark’s.”

To Dini’s surprise, the firm wanted to step outside of its usual work on city-defining projects to do something fairly unfamiliar — a high school.

Graham Wyatt, the lead architect for the RAMSA team working on the building, which is set for completion in the summer of 2017, sees this project as an opportunity to reimagine how STEM courses are taught not only at the school, but nationwide.

“St. Mark’s was at the forefront of science education when I was a high school student, but a lot has changed since then,” Wyatt said.

“Science education has changed: more than ever it is based on making and doing, not just listening and reading; and it is based on teamwork and project-based learning, not just individual study.” he firm is excited about designing a building that will accommodate those changes. Wyatt hopes the building will be equally as influential as the one it replaces. “[The building will] serve as an exemplar for STEM education on the day it opens and for years to come,” Wyatt said.

Despite Wyatt and the firm’s extensive expertise in educational buildings, they value a back and forth communication between the school to build an aesthetically pleasing, functional building that will serve the school for years to come.

“We are not the kind of architects who will show up with a single design idea and promote it at the expense of all others,” Wyatt said. “During the past few months we have developed a variety of design options and have tested and assessed these against the St. Mark’s School’s needs and aspirations.”

The firm has consulted with many teachers and administrators as designs for the building are finalized. Wyatt believes that in order to create a great building, the community’s voice needs to be heard.

“Many people at the St. Mark’s School have participated in this process enthusiastically and productively,” Wyatt said. “I am convinced that this process of give and take leads to the best buildings.”

Science Department Chair Fletcher Carron echoes Wyatt’s sentiment, believing the architects should add a sense of vision to what the school wants.

“Ultimately the architect is there to design what you want them to design,” Carron said. “But you don’t hire a great architect to just draw your own vision. You bring them on because they add that layer of expertise.”

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L LIFE

PAGE 18 FEBRUARY 5, 2016 REMARKER NON-CITIZENS

Americanized Having been born in a foreign country, sophomore Liam Sohn is currently living in America as an official “Resident Alien.” But as a South Korean citizen, Sohn faces forcible military service unless he decides to become an official, naturalized American.

EMBRACING THE FLAG Pridefully wrapping the American flag around his body, Sohn shows that he has fully accepted the culture and lifetstyle of his current home nation. However, Sohn has also made sure to stay true to his roots, as he continues to observe Korean traditions. This duality between South Korea and the U.S. makes for a hard decision when Sohn finalizes his citizenship.

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unior Liam Sohn would love to go back to his birthplace.

After living in South Korea for the first seven years of his life, Liam still feels a deep connection to the nation.

In many ways, he still behaves a lot like a South Korean kid would.

He loves K-Pop. He eats South Korean food. He dogmatically upholds the tradition of respecting his elders.

But there is one thing stopping him.

If Liam returns to South Korea in the next few years, he will be forced to enlist in the military and serve on the front lines.

When his father served in the army, he saw his friends die.

“I don’t think I want to serve in the [South Korean] army,” Liam said. “My dad told me stories about his time in the army. He was in the [de-militarized zone], patrolling that area for over two months.

You could literally see the North Korean people there, and it’s very scary. He couldn’t really sleep well for two months.

[The DMZ is] a massive military standoff and a few kilometers of just minefields.”

Given his father’s experience in the military, Liam is against serving as a South Korean soldier. But, he claims that his feelings about service are not necessarily ironclad.

“There’s a part of me that tells me that I really don’t want to go,” Liam said.

“I don’t want to spend two years of my youth toiling away and experiencing all the hardships that come with the army.

However, another part of me says that, if push comes to shove, and something does happen to my home country, I would be willing to serve if I have to.”

As a current green card holder, Liam is allowed to live in the United States

despite being an official South Korean citizen, meaning he will not be forced into service unless he physically returns to South Korea.

“In Korea, military service is not an option, but an obligation for all men,” said Randy Sohn, Liam’s father. “Most young men go to the military usually after high school or the early years of college for two years.”

Hence, when his green card expires when he is 20 years old, Liam will face a difficult decision: give up his official South Korean citizenship or face mandatory military conscription.

RANDY SOHN Liam’s father served in the military

“Liam has permanent residency in the U.S. and is eligible for citizenship, which means he will be able to choose his nationality when he is around 20,” Randy said.

“Because South Korea doesn’t allow dual nationality, he will have to give up one to keep the other.”

According to Randy, Liam should consider more than just military service when he makes his decision about his official citizenship.

“To me, citizenship is not only an issue of military service, but it also is a matter of future life,” Randy said. “Since he grew up, studied in America, and will spend most of his future in the US, I suggest he choose American citizenship.

However, it’s his choice, and I trust that he will choose wisely.”

The choice is made even more difficult by the fact that Liam not only feels a connection to his native land of South Korea,

but he has also grown fond of the country that has been his home for the past ten years.

As he ponders the decision, the Seoulborn Korean vividly remembers when he first moved to America.

“My dad worked for an engineering company,” he said. “ [The company] had my dad move to their company in the U.S., but they messed up the paperwork. So, my mom, sister and I had to stay in Korea for another year, and then we moved to Canada for six months, and then to the U.S.” Ever since Liam has moved to America, he has identified himself with the country and has taken up its customs, despite being a citizen of Korea.

“To me, I find America more of a home than South Korea,” Liam said. “I spent seven years of my life there, but I was so young back then. I came here, I spent my childhood, my middle school years, and now my adolescence in America. I kind of see this place more as home than South Korea.” owever, Liam still finds ways to integrate his native roots into his identity and cherish his foreign perspective, adding to the difficulty of his decision.

“I was born there and lived there for seven years,” he said, “so I find Korean traditions as part of my identity. I still pay attention to the [Korean] food, music, some of the formalities like respecting seniority and the holidays.”

Additionally, Liam feels that his South Korean heritage provides him with a unique perspective and set of experiences amongst his classmates.

“I guess it’s kind of cool being born in another country,” Liam said, “and then being able tell people that I was born in

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some country thousands of miles away, like [on] the opposite side of the globe. It’s pretty cool telling people that. Just knowing that you come from a place and you have backgrounds that barely anyone else has in this school.”

Although the status of his future citizenship is still uncertain and will not be decided until a few years down the road, Liam is certain of one thing: he will not lose his connection to either country, regardless of what country he officially chooses to associate with when he turns twenty years old.

“I don’t think giving up my Korean citizenship to get an American one would really change how I act or think,” Liam said. “I’m both American and Korean, and that’s not going to change no matter what passport I have. Giving up a citizenship isn’t the same as giving up a part of my identity. I’m still going to be Korean-American.”

The process for becoming an American citizen

655,000 Citizens who were naturalized in 2014

6.6 million Citizens naturalized in the last decade

Requirements 18 years or older Lawful permanent resident of the US Present in the US for at least five years Have good moral character

Steps to become a citizen 1. Complete the N-400 application 2. Get fingerprinted 3. Get interviewed and tested 4. Take the Oath of Allegiance SOURCE: USCIS.GOV

STORY ANVIT REDDY, MOHIT SINGHAL PHOTO FRANK THOMAS

Sophomore woodworker Naseck enters Scholastic Arts competition

by Davis Bailey

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he smell of freshly sanded, cherry wood wafts around the concrete wood and metal studio.

With his safety-goggled eyes closely inspecting every chip and scratch in the grain, sophomore Perry Naseck makes his final touches, sands down a rough patch, fills in a crack.

He steps back and does a final check of his piece – a triangle-top table. Time to finish.

Since, as a sophomore, Naseck isn’t eligible to enter the annual YoungArtscompetition for his woodworking, he has

different motivators for his many hours spent with the power tools.

“YoungArts is definitely a big thing, I definitely look forward to it, but it is not what I am in the program for,” he said. “I really like working with my hands, and you can take your time to really think about things and make something nice.”

While he does enter his pieces into smaller competitions throughout the year such as the Scholastic Art and Writing Competition, he prefers to focus more on the pieces themselves, rather than on awards or results.

“I’ve never viewed wood and metal

as for the competitions, I do it because I enjoy it and I make art,” Naseck said. “The smaller competitions are nice, but there isn’t really much to come out of them.”

For Naseck, industrial arts has given more than just a table or a clock, as it has also given him the skills to manipulate wood and materials into his own art along with a newfound appreciation and comprehension of the meaning and style 3D art.

“Before I was doing wood and metal, I would just walk by things in a gallery or museum, and I wouldn’t really care,” he said. “I went to the Boston Museum of

Art, and in the contemporary part of it, I could actually identify the artist, and I was really happy – I was interested in it. A little while ago, I never would have thought that I would be interested in anything in the museum like that.”

Naseck feels he owes his commitment to the class and experiences as an artist to the process of creating a clock in seventh grade, his first major project.

“With my clock, I was like, ‘I want to make something that is not a thing,’” he said. “That’s what art is and that is what I want to do. I’m just looking forward to doing more.”

PAGE 19 FEBRUARY 5, 2016 REMARKER

L LIFE

LEAD ROLES

FROM MICE TO MEN Transitioning from roles in drama class and stage crew, sophomore Sunny Agrawal and senior Mathew Dominguez now step into the spotlight as first time lead actors in the upcoming play.

IN THE SPOTLIGHT Sophomore Sunny Agrawal and senior Mathew Dominguez apply what they’ve leaned in drama class and stage crew respectively to their lead roles in Of Mice and Men.

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that part.

“Everybody is their own character,” Glorioso said. “There are things about Sunny’s mannerisms, voice and just manner of conversation that led me to think that I could see some connections [between him and George].”

But being an Upper School play rookie has brought on a new set of challenges for Agrawal. Although he gained an acting foundation in the school’s improv troupe and drama classes, Agrawal now struggles with the scale of this play.

“I wouldn’t call myself inexperienced in terms of acting,” Agrawal said, “but I would say I’m inexperienced in relation to being in a stage production. I haven’t been in a two-hour long production where I have 70 pages to memorize. That is definitely going to be a challenge.”

Glorioso has noticed Agrawal has been hesitant when he makes decisions on how to play his role. She believes his confidence will only come with time.

“I would say with Sunny, he’s figuring out his process,” Glorioso said. “He’s figuring out who he is as a young actor and sometimes you second guess some of those choices. You want to make sure you are doing it right.”

But Agrawal feels his lack of experience is irrelevant because of his connection to George. As he learned in drama class, that connection can bring out a quality

performance.

“I have learned that if I can find something to connect with my character, I can act that character,” Agrawal said. “I know what it’s like to be absolutely irritated with someone but still love them to death.

That’s one of the ways I can connect with George.”

Working alongside Agrawal is Dominguez, the actor playing Lennie Small, George’s close friend.

Although Dominguez has been involved in plays throughout Upper School, he has spent the majority of his time working on set crew or on smaller roles in the play. Never as a lead role.

MARION GLORIOSO Finds the actors stepping up to the challenge.

“I’ve been in enough plays that I know what to expect,” Dominguez said.

“With stage crew, it’s pretty similar actually. I know that I have to get something done for the good of everybody else.

That’s the same way I view getting my lines down now. I view both of them as the same thing — just on two different sides of the coin.”

Dominguez, like Agrawal, feels that his strong connection to his character is the main reason he was chosen for the part.

“The thing that I really like is that really you never know exactly what Lennie picks up,” Dominguez said. “That’s why I really wanted to be Lennie. When he gets into his little head space, I kind of related that to me having ADD and just zoning out sometimes and thinking to myself about whatever when other people are talking.”

As the rehearsal progress continues, Glorioso says she sees progress in both actors’ transitions to lead roles. But now, she thinks that the two need to develop a relationship together in order to have a successful show.

“These two characters spend every day of their lives together, so what I’m focused on is how they are going to build that bond,” Glorioso said. “I see that starting to happen. If they really do care about each other, the audience will believe it. If they’re faking it, the audience won’t care at all.”

Of Mice and Men What?

• Play based off of 1937 book

by John Steinbeck

Where?

• Eamonn Lacey Black Box When?

• March 4 and 5 at 7:30 p.m.

• March 6 at 2 p.m.

CREATIVE COMMONS

eople keep saying it.

“Congrats on getting the lead,” they tell him. “I hear you are going to be the star of the play!”

But every time someone stops sophomore Sunny Agrawal in the halls to congratulate him, he can’t help but feel a little weird.

He doesn’t feel like he is any better than the other actors. He doesn’t feel like he deserves all the attention.

According to him, he just fits the part.

It doesn’t matter that he has never had a lead role before.

It doesn’t matter that senior Mathew Dominguez has never had a lead role before. They both just fit the parts.

That’s what mattered.

And that’s exactly what Upper School drama instructor Marion Glorioso was thinking when she selected these seemingly inexperienced actors as the lead roles of the Upper School winter play, Of Mice and Men, premiering March 6.

“When I’m having auditions, I don’t go and look and see what people have done,” Glorioso said. “If you’ve shown up and want to be a part of the process, then I’m going to plug you into the production where I see you fit the best.”

Noticing some key similarities between Agrawal and one of the lead characters in the play, George Milton, Glorioso believed that Agrawal was best cast for

STORY KOBE ROSEMAN, ZACH GILSTRAP PHOTO FRANK THOMAS

Celebrate St. Mark’s fundraiser co-chair finalizes plans for February

by Daniel Cope

W

ith only a band booked, Celebrate St. Mark’s co-chair Kama Koudelka sat down trying to think of a theme. The sound of A Hard Night’s Day played in the background. Then it hit her.

A British invasion • Celebrate St. Mark’s Auction • Saturday, Feb. 20 • Featured items include tickets to the Ellen DeGeneres Show and a trip to London.

A Beatles cover band will be the first of several acts that will follow the theme of the British Invasion.

The second major act is an Austin

Powers impersonator.

“It is not actually Mike Meyers, but the gentleman who is coming as Austin Powers is fabulous,” Koudelka said. “You would swear it really is Austin! He has been featured as Austin Powers in several TV commercials and spots and other large scale special events.”

Other acts for the auction include DJ Lucy Wrubel, sister of alumnus Eric Reeves ’82, and the Beatles cover band A Hard Night’s Day who will perform in the James Bond Cocktail lounge.

Koudelka sees this auction as more of a celebration than a fundraiser.

“Our focus this year is on creating a celebratory evening of fellowship for the

entire School community,” Koudelka said.

“It is in this spirit that we have decided to forgo the silent auction, faculty offerings, and individual class baskets in favor of a more relaxed evening of fun for everyone, including a fabulous dinner, a live auction, and dancing.”

A few of the more expensive items being auctioned off include a trip to London, tickets to the Ellen DeGeneres Show in Los Angeles and the classic options such as an evening with Doc and being the headmaster for the day.

Koudelka hopes Celebrate St. Mark’s will be a relaxing event for the community.

“We hope the event will be a fun

evening for the entire St. Mark’s community,” Koudelka said. “The faculty and staff have all received an invitation and we look forward to celebrating with many of them on Feb. 20.”

L LIFE

PAGE 20 FEBRUARY 5, 2016 REMARKER

Flashback Friday BLAST FROM THE PAST

1

1 Photos Arno Goetz and courtesy Development Office

With the winter cold starting to seep in, we looked around campus for quaint relics to try and stir up some warm, nostalgic feelings for the past

1 2

9

1

FOUNDATION Lying across the quad, bricks from Davis Hall create a connecting pathway.

2

WELCOME Gracing the front of the school, the school sign stood at the Preston entrance.

3

COPPER CUPOLA Standing in front of the library, this structure was taken from the top of Davis Hall and placed as a remembrance.

4

FIRE HAZARD Firefighters put out a 1941 inferno that significantly damaged Davis Hall.

5

AERIAL Viewed from a bird’s eye view, the campus was relatively barren in 1957.

6

RUSHING RAPIDS Students row in a river that used to run throughout the campus.

7

LION ORDER Members of the school’s football team pose with a real life lion.

8

CONGREGATION Gathering in the old chapel, students continue the classic tradition.

9

BULL’S EYE Now extinct, the archery team won the SPC championship in 1975.

8 8

8

7

3

3

9

5

6

4

3 4

PAGE 21 FEBRUARY 5, 2016 REMARKER

BUZZ

L LIFE

THIS ISSUE “OSCAR” MOVIES THE GRAMMY WINNER HEADLINERS

Reviewing the best of the best — and the worst of the worst.

The Academy Awards, 2.0

Although many of the films nominated for Academy Awards boasted incredible performances — think Brooklyn or Room — most teenagers haven’t seen them. So instead of choosing from these more obscure films, reviews specialist Parker McWatters compiled a list of his own favorite movies­— movies teenagers have actually seen.

Best picture: Kingsman: The Secret Service

L

ook, I said these were going to be my favorites, not the tip-top best, most “artful” films to be released this year.

And so Kingsman proved itself my favorite film of the year, even with its February release date (against Fifty Shades of Grey) with its frenzy of violence, wit and James Bond references. The film, from Kick-Ass director Matthew Vaughn, found its place in the R-rated spy movie genre (a nearly empty genre) and landed onto screens with all the one-liners, vicious fights and Samuel L. Jackson one could ever ask for.

Also, it had the best fight scene of the year (yes, I do remember The Revenant and Creed) in its brutal church brawl.

So beautiful art to be mulled over for ages? Maybe not.

The most fun I had all year? Definitely.

Best director: Quentin Tarantino, The Hateful Eight

N

o other director in Hollywood can create tension on the same level as Tarantino. His film, which takes place in a singular location (barring the quick trip there), manages to continuously ramp up the audience’s nervousness through simple dialogue and brilliant direction. No overly fancy camerawork, no tricky shots designed to instill fear into the viewer, just one director bringing the very best out of his cast to create an experience unlike any other in theatres.

The Revenant may have its breathtaking landscapes, long takes and slow pans through chaos, but Tarantino shatters all of that with a simple camera, real 70mm film and an undying dedication to his beautifully rendered characters.

Best actor: Leonardo DiCaprio, The Revenant

I

OSCAR’S BIG NIGHT When?

Where?

Who?

What?

The 88th Annual Academy Awards will be hosted by comedian Chris Rock.

Awards given for excellence in 24 categories from supporting roles to sound editing.

• Feb. 28, 7:30 p.m.

•

• Airing on ABC, nationwide •

t’s not just because he’s due. Leo’s been the butt of a joke at the Oscars for a long, long time, and yet he still manages to turn in a new career-defining performance every year worthy of the Oscar gold.

But beyond the pettiness of the awards themselves, DiCaprio blew away expectations with his performance as Hugh Glass, a man hell-bent on revenge after his son is killed by an equally excellent (though not my top choice) Tom Hardy.

His performance bleeds inspiration and grit and reveals not only the steadfast dedication of a man determined to survive but also the inner power of the human spirit.

Best actress: Charlize Theron, Mad Max: Fury Road

T

hough snubbed by the Academy for her performance in Mad Max, Theron turns in a darkly beautiful, frequently

STORY PARKER MCWATTERS ILLUSTRATION ABHI THUMMALA AWARD PREVIEW:

A closer look at Kendrick Lamar’s To Pimp a Butterfly

Not your grandmother’s Rock ‘n’ Roll

T

urning the curse of a rap artist’s “Sophomore Slump” on it’s head, Kendrick Lamar and his second album, To Pimp A Butterfly, have become staples of American music, even beyond the bounds of what has historically been considered rap culture.

With many rap artists now pop-culture legends, many are starting to see the Hip-Hop genre as this generation’s Rock ‘n’ Roll.

