Spring - Summer 2004

The

Thacher News Spring Summer

2004

End-of-Year Celebrations Gymkhana Weekend Performing Artists 2004 Strategic Plan Insert

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News Spring/Summer 2004 Volume XVII, Number 1 Editor Jane D. McCarthy Design Timothy R. Ditch and Jane D. McCarthy Contributors David V. Babbott, Elizabeth A. Bowman, Monique DeVane, Camilla Evans-Hensey, Richard J. Mazzola, Alisa D. McCoy, Kurt R. Meyer, Sara Sackner, Joy Sawyer-­Mulligan, and Peggy Whyte Photography Elijah Sackner Behar ’07, Phil Channing, Brian M. O. Kopperl CdeP 1982, Elizabeth H. R. Mahoney CdeP 1988, Jane D. ­McCarthy, R. Bruce Peters CdeP 1965, Joe Rubino, Sara Sackner, Joy Sawyer-Mulligan, and Timothy O Teague Cover Photo Adri Ryberg ’06 rode as part of the color guard to begin the last lacrosse game of the spring season Photo by Cheryl Winters

Inside Cover Photo Ariel of The Tempest, performed in May 1956 by Peter Hartman CdeP 1957

The Thacher News magazine is published twice a year by The Thacher School, and is sent free of charge to alumni, parents, and friends of the School. In preparing this ­report, every effort was made to ensure that it is accurate and complete. If there is an omission or an error in spelling, please accept our apologies and notify the Head of School’s Office at The Thacher School, 5025 Thacher Road, Ojai, California 93023-9001, call (805) 646-4377, or email ­jmccarthy@thacher.org.

Third Class postage is paid at the Oxnard Post Office.

POSTMASTER: Please send form 3579 to the preceding address.

NAIS MEMBER

C Printed by Ventura Printing with soy-based inks on recycled paper.

Contents From the Head of School 3 The Real Purpose of an Elite Education

Campus Activities 5 Commencement 2004 8 Awards 9 Senior Exhibitions, Colleges 10 Gymkhana Weekend 12 New Faculty 14 Spring Sports 15 Tidbits, Numeracy Puzzle 16 Board of Trustees

The Campaign for Thacher 17 Campaign Update: Ground Broken for Commons 43 Till the Best We Can Do Is All Done

Performing Artists 19 Historical Society: Thacher’s Plays through the Years 20 J. Jeffrey Green CdeP 1956 Creative Conducting 21 Bruce B. Donnell CdeP 1963 Increasing Life’s Riches

22 William W. Horvitz CdeP 1965 An Inimitable Style 23 Raúl Pacheco CdeP 1986 Cuando Canto Mi Canción 24 Noah S. Wyle CdeP 1989 Beyond ER

25 Matthew J. Shakman CdeP 1993 A Perennial Bloomer 26 Todd P. McCloskey CdeP 1993 David P. McCloskey CdeP 1996 Two Instrumental Toads 27 Jane G. Casamajor CdeP 1994 Behind the Scenes 28 Cynthia L. Lee CdeP 1998 Living the Dream 29 Lucy E. Milligan CdeP 2000 Ensemble to Expressions 30 Jonathan M. Tucker CdeP 2000 The Pretender

Alumni News 31 Daniel P. Gregory CdeP 1969 Looking Out and Looking In 32 Reunion Weekend 34 Class Notes 39 Golden Trout Encampment 40 Obituaries 42 Calendar

Head

From the Head of School

The Real Purpose of an Elite Education A Message to Graduating Seniors

by Michael K. Mulligan

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oy Romer, the Superintendent of the Los Angeles Unified School District and the former 12year governor of Colorado, visited campus this spring and spent the day with me.

Over the course of our conversation, he revealed that he is the largest employer in the state of California with some 75,000 employees, that he serves over 750,000 students, that they’ve contracted $14 billion in bonds which, even with the construction of those schools, will still not meet the needs of exploding population of Los Angeles.

These are mind-boggling numbers.

As he toured the campus, he asked how large our campus is (380 acres); how many buildings we have (80); what our financial aid budget is ($1.3 million); for how many students (245).

Michael Mulligan on Sundance, a two-year-old colt with promise

He then said, “Tell me how you justify this kind of commitment of confusion and moral quandary to become resources for these few numbers of stu- moral leaders. Leaders who know right dents?” from wrong. Leaders who are courageous in the face of conflicting interests. Leaders I believe it is the most important question who recognize that truth and harmony that someone scrutinizing this school and must live in balance, that justice must our decisions can ask. always be underscored with compassion, that a sharp intellect unbalanced with There is only one answer of merit, and goodness is a moral vacuum. it must be one which our students and graduates strive to make true every day: So my point to all our students, but to our graduating seniors in particular.

The only value in this education is the degree to which Thacher students leave our You have at Thacher been able to take gates and step up in a world beset with part in an elite education. But it is not Spring / Summer 2004

truly elite because of the buildings, or the This is, as Buddha intimated, how we beauty of this valley, or simply because it repair the broken wheel that is otherwise is expensive. our human experience—that we are always out of sorts because we mistakenly It is elite—in the best sense of the word— think our own ego-driven needs, and not for far more precious reasons: the needs of the whole—determine our well-being.

It is elite because you have teachers who know you and love you, who care for It is the purpose of this school—as Sheryou now and in the future. Teachers who man Day Thacher said 100 years ago— have devoted their lives to helping you that you are here not merely to learn for become the strongest, best person you can your own greatest good, but the greatest be. Teachers who have held you to a high good of this society in which we live. standard and have helped you get off the ground and reach again when you missed So I am here tonight to urge you seniors that standard. Teachers who recognize, to fan out from this School and find this like Socrates, that virtue is not something greatest good, to make a difference: to we are born with, but rather is a habit your families, your communities, your that we practice with discipline until it churches and synagogues and mosques, to becomes a part of our very selves. your state, to this country, to this world.

Thacher is elite because you have been given the inestimable gift of a motivated peer group, one where working hard, trying, winning and losing, failing and succeeding are understood and appreciated. Peers who embrace you in kindness, and humor, and sometimes in teasing, but when the going gets tough, with support.

Peers who often have recognized that what is best is not always what is easiest, or most convenient, but what is right.

Find your happiness—find your bliss as Joseph Campbell would say—by making every act one which helps. The opportunity for both are, happy and sad to say, limitless.

Then we will know that what your parents have done for you in giving you this gift of Thacher, and what your teachers have given in the gift of knowledge and standards, and what your peers have given you with this gift of their positive support It is elite because you have been given by and friendship will have been worth it. your parents, in your coming here, the greatest gift that parents can bestow upon We can then turn to Superintendent Roy the young: the gift of opportunity, the gift Romer and answer with confidence: we to spread your wings to and fly. are giving back far more than we take.

That is why we are here. e This is the gift of finding out not only who you are, but who you can become with hard work, dedication, and an dose of intelligent risk-taking.

And if you look carefully, think hard, and summarize what this Thacher experience is all about—once you get beyond the details of living life here communally— you will realize that you have been given the gift of the knowledge that real success, real happiness, real well-being is not merely taking care of yourself, but taking care of this world and the people in it.

This is the greatest gift of all: the knowledge that, ultimately, happiness is found in service to others.

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Commencement 2004 Abundant Spring Celebrations

Extra-Day Trips

The full docket of spring activities heralds the end of another School year, advancement to the next grade level, a new class joining the alumni ranks, and daydreams of summer. This year was no exception as Extra-Day Trips occurred in April when it was cooler and less intrusive on final studies and exams at semesters’ end.