What used to be seen as music for the outcast is now out of the streets, out of the realms of sub-culture, and into the halls of the White House — with President Obama

praising To Pimp A Butterfly’s ‘How Much A Dollar Cost’ as his favorite song of 2015.

The album’s musical composition draws on both the R&B forefathers, most noticebly the Isley Brothers, and the more forward-thinking, like Flying Lotus and Thundercat.

While blending so many musical styles is quite a risk, Lamar pulls it off in a way few others, if any, could. The result is a near timeless representation of inner struggle, specifically that of Lamar as a young, black man.

If there’s one thing hip-hop needs now, it’s acknowledgement. For the three and a half

decades since rap music left the streets, entered the realm of the DJ and the MC at the end of the 70’s, many if not all of the genre’s run-ins with mainstream success have been seen by many as just fads.

Of course, legends like Lauryn Hill and Outkast have taken home the title in years past, but the idea of “the rapper” being little more than a punk, who rhymes over a catchy beat.

But our nappy-headed friend with 11 Grammy Nominations, including Best Album for To Pimp A Butterfly, is ready to remind people that Hip Hop is here to stay. — Avery Powell

brutal and occasionally poignant performance as Furiosa.

Unlike the other “Oscar-worthy” performances of the year, Theron plays a decidedly dark, unforgiving character willing to go to any extremes to protect the people in her convoy.

And just like the titular character of the film (again, an excellent Tom Hardy), she also manages to reveal a deeper, sadder look into a broken person just trying to do one good deed. Her performance may be in a summer blockbuster, but it also proves itself the most compelling of the year.

Best visual effects: Star Wars: The Force Awakens

D

id anybody really think my list of bests could get by without a Star Wars mention? That person thought very wrong.

This was a great year for visual effects, from Mad Max: Fury Road to more understated uses like in The Revenant, but Star Wars takes the cake.

Like with Kingsman, this is a subjective choice, but the flicker of a lightsaber on screen ignites the hearts of just about everyone in the audience, a feat no other film this year accomplished. Alongside that, the sweeping shots of starships, beautiful rendering of foreign worlds and incredible aliens created an atmosphere perfect for the big screen.

Editor’s note: Although two of these picks received Academy Award nominations, the other movies did not.

Head iners Kid Cudi

Concerts

February 19 at 9 p.m.

The Bomb Factory

AC/DC

February 23 at 7 p.m.

American Airlines Center

Rihanna

March 6 at 7:30 p.m.

American Airlines Center

Future

March 11 at 8 p.m.

South Side Ballroom

Albums Elton John

Wonderful Crazy Night February 5

Kanye West WAVES February 11

The 1975

I Like It When You Sleep, For You Are So Beautiful Yet So Unaware Of It February 26

Movies Deadpool

February 12

Zoolander 2

February 12

Race February 19

London Has Fallen March 4

C

REMAINING REALISTIC

commentary commentary

page 23

PAGE 22 FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 2016 I REMARKER

MY BIGGEST FEAR IS...

22

STUDENT FEEDBACK NEEDED

23

UNSUNG HERO

24

Marksmen share their deepest, darkest fears.

Even though students have been involved in major hirings, more student feedback is needed.

CREATIVE COMMONS

Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders may be gripping this election, but remember what makes a good president.

page 3

The staff would like to recognize two members of the faculty who do so much more than we know.

EDITORIAL

THE REMARKER EDITOR IN CHIEF PHILIP SMART MANAGING EDITOR WILL CLARK SENIOR CONTENT EDITOR AVERY POWELL ISSUES EDITOR CAMERON CLARK

f

CREATIVE DIRECTOR ABHI THUMMALA MAGAZINE EDITORS BRADFORD BECK, DAVIS MARSH DEPUTY MANAGING EDITOR ZACH NAIDU RESEARCH DIRECTOR NOAH KOECHER HEAD PHOTOGRAPHER ARNO GOETZ PHOTO EDITOR FRANK THOMAS COMMENTARY EDITORS WILLIAM CALDWELL, JOHN CRAWFORD NEWS EDITORS CORDAY CRUZ, PHILIP MONTGOMERY NEWS WRITERS ANDRE ARSENAULT, RETT DAUGBJERG, BLAKE DAUGHERTY, JAMES HANCOCK, ZOHEB KHAN, NAFTAL MAUTIA, AUSTIN MONTGOMERY, REECE RABIN LIFE EDITORS GOPAL RAMAN, ANVIT REDDY LIFE WRITERS DAVIS BAILEY, DANIEL COPE, ZACHARY GILSTRAP, JOHN GUNNIN, WASEEM NABULSI, KOBE ROSEMAN, MOHIT SINGHAL SPORTS EDITORS RISH BASU, CASE LOWRY SPORTS WRITERS ALEC DEWAR, WILL FORBES, MIKE MAHOWALD, NICK MALVEZZI, MATTHEW PLACIDE, JIMMY RODRIGUEZ, SAM SHANE, SAM SUSSMAN CAMPUS COORDINATOR CRAWFORD MCCRARY REVIEWS SPECIALIST PARKER MCWATTERS BUSINESS MANAGER ROBY MIZE ASSISTANT BUSINESS MANAGER CARSON CROCKER COPY EDITORS AIDEN BLINN, AIDAN MAURSTAD CARTOONIST ABHI THUMMALA STAFF PHOTOGRAPHERS DREW BAXLEY, MATEO DIAZ, SAM EICHENWALD, WILLIAM HALL, WESLEY HIBBS, ALDEN JAMES, REID JOHANNSEN, GRAHAM KIRSTEIN, CAM LAM, CHRIS McELHANEY, CHARLIE O’BRIEN, TIM O’MEARA, TUCKER RIBMAN, NICO SANCHEZ, RILEY SANDERS, KABEER SINGH, OWEN BERGER, CORBIN WALP STAFF ARTISTS DANIEL BYEON, DANIEL GARCIA, JOON PARK, BRAYDON WOMACK ADVISER RAY WESTBROOK ONLINE VIEWING. Each issue of The ReMarker, along with archival copies, can be viewed on the school’s website, www.smtexas. org/remarker.

READER INVOLVEMENT. The ReMarker encourages reader input through letters, guest columns and story ideas. Contact the appropriate editor for submissions.

Suggestions will be given due consideration for future publication.

ADVERTISING. Contact the business staff at 214.346.8145. We reserve the right to refuse any advertisement. Inclusion of an ad in the newspaper’s pages is not an indication of an endorsement by The ReMarker, any of its staff members or faculty or staff members of St. Mark’s School of Texas.

DISTRIBUTION. Press run is 3,800 copies. Copies are provided free of charge to students, faculty and staff at various distribution sites on campus.

More than 2,600 copies are mailed out to alumni courtesy of the school’s offices of External Affairs, Development and Alumni divisions.

MEMBERSHIP. The ReMarker maintains membership in the Columbia Scholastic Press Association, New York City, NY; National Scholastic Press Association, Minneapolis, MN; and the Interscholastic League Press Conference, Austin.

St. Mark’s School of Texas 10600 Preston Road Dallas, TX 75230.

214.346.8000 www.smtexas.org

ONLINE BEHAVIOR

Being a Marksman, 24 hours a day

A

fter a severe case of cyberbullying by a Marksman on the anonymous app Brighten in December, the idea that an individual’s actions can damage the entire school’s reputation has become apparent.

For all of five days, the infamous “compliment” app allowed students to anonymously wreak irreparable damage to other students’ self-esteem with despicable, hateful comments.

However, it’s not what users were caught saying that is most troubling: it’s the culture that encouraged nearly all Upper School students to download the app and either insult their peers or spectate the bullying — that is worst of all.

Even after the admonitions, chapel talks and class meetings the students have attended in the last weeks, something remains to be said about being a Marksman not just at school, but at home, and more prominently, online.

Although students only attend this school from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m., it is implicit that students represent the school all hours of the day.

It may not be written in Lion Tracks or written in the Honor Principle, but as a teenager, the chief way of identifying someone is by his school.

It is not uncommon for a teen-

ager’s Facebook, Twitter or Instagram bio to proudly include his school and graduation year.

However, Brighten isn’t the only app that has landed students in awkward situations. All Facebook users have seen fiery rhetoric that they may not agree with shared by friends.

Still, it is the students’ duty to avoid either sharing provocative content on Facebook or instigating an argument over a cause that would not reasonably be resolved over the internet.

One can ask himself: is this something I would have a discussion about in person?

It is the wall of anonymity the internet provides that leads to these arguments, so thinking about removing that wall should help to make a better decision.

Just recently, a student at Alamo Heights High School in San Antonio, committed suicide after being cyberbullied for many months.

Something so tragic happening so close to home serves as a sobering reminder that hateful words, whether anonymous or not, can have a far worse effect than ever imaginable.

One could wonder: what if that

comes to

mind?

There are different things we wish we had on campus. Here are some examples of those things.

“The unknown.” ­— Senior Eric Li

“Boyd Howard.”

— Junior Hyer Thomas

“Homework.”

“Spiders.”

— Seventh grader Rajan Joshi

Here’s a topic that will hopefully provoke real thought and insight.

Some may argue that students should be separate from the school after hours and exempt from disciplinary action at school for their actions off campus.

However, we believe that actions like bullying another student with abusive language over the internet certainly deserves punishment at school.

Marksmen should not only think twice before writing something potentially controversial online but, just as importantly, not tolerate their classmates’ abusive language online.

Preventing issues like these from occurring again requires more than just an assembly and a strongly spoken lecture. It requires a change in the culture of online behavior here.

Finally, remember that being a Marksman is more than just attending this school. Being a member of this community comes with the responsibility of upholding the values of the school on campus — and off. Whether it’s written in the rules or not.

My biggest fear is...

what

next month

were a Marksman?

The scary thing is, the hateful comments some students here wrote rivaled the bullying this student received.

The main difference between the two cases is that the bullying here was discovered and shut down far sooner.

“Being an ostrich.”

— Senior Daniyaal Kamran

My dream vacation is to... email submissions to 16caldwellw@smtexas.org

— Sophomore Perry Naseck

“Drowning.”

—Freshman Billy Stalder

PAGE 23

Five day — ­ the hardest kind of love

’m sitting across from the Head of Upper School. He’s studying me, interrogating me.

Every now and then he’ll write something down WILL CLARK on a clipboard and urge me to go on or tell me my story doesn’t add up. And I just sit, wondering how did it come to this?

I know he can see the truth hiding behind my wide-open eyes, my airtight fists and the mangled words that sputter from my mouth.

I can feel it in my gut — there’s no way out.

But of all the terrible moments that lead up to, consist of and linger long after a suspension, that’s not the worst.

It’s not even that bad compared to the others.

There’s the moment I feel like a prisoner in my own school, locked in the conference room for four hours.

They take my phone, my computer, my schoolwork. They leave me with just my thoughts, the walls and decades of yearbooks.

Or the moment I stand in front of

my peers on the Discipline Council and ask for mercy, trying to speak clearly through the lump in my throat and the tears welling up.

There’s all the times people tell me I’ve blown my chance of going to college, and now there’s all the times I get to prove them wrong.

Or the day I spend at Hillcrest High School and see exactly where I’m going if I slip up one more time. I’ve never walked through metal detectors on the way to class before.

There’s all the moments when the moms in the cafeteria line won’t even look me in the eye. People I’ve known for years suddenly turn their backs on me.

Or the moment a teacher I think I can count on sees me in the halls and walks the other way. Too ashamed to even look at me.

But none of those come close to the worst moment.

That’s when my mom walks into the Upper School Office — still in her tennis clothes, blonde hair flowing from under her visor.

Her face, usually a bright smile and radiant eyes.

Her face, blank and confused.

I look into those hazel eyes we share, and I know this isn’t going to be easy. I’m ordered to explain.

At first it’s just few trickles of truth.

I can’t do it. But then the dam bursts.

And as it does, she doesn’t strangle me.

She doesn’t scream, “Will, you’re such a idiot.”

She just takes my hand in hers, squeezes it tight and tells me everything’s going to be all right. Tells me she still loves me.

Why didn’t she yell at me? Why didn’t she get mad?

It would’ve been easier I think.

But her holding my hand, supporting me, loving me – that’s a hundred times worse.

How could I do such a terrible thing to such a kind woman? How am I worthy of her love?

Being suspended for five days didn’t change me.

Visiting Hillcrest High for a day didn’t change me.

Writing the required reflective essays definitely didn’t change me.

But her holding my hand. Her loving me when nobody else would.

That changed me.

editorial

Be pragmatic this election season

T

here’s no doubt this election cycle has been one of the most media driven campaigns in American history. News channels and websites are driving focus on candidates like Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders, following their every move and analyzing their every word.

But as young voters, we should ignore the media’s sensationalism. We should focus on the attributes a candidate shows that will help them in the Oval Office.

It isn’t the president’s job to excite crowds or gather media attention. Then, why should that be a driving factor for a candidate’s popularity? Sure, it may be fun to feel a part of a “political revolution” with lofty goals to “end Wall Street’s influence on politics” or “make America great again,” these

mantras don’t go very far to describe a candidate’s abilities as president.

While it is encouraging to see more attention given to the most important election in the world, it still is critical to look at what your ideals and opinions are, then compare them to the candidates, rather than picking whoever your parents like or whoever is currently in the lead.

Also consider a candidate’s experience; this, combined with a solid moral backbone, has defined many of our most beloved presidents of the past.

Regardless of your preferred candidate, remember to respect the opinions of others.

No, not everyone who supports Donald Trump is a racist, and no, not everyone who supports Bernie Sanders is a communist.

hot or not?

PHOTO RILEY SANDERS

GLOBE POLITICS A discussion of issues outside the scope of campus, around the country and across the globe.

C

COMMENTARY

editorial

The next Upper School head

Goetz column Feedback headline— not

just involvement

”

I

n the wake of the hiring of the new head of Upper School, we have some recommendations as how to get students even more involved in the process.

While we recognize that six students were invited to interview the three finalist candidates for the position, the school never asked for feedback from the students.

Students invited were led to believe after all the interviews had occurred, administrators would seek the their feedback about the three finalists.

Considering this position is directly involved in student relationships, we feel it is important to receive student feedback regarding the applicants.

After interviewing each of the candidates, the students themselves talked about which candidate they would prefer. A majority of ‘ — the students thought Patrick Andren candidate ultimately chosen for the position — was the right choice, but the school never heard the students’ opinions.

Even though we know student involvement has improved, there is still a lot of room for even more improvement.

As of now, the student interviewing process seems to be fake, for the administration is not receiving any student feedback.

We know the administration is making an effort to hear the student body’s voice, but we believe the administration could improve its approach.

One simple and obvious way to get student feedback is for the administration to sit down with the groups of people involved in the interviewing process and ask them for their opinions.

We believe this would be the easiest and most effective way to get student responses.

We have no doubt that the administration will be able to improve their ways of receiving student feedback into large decisions.

We commend administrators for allowing students to meet with candidates before the hirings, but we would like students’ time with the candidates to have an actual impact. This will only happen when administrators actually hear us.

SHORT & TWEET

30-word thoughts on some recent events at 10600 Preston Road.

A peek at Marksmen’s tweets Warm | New crew boat The “Bruce C. Westrate” joins the ranks after its predecessor snapped during a hailstorm. Hopefully, the christening ceremony warded off any bad omens.

Hot | Junior Class secret Santa With gifts ranging from a Dora the Explorer DVD to a betta fish, the Junior Class secret Santa is hopefully a tradition that will grow in the next years.

Icy | Preston road construction Closing all but one lane for construction, Preston road became a logjam during the mornings, giving chronically late students one more excuse to give to their teachers.

ound the ar

PHOTO CHRIS MCELHANEY

I

FEBRUARY 5, 2016 REMARKER

Cool | Reckless driving We know how excited everyone is to get to school in the morning, but does the school really need to place a traffic director at the Orchid entrance to prevent us from hitting each other in our immense hurry?

@

I really need someone to see queen of pop/unproblematic fave Carly Rae Jepsen in February.

— Senior Will Garden

@

Cheaters never win. #GoBroncos — Junior Whit Payne

@

It’s 2016 and we’re the class of 2016 #what.

— Senior Ashton Hashemipour

@

*drake drops mixtape* instagram captions for a year...

willgarden1

17paynew

ashtonhash

currywiththepot

—Junior Dhruv Prasad

@

angel_reyes44

@

lildrew1515

Let’s talk about the fact that my uber driver last night is a known billionaire.

— Senior Angel Reyes

Tbt to the funny PSAT questions that Twitter roasted.

—Junior Andrew Whigam

FEBRUARY 5, 2016 REMARKER

The dumber, the smarter H

ere’s a rundown of the conversation I have every time I meet someone new.

Howdy there stranger, what’s your name?

Philip Smart. What’s yours? *Insert generic stranger name here.* Oh, are you smart?

I usually throw out my best attempt at a witty response. I’ll say “on a good day” PHILIP SMART or “of course, or else I wouldn’t be named it.” Sometimes I’ll respond “nope.” That one’s usually the funniest.

But every time some one asks me that question, I start to think.

They always tell us here at school at some point in the year that we are “all very smart boys,” which is true.

Every student here is pretty freaking smart. Most of the time, at least.

And a lot of the time, we know it, and it goes to our heads. Straight to that big brain.

But I don’t think being smart is this concept where you have it or you don’t have it.

I don’t think it’s a binary system.

I think being smart is realizing that you’re dumb.

There are so many smart people (and a lot of dumb people) out there. Vik Pattabi ’15 told me there are so many “geniuses” he’s met in college at the start of this year.

And if you know Vik Pattabi, low-level geniuscelebrity himself, that’s not to be taken lightly.

When you realize that there are so many smart people out there, you become smarter.

You take more risks. You aren’t worried about keeping that “I’m a smart person, so I can’t mess up or else people will know I’m not a smart person anymore” persona.

I’m not saying you should constantly tell yourself that you’re dumber than others.

That’s clearly not healthy. But you should be open to growth.

The Atlantic recently published an article entitled “100 percent is overrated,” and this growth-mindset is mentioned.

Being a smart person isn’t having a fixed mindset.

It’s about being wrong.

I always end up learning the most when I fail.

Every time I mess up on tests, say the wrong thing at the wrong time or any other mistake, I end up learning more than I ever would have learned.

As students who constantly have that “smart-kid” label, we get caught up in retaining that label.

We are scared to go outside our comfort zone. We forget to take risks. We are worried that we might fail.

And when we’re not worried about keeping that smart kid label, we’re probably a bit more likeable It’s not about being smart, it’s about growing smart.

Unsung hero

EDITORIAL

Don’t neglect core science structures with new building

W

ith the construction of the new science building being planned out, teachers and students are looking forward to taking advantage of the new stateof-the-art facilities, including the new planetarium and greenhouse.

However, we’d like to point out that it seems as if we practically neglect the current greenhouse and planetarium facilities, which are still very useful even as they are growing older.

We are ecstatic that the school is putting these new facilities in to place, so we want ensure that we put them to good use.

Many students here go their entire St. Mark’s career with only a handful of visits — sometimes with years passing in between visits.

With such stellar facilities to be built, we feel that it’s important to do everything we can to incorporate those facilities into the curriculum as much as possible.

Whether that means adding specific trimesterlong classes based in the planetarium and greenhouse or just taking more class periods to explore what they have to offer, we’d like to see at least a bit more exposure to the facilities whose construction will have had so much effort put into them.

The student body is excited to see the abundance of new opportunities the new building offers and hopes to take full advantage of them after the building’s completion.