Immediately following Senior Exhibitions, ExtraDay Trips left for venues across several western states, often employing kayaks, whitewater rafts, horses, Grandparents Days and sail boats—in Nearly 100 grandparents came to campus addition to the early in April to experience Thacher first-hand usual backpacks— through their grandchildren’s eyes. Eating at to spend a week Formal Dinner, attending classes, watching in the wilderness. a performing arts sampler, and hearing the Being earlier in the thundering hooves of horses at Gymkhana year, the snowgave them a good sense of how busy the days packed High Sierra are for our students. was avoided, but groups were still met with hail, rain, thunderstorms, and even some sunshine as the students and faculty members enjoyed each others’ company, learned new camp songs and how to Freshman Brigid McCarthy shares Grandparents fly fish, read paDays with her two grandmothers: Margaret perbacks and trail Deacon and Zelda McCarthy maps, and slept in Seniors Virginia Dawson and Chris Eaton process for the Commencement tents or under vast festivities Senior Exhibitions clear skies of stars. your willingness to allow individuals to be inOne of the most compelling and enjoyable dividuals…you moved into a comfortable, very times of each school year is the long weekend nearly incestuous series of relationships that in April when the Vespers have characterized your class: more brother soon-to-be alums The seniors chose teacher/father/Assistant and sister than friend and lover, entirely at share their year’s Head Peter Robinson to deliver the message, ease, entirely open, able to comment freely worth of research “Counting the Days,” at the Outdoor Chapel a on one’s opinions…” He concluded with two and efforts on week before gradpoems he wrote this spring, one that focused a topic of their uation. “What on the ambiguous transitions of seasons that choice. Known makes your class are more subtle than mere changes in calendar, as Senior Exhibi- so special and and the other, whose title coincided with his tions, the entire so worthy lies in message, that addressed the ambivalent situacommunity and your genuine and tion in which seniors find themselves moving Thacher’s Community a number of par- shared respect for from the intimate contact of familiar to an chose which dances (aka ents complete their one another,” Mr. unknown future. A beautifully crafted speech, Senior Exhibitions) they Dance Cards to at- Robinson related, Mr. Robinson shared the depth of his affection wished to attend tend such interest- “a respect that, for this class and how they’ve shared their suping sessions as Genome Ethics to Honesty in with very few export and concern for him during his journey Photojournalism, from Eco-terrorism to Beat ceptions, is mixed this year.

Poetry, and from Bubble Fusion to Animal with acceptance The seniors chose Peter Consciousness. The depth of these presenta- and beyond that, Robinson to give the Vespers message The All-School Banquet tions and the focused work of the seniors were with real affecquite evident in this year’s crop of Exhibi- tion. As I have watched you grow and em- Following a busy week of studying and taking tions and set a new high-watermark for future brace each other, I have been impressed by final exams, pitching miscellaneous discards your understanding of one another as well as while packing up rooms, the entire commuclasses to meet.

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Year Abroad and Maine Coast Semester, and thanked and bid adieu to the faculty members who are either going on sabbatical (Phyllis and David Johnston will research and develop two new courses) or embarking on new challenges.

(Departing faculty’s plans for the future are described on page 13.) In a nice departure from the usual events of the evening, Head Michael Mulligan asked each class president to give a short toast to close the year. From serious to humorous, these toasts were enjoyable and will become a new tradition for the School.

The All-School Banquet head table included Head Michael Mulligan, Jaime Luna ’05 (School Chair for 2004-05), Elizabeth Jackson ’04, and Evan Werlin ’04 (School Chair for 2003-04)

nity gathered under the pepper trees on The Pergola for the All-School Banquet. Awards were given for outstanding academics, the arts, athletics, and equine achievements; a complete list of awards appears on page 8. As the freshman class cleared tables and delivered random notes to unsuspecting upperclass members, the formalities began with commendations for each department, followed by induction of the newest students into the Cum Laude Society, the high-school level section of the college-level Phi Beta Kappa honor society. Election to this Society is for those who have undertaken a rigorous course load and maintained the very highest level of academic achievement and integrity throughout their tenure at Thacher.

(The newest Cum Laude members appear below.)

School Chair Evan Werlin then shared his advice to the younger classes—make the most of their time at Thacher—and thanked his classmates for their friendship, support, and efforts to create a great senior year. Mr. Mulligan welcomed back the students from School

Cum Laude Society Elected in this, their Senior Year: Cara Lasell Bonewitz Ella Wilson Carney Jessica Anne Cornwell Elizabeth George Jackson Ho Jung Kim Whitney McNear Livermore Kelly Marita Percival Jenna Lee Reasor Julia Coyner Robinson Stephen Cole Rooke Martin Bingham Sawyer Ward Cameron Sorrick Elected in this, their Junior Year: Maxwell Stewart Anderson Chandler Grace Pease

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policy questions rather than simply dividing themselves into…‘right’ and ‘wrong.’ 2) Wherever you go, leave your SAT scores behind, and take your Western pioneering spirit with you as you explore the breadth and depth of the curriculum of your college. Be open to crossing traditional academic boundaries, for it is here that we have the best chance of finding needed solutions to complex problems. 3) You have made ties not only with classmates whom fate threw together, but with friends who share your passions, commitments, and viewpoints, friends who ‘ask the same quesTo close the evening the Advanced Acting class tions’ of the world around them…I hope you presented “AA Spring Pot Puree,” an hysterical will not neglect your search for those people series of eight satirical scenes depicting school who will matter to you now, next year, and life, politics, and popular game shows. This in 20 years.” was a most fitting salute to this talented group of actors, writers, editors, producers, and tech crew—as well as the final performance for Senior Banquet Thacher’s theatrical home for so many years: At the end of Mr. Montoya’s remarks, the seThe Lamb Auditorium. This building and the niors and their guests served themselves at banChase Infirmary have been dismantled and de- quet tables piled high with a feast of smoked molished to make way for the new Performing salmon and beef loin that kicked off the Senior Arts Center that will also include the Student Banquet. Senior Center.

Whitney Livermore proudly introduced her Baccalaureate father, Nori CdeP As Thacher now includes all students for the 1966, the guest Commencement activities, the entire array of alumnus speaker functions shifted to the upper field under a for the evening large tent to protect the masses from the blaz- “who sat in these ing hot sun or drippy skies—both extremes classrooms, ate have occurred at these festivities. in the dining hall, and played on this College Counvery field.” His atselor Maria tention to detail, Nori Livermore III, MD Morales-Kent compassion for CdeP 1966 compared life at introduced her others, and drive Thacher during the sixties long-time mento do everything with today tor and friend, well has held him in good graces in all of his J a m e s M o nroles: husband, son, brother, orthopedic surtoya, who is geon, friend, and father. Citing experiences Vice President and trials foisted on generations of students of the Educa(including his father Norman Livermore CdeP tional Testing 1928, father-in-law Judge William Orrick, Jr. Service and past CdeP 1932, his own, and that of the graduatChief Student Director of College Counseling ing seniors), Dr. Livermore demonstrated how Maria Morales-Kent Affairs Officer introduced the Baccalaureate Thacher teaches students to balance academics, at Stanford. He speaker, James Montoya athletics, and artistic expressions to prepare for gave an inspitheir future lives. Academically, students learn rational speech about how well Thacher to organize and balance studies with myriad prepares its students—academically, charac- demands, how to think critically, and to seek ter-wise, morally—to be leaders in the world: assistance from others in order to expand their “a school that at times can feel sheltered and knowledge base. He spoke of watching stueven restrictive, can also so brilliantly nourish dents mature and become more tolerant of our ‘within’—the nourishment that allows us the ideas and habits of others while developto live daring lives that are fostered by bold ing skills of self-expression, self-confidence, and independent thinking, sustained by ef- and self-reliance, in large measure by moving forts that keeps us focused on the ideal, and, out of their comfort zones through the Horse of course, encircled by love…those qualities and Camping Programs and expanding their so clearly identified with you, the Thacher repertoire of skills. He urged the graduates to Class of 2004—authenticity, courage, hard take the time to remain connected with classwork, persistence, and uncommon concern mates and the School Community that “has for toads, horses, and others.” He offered given you a stellar academic foundation and three pieces of advice: “1) Help your fellow a unique strength of character…take comfort students engage in the complexity of public that your continued connection to the School

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can be the wings which carry you on ‘to do the best work in the world that you can.’”