VERONICA PULIDO AND CASEY GENDASON COLLEGE COUNSELORS Together in their dedicated wing of Hoffman, Pulido and Gendason walk juniors and seniors from SAT to acceptance.

T

he college application process is slowing down for seniors, but that does not stop the college counselors.

Right after the seniors finished their major Jan. 1 deadline, the two college counselors jumped right into their next cycle, helping members of the Junior Class begin their college process.

Needless to say, these two faculty members are very dedicated to the student body, assisting students whenever and however they possibly can.

We often hear stories of students emailing the counselors their college essays late into the night, only to receive a reply almost instantaneously, with edit suggestions and much-needed words of encouragement.

Veronica Pulido and Casey Gendason, we appreciate the work you do for us.

THE

MATRIX

Our musings of happenings around campus condensed into single boxes

EXCITING Room temperatures

IMPORTANT

C

COMMENTARY

PAGE 24

Five day weekend

Superfan men

Some Centennial rooms have become either unbearably cold or oppresively hot. Don’t we get enough temperature extremes during chapel?

Trading our late-start days for an extra day off may seem like a dubious exchange, but in the minds of many students, five days off trumps occassionally sleeping in for two hours.

Debuting the innovative iEasel, the Superfan men captivated the entire assembly audience with graphs, maps and statistics, keeping the entire Upper School in tune with the latest athletic news.

PSAT score delay

ESD basketball game

Winter SPC

Already delaying the release past the typical December date, the College Board failed to deliver PSAT scores on their Jan. 7 date, to the frustration of many students.

Literary Festival The annual festival refreshed the student body’s cultural interest with National Geographic researchers and smash hit artists.

With a unique gameplan for all students courtesy the Superfan men, the entire school is ready to watch the Lions win three straight.

Soccer, basketball, wrestling and swimming teams will visit Houston to defend their prides and test their abilities.

Spring Fling

Of Mice and Men Casting two newcomers to play George and Lenny provides an interesting take on the John Steinbeck classic.

Finding a happy medium between a mixer and a ball is critical to keeping dances fun and entertaining.

SUPERSTITION | CARTOON WILL CLARK, GRAHAM KIRSTEIN

It’s nothing. It’s just the Broncos only win when I sit in my childhood carseat.

What are you doing?

Practicing my wizardry.

Weirdo.

What are you doing?

Oh this?

Weirdo.

S sports

TEAM TRIPS

Get a look into what goes into scheduling sports trips.

A SOCIAL GAME

f

THE REFEREES

The men in black and white give their take on high school sports.

The role of social media in the way the school’s athletes look, play and act.

NONCONFERENCE PLAY

Which teams can and can’t go out of the boundaries of SPC?

SPC PREVIEWS

It’s about that time for winter teams.

Let’s bring home the hardware.

page 26

27 28 29 31

PAGE 25 FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 2016 I REMARKER

y heart rate jumps up.

A rush of adrenaline floods my brain as I picture what’s about to happen.

It’s more exhilarating than exploding out of the navy blue inflatable arch with the entire football team yawping barbarically around me, more nerve-racking than when coach Dilworth shows up at 4 p.m. without (yes I can’t believe I’m saying this) the guardian angel of after school P.E., Coach Turek, and more rife with anticipation than the moment before the ref blows the whistle to test my reflexes on the faceoff to start a lacrosse game.

I’m in control of the locker room speakers and I’m about to choose the next song I’m about to play.

Arguably more important than the quarterback and all of the offensive line combined, the locker room DJ determines the fate of the game long before the first whistle blows.

There is undoubtedly an art to understanding the energy of a pregame locker room, and it is your job as the curator of hype to make sure that same energy never dies down.

You decide whether the team will erupt out of the double doors to the locker room or plod out lethargically with the energy of a lazy sunday afternoon.

It’s easy to sit back and play the bass-boosted beat of whatever 808 Mafia has produced recently or take Future’s hand and let him lead you down the CASE LOWRY yellow-brick road of comfortable mediocrity as as a DJ. However, truly understanding the pulse of the team, managing a varied song selection and deftly consoling teammates whose request you’ve rejected by telling them that, “it’s in the queue, it’ll be on soon” (it’s not) are skills that require honing and cannot be mastered over the course of a single season.

I once had to command the forever gimmicky locker room speakers from 2 p.m. to about 5 p.m. before a Saturday game because the resident DJ, Jalen Lynch, was receiving medical care. And I know the math is telling you that that is only around three hours, but I’m pretty sure it was closer to seven or eight million.

It is a tough job that can no doubt only be filled by some of the most mentally resilient players because there is no fiercer or more aggressively vocal group of people than a crowd of pumped-up teenage boys who all come to the same conclusion that you played the wrong song.

So when you hear the first few notes of a recognizable beat or the eternally unsatisfied cry of Metro Boomin that he still wants some more and your own heartbeat jolts up accordingly, make sure you thank the architect of the pregame ritual: the man behind the aux.

• SWIMMING RECORDS BROKEN Multiple longstanding swimming records have been shattered during the winter sports season.

The all-senior relay team of Kevin Wu, Ward Rushton, Kevin Kim and Eric Li swam the 400 free relay in the time of 3:13.15. They beat the 30-year-old pool record of 3:17.21 set in 1986.

“I have felt really good this season,” Li said. “I’m just really happy that I’ve been able to break these

stories around campus in brief records.”

In addition, Li also broke the school 50 free record, with a time of 21:20. And finally, while at the 5A TISCA Invitational, the 200 free relay team broke the meet record, with a time of 1:27.94.

• MIDDLE SCHOOL TEAMS END SEASON Both the seventh and eighth grade gold basketball teams beat Ft. Worth Country Day on Jan. 12.

The seventh grade won 41-10 and the eighth grade won by a

45-38 score.

“We’ve really blended together as a team, and I think we might be unstoppable the rest of the way,” Harrison Ingram said.

The seventh grade soccer team defeated Prestonwood Christian 7-1, while the eighth grade team earned a hard-fought 2-2 draw on Jan.7.

have not lost in the four games since the break.

Junior varsity soccer is undefeated so far this year, starting off the year 10-0-1.

“Our team has really bonded well over the course of the season.” Ludwig-Bernardo said. “Even though we’re a mix of sophomores and freshmen, we play really well together.”

• JUNIOR VARSITY ENDS STRONG Junior varsity basketball is off to a 9-7 start including a win over Greenhill. They

• WATER POLO COMPETING ABROAD Next month, members of the varsity water polo team will head to California to

compete as part of the southwest regional team in a national water polo tournament.

Team members are excited to play against some of the top competition in the country, in addition to learning more about what high-level coaches are looking for.

“The younger team with the middle school and below is really helping to get those guys trained,” sophomore Cooper Johnson said. “Training them now is really going to pay off in the future.”

— Sam Shane, Sam Sussman, Jimmy Rodriguez, Will Forbes

in the

MOMENT events on campus told through photos

Michael Jordan plays at homecoming game

CHARGED UP Getting ready to take a penalty kick for the varsity soccer team, senior Graham Gillespie scores the first goal of the night to bring the Lions to a 1-0 lead. The Lions won 2-0 Jan. 15 as they started off their counter season with wins against TVS and Greenhill.

the Around corner what you need to know in the coming week

TODAY What Varsity basketball vs. ESD What Varsity soccer vs. ESD When 7:30 p.m.

When 7:30 p.m.

Where Norma and Lamar Where Hicks Gym Hunt Family Stadium

WEEKEND What Middle School SPC Wrestling Tournament When TBD Where Fort Worth Country Day

What Prep State Championships When 9 a.m.

Where Episcopal High School

The playmaker A valuable member of the varsity basketball team since his sophomore year, junior Will Ingram has stepped up his game for Guiler’s squad as they approach the postseason.

19

NUMBER OF POINTS SCORED

BY JUNIOR WILL INGRAM AGAINST THE CHANT CHARGERS — A CAREER HIGH FOR THE GUARD.

WILL INGRAM

NEXT WEEK What Soccer SPC Tournament Thursday When TBD Where Episcopal High School Houston

What Basketball SPC Tournament When TBD Where Houston Christian

What Wrestling SPC Championships Saturday When TBD Where St. John’s, Houston

What Swimming SPC Championships Saturday When TBD Where Conroe ISD Natatorium

“I think that this year’s team is one of the strongest compared to year’s past.

We started off a little slow, but we really started to pick up our game near the middle of the season. I think our chances of winning SPC are pretty good with this amount of senior leadership.”

DREW BAXLEY PHOTO

M

QUICKhits

DREW BAXLEY PHOTO

THE CURATOR OF HYPE

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PAGE 26 FEBRUARY 5, 2016 REMARKER

SOCIAL MEDIA

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LIKES

FROM ALL ANGLES With the rising popularity of social media sites like Twitter and Facebook, athletes now face attacks from rivals from a new direction — their phones.

S

enior captain Jalen Lynch opens his locker after a difficult early February basketball practice. Lynch instinctively grabs his phone and opens Twitter, planning to make a quick scroll through his feed before he goes home.

The team members were laser-focused during practice, doing everything possible to prepare themselves for rival ESD the following night. It’s the biggest game of the year, a counter-match with their biggest rival.

As Lynch peruses his feed, he comes across a slew of posts from both ESD students and Marksmen bearing the hashtags #BeatStMarks and #BeatESD. He stops at one post from an ESD student reminding everyone that St. Mark’s does not, in fact, have girls.

Lynch chuckles, keeps scrolling further down his feed and finally clicks his phone off. For him and the rest of the team, the tweets are insignificant. They don’t participate in the back and forth, and they don’t think the tweets have any impact on the way they play.

“We honestly just laugh at the tweets because they’re stupid,” Lynch said.

“They’re from kids who sometimes have no knowledge of the sport they’re watching, they’re just trying to start stuff.”

JALEN LYNCH Thinks the jabs are pointless and can’t affect the game.

Every year, before key games against rival schools such as ESD or Greenhill, trash-talking inevitably occurs on Twitter in the days leading up to the competition.

Although most of the tweets are just jabs at the other school that are meant in good fun, sometimes they are taken too far.

Social media changes the intensity, behavior and appearance of the athletes who compete in rivalry games. Because of online jabs and insults, rivalry games begin long before the first whistle blows.

Athletic Director Mark Sullivan agrees with Lynch, saying that if a student is going to participate in the upcoming game, he should stay out of the trash talking over

social media.

“As an athlete, you put in a lot of hours, a lot of effort, a lot of energy, and you’re going out and doing your best,” Sullivan said, “and to be somehow judged on that by somebody who hasn’t put in that time or hasn’t put in that energy and is just throwing things out there on social media to be kind of an antagonist or to be kind of a pest, if you will, that’s frustrating to see.”

‘

WHAT’S IMPORTANT TO ME IS WHAT WE’RE PUTTING ON THE FIELD, THE COURT OR THE POOL.

MARK SULLIVAN

Head varsity basketball coach Greg Guiler takes it as a compliment when other schools attempt to tamper with the morale of the team.

“I always think it’s an honor,” Guiler said. “Like when Greenhill showed up that night with the ‘Beat St. Mark’s’ shirts on, I was honored. When people want to come after us and attack us, that means we’re on top.”

Assistant Athletic Director Josh Friesen believes the trash talking over social media in high school rivalries provides a good opportunity for athletes, and students in general, to learn how to be responsible and learn from their mistakes.

“I think it’s worth it to talk to them so they can learn about it. In our current culture and environment, it’s going to be something they’re going to be dealing with as they go into college, and beyond,” Friesen said. “Sometimes making a silly mistake as a high school student is good long-term so that they can learn and not make that mistake when there are maybe a lot bigger consequences on the line other than saying something silly to another school about a game.”

Sullivan also recognizes the ability for posts on social media to be misinterpreted and spread from school-to-school quickly.

“You could say something that might be hurtful or harmful much easier and much quicker through social media than earlier forms of communication, and you can’t get that back,” Sullivan said. “And

so as a result, maybe bad feelings rise up quicker than they would if social media still didn’t exist.” riesen hopes students will not have to experience the consequences of a poor decision on social media, but feels the students should know they exist.

“Students need to learn to use it appropriately and understand what the consequences are for their mistakes,” Friesen said. “It could be that they don’t get into the college they want. It could be that they lose friends. There’s any number of consequences that can be made by a silly comment made in a silly moment that is misinterpreted by people who read it.”

Guiler has seen the quality of play in athletes improved since the popularization of social media, as players are able to see the talent level of other people their age, which in turn makes them want to improve themselves.

“I would say, from a gameplay standpoint, it has made the quality of the game improve dramatically, because guys can see each other,” Guiler said. “Kids can now watch what other kids the same age are doing and say, ‘Wow, that’s what other kids are capable of doing. That’s the kind of practice that I need to invest if I want to be a good player.’ So, I would say it’s a good thing in terms of the quality of play improving, and I think we’re going to see that improvement grow exponentially.”

Guiler also believes the intensity which is sparked by social media quarrels can be a good thing, as it makes the athletes more competitive.

“I love it,” Guiler said. “I think it’s good. I think as long as it’s clean, intensity is good. I just think you have to know where to draw the line.” s each game begins, Lynch stands at center court, staring down his opponent and preparing for the opening tip that will start the game.

Student sections roar down noise onto the court, offering the only chance to be really heard now that the game is beginning. But that no longer matters. All the trash talking, all the jabs, all the insults— they’re in the past. The only people who are important in this moment are the ten competitors on the court and the two

F

coaches on the sidelines.

Lynch believes that is the ideal that the basketball team enforces. Rivalry games are about the team’s hard work paying off in the form of a big win, not about which school’s students get bragging rights.

“Tweets can’t do anything, really,” Lynch said. “Fans can’t impact the outcome of the game.”

A

STORY JIMMY RODRIGUEZ, WILL FORBES PHOTO ILLUSTRATION ARNO GOETZ, ABHI THUMMALA

BEST OF THE BEST The best #BeatSM and #BeatESD tweets out there.

ESD kids still use myspace. #BeatESD St. Mark’s kids take bites out of cheese sticks #BeatStMarks ESD kids buy single-stuffed Oreos #BeatESD St. Mark’s where they ask you to like their instagram picture #BeatStMarks ESD kids are all on Twitter because they gave up on the common app #BeatESD St. Mark’s kids still do the Cupid Shuffle #BeatStMarks ESD kids aspire to be cartoonists #BeatESD St. Mark’s kids liked Meek Mill’s diss track more than Drake’s #BeatStMarks ESD has a flex zone #BeatESD

PAGE 27 FEBRUARY 5, 2016 REMARKER

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SPORTS

TEAM TRIPS

BREAKING THE BOUNDARIES DALLAS

WITH THE NUMBER OF TEAM TRIPS DECLINING RECENTLY, THE ATHLETIC DEPARTMENT IS LOOKING INTO THE POLICIES REGARDING THE REPRESENTATION OF THE SCHOOL OUTSIDE OF DALLAS.

17 HOUSTON

SAN ANTONIO

NEW ORLEANS

BRANCHING OUT Ready to tackle the challenges of international travel, the Athletic Department is currently looking into ways for teams to travel to other cities around the world.

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enior Parker Dixon takes two steps and drains a three-pointer against the Churchie School from Australia.

Arriving from Chicago and Los Angeles after almost a week of traveling, the Churchie varsity basketball team was on their biannual trip to the United States.

But after the game, exchanging conversations with the Churchie players, Dixon was reminded of the opportunity to travel to Australia this past summer.

But the trip never happened.

Owing to a lack of interest and participation by the team over the summer, the summer trip never became a reality.

Although these team-oriented, international trips could give the school’s players a look at a new culture and different ways to play their respective game, there are certain liabilities that have caused the school not to sponsor certain trips.

Whether these excursions are domestic, like the lacrosse team’s annual spring break trip, or an international trip, the athletic department has been cautious about creating these opportunities. The responsibility of certain athletes in some activities have caused the athletic department to assess what is deemed safe and unsafe.

Assistant Athletic Director Josh Friesen recognizes team bonding as one of the benefits that come out of these opportunities.

“I think the nicest thing about that is it gives teams an opportunity to bond and hang out with each other,” Friesen said.

“The closer you are to your teammates, the more accountable you’re going to be to them and the harder you’re going to fight to not let them down.”

However, Friesen doesn’t believe the benefits of team bonding overcome the risks involved.

“I’m not sure the benefits outweigh the risks involved,” Friesen said. “Only because when you’re out of state, you’re relying on a lot of other things. The risk of when you are traveling in large groups increases. To me, the exposure to liability and the risk involved with things happening out of state and staying increases in hotels versus staying at home.”

Dixon acknowledges these liabilities but would elect to go on these trips given the opportunity. Moreover, he thinks that these trips can have a positive effect on the camraderie on any team.

“There are certain implications and PARKER DIXON Would like the chance of travelling abroad

liabilities of representing St. Mark’s abroad,” Dixon said. “However, it’s also a great opportunity to be able to represent St. Mark’s abroad. On the few short trips that I have been on, I know I always have a lot of fun, and I learn a lot about the team’s mentality and ability to play and win in different environments.”

With many varsity teams like water polo, swimming and volleyball that used to travel to Utah, Colorado and Pepperdine University respectively, these liabilities have come into play in recent years.

The stop to these trips shows that there are certain dangers involved with travelling.

Although players like Dixon appreciate the opportunity to experience another aspect of the game, the representation of

St. Mark’s can be risky to some.

“There are benefits and if the trip goes well and if money is not a factor, I think it can be a positive experience for all those involved,” Friesen said. “Travelling internationally is generally very hard, so to say that a sports team can do that is very dicey. Just at that point in time, you only have so many chaperones and if a kid were to get sick or injured, how do you get that kid home?” Friesen said. thletic Director Mark Sullivan recognizes the lack of interest in international team trips owing to an evaluation by the school itself.

“Right now, the school is reevaluating its policies regarding international trips,” Sullivan said. “To date, we haven’t taken any international trips, but that does not mean we won’t. If somebody would have come to us five years ago and justified a trip, then there would have been no reason to not support that trip.”

Sullivan believes if these trips are able to happen in the future, there are great benefits that can be associated with these bonding opportunities.

Specifically, Sullivan hopes that these trips could provide a cultural experience

A

MARK SULLIVAN Sees benefits and risks with trips

for athletes at the school in the future.

“Personally, I think there are great benefits to these trips,” Sullivan said. “I think they are great experiences for our boys culturally. It gives us some more of a first hand experience of how other kids in another country play a similar sport.

It’s a tremendous experience to visit other cultures and taste their food and be a part of their community for a while.”

Like Friesen, Sullivan understands that parameters must be set in order to prevent any danger occurring on these trips. He proposes that the school and Athletic Department set a list of guidelines that every team should follow while going on these trips.

Sullivan hopes that organization remains a majar part of these team trips.

‘

NOT ENOUGH GUYS HAD THE NECESSARY FREE TIME OR WERE COMMITTED TO MAKING THE TRIP HAPPEN, AND THAT’S WHY IT DIDN’T PAN OUT.

PARKER DIXON

“Instead of going about it haphazardly with one person doing this thing and another something different, it’s important for the school to bring that all together and place guidelines for the trips,” Sullivan said. “In some regards, it might minimize these risks because the school will specify approved activities and banned activities for the group to do.”

Even after all these liabilities, Friesen still believes these trips will ultimately have a positive effect on athletes and the athletic programs at school if orchestrated correctly.

“Just the experience of getting to travel and getting to see another country: not everybody has the opportunity to go to another continent,” Friesen said. “It is an opportunity to see another country, to experience the world and a chance to appreciate other cultures and increase what we have back home.”