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she touched every part of our lives and refused to allow us to be less than our best selves.

Despite her serious sense of purpose, she has not lost sight of what it means to have fun, even in the most trying times:” Julia Robinson.

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For the benefit of families who weren’t in attendance the evening before, Joy Sawyer-Mulligan had the newly inducted memIn addition to receiving the bers of the Community Service Award, Cum Laude Julia Robinson ’04 received Society stand the Charles L. Tutt Award for for their due Graham Douds ’04 won the Integrity and Responsibility praise. The Outstanding Sportsmanship Award major athletic Finally, The Thacher Cup was presented to awards were given to two accomplished ath- the senior who, in the judgment of the faculty, letes who also displayed commitment to ex- “best demonstrates those qualities the School cellence, teamwork, holds as centhe ability to elevate tral: academic the play of others, excellence, exand sportsmanship: tracurricular Graham Douds and achievement, Stephanie Rauner. moral leadership, and conThe Newton K. cern for others.

Chase Award was The recipient’s given to two seniors commitment to who have given genexcellence and erously of both their community time and energy to drives her to Stephanie Rauner ’04 encourage the dediwring out every received the Elizabeth The faculty chose to award drop of every Helms Adams The Thacher Cup to Whitney experience durSportsmanship Award Livermore ’04 ing every mocation of their peers ment of every day. With a remarkable mix of in community service hard work and determination, inclusiveness work, to pursue their and optimism, courage and modesty, few emown venues of service, body the basic principles of fairness, kindness, and to strive to improve wisdom, and truth as this fine senior:” Whitthe quality of the proney Livermore. gram and its offerings to better serve those Singing “The Banquet Song” closed the formal students who will fol- Peter Oberndorf ’04 part of the evening and signaled the beginlow their lead in the shared the ning of desserts and a dance for all ages on a years to come: Peter Community Service huge dance floor to the tunes of Preston Smith Oberndorf and Julia Award with Julia and the Crockadiles. One of Mr. Mulligan’s Robinson ’04 Robinson. favorite moments of the year occurred when a few girls began dancing the Electric Slide— The School Chair Award was given to Evan from the Chicago movie—and soon, the entire Werlin in appreciation of his ability to “easily group was moving as one; a moment unique bridge the distances among an occasionally to Thacher. grumpy faculty, a hide-bound administration, and a student body that runs the gamut from right to left. He took on all of his work with Commencement grace and aplomb…and he found a way to This year’s seniors opted for processional honor and help those in need, to support [oth- music played by a string quartet as all classes ers], and to protect the integrity of the School and the faculty took their positions for the as a whole.” ceremony. When Mr. Mulligan asked how many had endured a Thacher Commencement The Charles L. Tutt Silver Bowl Award for In- previously, he found that a number had and tegrity and Responsibility was given to a student were duly prepared with snacks, pillows, possi“who cares deeply for others and has a profound bly the morning’s crossword puzzle. Thacher’s desire to make our world a better place. From manner of lauding each students’ impact on the athletic fields to the Community Council, this Community and those character traits that

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have developed through their time here is worth the time involved. As each senior’s name was read, a graduate A local string quartet played chamber music for the came to the Commencement activities podium—in random order—to hear the “ComComs” (Commencement Comments) crafted by Joy Sawyer-Mulligan from remarks made

The Chamber Singers sang the traditional Commencement song, “This Place”

by ­ advisors, teachers, and even classmates about the endearing qualities for which each senior will long be remembered. After a mere 2½ hours, the last senior received his diploma and everyone gladly stood and roared to welcome the latest class to the ranks of alumni. e

Head of School Michael Mulligan and Jennie Tucker ’04 enjoy a laugh during the Commencement service

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Awards The Charles L. Tutt Silver Bowl for Integrity and Responsibility Julia Robinson ’04 The Thacher Cup Whitney Livermore ’04 School Chair Award Evan Werlin ’04

The William Bishop Nixon Poetry Prize Ellen Adams ’05 The Nash Robbins Short Story Award Sarah Jackler ’04

Perpetual Sportsmanship Award Graham Douds ’04

The Morgan Ward Prize for Mathematics Stephen Rooke ’04 Martin Sawyer ’04

Elizabeth Helms Adams Perpetual Sportsmanship Award Stephanie Rauner ’04

The Language Prize Julia Robinson ’04 Maxwell Kuhl ’04

Newton K. Chase Community Service Award Peter Oberndorf ’04 Julia Robinson ’04

The Physics Prize (Special Commendation—Sophomore) Ian Boneysteele ’06

The Edward R. Spaulding Tennis Cup Ryan Smith ’06

The Chemistry Prize (Special Commendation—Junior) Thomas Kim ’05

The Charles Pratt Trapshoot Plate Will Oxley ’05

The Life Science Prize (Special Commendation—Senior) Martin Sawyer ’04 Annie O’Donnell ’04

Jesse Kahle Horsecamper Award Will Oxley ’05

The Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Award Ryan Church ’05

Best Camper Award Juliana Ma ’05

The History Prize Christopher Willoughby ’04

The George Beckwith Gymkhana Trophy Martha Gregory ’06 Will Oxley ’05

The Darrah Corbet, Jr., Studio Prize Jessica Cornwell ’04

The Bissell Gymkhana Trophy Lauren Chase ’06 Herbert C. Moffitt Memorial Trophy Saddle Will Oxley ’05 Perpetual Silver Bridles for Horsemanship Brendan Keane ’05 Hazel Ruiz ’05 The Vaquero Cup Lauren Chase ’06 The Hollister Wheaton Trapshoot Award Robert Torres and his son, Justin ’04 The Golden Carabiner Award Calvin Lieu ’04 Justin Ouyang ’05 The Marvin H. Shagam Award Barrett Brown ’05

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The Jack Boyd English Award Jessica Cornwell ’04

Rhode Island School of Design Award Jenna Reason ’04 The Agnes M. Lord Music Award Whitney Livermore ’04 The Marcus Hele Dall Photography Award Eric Elias ’06 The Harry Llewellyn Bixby Dramatic Cup Cara Bonewitz ’04 The Class of 2000 Dance Award Elizabeth Jackson ’04 The Eric Bechtel Dachs Prize for Technical Theatre Peter Gierke ’04 The Munro-Palmer Public Speaking and Debate Award Samuel Felton ’05 Martin Sawyer ’04

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Senior Exhibitions, Colleges Senior Gilbert Acosta Ali Arastu Cara Bonewitz Grace Bueti Felicia Butts Ella Carney MacKenna Chase Andy Clark Jessica Cornwell Elizabeth Craver Nhu Y Dang Virginia Dawson James Dibblee Graham Douds Chris Eaton Lauren Fiske Leland Franklin Katie Frykman Peter Gierke Chris Goldman Clare Holstein Sarah Jackler Elizabeth Jackson Craig Johnson Rebeccah Judd Ho Jung Kim Bianca Kissel Max Kuhl Sabrina Lee Calvin Lieu Ned Lincoln Whitney Livermore Matt Mayne Kasi McLenaghan Taylor Medina Hunter Metcalf David Moore Robert Neville Peter Oberndorf Annie O’Donnell Kelly Percival Michael Quintana Stephanie Rauner Jenna Reasor Cameron Robertson Julia Robinson Stephen Rooke Martin Sawyer Sara Schneider Lee Shurtleff Jamie Siegel Jim Sligh Ward Sorrick Matthew Stenovec Ian Strachan Becky Swan Tory Thorpe Justin Torres Jennie Tucker Alissa Wallace Evan Werlin Catherine Whittinghill Chris Willoughby

Senior Exhibition Topic Animal Consciousness Warren Buffet and Investing Drugs and the Creative Process in Jazz Conscious Hip-Hop: A Voice for Our Generation Gospel Music and Soul Music The Nature of Fear in Humans Police Brutality Censorship and Contemporary Cinema Isolated Rebel to Youth Movement The Serial Killer Profile Charlie Chaplin Political Media Journalism Fast Food Raising Teens The Recording Industry Genome Ethics Bubble Fusion The Enneagram: Science or Alchemy?

Hydrogen Fuel Cells Euthanasia and Physician-Assisted Suicide The Common Development of Jazz and Hip Hop Atomic Bomb Cinema: Apocalyptic Imagination in Contemporary Times The Peace Corps Colorectal Cancer Forensic Science The Ancient Art of Face Reading The Psychology of Color Beat Poetry and Its Connection with Jazz Disease and Race Whale Study The Chatauqua and Education The Development of Morality in Children The State of the Opera Symbolism in DaVinci’s Work Divorce and the American Teenager Dreaming Revolutions Intellectual Property: What Are Our Rights?

Energy Independence in the United States Photography and Design The Homeless Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Families Ethics and Division I Athletics John Cage: His Life, Ideas, and Contributions to 20th Century Experimental Music Reggae Music A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall: The Rise and Fall of The Weathermen Language Acquisition and Computer Science Northern Ireland: Revolution and Resolution?

Horsemanship, the Bit, and the Bridle Stand-Up Comedy Beyond the Lullaby: Music As Therapy Satire Magazine Advertising Eco-Terroism Tolkien: A Life and Fantasy Cow Horses: Ranch Horse or Show Horse? Are They One and the Same?

The Imagination Teen Nutrition and Well-Being Honesty in Photojournalism Women and Gang Membership The Guitar Religion and Politics in America Special Interest Groups and Democracy

School Attending Emory University USC—BA/MD program Yale University Wesleyan University Northwestern University Tufts University University of Arizona Cornell University Stanford University Goucher College Trinity University Bowdoin College Colorado College Bucknell University St. Lawrence University Northwestern University Brown University Pepperdine University University of Colorado, Boulder Brandeis University California Institute of the Arts McGill University Wake Forest University UC Santa Cruz Vassar College Cornell University Connecticut College St. John’s College Emory University Carleton College Union College Williams College New York University Rhodes College Santa Barbara City College Occidental College Did not apply Brown University Williams College Davidson College Stanford University Tulane University Emory University California Institute of the Arts California Polytechnic State U-SLO Columbia University Rice University Willliams College Colorado State, Fort Collins Chapman University Georgetown University Emerson College University of Pennsylvania Whitman College Wheaton College Feather River Community College Durham University Colorado College George Washington University Skidmore College Brown University Pepperdine University Kenyon College

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Campus Activities

Gymkhana Giddyup

Fun

by Jane D. McCarthy

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his spring’s Big Gymkhana Weekend kicked off with English and Trail Riding Events that challenge both riders and their equine partners through tricky and often frustrating scenarios as they jumped, backed through barriers, rattled cans, and seesawed on a tilt trailer to see how well the partnership works together.

Meanwhile, lacrosse sticks crossed and balls flew as the boys’ and girls’ varsity teams won their end-of-season matches against Oaks Christian (19-2) and Cate (6-4), respectively.

Following dinner and a reception for student artwork at the Brody Gallery, families crowded into the Lamb Auditorium for a Cabaret of performing talents. Highlights included the Chamber Singers rendition of several classics

by Mozart, Brahms, and Mendelssohn. The Dance Ensemble performed to the American traditional folk song, “Shenandoah” and, later, a more lively dance to “Bailo el Mambo.”

Thacher’s Chorus sang mostly contemporary pieces including “Choose Something Like a Star” and “Why Do Fools Fall in Love?” Coffee and desserts on The Pergola ushered out the evening.

flowers and some scenic vistas. Others opted to watch the students who chose Rock Climbing as their afternoon activity this spring as they scaled Jameson Rock at the Gymkhana Field.

English Department Chair and draft horse driver Rod “Jake” Jacobsen skirted the Big Gymkhana Field in a wagon crafted by Rosalio Ramirez, who rode along with Jesse Kahle and timers to begin the Big Gymkhana events.

Meanwhile, riders warmed up and gradually formed their three teams into a large pinwheel, with small, steady steps in the center, gradually speeding to a trot and a gallop at the outer fringes as the Team Captains carried and then presented the Quinn Hacker ’07, riding Joey, National, competes in the Sack Race State, and Mia and Bob Morrill (parents of Appollonia Gymkhana flags. Caitlin Wyman ’06 sang CdeP 1991, Robert CdeP 1989, Eric CdeP “The Star-Spangled Banner” and the events 1998, and Jenny ’06) created a Scavenger Hunt soon got underway. to keep adolescents busy Saturday morning, while a dozen or so folks hiked the trails sur- One had to check Thacher’s webpage frerounding campus to view the remnants of wild quently to keep abreast of this season’s Gym10 The Thacher News

khana standings for the Top 10 Freshmen, the Top 10 Riders, and which team was in first place. Senior Stephen Rooke created a program in which he updated weekly—sometimes biweekly—individual races, riders, and teams. The jockeying of positions changed at least weekly: the Orange Team started out strong, but was soon overtaken by t h e G r e e n Te a m that never looked back. The Blue Team started out slowly—likely due to inadequate focus Top Rider Lauren Chase on barn jobs and a ’06 and Lucy Herr ’06 preponderance of enjoy the Auction “green” riders—but finished in second place at season’s end. Access to these timely updates made the season more intriguing for students, their parents, and faculty.

Individual scores were equally varied. As injuries mounted for both equine and human participants, those who had strong starts fell in their standings and inexperienced riders took hold and steered their way into enviable rankings. Two freshmen boys with virtually no riding experience prior to Thacher accu-

gan, Will Wyman III CdeP 1978, and David level of participation by so many Thacher Oxley CdeP 1979 the true winners. Ah, there’s families—parents, grandparents, and students always next year… all got in the act.

Jedidiah Harris displays his numerous awards for riding, including a Silver Buckle for top fresham rider

mulated enough points for the season to be in the Top-10 Rider lineup: Jedidiah Harris (458) and Sam Lino (389). Jedidiah won two shiny belt buckles for amassing the most points on Big Gymkhana Day and as the #1 freshman rider. Other Top-10 Riders included members of every class and team. The overall individual winner, however, happened to be the captain of the Orange Te a m : L a u ren Chase ’06.

English Rider: senior Sara Schneider. Top Junior Riders—Brendan Keane and Hazel Ruiz— received special bridles for their use next year in the Riding ProBrooke Wharton ’07 on Hot gram.

Shot picks up Sam Lino ’07 in the Rescue Race

After awarding the horseback riding results and eating enough tri tip, chicken, and strawberry shortcake to sink a stead, the Live Auction got underway. This featured the tag team of Sandy Jensen (drama instructor and father of Cal ’06 and new freshman Genevieve) and Ted Robinson (local horseman and professional auctioneer); Sandy warmed up the crowd with vivid descriptions of 10 diverse and amazing items while Ted churned the bidding into a flurry of competition at breakneck speed.

From a scarf of Thacher colors knit by each member of the Casa dormitory to tradiFreshmen Britt Barnard, Sophie LaRocque, Leslie Sligh, Alex tional favorDotson, and Olivea Callenderites of the Scott display the scarf crafted by “ Wo r l d ’ s Casa for the Auction Best Brownies” and a horseback ride and gourmet picnic—both offered by the Mulligans, from a trip to Alaska and an adorable blonde Labrador puppy, the bids ratcheted up to a total of over $33 thousand for just that portion of the evening. And beyond that, hundreds of silent auction bidders happily walked away with personal services, travel and stays in vacation settings, clothing, books, and gourmet baskets to name a few. Trustee Bill and Susan Oberndorf Math teacher with son Peter ’04 and Trustee Fred Coleman Cecilia Herbert, mother of (stepfather of Deirdre ’06 and Alex CdeP 2002 Molly Katz ’07) won the Toyota Prius drawing, underwritten by the Board of Trustees.