STORY RISH BASU ILLUSTRATION ABHI THUMMALA

Eighth grader Clark participates in worldwide Junior Orange Bowl tennis tournament

by Alec Dewar

D

own 2-6, 1-5, match point. Eighth grader Callaway Clark was one point away from losing in the first round of the biggest junior tennis tournament in the world, the Junior Orange Bowl in Miami.

Suddenly Clark started to find his game. A few match-saving shots later and he forced a deuce. He then started his comeback and after a few quick games, he took the second set.

Just like that, Clark was right back in it, tied at one set apiece. He then proceeded to dominate the third set, 6-2, which ended a grueling three-hour first-round match.

This success did not come easily to Clark, as he had to work hard just to get into the tournament.

The 54th Annual Junior Orange Bowl International Tennis Championships admits 1,500 of the best, male tennis players from a variety of countries. Over the past 54 years, famous tennis players such as Andy Murray,

Roger Federer and Caroline Wozniacki have participated in the Junior Orange Bowl Tennis Championships.

For the 2015 tournament taken place December 13-22, there were more than 76 countries represented in total.

Owing to ranking requirements, Clark was required to go through preliminary rounds in order to make the main tournament.

“Due to some injuries in the months before the tournament, I wasn’t able to get my ranking up as high as I needed to,” Clark said. “So I ended up having to go through qualifying, which required me to win four matches if I wanted to make the tournament. I ended up winning all four matches.”

The Junior Orange Bowl features the top 128 13-14 year old tennis players in the world, so Clark was able to mingle with people of all varieties. Clark was not only able to play against athletes from different continents, but also had a chance to play the best players from the United States.

“I beat kids from Russia, Japan, the Virgin Islands,

Kansas and Holland before eventually losing to a player from Great Britain,” Clark said.

Clark loves every part of tennis, especially the fact that tennis is an individual sport. In addition, he enjoys winning and pushing himself independently.

“What I love about tennis is that it’s all you out there,” Clark said. “There is no coach to help you get through it, you have to figure it out on you own. When you’re winning, it’s a great feeling because you know that it’s only you that is contributing to your success, and when you’re losing you have no one to blame but yourself. Some people don’t like that aspect of the game, but I embrace it.”

Tennis has taught Clark many valuable lessons that he can use later in life. He emphasizes that the individual aspect of the game will help him become a better person down the road.

“The sport teaches you a lot about being responsible and figuring things out on your own, which I know will be very important later on down the road,” Clark said.

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SPORTS

FEBRUARY 5, 2016 REMARKER

Behind the stripes REFEREES

Sitting down with one of the referees who has been a mainstay here and officiated Middle School and Upper School games for many years, Eddie Schnurr.

How does officiating at St. Marks compare to other schools?

As a referee you couldn’t ask for a better atmosphere. The main reason being that the coaches and the players are very respectful.

Coaches always get upset here or there about a call but its always because they are protecting their team so that’s understandable.

For the most part the fans are really nice too. They rarely get abusive. I can’t even remember the last time something disrespectful happened to me in a seventh or eighth grade game. But it’s a great atmosphere to work in at St. Mark’s.”

How do our athletes differ from other schools?

Couldn’t ask for a better demeanor from St. Mark’s students.

They are taught to be respectful and play hard, and one thing about St. Mark’s kids whether they actually have a great team or not is that they play hard and to the end of the game and never quit.

That’s one thing I have noticed over the years. I think that starts with the coaches, specifically Coach Guiler, and goes all the way down to the younger players. The players reflect the coaches.

What is the difference between the levels of play in Middle and Upper school?

I’ve mostly officiated the seventh and eighth grade games, but there is a big difference between Middle and Upper school games: the speed. The players are faster, they get up and down the court quicker and they are more physical.

In connection with the players, some kids you just remember.

You officiate them so much they become like your kids. When you watch over them from seventh

grade to ninth grade you get to know them, know how they play, and their attitude.

What is the most difficult part of being a referee?

The hardest part for me as far as being affiliated with St. Mark’s, is not being too attached to the school. Because you have to officiate the game fairly, which we do, but you know, we are human too, and you get so used to the kids and the coaches you become friends with them. But you want to be fair to the other kids because the opposing team is trying just as hard to win within the rules.

This is especially hard when it’s a close game because you want to watch the game going on in front of you but you have to focus on protecting the kids and making the right call. Having a non-biased approach and focusing on the game at hand are the hardest part of officiating.

How do you deal with things when the crowd disagrees with you?

A major part of officiating games is that I can only call what I see. I can’t guess on calls and when the fans have a different angle than I do and they see something I don’t, well I can’t guess based on their reaction. I have to see it myself. That’s one of the trickier parts of my job.

MAKING THE CALL A high school referee signals the start of the clock (below), jogs alongside to court to keep up with the game (center) and gets ready to inbound the ball (bottom) to a player awaiting a free throw.

There have been times where I blew a call and I have to look them in the eyes and say nope this is the call that I made and I’m sticking with it and even though I know myself I blew it, the coaches will look at me and say well, I guess he saw something we didn’t.

What is the most stressful situation a ref can be in?

When it’s a really tight game and it goes down to the buzzer or overtime, you want to leave the gym thinking you made all the right calls and that you did a really good job. You didn’t determine the outcome of the game and the players did. When you make a bone-headed call and the other team shoots two free throws to win the game, that’s your worst nightmare.

Have any games stuck out in your head throughout your career?

I remember one of the hardest things we had to do. We had to throw out the Cistercian coach.

Apparently that’s a big rival of yall’s. It was a really intense game and it got ugly. A very physical game. One of the only times we have ever had to throw out a coach. That’s how come this game sticks out because this rarely ever happens at St. Mark’s.

Do you ever second-guess yourself?

There’s always going to be times when you second guess yourself here or there. When it’s a fifty-fifty call I go with my gut but sometimes when I’m walking back to the table after a close call I’m thinking, ‘Ugh did I really just make the right call or not.’ But I have to stick to my first call and sell it. full-time referees per state

A NUMBERS GAME a quick look at the men and women who officiate high school games nationwide.

SOURCE: The National Bureau of Labor Statistics

1810 980

1070

TX

FL

1230

NY

Percentage of referees employed to officiate football and basketball vs. all other high school sports.

73.1%

CA

STORY CASE LOWRY, NICK MALVEZZI ILLUSTRATION CASE LOWRY PHOTOS ARNO GOETZ

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SPORTS

NON-CONFERENCE COMPETITION

OUT OF BOUNDS With the counter season starting in January, some athletic teams have been challenging themselves by scheduling non-conference games against larger, more competitive schools.

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en seconds left on the clock. Down by one. It’s head varsity basketball coach Greg Guiler’s first year coaching the basketball team at the school. They’re playing against a team from Oklahoma.

The Lions take it down the court.

Three seconds left. Two. A shot goes up from the threepoint line.

The buzzer blares.

Swish.

But this game didn’t matter for SPC seeding and it wasn’t in the SPC tournament.

It was a non-conference game.

Scheduling non-conference games provides teams with extra competition and added challenges. For Assistant Athletic Director Josh Friesen, teams needed to be tested before conference play begins.

“The goal of our schedule is to provide the best competition so that they can grow and improve the most they can, Friesen said. “We want our guys to be challenged. That helps them.”

Although Friesen likes the teams to be challenged, he is not a fan of them being thrown into the deep end against unrealistic opponents.

“It really comes down to being like-minded,” Friesen said. “We try to schedule schools that we know recruit good students who play good sports.”

According to Friesen, although some athletes may want to play in a game every day, there are limits to how much the school’s athletes can participate.

“Every sport and every team has certain game limits,” Friesen said. “We will play fewer games that maybe other schools would. We try to remind them [our players],

‘Hey guys take your books with you if you're going to be on the bus an hour there and an hour back.’ I think the guys, especially at the varsity level become accustomed to that.”

By giving the head coaches the flexibility to schedule their own games, Friesen believes that every team can and should have a challenging but manageable season.

“If a team is not as strong in a given year they might maybe schedule some smaller schools,” Friesen said. “Then if a team is really strong, then they might put them against some big public schools just to really push them. The goal is never to have undefeated seasons.”

JOSH FRIESEN Advocate of challenges offered

Just like Friesen, Guiler likes the preparation that the non-conference games provide leading up to counter season.

“You learn a lot about areas that need to be improved upon by playing games,” Guiler said. “You can practice and practice and practice, but I still think there is a degree to which there is an added pressure when you feel like it’s a game.”

Guiler enjoys testing his team against the biggest and the best, but likes to have a mixture of games in his schedule to judge his team against as well.

For Friesen, tournaments such as the Allen High School In-n-Out Invitational give our teams a sense of where they are compared to other schools in the state.

“The Allen Basketball tournament: playing all bigtime schools,” Friesen said. “It is good for us to be challenged right before we get into con-

ference play so that we kind of know who we are.”

“I like to have a handle of games that I feel like we are going to be major underdogs in where we are playing against some really top tier competition,” Guiler said. “And then I like to put a few games in there where I feel confident we are going to win as well, but I love playing larger public schools.

I think there is something fun about that.”

To Guiler, no team is off-limits. According to him, if they are local, reliable and a good fit, there is no reason not to put them on the schedule.

“We don’t need to do a lot of travel outside the metroplex to play great teams because there are so many good teams,” Guiler said. “That is probably the first criteria: are they local?

And secondarily, are they a program we can rely on? If it’s a program that I’m not sure that they might call me a week before and say, ‘So sorry, something else came up, we can’t play,’ that kind of stuff can’t be tolerated.” ikewise, head varsity swimming coach Mihai Oprea loves the fact that they don’t have to travel far to find good competition.

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MIHAI OPREA Big proponent of non-conference swim meets

“Southlake Carroll, which is the top team in the state of Texas, they enjoy swimming us because it is a rivalry and it's challenging for them and for us,” Oprea said. “We're swimming against the 6A state champions, and that kind of shows us that we're for real, what we can do against the top teams in the state.”

The swimming team faces

a different world than that of other sports, having an iron grip on the title of top SPC team for seven years.

“Right now we're in a phase that we're pretty dominant in SPC and that's why we look for different challenges,” Oprea said. “I do like the non-conference meets a little more because they're more challenging for us.” enior soccer player Alex Sanchez sees the non-counter season as a great opportunity to focus on certain facets of the team’s game game.

“Our main focus during these games is to improve our team rather than to win at all costs,” Sanchez said. “So I definitely think we as a unit prepare differently for the game because of the different goal we set for ourselves before each game.”

Despite the positives, Friesen and Guiler recognize that the school is forced to overcome the handicap of being a private school.

“I think some teams see it as a no-win,” Guiler said. “If they lose to a private school it's, ‘Oh, we got beat by someone we should have beaten.’ If they beat us, well its, ‘Well they were smaller, we were supposed to beat them.’”

For the most part, the two coaches see non-conference games as beneficial.

“If we have an undefeated season, I probably did a poor job scheduling,” Guiler said.

“We’ve got to get out and see things outside of the little ISAS/SPC bubble. I think the non-conference games are a fun way to do that.”

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IT IS ALL INDIVIDUAL PER SPORT PER PROGRAM AND EVEN PER TEAM IN SOME CASES.

AGAINST THE REST St. Mark’s vs. non-SPC schools

BASKETBALL VS. IRVING NIMITZ

47-40 W VS. BISHOP LYNCH

77-48 W VS. TRINITY CHRISTIAN

36-64 L VS. FORT WORTH NOLAN

52-70 L

SOCCER VS. BISHOP LYNCH

2-0 W VS. JOHN PAUL II

1-1 TIE VS. PRESTONWOOD

1-2 L VS. BISHOP DUNNE

1-1 TIE

JOSH FRIESEN

STORY NICK MALVEZZI, SAM SHANE ILLUSTRATION ABHI THUMMALA

Annual alumni basketball game named in honor of L.C. Chandler ‘10

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he first annual L.C. Chandler alumni basketball game was held Jan. 3 in commemoration of L.C. Chandler ‘10, who passed away last April.

The varsity basketball players won the contest in a total of five quarters played.

Head varsity basketball coach Greg Guiler believes this annual game will be a good opportunity to remember what Chandler did for the school.

“This was the first year where L.C.’s name is associated with it,” Guiler said. “He was a special guy and just he passed away at such a young age of such unexpected cause of death. No one saw it coming. It was hard.”

Chandler was a sports news reporter who went to Univeristy of Missouri for their sports journalism program, following in the footsteps of his idol, the late Stuart Scott.

For Guiler, it’s difficult to see someone like Chandler

lose his presence at the school.

“He played hard on the basketball court but lived life to the fullest,” Guiler said. “He was having a really successful career. It’s a shame he’s gone.”

While at the school, Chandler served as a varsity basketball player his junior and senior years.

But for Guiler, he changed the community in a positive way.

“L.C. was just one of those heart and soul kind of guys in every community he was in,” Guiler said. “He was a guy who bridged a lot of gaps socially on this campus. I thought he tore down some walls and I think he just unified the community in a lot of ways. I think we are still reaping the benefits of his impact on that front.”

Senior forward William Caldwell, who scored 19 points in the alumni game, believes that the new title appropriately commemorates Chandler.

“I didn’t know L.C. very well, but I am touched by

the stories about him,” Caldwell said.

Ultimately, Guiler is excited to honor a person like Chandler.

“He just loved life and had a spirit about him that people gravitated to and he was one of those first here, last to leave type of people,” Guiler said.

DREW BAXLEY PHOTO

by Sam Shane

GENERATIONAL FACE-OFF With a pick from senior Brannon Rouse, senior Matthew Placide attempts to bypass alumni defenders and put another two points on the board.

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PAGE 30 FEBRUARY 5, 2016 REMARKER

QUALITY OF SPC

PLAYING IN THE BIG LEAGUES

STANFORD

ALTHOUGH SPC SCHOOLS ARE NOTED PRIMARILY FOR THEIR ACADEMIC PROWESS, THE QUALITY OF THEIR ATHLETIC PROGRAMS CANNOT BE DENIED.

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mmanuel Acho ’08 stares down the Pilot Point offensive line and bites down hard into his rubber mouth guard on the first play of the St. Mark’s game against Pilot Point, the first out of conference game his senior year.

Questions circle around his team as the quarterback lifts his leg. His classmates wonder how much better this school would be than all of their SPC competition.

Acho would soon answer those questions.

The quarterback yells “Hut!” and Acho hurls himself at the line, exploding through the middle of the offense and slamming into the unsuspecting quarterback. The ball shoots out of the quarterback’s hand to be recovered by St. Mark’s.

“It was the first time I realized that the competition wasn’t vastly different than our [SPC] competition like it had been made out to be,” Acho, a now Philadelphia Eagles linebacker, said. “After that moment, we knew we could handle the bigger schools. We were always just as competitive.”

Decades of prior irrelevance have plagued the SPC and overshadowed victories like this. Many times athletes are overlooked because of their being in a conference comprised of small private schools. Small private schools that gave rise to the likes of Justise Winslow, the Acho brothers and Deandre Jordan that are only continuing to improve.

DUKE

TEXAS

NOT SO SOFT With many victories against out-ofconference teams in the past, alumni athletes remark on the quality of SPC contests and athletes.

Acho himself admits that being in the SPC had some negative effects on his recruiting, but believes that if it weren’t for the superior coaches and teachers he had and the strong work ethic that is instilled in SPC athletes, he probably would not have achieved what he has.

“It hurt me recruiting-wise because we’re thought of as an academic conference, not necessarily an athletic,” Acho said. “However, playing in the SPC did allow me to stand out and ultimately it was the coaches within my school that got me to where I am today.”

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PLAYING IN THE SPC ALLOWED ME TO STAND OUT, AND OUR SCHOOLS COACHING HELPED A LOT.

EMMANUEL ACHO

Athletic Director Mark Sullivan agrees that while that was true in the past, because of the SPC’s recent success with pro and collegiate athletes, it is no longer detrimental.

“Most people would have said it hurt them just a few years ago, ” Sullivan said. “Today, I think people are seeing the quality of coaching in the conference, as well as the type of athletes we have. If it’s not an advantage in recruiting, it at the very least doesn’t hurt a kid to play in this conference.”

SPC Commissioner Bob Windham believes that there is no negative effect as well, but for a different

reason.

“SPC athletes will not be a struggle to enroll due to academic issues and will be academically eligible throughout their entire career,” Windham said. “Many colleges want a solid academic student and an athlete.”

Windham points out that there is a trend among SPC Division I top recruits of playing at the pro level.

He believes this is not due to the SPC itself, but to the types of schools in the SPC. “You can attribute their success as individuals to the strong work ethic and perseverance that it takes to be academically successful at an SPC school,” Windham said. “The work ethic that our athletes have is developed through both athletics and academics.”

EMMANUEL ACHO Values SPC’s academic and athletic core

Sullivan shares a similar view when it comes to our community.

“Kids in the SPC are used to putting in the hard work it takes to be successful at anything they pursue,” Sullivan said. “It’s that work ethic that gets anyone to the next level, talent or not. Our kids just know how to work.”

Both Sullivan and Windham attribute the recent athletic success to schools from the SPC’s rigor-

ous academic courses. They also, however, both attribute it to our false image of an unathletic conference.

Windham in particular attributes the misconception to the false image of the “dumb jock” that implies that in order to be athletic, you must not be academically successful.

“There has always been the unsubstantiated perception that athletic and academic success do not exist in the same person,” Windham said.

“Also, many colleges with ‘super’ academic status have many times not stressed or been recognized for athletic successes.”

The current high school athletes in the SPC are out to prove that the upward trend of improvement will continue.

One of all of these new promising athletes is Marvin Wilson, a junior at Episcopal High School and the fifth recruit in the nation for his grade.

“I love Episcopal, the SPC and what it has become,” Wilson said. “I am proud of our conference’s recent success.”

Acho attributes the growth of the SPC and its student-athletes to the work ethic the conference encourages both on and off the playing fields.

“The SPC’s stress on academics allowed me to achieve a lot academically and athletically at UT,” Acho said. “It simply instills an unprecedented work ethic. The work ethic of a Marksman.”

STORY ALEC DEWAR ILLUSTRATION ABHI THUMMALA

Senior William Caldwell named finalist for Davey O’Brien Scholarship Award

by Rish Basu

Senior William Caldwell was one of the five finalists for the Davey O’Brien High School Scholarship Award. Every finalist receives $2,500 in scholarship money.

The winner of the award, Raymar Turangan from The Colony High School, received $30,000 in total scholarship money.

During his senior football season, Caldwell was struck with a broken fibula after only three games into his season.

For Caldwell, it means a lot to still be recognized as a standout athlete .

“It [the nomination] means a lot,” Caldwell said. “This award is also for leadership so it’s really special to be recognized for my leadership even though I wasn’t making a direct impact on the

field. It’s nice to know that I was still recognized as a leader on the team.”

Even though Caldwell was recognized for his play on the field, he attributes his success to his coaching at the school.

“I would say that my coaching has been very influential in my development as an athlete,” Caldwell said. “The coaches here are special, and I know that they have definitely put me in a good position to succeed. They’ve taught me not only valuable skills to use on the field or on the court, but also valuable skills about what it means to be a man, and that’s something that I’ll always take with me.”

Caldwell’s ability to display his leadership on and off the field is one of the many reasons he believes he is a

candidate for this award.