The real joy of the evening though was the

The Silver Dollar Pick Up expanded by eight this year when these folks swung out of the saddle at a gallop to pluck the coin from the dirt: Quinn Hacker ’07, David Cook ’07, Martha Gregory ’06, Stone Yu ’07, Drew Cole ’07, Peter Arnold ’05, Martin Sawyer ’04, and Richard Winters, Horse Program Fellow. Finally, there was some controversy that came to light following this year’s Alumni Packing Race. The declared Top Ten Riders winners were the Liver- (in order) mores (Mo and Nori CdeP 1966, along with daughter Lauren Chase ’06 Whitney ’04), but, as Mr. Martha Gregory ’06 Mulligan reviewed photos of their dash for the Deirdre Herbert ’06 finish line, he noted their Catherine Whittinghill ’04 “failure to tuck the man- Sara Schneider ’04 tee behind the cross bars, Jedidiah Harris ’07 failure for the mantee to cover the top load, and Will Oxley ’05 harassment of stock by the Peter Arnold ’05 team” should lead to their Sam Lino ’07 disqualification, thereby making the trio of Mulli- Kasi McLenaghan ’04

The message Sunday morning’s chapel service was given by Samuel Eaton CdeP 1965, father of senior Chris.

Entitled “The Thacher Legacy,” Sam detailed aspects of the greatest eight years of his life: the four years he spent At Sunday’s chapel service, Sam Eaton here and the four years compared son Chris’s he’s spent as a parent and his own Thacher of a Thacher student, experience watching the parallel growth, maturation, and activities that they have shared individually and together. In his words, “The essence of the Thacher legacy is not just the superior education, and riding horses, taking trips and doing sports. These stories are simply the forms that the experience manifests. What my son and I learned most significantly here were not the lessons of the classroom, but life lessons, lessons that will carry us through the years:” service, trust, commitment, and gratitude.

“Of course, if we are lucky, we learn values at home at a young age. But we do not really develop our ‘moral compass’ until we have gathered a little life experience. Only recently have I come to fully appreciate the extent to which Thacher helped me orient my ‘moral compass.’ In watching Chris grow up over the last four years, I have recognized just how much the Thacher legacy is one of creation of character.”

The final song, “Forever Young” by Bob Dylan, appropriately spanned the generations of those in attendance and lifted the mood of all. Then it was off to trap shooting for parents and their children (maintenance worker Robert Torres and his son Justin ’04 were the best shots) and drop-in tennis for a few racqueteers who enjoyed the warm morning before students bade goodbye to their families who headed home after a jam-packed weekend. e

Top Ten Freshmen (in order) 633 592 560 545 475 458 429 417 389 368

Jedidiah Harris Sam Lino Quinn Hacker Drew Cole Nick Hubbard Brooke Wharton Alex Dotson Britt Barnard James Burton Sam Purcell

Gymkhana Team Scores 458 389 365 303 288 280 275 250 229 221

Green: 5915 Captained by Martha Gregory ’06 and Will Oxley ’05 Blue: 4762 Captained by Catherine Whittinghill ’04 and Deirdre Herbert ’06 Orange: 4059 Captained by Lauren Chase ’06 Spring / Summer 2004 11

Faculty

Campus Activities

New and Departing Faculty

by Jane D. McCarthy

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eaching English on a one-year sabbatical replacement appointment is Kevin C. Buddhu, husband of Margo, who taught science here a few years back. Most recently, Kevin taught English at Camarillo High School along with working on his master’s at the Breadloaf School of English at Middlebury College. He earned his bachelor of arts from San Diego State University. Kevin is an avid bicycle rider, surfer, backpacker, and swimmer. He will teach English 1 and 2, and advise freshman boys. Kevin and Margo will live on The Hill with their two sons: Will (9) and Spencer (7).

Joining Thacher’s History Department this fall is Anthony “Toby” Elmore, who most recently taught history and coached soccer and lacrosse at the Dunn School in Los Olivos. Toby attended Western Reserve Academy, where he played varsity soccer and lacrosse. He matriculated to Connecticut College, where he majored in government; he also played varsity soccer and squash. He will be the Head Coach for the Girls’ Varsity Soccer Team and the Assistant Coach for the Boys’ Varsity Lacrosse Team.

He will advise sophomore boys in Los Padres.

Over the summer Toby married Amy Wurtz, who joined Thacher’s Development Office as a research specialist. Most recently, Amy worked as the Interim Executive Director for Solvang Theatrefest and as a Development Consultant for the Dunn School; previously she worked for various non-profit organizations across the nation. She holds a bachelor’s in biology with a minor in political science from Trinity University (Texas), and a master’s degree in nonprofit management from Seattle University. She will advise sophomore girls on The Hill. The Elmores live in the Handball Court.

12 The Thacher News

Thacher welcomes back Eliza N. Gregory CdeP 1999, who is working in the Admission Office, as an intern in English, assisting with the Horse Program, and helping to coach lacrosse. Eliza graduated from Princeton University with a major in comparative literature, a certificate in the visual arts, and a concentration in creative writing. She will serve as the Freshman Class Advisor and advise freshman girls, but she’ll live in freshman boys’ dorm, Lower School. Before coming to Thacher, Eliza worked in New York as a freelance photographic assistant. Her many hobbies and interests include creative writing, Cuban history and culture, and photography.

We i - Yi n g L i n j o i n s Thacher’s faculty this year to teach Chinese while Li Li completes her doctorate at UCLA. She has a bachelor’s degree in comparative literature from Wellesley College; she is trilingual in English, Mandarin Chinese, and Taiwanese, and she has conversational skills in Korean. She has extensive experience in boarding schools as she graduated from Dana Hall in Massachusetts and attended summer programs at Exeter and Andover. Beyond the classroom, Wei-Ying advises sophomore girls and lives in Los Padres.

She will help with the Indoor Committee, and may form an international student club. Her hobbies include writing short stories, reading, oil painting, and watching Korean films.

Thacher’s new Dean of Students is Sabina ­McMahon, a former Associate Dean at the Northfield Mount Hermon School, and before that, the Chair of the Nightingale-Bamford Mathematics Department in New York City. Sabina earned a bachelor’s in English from Colgate University, followed by a master of arts degree in mathematics education from Columbia.

Sabina’s experience, coupled with her maturity, insight, and wisdom are sure to be drawn on for this important appointment. Some freshman girls enjoyed Sabina’s tutelage last year

when she served as their advisor; this year, she wife Theresa have three children: Nolan (4), will be working on The Hill with sophomore Meg (3), and Katie (1); they live in the Beck girls and will teach one math course. She will House near the Gymkhana Field. also serve on the Administrative Committee, co-Chair the HR&S Program, and Chair the Dorm Council. Sabina and her husband Bill (Director of Admission) have three sons: Quinn Faculty Farewells (14), Colin (11), and Griffin (7).