“Being a captain means a lot too, but I think it’s a lot more than just the title,” Caldwell said. “Being a leader of a sports team means helping people not only grow as athletes but also as people, and I would like to think that I’ve done a good job of that.”

For Caldwell, it was all about creating an impact on his teammates and coaches around him.

“It all goes back to trying to make a difference,” Caldwell said. “Whether it’s in practice or on the field during a game, just do whatever it takes to make your team better, and that in turn will make you better. Always be coachable and listen because the coaches here know way more about the respective games than you do.”

FINALIST Caldwell poses with his finalist plaque Jan. 19.

The foundation has given more than $900,000 in total scholarship money. The Davey O’Brien Foundation also gives rewards to the most impressive college quarterback. The winner of the scholarship will be honored in a black tie event Feb. 15 at the Fort Worth Club.

PAGE 31 FEBRUARY 5, 2015 REMARKER

PREVIEWS

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WITH SPC CHAMPIONSHIPS ON THE HORIZON, WINTER SPC TEAMS LOOK TO BRING HOME THE HARDWARE. THEY’VE GOT THEIR

prize

EYES ON THE

STRIKING A POSE Looking ahead towards SPC, athletes Kevin Kim (top left), Parker Dixon (above), John Gunnin (bottom left) and Scott Smythe (left) are poised for SPC Championhips next week in Houston.

Wrestling hopes for big performances

Basketball looks to take SPC

by Nick Malvezzi

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n experienced group of seniors will look to lead the basketball team to its first SPC crown since 2007.

An impressive 6-1 start (as of Jan. 30) including a 70-47 win over Greenhill sets the team up for success in the postseason after counter season, according to senior guard Parker Dixon “We’re feeling really good,” Dixon said. “We have a lot of confidence heading into the remainder of SPC play.”

For fellow senior guard Matthew Placide, the Greenhill win proved a lot for the team.

“The Greenhill game really assured our ability to beat quality

teams, so we’re feeling pretty good right now,” Placide said. “That being said, we can’t allow ourselves to be complacent, so the coaches have done an amazing job of stressing 100 percent effort even though we are off to such a good start.”

The team will look to a balance of lethal outside shooting and post play for success against the best teams in the conference from Houston.

“Altogether, these combine to make our offense flow really well,” Dixon said. “I think we’ve improved a lot and we’re ready to roll in counter season. We’re doing a lot of things right, and I think we have a great shot of doing really well in the SPC tournament.”

by Nick Malvezzi

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iding a good run of form, the wrestling team will look to repeat as the SPC champions next weekend in Houston.

Coming off a good result at the Grapevine Duals and a third place finish at Prep State Duals, the young and inexperienced team with only one senior will look to the returning stars for guidance.

“I think one of the biggest advantages for our team is that it is a young team,” captain Tucker Ribman said. “We are already competing with all of these schools that have a lot of juniors and seniors on this [year’s] team, but with only one senior this year it’s been difficult.”

However, Ribman is optimistic about the bright future ahead. With the lone senior being Mahir Karim, Ribman is

Swimming shoots for eight-peat

by Mike Mahowald ooking to win its eighth SPC championship in a row, the swimming team is hoping to feed off of the momentum it has carried throughout the year.

Led by sophomore Edward Ro and junior captain Andrew Lin, the team members know if they can beat big schools like Highland Park, they can win their eighth straight SPC championship.

Ro ultimately hopes the team can compete against the best.

“Since Highland Park is a 6A public school with some really talented swimmers, it felt really good and rewarding to know that we can go against big schools like them and win,” Ro said. “Plus, we had just finished a really hard push the week before, so it was nice to see our hard work pay off.”

Ro believes the team’s recent success has motivated the swimmers, but he understands that overconfidence can also be a problem. He knows the team has to stay humble if they are going beat a competitive SPC team like Cistercian.

“Heading into SPC,” Ro said, “I think it’s definitely important to stay focused, disciplined and humble. We’ve won a lot of SPC [Championships], but we can’t let past wins get to our head.”

Beyond having tremendous talent in the pool, Lin thinks there’s something different and unique about this year’s team. He believes senior leadership

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is at an all-time best.

In addition to the senior leadership, the large numbers on the team gives the squad an advantage to break personal records.

“This year, the outstanding senior leadership sets the pace for our team of 50,” Lin said. “Their commitment and care provides an outstanding example for the rest of our team. Seeing them lead our relays and break records gives everyone the strength to break their own personal records.”

Lin hopes these records, including Eric Li’s 100-meter freestyle record and the 4x100 free relay pool record, are only the beginning of more to come. In the meantime, however, he knows focusing and staying confident for SPC is what’s most important.

“Looking forward toward the tournament, we have to remain disciplined and passionate,” Lin said.

“Concentration and discipline in practice will keep us from disqualifying when it matters in SPC.” Ultimately, Ro believes it’s the little things that matter most. If they rally behind their senior leaders, he knows the team has the potential to come out on top.

“We need to maintain the habits that we’ve always been doing and not become over confident and start taking things for granted,” Ro said. “With all that in mind, I know we can get it done.”

EYES ON THE PRIZE PHOTOS BY DREW BAXLEY, MATEO DIAZ, RILEY SANDERS

hopeful for the future.

“It’s just making us better,” Ribman said. “We are going to have a couple of years after this to improve. That’s a big strength.”

The team will face a familiar foe as its main competition this winter, the same team they narrowly defeated to claim last year’s title.

“Our biggest competition will be St. John’s,” Ribman said. “We edged them out by 10 or 12 points [last year], but this year we lost a lot of our seniors so they will be a tough team to beat.”

One obstacle the team will have to overcome is not having a participant in the 285 weight class, which puts the pressure on the lighter classes to do well which will lead to greater chances for success.

DRIVE-BY Eighth-grader Matthew Raroque powers by an ESD defender on the way to the hoop on January 8 in Hicks Gym. The Lions went on to lose the game 43-33.

R R EMARKER

ST. MARK’S SCHOOL OF TEXAS

CHRIS MCELHANEY PHOTO

10600 PRESTON ROAD, DALLAS, TX. 75230

THE BACK SPORTS PAGE THE REMARKER FRIDAY FEBRUARY 5, 2016 PAGE 32

SHATTERING THE COMPETITION As varsity soccer prepares for the SPC championship tournament, the team hopes to score another title.

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he boys walked off­­the field with smiles covering their sweatdrenched faces. For the second time this season, the soccer team defeated rival Greenhill, another top contender for the North Zone number 1 seed. Team members have started off the counter season 2-0, (as of Jan. 18) with their other win coming against Fort Worth Country Day. After this impressive start, the team only has one thing in mind: winning the SPC championship, which starts Feb. 11 in Houston.

After losing the week before to Trinity Christian Academy, the team has found their comfort zone, as they are playing very effectively to start off this counter season. Although the team has recorded wins in mot of their first SPC games, this team, led by head coach Corindo Martin and senior captains Sam Eichenwald and Graham Gillespie, knows there is a lot of work left if they want to return to the top of SPC. “I’m concerned about defending as a team rather than as individuals,” Martin said. “And then the other thing is that I’m a little bit concerned that we were too soft, not willing to be physical enough. We’ve got to have players who are willing to do the dirty work. I want to be attractive and elegant in the way we play, but soccer is also a game where there is a physical component, and sometimes you just have to get your hands dirty. That is what this team needs to work on the most.”

Although the team was not able to win SPC last year, Martin believes this year’s group has the capability of bouncing back and winning it all.

“I think we have several seniors who are having their best season in the program, which is exactly what you want,” Martin said. “They are really setting the standard high, and I’m really encouraged by their attitude and by their play.”

One of the things Eichenwald enjoys about the team is the amount of fun the players are having, while still being able to compete intensely.

“There’s always a feeling of positivity amongst the team, even if we’re down a goal or two,” Eichenwald said. “Generally, we play to have fun, and when we’re having fun we play our best. So, in the end, we always will keep our heads up and keep fighting, no matter if the score is 2-0 or 0-2.”

Eichenwald can speak for the entire team when he says that this SPC tournament is an allor-nothing event. This group expects a championship, and its members will not be satisfied until they win it.

“As a two-sport senior, this SPC tournament will be the last time I ever play a varsity sport for St. Mark’s,” Eichenwald said. “I’ve had the privilege of learning from some of the best coaches and playing with the hardest-working teammates. Now, I want to do my best to try and help my team to another SPC championship and end my St. Mark’s career on a high note.”

4 5

Four goals scored by left winger Arjun Singh (right) in five counter games against FWCD, Casady, Holland Hall, Greenhill and Oakridge

Besides Singh, other soccer team members include (from top) Scott Smythe, Corday Cruz, Hyer Thomas and Graham Gillespie.

STORY SAM SUSSMAN PHOTOILLUSTRATION DREW BAXLEY, ABHI THUMMALA

FOCUS The ReMarker Magazine

dallas allas is livelier than ever: the greens of Klyde Warren Park, the foods of Deep Ellum and the crowds of American Airlines Center.

But these places, these important contributors to what make Dallas, well, Dallas — they’re all recent developments.

If we go back just 20 years, so many of the destinations we point to as the city’s most identifiable places didn’t have the same feel they have today, and some of them didn’t exist. And those spots are the places attracting newcomers and keeping the locals.

But it wasn’t always like this. Sure, Dallas isn’t the small settlement near the Trinity River anymore. And it’s not just the oil-tycoon, big-business city some people think it is.

Today, it’s a city where you can walk from church to a park in downtown. You can see some of the best operas, plays and performances in the world.

And that’s just the start.

The people of Dallas, Perot, Rawlings, Miller, to name a few, have invested more than

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just time and money into this city. They’ve invested care.

On a local scale, countless alumni have moved back to Dallas. But this isn’t a recent trend, it’s almost a predictable migration.

They come back because they want to be a part of the city that is emerging as one of the nation’s leaders. They want to experience the destinations we have today. They want their kids to have the same education they had.

Most of those people, those who make changes and return to Dallas, know more about the city than anyone else.

And no matter where many Dallasites go, they take parts of Dallas with them, like memories of the greens of Kylde Warren.

By the end of this trip, you’ll know more about where you come from. You’ll meet the faces making the changes, and you’ll find out what these developments do for Dallas.

And as these people lay down the groundwork for a new Dallas, you’ll learn there’s still more work to be done.

Editors Bradford Beck Davis Marsh

Writers André Arsenault Davis Bailey Cameron Clark Will Clark Rett Daugbjerg Blake Daugherty Noah Koecher Case Lowry Nick Malvezzi Zach Naidu Avery Powell Gopal Raman Kobe Roseman Philip Smart Illustrators Will Clark Abhi Thummala Photographers Will Clark Arno Goetz Graham Kirstein Charlie O’Brien Tim O’Meara Philip Smart Frank Thomas Corbin Walp Assistants Will Forbes James Hancock Austin Montgomery Jimmy Rodriguez Mohit Singhal

DESIGN DISTRICT

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MAP THROUGH TOWN THE DEVELOPERS: BUILDING THE FUTURE PAGES 4-9

Let’s start at the heart — downtown. Names like Decherd, Warren and Perot all tell us where Dallas used to be, how Dallas got to where it is and where Dallas is going.

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THE NEIGHBORHOODS: LIFE OF THE CITY PAGES 10-14

In neighborhoods like Deep Ellum, west Dallas and east Dallas, we talk to Marksmen whose innovative ideas developed those areas.

American Airlines

VICTORY PARK

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DEEP ELLUM

THE CITY: KNOW YOUR TURF PAGES 14-19

The unique flavors and issues of Dallas — food, arts, sports and education.

THE SCHOOL: HOME PAGES 20-23

FARMER’S MARKET CIVIC CENTER THE CEDARS

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It all comes back to one place — school. We’ll talk to the alumni who decided to return to this city after college and the families who continually send boys to the school.

THE FUTURE: THE DALLAS OF TOMORROW PAGES 24-27

Taking a look into the future, Mayor Mike Rawlings, along with others like former mayor Laura Miller, explains the trajectory of Dallas and how its demographics are changing. We’ll find out about the areas north and south of downtown because those are just as much Dallas as anywhere else.

FOCUS FEBRUARY 5, 2016 PAGE 3

building the future

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nd ever since former mayor R.L. Thornton called Dallas the “can-do” city, Dallas has always been driven by innovators and opportunists.

Today, Dallas is a bit different from the “can-do” city Thornton knew.

Now it’s the have done, can do, will do city.

And these are some of the people that made Dallas that way.

STORY BRADFORD BECK WILL CLARK JAMES HANCOCK CASE LOWRY DAVIS MARSH AVERY POWELL PHILIP SMART PHOTOS ARNO GOETZ TIM OMEARA PHILIP SMART FRANK THOMAS PAGE 4 FEBRUARY 5, 2016 FOCUS

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THE PARK BUILDER

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oston had it, and we didn’t.

As a young college student at Harvard, Robert Decherd ’61 looks out across Boston. He sees the Boston Garden, the parkways along the harbor and the open spaces in the heart of the city.

But when he came back to Dallas after college, Decherd saw pretty buildings, he saw bright lights.

Something was missing, though.

Parks.

Today, he’ll tell you that parks are the most valuable developments in downtown. And that “great cities do have great parks.”

So, as former CEO and current chairman of the Belo Foundation, Decherd wants to make a difference by building parks and plazas in downtown Dallas — the first step in bringing downtown its own bit of green.

Last October, the foundation pledged $30 million dollars to build more parks in downtown Dallas — Decherd is making sure of that difference.

With two new parks, Carpenter Park and Harwood Park, along with two new plazas, Pacific Plaza and West End Plaza, the proposed plan, which the city will vote on to match the money dollar-for-dollar in a bond issue in 2017, hopes to get people walking through downtown again, something Klyde Warren Park, the Belo Garden and Main Street Garden have sparked in the past decade.

“We used to say in trying to make

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a point in 2001 or in 2002 that one of the problems with downtown Dallas is that you cannot walk from one side of downtown to the other and have a good experience,” Decherd said. “Well that’s changed. It’s changed because of the parks, it’s changed because of the city’s investment in other infrastructure and it’s mostly changed because of the capital that those investments have attracted.”

But it’s more than just getting people to walk through downtown Dallas.

Decherd cites Klyde Warren Park as an example of how parks do more than just add people and green — they add business.

They add business in the form of tax revenues. The areas around Klyde Warren have generated revenue streams — food trucks around the park, living spaces like Museum Tower and a Savor, a restaurant in the middle of the deck-park, all have increased revenue. Main Street Garden has seen success in attracting tenants to the surrounding areas, like University of North Texas’s system headquarters.

And the Belo Garden, a park right by the famous 72-story Bank of America Plaza, adds to the perception that Dallas is a vibrant city, attracting capital.

“The people who have done that park Kylde Warren deserve tremendous credit,” Decherd said. “It was one of the most successful projects in urban parks in the United States of the last decade at least.”

For the city, the perception parks give is important for businesses who are looking to relocate to Dallas.

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“What’s happening on the northern sphere of Dallas right now is astonishing,” Decherd said. “How fast can these companies get out of California or wherever else to move here because this ecosystem is working and it translates into a civic identity that is easily understood by people making those decisions.” lthough the architecture in downtown gave Dallas one of the most recognizable skylines in the country, these buildings didn’t keep people in the city with only 1,200 people living in downtown in 2000. Now, more than 7,000 people live downtown, and it’s much more than just pretty buildings.

“Downtown Dallas has been one of the great skylines in the United States for decades. But you couldn’t find a human being in [downtown] Dallas 15 years ago.”

Decherd says back then there was no reason to be in downtown. People would drive to work, and then they would leave — they lived and ate outside of downtown.

But things have changed.

“Look at it today — this Festivus Light Festival in the Arts District — it was so crowded this year they were talking about either extending it to two days or cutting down on the number of exhibitions,” Decherd said. “It was almost overcrowded.

Klyde Warren Park? Their census count is thousands of people a day. Main Street Garden is so heavily programmed that they’re replacing the sod two or three times a year.”

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In his office in Bank of America Plaza, Robert Decherd overlooks the Belo Garden in the background. The Belo Garden (bottom right) and Main Street Garden (top right) are some of the parks the Belo Foundation helped create.

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PARKS

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Parks play key role in city's growth Continued from previous page nd more than just the capital and people these parks attract, they also create events and experiences, public events like yoga and shows.

“A lot of those events [in parks and downtown] again bind people together,” Decherd said. “Not to reverse the logic but in the absence of those parks, what’s the reason to be downtown? All these things are symbiotic, and it’s well demonstrated that you create great public spaces, it attracts the capital I talked about, but also the experiences. It’s creates the experiences that are now being well documented in and around downtown, not unlike almost every major American city.”

But unlike in places like New York, a city known for yeas with impressive green-space in the heart of pretty buildings, Dallas had nothing in it’s original plans for large scale parks near its commercial center. To overcome that challenge, Decherd says the Belo Foundation must provide “aggressive” financial support for parks in downtown. The Foundation is contributing nearly all of its assets.

The recent developments in parks, specifically how quickly they have been completed, have been surprising to Decherd and others involved in the downtown development.

“If you had taken any of the people knowledgeable about the center city in Dallas say in 2005 and ask them to tell you the year by which this amount of investment would have occurred and this amount of activity being achieved, you would have been at 2025 easily,” Decherd said.

This success in the development and perception of parks is a recent

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trend. But as a firm believer in cyclical history, Decherd says the city will eventually face a bump in the road.

“When certain things happen in an urban environment and investment builds on investment, things can accelerate,” Decherd said. “That’s what we’re experiencing. A very real acceleration of this investment as development. There’ll be some sort of hiccup, but until that occurs, this going to go on in a very powerful and positive way.”

This acceleration has transformed the city into more than just pretty buildings. Even if it wasn’t originally the most naturally attractive region, Dallas’s attitude is a driving force in making the city a destination point.

“I suppose great cities are defined by their collective conviction that there’s a reason to be great and a willingness to act on that conviction,” Decherd said. “Even though we aren’t in originally the most beautiful plains in North America and there’s no coast and no mountains, that conviction about being great has played out in a lot of ways.”

And until the “hiccup” comes, the positive is here to stay for Decherd and the city — maybe because of that “cando” attitude.

“This idea that we can accomplish things through attracting capital, hard work, good-values, civic spirit that extends to all of our citizens,” Decherd said. “Knowing that it in an imperfect world, it is an incredibly powerful thing and that has defined the city in a lot of ways. All along, way before the 1960’s, I think we will sustain this for a very long time. People talk about wanting to live in and around Dallas.

Well, there’s a reason.” PHOTOS OF

Photos of Main Street Garden (center) and Klyde Warren Park (left and right).

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THE PROPOSED PARKS A look into the four parks Decherd hopes to add to downtown Dallas CARPENTER PARK

This 8.7 acre park at the corner of Pearl Street and Pacific Avenue will have food trucks and basketball courts under the highway.

PACIFIC PLAZA

At the corner of St. Paul Street and Pacific Avenue, this 3.5 acre plaza connact to the One Dallas Centre, along with underground parking for 840 cars.

WEST END PLAZA

For day to day use as an outdoor cafe, this plaza will hold events at Corbin and North Record Street.

HARWOOD PARK

With views of downtown Dallas, this park on Young Street will help the growing residential population in the Farmer’s Market District.

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A statue of Benjamin Franklin (left) gazes across the campus, the bronze image of Trammell Crow Sr. (center) looks ahead and Harlan Crow sits in his Old Parkland office (right).

Old Parkland adds history to downtown Building a Jeffersonian campus right next to the tollway, what used to be the ‘Old Parkland’ hospital is now an office complex. Covered in history, statues of American icons cover the campus.