Since Bill and Gallia Vickery will return this R e n é e N u ñ e z j o i n s fall from their sabbatical year, Pam Lappen will Thacher’s faculty this no longer be instructing and choreographing year on a part-time basis the dancers. She will, however, still live in Ojai to teach Advanced Place- and, hopefully, visit campus on occasion. ment Art History. She has a master of arts degree in Heading back to make his home on the range modern and contempo- is Cam Spaulding CdeP 1992. Fortunately, rary arts from Goldmith’s we’re not saying goodbye to Cam for long; University of London; he will return in late winter/early spring to she also earned a bachelor of arts in liberal coach lacrosse and possibly teach a course. arts from Reed College, where her thesis was This summer, he took four young men (Ali on the discipline of psychology and art. She Arastu CdeP 2004, David Moore CdeP 2004, trained at a NOLS course in Baja on how to Nick Wiltsie ’06. and Alex de la Torre Bueno take kids rock climbing. In her spare time, she ’06) on a three-week Wilderness Trek in the Siloves yoga, rock climbing, art, architecture, erra, including a two-night solo. Simon Crane adventure, and traveling. and Nick Tranmer, both CdeP 1992, helped organize and run this program of “walking, After a five-year hiatus learning, and loving the Sierra.” during which she taught English at The Viewpoint After seven long years of working on her School in Calabasas, doctorate, Chinese teacher Li Li will complete Blossom ­ Beatty Pidher dissertation next year at UCLA. She also duck CdeP 1992 rejoins said “I do” with Bruce Peters CdeP 1965 on Thacher’s faculty as a fulltheir ranch next to the Huylers’ in Wyoming time teacher of English 3 this summer. and AP English. Blossom served as Assistant Director of Admission and Raelyn Viti hit the road for home in New taught English from 1997 to 1999 at Thacher. Hampshire to work with SOLO, the outdoor Following her graduation from Thacher in organization; she will also teach Wilderness 1992, Blossom earned a bachelor of arts degree First Responder Camp. in English and American studies at Amherst College, and a master’s in education with a History instructor and lacrosse coach Bill Rexteacher certification from Harvard University ford and his wife Sondi have moved to Sisters, Graduate School of Education. Beyond her Oregon, where he’ll be teaching in the Sisters classroom duties, Blossom will advise fresh- School District and coaching. man girls, serve as advisor for production of the yearbook El Archivero, work on the Senior Math teacher and kayaker extraordinaire Profile Committee, and write for the School’s Kurt Supplee is off on a great adventure: website. She married Brian last summer; they he’s taken a two-year position at Consuelo live near The Hill dormitories.

Campo Alegre in Caracas, Venezuela, where he’ll teach in the international baccalaureate C h r i s Vy h n a l j o i n s program in math, study Spanish, and tour Thacher’s Science Depart- South America. ment this fall to teach AP and Honors Chemistry. AP Art History Instructor Holly Mitchem will He holds a doctorate in continue to divide her time between Ojai and geochemistry from Dart- Arizona (where her husband Dennis’s job took mouth College, along with him last year) but not teach at Thacher. Inmaster’s and bachelor’s de- stead, she will continue her work with fine art grees in geology from the appraising, teach at UC Irvine, and begin to University of Tennessee and Colgate Univer- write a book on the architectural history of sity, respectively. Prior to arriving here, Chris the Ojai. was a science teacher at Hathaway Brown in Shaker Heights, OH, and at St. Mark’s Schools In order for Linda, Pierre Yoo, and their onein Southborough, MA. Beyond his classroom year-old Isabella to be closer to their families in responsibilities, Chris will co-advise Senior Ex- the Northeast, Pierre accepted a science teacher hibitions and work with the sophomore boys position at St. George’s School in Newport, RI. in Los Padres. He enjoys Italian cooking, chess, He will also advise, serve as a dorm parent, home brewing, and astronomy. Chris and his and coach. e Spring / Summer 2004 13

Campus Activities

Sports

S P R I N G

Girls’ Junior Varsity Lacrosse Coaches: Kara Hooper and Phoebe Larson Captains: Sarah Eckhardt ’05, Catherine Robinson ’06, and Julia Joo Won Oh ’06

If you saw this team in mid-May, you might not believe that only three of its members had ever picked up a stick before March of this year. Although they recorded more losses than victories, they enjoyed “a thrilling victory (6-4)” over Santa Catalina’s JV, according to Coach Hooper. “The girls played through a torrential downpour; at one point, the game was delayed for 25 minutes to wait out the thunder and lightning!”

Boys’ Varsity Lacrosse Coaches: Bill Rexford and Cam Spaulding CdeP 1992 Captain: Ward Sorrick ’04

by Joy Sawyer-Mulligan and Jane D. McCarthy

Compiling a 12-4 overall season record, the laxmen launched their season with a 9-6 victory over Rye Country Day School—an especially poignant victory because it’s the school where Coach Rexford had coached before coming to Thacher. “They were out to avenge their loss to us last year [one of only two in their whole season],” Rex reports. “We set out to prove that we could play with any school our size.”

This victory set them up for three more in a row: against Windward, Peninsula (school size: 4000) and Chaminade’s Big Boys (truly). Their final game of the post-season was a nail-biter/heart-breaker that ultimately went to Cate in overtime.

Boys’ Varsity Tennis

Boys’ Junior Varsity Tennis Coach: David Johnston

The whole team participated in captaincy responsibilities and honors, following a simple mantra: “Play hard, have fun.” Improvement, from start to finish, was “substantial,” according to Dr. J. He went on to say that juniors Zach Behar and Ben Castanon played as “the best JV doubles team in the League,” winning most of their matches. A couple of rookies–Arthur Kaneko ’05 and Dackory Hill ’06—made big strides, with Arthur winning two of three singles matches in the season finale against Cate.

Girls’ Varsity Lacrosse Coaches: Emily McCarren and Peter Robinson Captains: Virginia Dawson ’04 and Jennie Tucker ’04

This team not only won the League with a perfect 6-0 record, but traveled all over the state to compete, from San Diego (where they placed second in the MC Stix, Surf and Sun Tournament) to the Bay Area (the Western States Tourney, where they played the best squads in the west and some from as far away as Cleveland). They closed with a 12-2 overall record.

The season finale was a tasty victory against Cate in the Southern California Girls Lacrosse Association Championships—their second in as many years.

14 The Thacher News

Baseball Coaches: Rich Mazzola, Robert Torres, and Ben Farrell Captains: Graham Douds ’04 and Cameron Robertson ’04

Directly from Coach Mazzola: “…another standout baseball season this spring [in which they earned] a fourth consecutive Condor League Championship.

With several Condor League teams in and out of the CIF’s top ten poll throughout the course of the season, we faced the most challenging league competition that Bard Field has seen in years. A shining example came when we hosted Cate: we trailed right up to our last turn at bat when back-to-back squeeze plays brought the tying and winning runs across the plate. Graham Douds finished his spectacular athletic career here at Thacher with a phenomenal season: batting average of .667 and his 0.71 earned run average were both tops in the county.

Kayaking

Coach: Christina Mazzola Captains: Martin Sawyer ’04 and Ali Arastu ’04

This team finished 11-7 overall, posting victories over perennial powerhouses San Marcos, Dos Pueblos, and Oakwood (the winner of the 2004 CIF Championship). Although Thacher lost to Oakwood in the CIF second round play-offs, they beat them in regular season play, in part because of “the tremendous spirit and dedication” of Captains Sawyer and Arastu. “These two urged the other boys on with their excellent example day in and day out,” Coach Chris reports.

a well-earned second place,” proudly writes Coach Perry. “Gritty performances, tenacious competition and good camaraderie filled the season.” As for season’s end honors: three’s a charm for Katie Frykman ’04, who won Most Valuable Player distinction for the third year running; Ian Strachan also added the MVP feather to his cap. Alex de la Torre Bueno ’06 earned Most Improved.

Boys’ Junior Varsity Lacrosse Coaches: Bo Manson and Spencer Stevens Captains: Taylor Medina ’04 and Charlie Bennett ’05

Winding up with a win-loss record of 6-5 meant building on skills the boys learned from scratch.

Director of Athletics Rich Mazzola writes, “The JV’s commanding victory over Cate and an exciting 3-2 win over a very talented Malibu were tributes to the dedication, teamwork, and good, old-fashioned grit that were the hallmarks of the team.”

Boys’ Freshman Lacrosse Coach: Michael Mulligan Captains: David Cook ’07 and Nick Hubbard ’07

Straight from the mouth of their leader: “Led by their able and confident Co-Captains Cook and Hubbard, the Frosh laxers made tremendous progress over the course of the season. After losing an opening game to the OVS Varsity, they romped over the Santa Barbara Lacrosse Club twice. In their final game, they tied the Cate Freshmen, 3-3 in the kind of match that can cause hair to turn gray for onlookers.

Track and Field Coaches: Derick Perry CdeP 1983, Pierre Yoo, Kurt Meyer, Theana Hancock, and Dan Henry Captains: Bianca Kissel ’04 and Ian Strachan ’04

“In the Condor League Championships, the boys came away the champs, while the girls fought to

Kayak master Kurt Supplee orchestrated a rich and varied program of weekdays mastering moves in the pool, shallow end first and Wednesdays loading gear and vanning towards the Gold Coast Breaks off Ventura. Extended trips included the Kern (where they paddled the Powerhouse and Limestone stretches of the river), Brush Creek, which dumps dramatically into the Kern, and a sojourn to the Salt River in Arizona for an Extra Day Trip.

Advanced Rock Climbing Five students joined their leader Brian Pidduck CdeP 1992 for a spring full of boulders and belays, pitches, and problems—the good kind that challenge a climber to examine and ponder and finally plan a route across or upward. MVC Calvin Lieu ’04 has climbed nearly every one of the campus’s most difficult boulders (Jameson Plaque and the confounding Dream Boulder) and a good many beyond, most notably, The Big Moe in Joshua Tree. The group’s Most Improved Climber was Justin Ouyang ’05, whose patience and persistence amazed his climbing partners: Together, Calvin and Justin won The Golden Carabiner Award for their ascent of the Royal Arches Route and the South Face of North Dome in Yosemite Valley during this spring’s Extra-Day Trips.

Dance Ensemble Under Pam Lappen’s direction, Dance Ensemble continued traditional training in ballet and modern dance, and added classes in Rommet Floor Barre, Pilates and Feldenkreis techniques. Two highlights were a master drumming class with local percussionist Brad Buley and a master class with members of UCSB’s Dance Company, who performed for the whole school in an after-dinner concert that night.

The group performed two new pieces—“Shenandoah” and “Bailo el Mambo” for Grandparents’ Day, Gymkhana Cabaret, and the Spring Concert. e

Tidbits Campus Activities

Snippets of News Numeracy Stumper

by Jane D. McCarthy

Many seniors received special recognition this year. Jessica Cornwell was chosen as one of three students in Southern California to receive a Ronald Reagan Scholarship. One of California’s 50 Student Scholars was Whitney Livermore ’04. Julia Robinson ’04 and Graham Douds ’04 were inducted into the Ventura County Hall of Fame for their athletic achievements throughout their Thacher careers.

In memory of the long-term relationship between Thacher and her father, Herbert C. Moffitt, MD CdeP 1933, Liz Moffitt Herr (mother of Alex ’05 and Lucy ’06) donated a tooled western saddle to the School. This special saddle will be awarded each spring to a student deeply committed to the Horse Program; Will Oxley ’05 is the first recipient. Dr. Moffitt loved riding throughout his life and even rode until shortly before his death last fall.

Will Oxley ’05 receives the Herbert C. Moffitt Memorial Trophy Saddle

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ome creative and diverse solutions were the stick fixed), we now have a new polygon submitted for last issue’s puzzle. A sam- with area 5. Repeat this process by moving pling follows. the new corner at (1,0) to (2,1), and we have a polygon with area 4. Finally, move the corner With 12 (unbroken) matchsticks of equal at (0,1) to (1,2) and we have a new polygon length, create a closed polygon whose area with area 3, which is best described as a 3-4-5 is exactly 3 square matchsticks. (Matchsticks right triangle, with three 1×1 squares removed may meet only at their ends: no loose ends, from the corner of the right angle. please!)

Congratulations to Tom Konrad CdeP 1987 who struck the brightest flame with last issue’s matchstick problem. He correctly produced a simple recipe for creating a polygon that Kip Witter CdeP (1964) offered an alternative exactly produces the required area. solution with an enormous number of answers that involved all possible figures from equilatStart with a 3-4-5 right triangle with corners eral triangles and pentagons to Stars of David! at (0,0), (3,0), and (0,4), outlined with match- Remarkable indeed! sticks. This has area 6, so we need to reduce it by 3. If we take the two matches that touch the origin, and move that corner so that it touches (1,1) instead (leaving the other ends of

The New Puzzle “Match Your Wits Against This…”

A horse race is to be conducted, with two horses completing a circuit twice around the Jamison Gymkhana field in head-to-head competition—a distance of 1250 yards. In the first run, Widowmaker beat Glue Master by 75 yards, so in the second run, Widowmaker was made to start 75 yards behind the line.

In the second race, both horses ran exactly as they did in the first. What was the outcome and why?

Send your solution to Kurt Meyer in the Thacher Math Department via email at kmeyer@thacher.org, or via US mail at the School address. Good luck!

Spring / Summer 2004 15

Trustees

Campus Activities

New and Retiring Trustees Unsung Heroes

Retiring Trustees

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fter serving three terms of three years each as Trustees for Thacher, we say goodbye and thank you to Rev. Charles H. “Kelly” Clark CdeP 1944, Javier F. Arango CdeP 1981, and Paul L. Yelder CdeP 1977. A few words from the resolutions drafted and presented by other Trustees indicate why these retiring Board members will be truly missed. Kelly will long be remembered for his leadership on the Trustee committee, and for “deftly crafting…sights, sounds, smells, traditions, and history into a tightly woven, memory-provoking, often tear-evoking homily, delivered in his inimitable, mellifluous voice,” for many Thacher celebrations during the past six decades. Javier brought his extensive financial planning, development, and management experience to bear in “developing a robust financial model for the School that has been invaluable in presenting the School’s financial position and future scenarios that are easy to comprehend and will assist in making timely financial and operational decisions.” Paul “brought his extensive project-planning, development, and management experience to Thacher” and always served with enthusiastic, unselfish commitment in any way he was asked.

Due to heavy work demands at the Independent Colleges of Southern California, Martha W. “Marti” Hammer chose to leave the Board after two three-year terms. Thacher benefited from Marti’s association with ICSC, from her fundraising leadership to her extensive network of connections for new trustee recommendations. We also thank Drs. Carol T. and Edward L “Ned” Cahill CdeP 1970, who kindly and ably served as this year’s Parents’ Association Presidents and offered great analysis, insight, and input for the School’s Health Center, Board-related business, and student/parent perspectives.

16 The Thacher News

New Trustees

by Jane D. McCarthy

Scott Cook have served or are currently serving on the boards of the Harvard Business School, John P. Carver CdeP Asia Foundation, and the University of Wis1953 matriculated from consin Center for Product Management AdThacher to Stanford, visory Board. They have three children: David where he earned a bach- Cook ’07, Karl (13), and Annie (10). elor’s degree in 1957.

Lawrence B. “Larry” WerJohn worked in managelin, MD—father of Rachel ment for various departCdeP 1997, Evan CdeP ment and specialty stores 2004, and Emma ’05—be­(Macy’s, JC Penney, Bullgins his first three-year term ocks, and The Gap), the last of which he served on the Board of Trustees. as the VP of Operations, Corporate Senior VP He earned his bachelor’s of Human Resources, and finally Assistant to degree at Boston University the Chairman. John formed a management in 1970, studied medicine company, Carver/Allen when he retired from The Gap. He volunteers for various non-profit at the University of Brussels, and earned his entities in the Bay Area. He and his wife Sue degree from Mount Sinai School of Medicine live in Hillsborough; they have three grown in New York in 1976. Dr. Werlin is Board children (Thomas, Amy, and Jonathan) and Certified by the American Board of Obstetrics and Gynecology and Board Eligible for a Subfour grandchildren.