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he bronze seal of the United States in the center of the gate slides slowly and smoothly out of focus to reveal a complex of office buildings unlike anywhere in Dallas.

But to call Old Parkland a complex of office buildings is to call Monticello a house.

Lush, green grass blankets the grounds and Jeffersonian architecture dominates the view with massive pillars and a magnificent dome that crowns the campus and pulls the eyes of any passengers riding by on the tollway.

Striking, magnificent sculptures of the fathers of our country are planted on every porch and pathway.

But to the side of the original Parkland hospital building in a small, secluded sanctuary, a dynamic statue of Trammell Crow Sr. is surrounded by ivy-covered walls that seem to ensure a private conference with him.

And like the visage of his father hidden in the foliage, Harlan Crow stands as the man behind this aesthetic achievement that changes the way people see Dallas, a city he’s witnessed and influenced the development of his whole life.

“There’s always going to be seminal events in the life of a city, but I think what comes to my mind as far as big changes to the city is the development of the center city, the downtown area,” Crow said.

For Harlan Crow, chairman and CEO of Crow Holdings and father of Rob ‘17, the biggest transformation has not come in the rapid expansion of Dallas spilling out and creating suburbs, but rather right in the heart of the city — downtown.

Old Parkland sits regally at the

corner of Maple and Oak Lawn avenues and its massive bronze dome and red brick walls are impossible to miss when driving by on the Tollway.

“For a guy like me who has lived here since I was born and certainly since I was your age, I used to think that I lived in an office par,. Well I lived in a residential area, went to a nice school, but downtown was just an office park.

Now it’s a city. That’s a big difference.”

While the landscape of Texas does EVEN THOUGH WE DON’T HAVE THE GOLDEN GATE BRIDGE OR THE BOSTON HARBOR, WE HAVE A HUMAN CONDITION HERE THAT I’LL PUT UP AGAINST ANYBODY.

— HARLAN CROW

not lend itself to an immediate natural beauty, Dallas has stood out from the pack of big cities nationwide because of its people, Crow says.

“I really don’t think that Dallas has natural beauty,” Crow said. “I mean, Colorado, San Francisco, you pick, Dallas doesn’t naturally have what they do. What makes Dallas different is our people.”

Being the ninth largest city in America with a population of around 1.24 million and a growth of 6.9 percent in the last four years, something else besides a hot Texas climate is attracting these people, and Crow thinks it’s due to the ones that are already here.

“I think what they brought was an incredibly positive outlook and kindness.” Crow said. “Just nice, kind people that are able and think work is a good thing.”

Old Parkland is full of beautiful buildings and state-of-the art facilities, but above all of it was meant to be a working community of people that

bond beyond just a nine to five day’s work.

“The built environment is nice,” Crow said. “But if we don’t put it to use for good purpose, it’s all just a bunch of bricks. By holding events and bringing people together, we are able to stimulate the conversation over and above what people do in their day to day work.”

The land was originally occupied

by Parkland hospital where it withstood a major fire that ignited a switch to brick walls, which were incorporated into the current design of the office buildings.

“The original building, which was built in 1894,” Crow said. “Was burned down in 1913 to build this brick building in which we are sitting. The architecture of the building was already there when we bought the hospital, so we decided to keep the architecture in the old style.” hile the architecture may be in old, traditional Jeffersonian style, the building is not even fully completed and is still undergoing the finishing touches, and, according to Crow, so is the city surrounding it.

“If you go to Boston or you go to San Francisco, you go to cities that were founded a long, long time ago and have been built up over a long period of time,” Crow said. “Dallas not so much. This city is building kind of fast, and for those of us that are here are not only able to witness it but to shape it, it’s kind of fun to think of comparing Dallas to Boston because the people that were involved in shaping Boston were doing it for 250 years and we’re doing it in 50 years.”

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FOCUS FEBRUARY 5, 2016 PAGE 7

MORE THAN A MUSEUM Ross Perot Jr. ’77 has developments all over the Dallas Metroplex, transforming the city and surrounding areas economically and culturally.

THE RISK TAKER

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oss Perot Jr. ’77 sees Dallas from 1,000 feet above the ground.

High above the city in a Hillwood Development helicopter, he points out his company’s various developments.

Alliance Airport, a massive airport that fuels growth in North Texas. The Perot Museum, an innovative new museum in downtown. Victory Park, one of the biggest entertainment venues in the city.

His office is covered in maps with sweeping views of the region that illustrate where he’s made his mark and where he plans to act next. From that height, he sees beyond buildings being constructed and toward the progress of the city.

“I was born here, and you always want to take great care of your community because this is a city I love, and you certainly want to make it better every day,” Perot said. “We want to make our city better, make our community better, but we try to do that in lots of cities and countries around the world.”

All developers must take risks when developing a property, but these risks seem small when it comes to making one’s home better, the reason behind many of Perot’s developments.

“We will do things here in Dallas that we wouldn’t do in other cities,” Perot said.

“We wouldn’t take the risk of Victory Park in another city. Dallas needed a developer to clean this up, and not many people had the ability to clean it up or the staying power to clean this up. But we did, and we did it.”

The Victory Park project provided Perot with a way to turn a wasteland into a vibrant part of the city, a project that received the Phoenix award from the Environmental Protection Agency, an award that recognizes exemplary redevelopment and revitalization.

“Most of our peers are afraid of these issues just because they haven’t done it before, but now we have our credibility,”

Perot said. “We know how to work with the EPA, and we go cleanup these environmental projects around the nation, and it’s become a great business for us because again not many people have the time and patience or experience to go climb that mountain.”

Perot’s success in Dallas has been the growth rates that fuel the area and the result of his willingness to take risks. His Alliance Airport development in north Fort Worth is both a product of that growth and a contributor to it, and yet very few people know of its impact on the metroplex.

“That area in north Fort Worth is one of the, if not the fastest growing region now in the United States,” Perot said. “So when you have those kinds of growth rates and that amount of people moving in, whatever you’re developing is going to work if you’re semi in the fairway to make it work.”

While Perot’s projects usually have an economic effect, they also sometimes have a cultural effect as well. Victory Park changed downtown Dallas into a vibrant tourist attraction with the American Airlines Center (AAC), the downtown sports arena for the Dallas Mavericks, the Dallas Stars and the host of many other events.

The Victory Park area is surrounded by restaurants and other modern buildings, completing its transformation from a wasteland to a center of culture.

“If you own an arena, you’ve got basketball, hockey, concerts, family shows,” Perot said. “An arena can be used every night of the year. So it’s a great energizer, And so, to have the arena in the Uptown area, brings millions of people a year into this area. The reason people come downtown, is because of the American Airlines Center, and hockey and basketball. It brought the people, it brought the energy, and it brought the image.”

The AAC made an economic impact in both the private and the public sector, something Perot attributes to the success of

Victory Park was a $3 billion project.

It turned what used to be a wasteland near downtown into the vibrant center of culture it is today.

the Uptown area.

“The impact of Dallas has been huge,” Perot said. “You’ve bought another 45 acres that was dead onto the tax rolls and now we’ve put millions of dollars of development onto it, tens of millions of dollars in taxes and it’s allowed this Uptown area to really boom.”

Perot believes the American Airlines Center attracts many people to visit the city. But he suggests the main draws to becoming a Dallasite are the city’s culture and its people.

“You look at all of the people moving in, you know, they’re all greeted, they’re welcomed, its an easy community to assimilate into, and that’s the great magnet of Dallas-Fort Worth,” Perot said. “It’s a very positive, pro business, open-minded, optimistic culture.”

The success of the American Airlines development allowed for other pieces of projects to be pursued, such as The Perot T

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Perot showing photos in his downtown office.

The front of the Perot Museum.

Museum of Nature and Science, “We didn’t envision the Perot Museum,” Perot said. “When we started doing all of this, we had no idea we’d have a museum here. And so, it was really one deal after another, it wasn’t a big vision. You’ve got to have a great foundation, you’ve got to be creative and flexible, and then you’ve got to let the market come to you and let the deals come to you.” erot believes that the museum will continue to be an important aspect of the downtown area, and hopefully inspire some to go into math and science fields.

“I think the museum will continue to grow, and normally with a science museum, you don’t stop at phase one,” Perot said. “There will be a phase two, a phase three. It’s been very popular, very successful, and you’ll see that museum continue to grow. One thing about a museum, you want to impact young people and hope-

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fully they will turn to engineering and science.”

Most of the land in Dallas has already been bought and developed, so future developments will require destruction of already existing buildings.

“The key to downtown uptown today is you go back into old land and redevelop,” Perot said. “Tear down old buildings, put up new buildings. Tear down old houses, put up new houses. And you see developers now doing that. You’ll see one of these 1950s’ buildings getting torn down and new buildings getting put up. That’s the next play.”

As long as properties in Dallas remain profitable, Dallas’s growth will continue for many years.

“You have to have great impact on the community,” Perot said. “You have to have great product. And it has to be profitable.

If it’s not profitable, then everything stops.

You don’t get the investors, you don’t

get the bank debt, and so you’ve got to have everything together to make it work.

That’s the art of being a developer. You have to have the quality, the design and the profitability wrapped into one package. And it’s not easy to do.”

Because of the economic success of the city, the open-minded people and the possibilities for the future, Perot believes Dallas is the best place to raise one’s family for the foreseeable future.

“Go off and have great adventures, learn the world, take advantage of all your opportunities,” Perot said. “But at the end of the day, come home and raise your families here because this is a very special place that gives you great opportunity. Our growth rates are not going to slow down.

This region will continue to grow, and the region needs leaders. At St. Mark’s we produce leaders, you guys are going to be needed. You’ll be needed and you’ll make a great mark.”

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FOCUS FEBRUARY 5, 2016 PAGE 9

the life of

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the city N

PHOTO COURTESY JEREMY BIGGERS

eighborhoods of Deep Ellum, Lower Greenville, Knox-Henderson and West Dallas are home to the unique arts and music scene of the city.

“The square concept originally just came out of me gridding stuff up to get that extra bit of accuracy, and I just slowly but surely incorporated them into the artwork.” —mural artist Steve Hunter

“Growing up half black and half white, I always felt like I was two people at once. I wanted to figure out how to paint something that would incorporate that feeling.” —mural artist Jeremy Biggers

STORY ANDRE ARSENAULT WILL CLARK GOPAL RAMAN KOBE ROSEMAN PHOTOS WILL CLARK ARNO GOETZ CHARLIE OBRIEN PHILIP SMART

PAGE 10 FEBRUARY 5, 2016 FOCUS

“A lot of people know the folklore tale of the devil and Robert Johnson and their meeting at the crossroads. He supposedly sold his soul to the devil in exchange for talent. But people may not know the exact bluesman behind it.” —mural artist Daniel Drensky

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THE URBAN SOCIAL SCIENTIST

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“The idea behind this mural is the story of Pecan Lodge’s owners.

They built this small, walk-up barbecue stand and now they have this number one destination in Deep Ellum.”

—mural artist Lesli Marshal

“The mural I created is a map of Deep Ellum. It is the city blocks of Deep Ellum semi-abstracted. If you’re standing across the street and someone is walking by, they unintentionally become part of the mural. ” —mural artist Sarah Reyes

n the outside, Deep Ellum Postal & Grocer brandishes a sleek logo, big windows and freshly painted walls.

But on the inside, it’s a mad scientist’s lair.

The leather is peeling on the stools, a long board is propped up against the wall and behind the counter there are mountains of boxes.

Sitting alone in the middle of the apparent chaos, wearing a man bun and an eager smile, is Brandon Castillo ’00, the self-titled “urban social scientist” behind Deep Ellum’s first post office and grocery store. It’s just one of Castillo’s many developments in Deep Ellum that try to make urban Dallas a more walkable, pedestrian-friendly space.

“What a lot of people have told me is their grandma’s town in East Texas was the last time they’d seen a post office and a grocery store,” Castillo said. “I feel that neighborhoods in an urbanizing Dallas need to function like small towns.”

After getting his start in the area with the founding of the Deep Ellum outdoor market, Castillo has continued his series of unique developments in the community.

But after leaving Dallas in 2000 for college, Castillo thought he would never come back. He traveled to Spain and Germany, and in traveling he actually ended up instilling a pride in where he’s from. When he finally returned to Dallas after a decade, he realized that a lot of what he loved in those faraway places was poking its head out in Dallas too -- in Deep Ellum’s architecture, streets, infrastructure and murals.

The only difference was no one was walking around.

“If you took a scalpel,” Castillo said,” and you took out Deep Ellum and you put it in San Francisco or Chicago, everyone would want to be here.

You would have people on the streets all the time.”

Castillo studied these places and brought back ideas to make Dallas a

more walkable city, creating destinations within a neighborhood. Small businesses rely on those destinations and in turn rely on each other.

“It’s working,” he said with a grin.

“Especially trying to engender this more walkable environment. But is it profitable? I’m not driving a Benz, you know?”

Castillo’s plan is working, but its success lies in its subtlety. It’s not just about bringing in successful businesses.

For example, bringing in a Starbucks would be profitable, but it would kill the local coffee shop, and with it, the vibe of the neighborhood.

Brandon Castillo in front of Deep Ellum P&G.

“How you make your investors happy and how you make your community happy are often times at odds,” Castillo said.

But Castillo continues to conduct his experiments, practicing what he calls “gentile-fication,” or focusing on the entrepreneur and building wealth within a neighborhood.

“The city has always embraced the entrepreneur, the risk taker, and on top of that there’s a lot of capital in the city,” Castillo said. “Mixing those two together makes innovation that much more possible.”

The key, according to Castillo, is for people to want to improve their environment, and once the community invests in a place, the seeds of innovation and expansion are already sewn.

“This is a huge city,” Castillo said.

“There’s so many creative people, there’s so many great things going on.

It is just ripe for those connections to be made and new things to happen.”

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In West Dallas, Brent Jackson stands in front of the sign of the Alamo Hotel, one of his signature developments.

REMEMBER THE ALAMO

He saw what other developers didn’t see: an area of Dallas ripe for opportunity and growth.

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THE CREATIVE DEVELOPER

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f he’s not busy developing real estate and looking for new projects, Brent Jackson ’93 can be found in his home pursuing his true passion of painting and sculpting.

As a developer in West Dallas, Jackson is able to combine his artistic skills with the real estate development industry.

Armed with an undergraduate degree in oil painting and sculpting with a side focus in economics, Jackson wanted to expand his education before emerging into the business world.

“I had to go back and get my master’s degree in business at UT Austin,” Jackson said, “and try to find a facet of the industry that allowed me to marry the different sides of the brain: creativity, passion, and financial modeling.”

Contrary to many developers, Jackson looked south of the Trinity River to exploit the underutilized West Dallas area.

“Other developers just weren’t eyeing it,” Jackson said. “They were more focused with other parts of town probably because

of certain bias. We didn’t have this bias, and we were able to capitalize on this opportunity consequently.”

Ultimately, Jackson chose West Dallas for it’s prime location as a cultural center and regional center.

“We’re surrounded by arts, recreation, parks, sports, transportation…” Jackson said. “This site [Sylvan Thirty location], with its adjacency to Interstate 30, really gives us a regional component where we can really be anywhere within the city in a pretty short order. And back to the urban core component, being so close to downtown, some of the world’s major headquarters are located in downtown Dallas.”

In addition to certain business advantages, Jackson says West Dallas is unique because of it’s deep sense of community.

“I would go back to the people,” Jackson said. “I’ve become dear friends with several of the community leaders here in the area. The genuine care of how we’re doing, and hopefully reciprocated, is probably the most exciting reward of this community.”

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FROM HENDERSON TO GREENVILLE Having leased their land to tenants in the Henderson area, brothers Marc Andres ’78 and Roger Andres ’77 now look to revive Greenville Avenue to its former glory.

THE BROTHERS

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hen brothers Marc Andres ’78 and Roger Andres ’77 first looked down Henderson Ave. in East Dallas, they saw more than just rows of stale duplexes.

They saw potential.

They had a clear vision: a lively neighborhood with a unique combination of trendy stores and living spaces for everyone from college-aged students to retired senior-citizens.

Today, their vision has become reality.

Near the southeast corner of Henderson and McMillan Ave., you’ll see the interlocking wooden design of Houndstooth Coffee right across from the white brick columns of CorePower Yoga.

And if you walk north along Henderson, you’ll see a massive No. 2 pencil jutting out of the roof of Warby Parker’s classroom-themed eyeglasses store.

Just beyond that, rows and rows of houses and yards dominate both sides of the road.

But then, Henderson Tap House with its bold, brick logo and Sushi Axiom with its sleek, modern look breaks the pattern.

Less than a mile away sits a plain looking building coated with two stories of tan brick. Inside that building, on the second floor, you’ll find the company behind all the variety that Henderson Ave.

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contains: Andres Properties.

After formulating their vision, Andres Properties started lining up their potential stores and retailers.

“We knew we didn’t want the national credit tenants,” Marc said. “Once you take those out of the mix, then you have to identify who you do want. Some say, ‘It shouldn’t matter who you put in there because they are going to either pay rent or if they fail, someone else pays you rent.’

But for us, we get really involved with the tenants. We feel like it is all part of the family.”

According to Marc, this insistence on a close owner-tenant relationship is something their father, Dave Andres, taught them at a young age.

“The typical real estate investor looks at the numbers and how they can achieve dollars and profits,” Marc said. “From our dad's perspective it’s, ‘How do you make yourself successful while making the tenant successful?’”

And the success has come. The new Henderson Avenue is one that offers Dallasites more than just a home or a neighborhood; it offers them a life.

“The neat thing about the area is that you really could graduate college, live in an apartment with some friends in the area, move from that to a duplex with less friends, then go to a single family house also in the area, and you could buy a house, and a bigger house and start having kids,” Marc said. “Really all of that is in this neighborhood, which is pretty unique.

Not many neighborhoods have that.”

After recently selling the majority of their holdings in the Henderson area, the brothers now hope to implement the same vision of a one-of-kind neighborhood in their new holdings in the Lowest Greenville area.

After recognizing the declining interest in Lowest Greenville, Marc and Roger now seek to revive the area to its once booming aura.

“We wanted people to remember Lowest Greenville was a great place to be, but it's not what you remember it as most recently,” Marc said. “This is the new and improved. We really have been doing what we were on Henderson.” y stressing the importance of supporting small, new businesses, the Andres brothers have enabled many of their tenants to expand. There are more than a dozen of these first businesses like Steel City Pops, Crisp Salad and Fireside Pies.

“We had a beauty bar concept, we have Barcadia,” Roger said, “we've had people that have opened on Henderson or Greenville that have opened in Fort Worth.

We have a lot of first tenants that put people in business and have gone on to do more than one location.”

Although the brothers’ philosophy of promoting unique and dynamic neighborhoods directly applies to Henderson and Lowest Greenville, it also applies to Dallas as a whole.

Marc believes newly developed areas like Henderson, Greenville, Uptown and Deep Ellum are essential to people’s interest in the city. Having a large influence on two of these areas, he often puts himself in the shoes of those who will live there.

“I do think it is important for our city to have great neighborhoods,” Marc said.

“I think they make things interesting and exciting for young people who want to be there. Dallas historically has not really had cool areas to be in, so I see it through the eyes of guys who are seniors in college.

Where would they want to live?”

One of the popular restaurants on Greenville.

Roger Andres ’77 and Marc Andres ’78 point out their recent developments in the Lowest Greenville area, east of Henderson Avenue.

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Henderson Tap House, a restaurant unique to the Henderson area, is a popular destination for younger Dallasites.

FOCUS FEBRUARY 5, 2016 PAGE 13

know your turf T

aking a look at food, arts, sports and education throughout Dallas, you’ll meet the people driving those areas of the invigorated city.

STORY CAMERON CLARK RETT DAUGBJERG BLAKE DAUGHERTY WILL FORBES ZACH NAIDU PHOTOS ARNO GOETZ TIM O'MEARA PHILIP SMART CORBIN WALP FOCUS FEBRUARY 5, 2016 PAGE 14

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he buzz of pots and pans hitting against each other. The ring of a timer. The dozens of voices barking orders back and forth. These sounds constitute the normal ambiance of the kitchen of 18th and Vine during its dinner time rush.

Through the noise, one voice stands above the rest.

“I need a runner!” Chef and owner Scott Gottlich ’94 calls out.

The kitchen falls silent and a waitress steps forward to shuttle the freshly prepared grits and fried okra.

As soon as she leaves, the chefs get busy again.

18th and Vine, a Kansas City inspired barbecue restaurant on Maple Avenue, is Gottlich’s newest restaurant venture in Dallas.

He also owns a French cuisine restaurant in Inwood Village called Bijoux, a more contemporary restaurant in the The Westin Galleria called The 2nd Floor, which all serve as outlets for Gottlich to express his love for food.

“Food had an impact on me early on,” Gottlich said. “I remember going on a cruise as a family and I would try the octopus and the shark. I was different in the fact that I wanted to try these other things.

I always appreciated food.”

And soon, Gottlich’s appreciation for THE CURATOR

ith the most important interview of his young life underway, all Jed Morse ’90 could think about was not getting salad dressing on the expensive sculpture sitting in the center of Raymond Nasher’s dining room table.

Morse was interviewing to be chief curator at the Nasher Sculpture Center, which was at that point just a design.

After getting to know Steven Nash, director of the Nasher Sculpture Center,

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With the city in the background, Morse stands in the Nasher Sculpture Center’s garden.

At his restaurant, The Second Floor By Scott Gottlich, Gottlich poses in his kitchen.

On the right are his mashed potatoes and potato skins.

food turned into a passion, working as a sandwich artist at Subway and waiting tables through college.

After he graduated from the University of Oklahoma, he enrolled in culinary school in Vail, Colorado.

Gottlich then worked at a series of restaurants around the country, including the once-highest rated restaurant in Southern California, Aubergine.

But Gottlich believed Dallas was the best place to open his restaurants.

“To start your own business you need a support system,” Gottlich said. “My family is here, and it makes it much easier to be able to be an entrepreneur when you put everything on the line and it takes all of your time.”

Not only did Dallas provide a great

support system, it also supplied the demand needed for his restaurants. And to Gottlich, Dallas was a city that valued eating as one of its main sources of culture and entertainment.

“I think Dallas has more seats per capita than most cities,” Gottlich said.

“Dallas likes to eat because a lot of people choose to eat for their culture.”

For Gottlich, the experience that comes with eating is the emotional connection between people that adds to its value.

“It’s an emotional kind of thing,” Gottlich said. “It’s the fact that we are trying to get someone to come in and forget about what they are doing for an hour or two and have an experience. Anybody can eat, but we’re not here just to eat. It’s for the experience.”

during an internship at the Dallas Museum of Art, Morse was offered an interview with Nash, renowned art collector Raymond Nasher and his daughter Andrea Nasher at lunch.

“I remember being so nervous during this interview because it was such an exciting opportunity,” Morse said. “And at the same time I was being interviewed at his dining room table with works by Picasso and the centerpiece of the table was a work

by Brâncuzi.”

And despite the nerves, Morse got the job.

By taking art history at three levels starting with St. Mark’s, Morse was able to be a part of the development of the Arts District in downtown Dallas and lead one of the most esteemed sculpture centers in the country.

“I really fell in love with it because it was a combination of all different disciplines in looking at history through the lens of art,” Morse said, “and the more you study it, the more you find out almost

anything comes to bear in terms of ideas represented in works of art.”

Raymond Nasher built the museum to be a catalyst for the further development of the Arts District, turning what used to be a parking lot into the a huge sculpture garden.

Renzo Piano, Head Architect for the Nasher Sculpture Center, wanted to open up the art to the life of the city, not shut it out.

“Dallas was a place for cars, not a place for sculpture,” Morse said. “There is this constant seamless connection between the vibrancies of the city that opposed the galleries and the oasis of the garden so it encompasses the life of the city.”

Morse witnessed the transformation of both the Nasher Sculpture Center and the Dallas Arts District from two institutions with a few parking lots to a cultural campus in the center of downtown and he enjoyed every moment.

“It was a phenomenal opportunity to do that [open the Nasher Sculpture Center] in my hometown,” Morse said. “And to see this new institution play a part in bringing art downtown Dallas to life was incredibly fulfilling.”

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and The Focus staff got some insight from the biggest sports fans in Dallas — the past, present and future owners of the Metroplex’s most popular professional sports teams.

Stephen Jones on...

THE EFFECT OF A WIN ON FANS. During the season, when you win a football game, people wake up on a Monday morning and they’re exhilarated, they’re excited, they feel positive that they can go out and do big things.

I think sports are a respite for people. You get to relax, enjoy, root for your team and of course when they win, then it gives you that motivated feeling that, ‘Hey, the Cowboys won. Now I’m going to go out and have victories in what I’m doing and what’s important to me in my life at that time.

HOW A WIN AFFECTS DALLAS. [The Dallas Morning News] said they sold like three times the amount of papers on a Monday versus when we lost. People would tell you they did ‘x’ amount more business — banks, restaurants — when the Cowboys won versus when the Cowboys lost.

So it’s always been a part of the culture here in Dallas, and obviously football is a big part of the culture around the country, and it’s something we’re very proud of.

Tom Hicks on...

WHAT MAKES DALLAS SPORTS CULTURE DIFFERENT. Particularly in Dallas, there’s a psychological and emotional investment of the people for their teams. Dallas loves winners, and it always has, so it supports winners.

I think sports played a big part in the growth of Dallas. There’s something special about Dallas because that [affect] doesn’t happen in any other city you can think of.

THE AMERICAN AIRLINES CENTER: The stadium cost $425 million, and [Ross] Perot and I asked the city to give us an economic package

of $125 million that we would pay back with incremental taxes that would be generated off the revenue that otherwise wasn’t going to be generated.

I think that 125 million [dollars] has been paid back four or five times; [a lot] of development would have never occurred without the arena being there.

All these apartments and condos here are being totally driven by the young people who want to go.

As the son of Jerry Jones, who is the owner of the Dallas Cowboys, Stephen Jones is the chief operating officer of the Cowboys.

PHOTO COURTESY STEPHEN JONES

Ken Hersh ‘81 is a distinguished alum from St. Mark’s who is a minority owner of the Texas Rangers.

Mark Cuban on...

THE CHAMPIONSHIP PARADE. Apple is the largest company in the world. Cupertino has never thrown them a parade. When the Mavs won, the entire city was on fire and the parade was amazing.

AAC’S EFFECT ON DALLAS. I think we have made [Dallas] a destination again. [Whether it’s] games or concerts, there is always something going on. [The American Airlines Center] really helped show everyone that we are a first class city.

PHOTO COURTESY KEN HERSH

Tom Hicks is a former owner of the Dallas Stars and the Texas Rangers.

The Stars won a Stanley Cup in 1999 while Hicks was owner.

Ken Hersh on...

THE RANGERS RANGE OF FANS. The Rangers are a major entertainment and civic asset for the entire metroplex, not just Dallas.

Our fan base comes from all over the metroplex. During our World Series runs, we attracted 3.4 million fans to the park, one of the best in the majors.

HOW TEAMS CHANGE A CITY’S CULURE. Successful sports teams are a great source of civic pride.

When the Rangers were on their World Series run, it was fun to see everyone wearing Rangers T-shirts and flying Rangers flags outside their car windows while driving on the highway.

Owner of the Dallas Mavericks, Mark Cuban is also a famous entrepreneur and CREATIVE investor who plays a major role on the TV COMMONS show Shark Tank.

PHOTOS

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it takes an army Overcoming urban poverty. Pressing for early childhood education. Making sure every student has a good teacher. There’s a lot to improve in the Dallas education system. But what’s the best next step?

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oughly 50 percent of Dallas kids are coming to school kindergarten ready.

Only 36 percent of Dallas kids can get 70 percent of the questions right on their third grade literacy exam. Only 14 percent of Dallas kids have a college-ready SAT or ACT score.

These numbers are only a few that highlight the current inconsistencies in the Dallas education system.

“We’ve got a lot of pockets of excellence, but we just are not consistent across all of our 220 schools,” said Eric Cowan, president of the Dallas Independent School District (DISD) board of trustees.

Paul Quinn College used to be one of the places that struggled.

It was done for. Helpless.

Fifteen abandoned buildings. At one point, just 150 students enrolled. On its fifth president in six years. Enduring a struggle to keep the lights on.

The small south Dallas liberal arts college was seemingly done.

But that fifth president, President Michael Sorrell, wasn’t done. Far from it.

“When I first looked at the school from MICHAEL SORRELL Believes schools serve as anchors for their communities

the perspective of being the president, I was heartbroken because it was clear to me — there were 15 abandoned buildings — things weren’t very well maintained,” he said. “And I understand the economic realities, but there’s still a lot you can do even within your economic constraints.”

Today, Paul Quinn is flourishing under a service-based vision put in place by Sorrell, who will be concluding his ninth year as president in March.

No more abandoned buildings or unmaintained facilities.

“I believe that educational institutions should serve as anchors for their community,” he said. “I think that our goal at Paul Quinn, what we’re really trying to do, is we’re trying to end urban poverty. That is what we have come to do. That is how we are going to become one of America’s great colleges. We’re going to turn around and face outward and challenge this idea that [for] under resourced communities, their issues can’t be addressed by the people who live in them.”

And Sorrell is not just referring to Paul Quinn — he’s calling on all schools in Dallas and around the country to follow their lead in an effort to improve Dallas’s education system.

Todd Williams is one of the men leading the effort. The founding executive director of Commit!, a non-profit organization dedicated to improving early childhood education, Williams feels it’s crucial to act fast to patch up the city’s education system which, according to the numbers, is faltering in many places.

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Here’s the problem: if you give a student an ‘A’ education, and he goes home to an ‘F’ life, all you’ve done is created a ‘D’ student because they are at home far more than they are at school.

— PAUL QUINN PRESIDENT MICHAEL SORRELL

PAGE 18 FEBRUARY 5, 2016 FOCUS

“Whatever our educational system produces over the next 20 years,” he said, “those are going to be our fellow voters, those are going to be our fellow employees, those are going to be the consumers who purchase the products that we want to sell, and if we don’t make them have an economic vitality and a hope for the future, I’m not sure what Dallas is going to look like.”

Cowan also emphasizes the imporERIC COWAN Wants all students to be literate by third grade

tance of ensuring every student is literate early in their childhood, especially immigrants who struggle with English.

“Our thought is if we can start early,” he said, “we can get them used to American schools or the English language and hopefully by third grade, have all of our kids literate in the English language, which is a bigger challenge than most people realize.”

And while Sorrell thinks these tactics are helpful, he feels there is more to it — that a student’s home life plays a crucial role in his or her education.

“I think it’s great that the concern is making sure every child has an excellent teacher,” he said. “I really do, I think it’s wonderful — but here’s the problem: if you give a student an ‘A’ education, and he goes home to an ‘F’ life, all you’ve done is created a ‘D’ student because they are at home far more than they are at school.”

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Sorrell also stresses the importance of having leadership stay in place for longer periods of time in order to create a greater chance of improvement in Dallas’s education system.

“This is a problem that has plagued most urban school districts: the job has turned into a two to three year job,” he said. “I don’t think that works. I think you need to give people a significant period of time. If I were judged on where [Paul Quinn was] after three years as president, my legacy would look radically different.”

Williams, likewise, stresses the importance of having a strong backbone of a team to help run his data analysis-driven foundation.

“What [Commit!] does is called ‘collective impact,’” he said, “which is effectively bringing data and expertise to the table and setting goals and measuring progress, but one of the big differences between this effort and other educational efforts in the past is that we have a dedicated team — a backbone staff of 17 people who get up every day and think about this problem.”

And everything these men and women do contributes not only to the education system in Dallas but also the identity of the entire city.

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move to a city, [the school district] is an important piece in their decision-making,” Cowan said. “Not only home prices but the quality of schools. So the better our schools can be in the city of Dallas, the better our city will be.”

That requires getting not only leaders in the field of education involved, but also getting every citizen involved in the journey to improve the Dallas school system.

“Any recipe for fixing the southern sector [of Dallas] that doesn’t include building up the people from the southern sector and the instituTODD WILLIAMS tions in the Stresses early childhood education southern sector and including them is just another recipe for gentrification,” Sorrell said. “You have to adopt inclusive policies, not exclusive or extracted policies.”

And as much as men like Sorrell, Williams and Cowan are doing to turn around places like the way Sorrell resurrected Paul Quinn, they know the job can’t be done by any one individual.

“We need an army in this work,” Williams said. “The bottom line is no one person can do this.

No mayor can do this, no superintendent can do this—people have got to decide that this is really important to our city.”

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From someone on the inside...

Martha Bujanda, principal of Thomas C. Marsh Middle School in North Dallas, gives her perspective on the state of education in Dallas.

Martha Bujanda

Compared to other cities, what do you think is the current state of education in Dallas?

We have work to do in Dallas and it’s going to take all of us to get where we want to get. It’s going to take private schools, publics schools — everybody — coming together in order to get our city where we want it to be, to ensure the success of our city and our kids. At the end of the day we’re going to be responsible for our kids and our city and what we want to do with that.

Has the system changed at all since you became involved in it?

Sure, I mean it’s always improving, it’s always getting better. It’s going take an entire community coming together so that we can ensure that at the end of the day zip code doesn’t determine a child’s future.

Once everyone is pulled together, what changes do you think need to be made?

First and foremost ­— above everything else — you have to believe. Without belief, we’re not going to get anywhere. Do you believe in the capacity of our kids to learn? Do you believe that everybody deserves a shot at a college education? Then after that comes a lot of hard work.

Do you think we are close to that?

I think we’re getting there. I think that we have some work to do around that too. Ultimately our goal would be to set a college-going culture and vision.

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AUSTIN MONTGOMERY PHILIP SMART

JIMMY RODRIGUEZ

FRANK THOMAS

PHILIP SMART

CORBIN WALP

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hat draws people back to Dallas? Some say it’s the people. Others say it is the vibrancy of the downtown area. And some, simply because it is the only place they can call home.

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The bell tower of the chapel at night.

The Path to Manhood statue lit up.

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our.

That’s the number of generations in the Wilson family that have attended St. Mark’s and continued to live in Dallas.

Taylor Wilson ’81, definitely had options. Graduating cum laude from Amherst and receiving his J.D. from SMU, where he was an associate senior editor of The International Lawyer, he had a bright future ahead of him in law.

But he wanted to stay in Dallas. One of the things driving that desire — the school.

“There are good schools all around the United States, but I was particularly fond of this one school at 10600 Preston Road,” Wilson said. “I had always hoped that I could be so fortunate as to have my sons admitted. In that sense, I’d say it was definitely a factor for me to stay in Dallas knowing that this opportunity for a great education was here at St. Mark’s.”

Along with the school’s education, alumni are attracted to Dallas because of the city’s diverse economic advantages.

No state income tax, no inheritance tax and a pro-business city home to one of the world’s busiest airports.

Just ask Luke Kline ’07. As a young alum, Kline explored his options after graduating from the business school at the University of Texas.

He got interested in real estate, something he credits to hearing names like Trammel Crow as he grew up in Dallas.

When he graduated, he started looking for a job.

He made a couple of “super days,” a final round of interviews for a job. He thought he’d end up in Los Angeles or New York, but “things didn’t pan out.”

So he decided to take an eight week backpacking trip in Asia.

There, he got an email that changed his life. A job offer from Charles Brindell, CEO of Mill Creek Residential based in Dallas.

Now Kline is vice president of the

Taylor Wilson ’81 in Graduate Hall.

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acquisitions group there, and he feels Dallas has helped his company succeed.

“Texas is absolutely the best place to do business probably in the world, definitely in the United States, but probably in the world because America is probably the best place to do business,” Kline said. “[The] majority of people, though, at St. Mark’s, they want to excel, they want something challenging. And so you need to go where bright, driven people are, and Dallas is one of those places.”

Taylor agrees that Dallas has grown into a welcoming business market, attracting all kinds of people.

“Dallas is a city that is full of great opportunities, so it’s no surprise that many St. Mark’s graduates end up pursuing occupations in this great city,” Wilson said. “Dallas also is a very welcoming city. It’s one that easily accepts people from other cities and promotes corporate relocations. In business transactions that I work on, we see people coming from all different parts of the world in what is now a global business environment.”

While Kline originally saw himself coming back to Dallas after college, Kline says he would now pick Dallas “nine times out of ten” if offered another job.

Part of that is because of St. Mark’s. Chairing the fifth reunion his class had, Kline has continued to be involved, and the school sticks in his mind if he thinks about leaving. “[St. Mark’s] did not play a role in me coming back to Dallas. I will say though, it definitely is on my mind when I think about leaving Dallas,” Kline said. “Once you’re back in this community, and you’re re-engaged with St. Mark’s, it’s kind of tough to think about having boys and then not sending them there.”

Continued, next page

Luke Kline ’07 at his downtown office.

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The cupola of Davis Hall in front of the Green Library.

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Alumni return for both city and school

Continued from previous page s one of those who sent his boys here and raised his family here, Jeff Hillier ’76 also calls Dallas home.

Hillier has lived all over the place.

Places like Washington D.C. and London.

But he always came back to Dallas.

Eventually, either his career-tie to the city, his connection to his family in Dallas or his desire to send his kids to St. Mark’s made him want to live in Dallas.

Hillier points to two moments as part of the reason he continues to love the school and be involved: he and his son Travis ’09 cried during a hug after his last wrestling match in the prep nationals tournament, and Hillier says one of the proudest moments of his life was seeing his son Cameron ’13 win the prestigious School Flag award at Commencement.

He feels it’s moments like these and the character education--the creation of the whole boy the school touts--something he says he talks about as a member of the Board of Trustees, that drive parents and alumni to remain invested in the commu-

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nity.

“Not only are we going to turn out men prepared for college, but men prepared to give back to the community broadly and lead and just be good men,” Hillier said. “That’s why parents and alumni in particular are interested in sending their children back to St. Mark’s. It’s a great opportunity.”

Casey McManemin ’79 agrees with Hillier, but McManemin never sent his kids to school here.

He has three daughters. He laughingly says he “failed the fitness test or whatever.”

But that hasn’t stopped him from caring about St. Mark’s. As a board member, he’s a proponent of financial aid.

Entering as a seventh grader in 1973, McManemin was one of a limited number of financial aid students. He grew up in northwest Dallas in a single-parent household. His dad died from polio at a young age.

And after high school and college, McManemin went on to work in the oil and

gas business, an opportunity that started with St. Mark’s.

“We all recognize the privilege that is the St. Mark’s experience,” McManemin said. “But it’s so much more than gratitude. It’s not a debt of gratitude, it’s recognition of the opportunity that experience provides to them. And I had an opportunity to make a difference in someone’s life, so do you. If we collectively make a difference in someone’s life, it’s reasonable to expect that those individuals are going to make a difference in others’ lives, and that’s how problems are solved.

It’s paying it forward and recognizing that it’s incremental.”

Dean Itani ’11 on the roof of his apartment in Uptown Dallas, his favorite city.

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McManemin believes the school’s all-around education is a driving force for getting alumni to stay in Dallas, something he experienced as captain of the soccer team and being involved with community service.

“The long term dedication to the mission of the school, which brings in athletics and all the extracurriculars, the visual and performing arts, journalism, community service, everything sort of outside the academic program, has really helped fulfill this whole boy concept,” McManemin said.

“Whether you’re a St. Mark’s alum or an Exeter alum or you went to W.T. White or you didn’t even go to school, what thoughtful, well-meaning parent would not want their son to have that experience?” ean Itani ’11, a young alum who lives in Dallas, sees the school as a key supporter in his life and as a key part of Dallas. At 10600 Preston Road, he was a cum laude member, ReMarker editor and soccer captain.

Itani had always planned on being a doctor. He “checked all the boxes” — he took the pre-med classes at Harvard, he took the Medical College Admission Test (MCAT), had the internships.

But as he approached graduation last May, he realized that his passion was elsewhere.

He had studied economics while taking pre-med classes at Harvard, and he decided to make a change. After receiving advice from alum Ken Hersh ’81, he took some online business classes and put his name out there.

Pretty soon he had the chance to join the Boston Consulting Group (BCG), an international Fortune 500 company. But not in Dallas. In Dubai.

Dubai seemed like his next move. He had some family there, and he thought it would be something new.

But another alum, one of Itani’s closest friends, Joe Loftus ’11, was working at BCG in Dallas and told Itani there was one more spot for an associate in the Dallas office.

Itani jumped at the opportunity, did the interviews and soon he had the job in the city he calls home.

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Casey McManemin ’79 in front of The Path to Manhood Statue.

“I know that if something comes up, it’s a little more forgiving because I have personal relationships and I can reach out to people individually if I need to,” Itani said.

“But at the same time it’s the community in Dallas that means the most to me and when I think about giving back in ways.”

Itani also believes Dallas has a lot more to offer young people than most people realize.

Jeff Hillier ’76 returns once again to the campus at 10600 Preston Rd.

“I think the average twenty-something is looking for cool, social nightlife where they can meet other people and hang out both during the day and on the weekends,” Itani said. “I think in Dallas there’s a lot of that. I think people appreciate just having a lot of young people around, which a lot of people don’t expect in Dallas because a lot of it is slightly higher-level, older jobs, but it seems like there are lots of entry-level jobs in Dallas which really helps too.”

Itani also feels Dallas has many aspects of a big, urban city but also has the friendliness of a small town, giving the city a unique feel.

“People joke with me in the office that I’m the guy that thinks Dallas is the greatest city in the world, and I am that guy,” Itani said. “This is where I want to be. I lived in Boston, it was a lot of fun. I loved it, but it’s not home to me. Dallas is home to me.”

The same goes for McManemin. Even though he’s traveled “quite a bit” — that big meaning visiting six continents, backpacking through Asia and Nepal, hiking the Grand Canyon a couple of times and summiting Mt. Kilimanjaro — McManemin still calls Dallas home, partly because of the city’s attitude.

“There’s no place like home, nothing like Dallas,” McManemin said. “Dallas is you’ve heard this before it’s a can-do place.

It is for the most part egalitarian.”

There are still some barriers, but for many people there are no barriers to achieve their dreams, according to McManemin.

“Now there are a few barriers we still need to work on,”McManemin said. “But Dallas, people in Dallas, not necessarily from Dallas but people in Dallas, generally are receptive to risk-taking and innovation.”

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Alumni discuss the ways the city can grow

allas isn’t perfect.

It’s clear that Dallas has a lot going for it. The city is friendly for businesses and it’s easy for many alumni to move back to the place they’ve called home for so many years, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t room to improve.

But where do we start?

As someone who has lived in Dallas for many years, and been involved in civic issues like homelessness, McManemin thinks Dallas sometimes loses focus on maintaining the city we have.

“It’s more focused on growth than maintaining excellence,” McManemin said.

“That focus on growth is a reflection on the city being very pro-business. It’s been kind of pro-developer to a fault. They have not been as thoughtful about the long-term implications of planning and zoning decisions, development decisions and we’ve paid for it.”

Hillier believes Dallas could make better use of its budget by improving the city’s less glamorous aspects.

“My personal opinion is that we should focus on basic services, making sure the streets are paved the alleys are paved that sort of thing,” You can be a citizen Hillier said. “My without being a neighborhood Marksman, but you the streets are can’t be a Marksman not very good without being a citizen. — CASEY my alley is a MCMANEMIN ’79 mud track, and sometimes we lose sight of basic services in an effort to build big showy infrastructure. It’s great to have Calatrava bridges, but it would also be nice to have paved streets and that sort of thing.”

As a former Marksmen, McManemin believes students and alumni have a civic duty to impact the city.

“You can be a citizen without being a Marksman, but you can’t be a Marksman without being a citizen,” McManemin said. “Part of being a Marksman really is fulfilling what the mission of the school is, is to be engaged and to really make an effort to make the world a better place.”

Hillier thinks the St. Mark’s community prepares students to make impacts on the community and Dallas.

“You can make a difference. St. Mark’s has geared us up and prepared us to make a difference,” Hillier said. “So that’s what critical and wonderful about this school is how it prepares its alumni to make an impact in the community. In some cases a very high profile impact, and in some cases a quiet but effective impact. But a significant impact.”

FOCUS FEBRUARY 5, 2016 PAGE 23

the dallas of tomorrow STORY DAVIS BAILEY NOAH KOECHER DAVIS MARSH PHOTOS ARNO GOETZ TIM O'MEARA FRANK THOMAS CORBIN WALP FOCUS FEBRUARY 5, 2016 PAGE 24

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allas is changing — that’s obvious.

But it’s changing in big ways. Look here to learn the specifics of our city’s future from some of the biggest names in Dallas.

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IN HINDSIGHT

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o one has seen Dallas’s reinvention of itself more so than former mayor Laura Miller.

She saw the revision of federal flight restrictions at Love Field.

She saw the city approve a sexual orientation ordinance, a non-smoking ordinance and plans for the Trinity River Project.

She saw downtown come back to life, saw it blossom like a desert flower.

And not only did she see these changes up close and personal. She was the impetus for these changes. And she knows Dallas will continue to change for the better.

Miller started off her career in public service as a journalist covering city hall for the Dallas Observer.

“I remember standing at a city council meeting, because I was primarily covering city hall,” Miller said, “and I said to the then-mayor Steve Bartlett, ‘You are about to get into a closed session of the city council, and you will be discussing something that is not closed session material and I protest.’ And he said I was nuts.”

As her frustration with the status-quo at city hall reached a fever pitch, Miller decided she would have to run for city council if she really wanted to make change happen.

“I knocked on 2400 doors in Oak Cliff, where we lived at the time, and got elected,” Miller said. “My husband begged me not to do it because he was serving in the Texas Legislature and was gone a lot, and we had three really small kids. I said I would just do it as an experiment and I promised I wouldn’t stay. And then I stayed.”

As a former journalist, Miller had trouble earning her fellow council members’ trust.

“There were some members of the city council I’d written very critical things about, “ Miller said, “and some of them don’t let that go.”

While on the city council, Miller felt running for mayor was the natural next step.

“At some point when Ron Kirk left to run for U.S. Senate and left an empty mayor’s seat, I decided I was either up or out,” Miller said. “I would either run and win the spot or lose and stop being on the city council. I thought I had pushed the city council as much as I could being a city council member.”

As the daughter of a former president of Nieman Marcus, Miller hoped to restore downtown Dallas to its former glory.

“When I was elected in 2002, downtown was very dead,” Miller said. “My fixation was on the Mercantile tower and

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bank building next to Nieman’s. It was vacant for 15 years when I was elected, and it prevented the Nieman Marcus side of downtown and the Deep Ellum side to connect and thrive together. I feel very proud that because of my laser-like focus on the Mercantile tower, now that whole part of downtown is coming back and being vibrant.”

Miller is also proud of being able to revise federal flight restrictions on Love Field.

“That was probably the biggest challenge of my five and a half years as mayor, because I felt that the two cities had been fighting forever,” Miller said. “That was very difficult and took five or six months to do, and I’m very pleased when I read that Love Field is doing new numbers, and running out of parking and things like that. It’s doing great.”

Famous for her fight against dirty coal plants toward the end of her tenure as mayor, Miller wanted to continue her work against dirty energy after leaving city hall.

“When I left office the environmental community said, ‘Would you go around the country and teach other mayors how to fight dirty coal?’” Miller said. “I said no, that’s a waste of time. What we should do is raise the bar higher to build a coal plant that is so clean that everybody else has to follow suit.“ After a trip to Europe, Miller learned about a process called coal gasification which processes coal with 65 percent fewer emissions. Now she works with Seattle-based Summit Power Group to bring a clean coal plant to Texas.

“This is potentially could be the greatest thing I’ve ever worked on my whole life,” Miller said. “I feel very guilty that our generation has left your generation with the terrible problem of global warming.”

Miller thinks Texas is well-positioned to become the nation’s front runner in clean energy technology.

“We’ve got more wind by far than any

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other state, we are really starting to get into the solar business,” Miller said. “With all the billions of dollars in transition lines the state has invested in the past 10 years, all of that together I think is going to make Texas the leader in clean energy.

I think what’s ironic is despite us having a horrible reputation on the environment and climate, we are going to be the leader when it comes to the 21st century solution for clean energy.” ust like with the future of clean energy in Texas, Miller is cautiously hopeful about the future of Dallas.

“It’s obvious that we have an unequal development scenario in Dallas,” Miller said. “[North Dallas] already has horrible traffic problems yet if we go ten miles south to the middle of Oak Cliff you have areas where there are no parking and traffic problems but there is little to no retail.

There’s a terrible imbalance that Mayor Rawlings is focused on fixing.”

Miller is glad to see some of the visionary projects from her time at City Hall have come to fruition.

“We did the Trinity River project in hopes that it would spark development on the other side which has now happened with Trinity Groves so that’s wonderful to see all that happening,” Miller said. “ There has to be a much bigger shift to make all of that undeveloped property active for new houses, great retail, office parks.”

While Miller sees making this shift as a challenge, she knows it is necessary to prepare Dallas to absorb the great number of people moving into the area.

“They come every week and there will be a lot more people in the next 25 years and I think that if mayor Rawlings’s private initiative takes root, and people start seeing a return on their investment for investing in that part of town, I think that could be a trend that bears a lot of fruit,” Miller said. “I think every council has done their part to fix this problem but I think this is most hopeful period for this town.”

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Laura Miller (above) believes Texas can be a front runner in clean energy in the future.

(Left) The Trinity River filled after storms in January.

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Civic leaders on the issues An alum and a former trustee-parent weigh in on the challenges facing Dallas’s continued development and what the city already has going for it.

A CITY READY TO SOAR

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level playing field.

From the hours spent teaching underprivileged Latino children at Mi Escuelita preschool to his own experience of learning English as a second language, Noé Hinojosa knows the value of a level playing field.

From his position as founder and CEO of a Dallas investment banking firm, Hinojosa has seen the metroplex change and evolve over the past 23 years.

For Hinojosa, Dallas boasts assets that few other cities have, and alongside benefits such as Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport, DART and top of the line medical education facilities, he sees another major advantage: the people.

“When you combine quality of life and ability to attain good quality education, the ability as an employer to acquire skilled, trained people for a reasonable price is more attractive [in Dallas,]” Hinojosa said. “That’s attractive for someone who comes from the west or the other parts of the country.”

As a member of the Dallas Regional Chamber class of 2016, Hinojosa views the workforce as one of Dallas’ biggest assets, motivating him to give back to underprivileged communities.

“It’s going to improve our workforce,” Hinojosa said. “It’s going to improve our standard of living for all of us.”

Alongside workforce education, Hinojosa stresses diversification as the answer A father of an alumnus and a former trustee of the school, Noé Hinojosa, believes Dallas has valuable assets that will continue to propel economic growth.

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to many unforeseen economic problems.

“We need to have all kinds of people,” he said. “We want to have philosophers, plumbers, doctors, architects and engineers. As long as we stay diversified, I think we will be able to overcome those unforeseen economic challenges ahead.”

According to Hinojosa, the more inclusive and diverse Dallas is, the more it will bring to the table as a major player in the world economy and be able to adapt in the future. With his firm advising projects important to the vitality of Dallas like AT&T Stadium, Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport and DART, Hinojosa sees Dallas as a center for growth in the state of Texas, positioned to compete with any region in the world.

“We have all the means to get any product anywhere in the world, literally inside of 24 hours,” he said. “When you put DFW Airport, and you put Love Field along with Executive Airfield, when you have those airports, those are options. That’s what keeps us moving.”

Those options are what he sees pushing Dallas to move forward. Hinojosa views creativity and diversity as necessary for the people and businesses of Dallas, and he remains optimistic about the future of the growing and changing metroplex.

“The fact is we have those opportunities to be part of an evolving Dallas-Fort Worth. It’s an exciting time to be in Dallas, and I’m proud to be part of it.”

A CITY ON THE MOVE

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hirty three years ago, downtown Dallas was on its last legs.

That’s when the Dallas Area Rapid Transit system took over.

That’s when Rob Parks ’71 came to DART. As manager of passenger support facilities, Parks’ first objective was to expand and relieve the crowded bus centers that flooded neighborhoods and kept racial undertones brooding. Without a rail system, a handful of local bus routes were all that kept citizens without cars moving.

“We ran a pulse system where buses all came together every 20 minutes in the rush hour,” Parks said. “It was like a cattle roundup — not what anyone wanted in their neighborhood.”

Once the crowded pulse system was replaced by widespread, joining routes, neighborhoods and peoples of every walk of life were riding together. Soon, Dallas as a whole was more ethnically diverse, leading to diversity of jobs and opportunities geographically as well.

Unfortunately, the expansion of Dallas in part due to DART’s success has pushed the population outwards, which poses problems for transportation.

“Beyond the area where the DART tax is paid,” Parks said, “we cannot serve unless it’s by special agreement or A manager at DART, Rob Parks ‘71, recognizes the challenges transportation corridors must face to handle a growing population.

by contract. More and more of the action is growing outside of that service area, thus the problem of accessing jobs and residents who’ve moved beyond.”

Although the percentage of the metroplex served has decreased over the years, DART’s ridership has only been growing. Where a few dozen routes once covered a small portion of Dallas proper, DART now boasts hundreds of routes, with over 12,000 stops and 600 buses, and a daily ridership that has grown to almost 234,000 over the years.

But now they face a new problem, one all of Dallas must soon face: the city is growing far too fast.

“Forecasts for congestion levels of service in Dallas in 2025 are scary,” Parks said. “Any student can figure out what Level of Service ‘F’ means. As congestion grows, that will occur more often.

People need an alternative.”

For Parks and perhaps for all of Dallas, DART is that alternative. But it won’t be easy, and it won’t be simple.

“To implement core routes that span the city, that connect everybody, both to the rail system and among themselves, we need more money,” Parks said, “and I would like for DART to allocate that money. To build that core capacity. To protect the future. And I would leave DART happy if I knew that we were doing that.”

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Mayor looks south, to the future Mayor Mike Rawlings explains how his plan for investment in southern Dallas can promise Dallas a more sustainable, diverse and prosperous future.

BRIDGING THE GAP

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ream no small dreams.

That was the advice Mayor Mike Rawlings received from former Dallas Mayor Erik Jonsson, who served from 1964-1971.

And while the ultimate goal of Rawlings’s Grow South initiative is relatively simple, it is decidedly not a small dream.

Mayor Rawlings’s signature initiative during his tenure as the city of Dallas’s executive, the Grow South initiative, aims to promote development in southern Dallas.

“My dream is that the tax base in southern Dallas will be more than the tax base in northern Dallas,” Rawlings said.

“And I think that is doable because of the chance to grow. This is going to be a 30-40 year process. But what we want is to make sure that we have very livable, investable neighborhoods across southern Dallas from Pleasant Grove to west Dallas to south Dallas proper.”

While southern Dallas is plagued by misconceptions, Rawlings sees it as having great potential in Dallas’s future.

“South Dallas is considered the part of the city right around Fair Park,” Rawlings said. “I define southern Dallas as south of the Trinity on the West and south of I-30 on the East. I believe it’s the biggest growth opportunity this city has in this century. It has 55-60 percent of the land mass but only 15 percent of the tax revenue. It’s the most beautiful part of the city. [It’s] where so many historical leaders of our city come from, and it is a clean slate as far as what we want to do with Southern Dallas. So, I see it as the primary growth engine of the city of Dallas.”

One of the greatest misconceptions about southern Dallas is that it has inferior education to the northern half of the city.

“We’ve got to show people that they can live in southern Dallas and educate their kids and that it’s a great place to live,” Rawlings said. “It’s not the perception of crime so much, it’s the perception of the schools, because crime rates in southern Dallas are as good as in any other place throughout the city.”

Another barrier Rawlings sees towards southern Dallas’s further development is the issue of race.

“Traditionally, southern Dallas has been minority and north Dallas has been

Mayor Mike Rawlings wants to get people to invest in Southern Dallas so that the city can have a more prosperous and sustainable future.

white,” Rawlings said. “That’s a barrier that needs to be broken as well. There’s a tremendous amount of diversity in southern Dallas and northern Dallas is becoming more diverse through that process.

We will be a stronger city the more that happens, so we don’t have pockets of Latinos and pockets of African-Americans and pockets of whites. I think that’s critical.” awlings believes it is important for those who don’t live in southern Dallas to drive down and visit.

“People just don’t drive over there because they don’t know where it is and what’s going on,” Rawlings said. “You’re not going to get lost. Google maps it and have a great three hours of exploration in southern Dallas. We’ve got the largest hardwood forest in the United States, the Trinity Forest, and we’ve got a great horse riding center. We’ve got so much going on in southern Dallas and the more people explore it, the more they’ll like it.”

According to Rawlings, the city’s system of government and property rights will allow for growth and development without over-gentrification and mass displacement of marginalized communities.

“My belief is that each [southern Dallas neighborhood] will continue to grow and that there will be options for people to live there,” Rawlings said. “I think that’s what you’re going to see in the next 40 years. You already see that in Oak Cliff and Kessler Park. But there is going to be some migration into South Oak Cliff.

And I think these other neighborhoods are going to pick up, and that’s what I think is going to be different in the next 10 years.”

Ultimately, Rawlings is hopeful for southern Dallas’s future.

“There is bigger opportunity in South-

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ern Dallas [than in the north] and that’s why I created my Grow South plan,” Rawlings said. “The basic premise of that is that southern Dallas is an investment opportunity, not a charity case. People look at it like, ‘well I need to go help that part of town.’ No, what investors are finding is when they invest in southern Dallas, they are getting a very good return on that. The more and more we tell that story, the more money that will come in.”

GROW SOUTH: THE TEN POINT PLAN

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Strengthen Neighborhoods

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Culture of Clean

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Strengthening Schools

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Debunk Myths Private Investment Fund

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Downtown and Near Downtown

West Dallas

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Lancaster Corridor

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Jefferson Boulevard

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Education Corridor

For more about the Grow South initiative’s projects and progress, visit www.dallasgrowsouth.com

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