Specialty Reproductive Endocrinology. His practice in Irvine specializes in infertility; he’s Lewis W. Coleman CdeP also taught at UC Irvine Medical Center, written 1960 graduated from extensively, and lectured on this topic for the Stanford in 1965. He curpast few decades. Larry and his wife Sally live rently serves as president in Newport Beach. of The Moore Foundation in San Francisco, estabTaking over the reins of lished by Gordon Moore, the Parents’ Association founder of the Intel Corare Jan and Jon Pease, poration. Lew is also Director of Chiron Corp., Northrup Grumman, parents of Chandler ’05, SeaFirst Bank, and The Komatsu International Kensey ’07, and Jensen Advisory Board. He serves on various non- (13). After growing up profit boards including San Francisco Food in the Napa Valley, Jan Bank, California Academy of Sciences, Conser- attended USC, where vation International, Hoover Institution, and she graduated with a the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra. Lew bachelor’s degree in communication arts and resides in Ross; he has four grown children: sciences in 1983. She then studied Speech and sons Greg and Peter, and daughters Michelle Language Pathology at Northwestern University, where she graduated with a master’s in and Nancy.

1986. Jon grew up in Ventura and graduated Signe Ostby oversees Val- from USC, where he met Jan during their freshhalla Farms, raising Al- man year while standing outside their dormipacas and horses near her tory during a bomb threat. He also studied at family’s home in Wood- Northwestern, where he earned a master’s in side. She has competed on finance and business strategy. Jon worked for the hunter/jumper circuit a large public accounting firm, but for the last and represented the US decade-plus, he’s worked for a small medical in the World Cup Show cost management business in Ventura. They Jumping Competition in live in Oak View. e Geneva, Switzerland. Previously, she was vice president of marketing for Software Publishing Corporation and was in brand management with Procter & Gamble and Clorox. She holds a BA and MBA from the University of Wisconsin, both in marketing. Signe and her husband

Campaign The Campaign for Thacher

Ground Broken for Commons

by Sara Sackner

Construction Underway

Faculty Moves to New Homes

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The Thacher School is dear to Tom May CdeP 1959 on many levels. What better way to acknowledge this appreciation than to participate in The Campaign for Thacher. Tom funded two recently completed on-campus faculty homes, which are essential in maintaining the School’s philosophy of whole community.

Alumni, parents, grandparents, and friends of Thacher have significantly supported the he Music Man was the final produc- Commons as well as endowment for faculty tion to grace the stage of the Lamb and financial aid and other important capital Auditorium last spring; it did the place projects. Thacher is most grateful for the genproud! The site of scores of plays, musicals, erosity of these donors. concerts, dance and chorus performances, and the always anticipated Senior Night Live Two of these supporters are John Carver extravaganzas, will be replaced with two CdeP 1953 and his wife, Sue, who are the new structures—the Student Center and the lead donors to the Student Center. John’s inPerforming Arts Building, known together as terest in helping youth is evident in his work with A Better Chance, which provides quality the Commons Project. education to minority scholars; The American Following the whirlwind of graduation and Dream, which provides two-year scholarships reunion weekends, workers carefully sal- to Cañada College for Latino scholars; and of vaged the Auditorium prior to demolition. course, Thacher, where John is beginning his The redwood panels in the Alumni Room, first year of service on the Board of Trustees. donated by Ike Livermore CdeP 1928, will (Please see John’s bio on the previous page.) be reused in the new buildings as will the plaster friezes, which were commissioned by “Sue and I feel it is truly important to provide a multi-purpose building, where all students Sherman Thacher. can comfortably mingle—cook snacks, play During the summer, the Auditorium and the games, listen to music, and hang out. At Health Center were demolished and the land the same time, basic student services such as mail pickup, a bookstore, and meeting and conference rooms will be conveniently located in the same facility.

We are thrilled with the plans, excited that construction has commenced, and look forward to seeing the completed building! We hope the Commons will become the heart of the campus, a gathering place for every member of the Thacher Family to use and enjoy.”

New faculty home located near The Hill

I am fortunate to view this issue from a teacher’s point of view as I served on the faculty from 1956-1961. I became very aware of the importance of students being able to observe and talk to teachers beyond classroom times, such as evening meetings for academic assistance, advice, and counseling, or informal socialization.

Interactivity with faculty and their families is a silent education in itself. The coaching, camping, and working with faculty make students realize that teachers are “real human beings.”

—Tom May CdeP 1959

—John Carver CdeP 1953

In addition to supporting faculty homes, Tom John and Sue’s contribution to the has been an active volunteer serving 18 years The dismantling of the Lamb Auditorium makes way for the Student Center is in honor of the on the Board of Trustees. Thacher is grateful class of 1953. Generations of stu- for Tom’s generosity and commitment to the new Commons Project dents and faculty will be served School. Casa de Piedra is definitely not fading graded. As you read this, the new foundation is through the Carvers’ thoughtful support of from his heart, as Tom himself fully acknowledges. e being poured. The Student Center is scheduled The Thacher School. for completion in the summer of 2005 and the Performing Arts Building will be ready for Guest House for Visiting Faculty thespians, singers, musicians, and dancers in Thacher is also pleased to announce that a visiting faculty guest house has been fully funded. the fall of 2005.

We are most appreciative of this anonymous support. “Thacher strongly believes that introducing students to a wide range of outside lecturers and performers contributes to producing The Commons Project is a major focus of The a well-rounded graduate with appreciation for differing cultures and viewpoints. Having the Campaign for Thacher, for which the public Visiting Faculty Residence on campus will allow us to attract more visitors and to enhance phase will launch in the winter of 2005. The their interactions with the students,” declares Michael Mulligan, Head of School. Architectotal cost is expected to be $17 million. Namtural plans are underway and we hope—county approval and weather permitting—to begin ing opportunities, at major gift levels, are still construction in early 2005. available for both buildings.

Spring / Summer 2004 17

Performing Artists

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hat a talented alumni body we have! Earlier in the year, an email went out to alumni asking for suggestions of performing artists to profile for this issue of The Thacher News. Scores of responses from around the world suggested screen writers and blue grass pluckers, dancers and actors, play directors and song writers from the last five decades of graduates.

Other alumni offered to interview and to write these profiles in the hopes of reconnecting or getting to know other Toads. What is included here is a small smattering of what could have been included had there not been page-volume restraints. And now, on with the show!

History

Performing Artists

Historical Society Thacher’s Plays through the Years

by Elizabeth Bowman and Alisa McCoy

Spring / Summer 2004 19

Performing Artists

J. Jeffrey Green CdeP 1956 Creative Conducting

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hink back to music-appreciation courses where we learned the basic symbols of music notation that indicate key, tempo, and style. A 4/4 beat, for instance, is straightforward, whereas 2/4 is more lively and spry, and 3/4 time indicates a waltz. What if the time signature indicates 5/8 time but with the emphasis on the first and third beat for the chorus and the first and fourth beat for the orchestra? What about a piece that shifts, measure by measure, from 7/8 to 4/4 to 9/8 and repeats this pattern? Now think about directing it: one arm directing musicians while the other arm conducts singers through varying tempos and styles. Such is the pattern of some of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s music that Jeff Green has directed twice in concerts. It’s no wonder he believes this work is the biggest challenge of his conducting career that began as a hobby of singing with small community groups and has grown into directing increasingly larger, more professional groups in bigger venues.

The youngest of four children growing up in Berkeley, Jeff attended the San Francisco Symphony and Civic Light Opera with his mother, often listened to his attorney father sing after dinner with a 12voice group from the Bohemian Club, and heard the classical and symphonic music favored by one sister and the 20 The Thacher News

by Jane D. McCarthy

blues and ballads preferred by the other. Jeff’s In the late eighties, Jeff produced three profesfavorites were choral pieces, Broadway hits, sional shows: She Loves Me (starring Pam and folk music.

Dawber and Joel Higgins at the Ahmanson Theatre), Annie Get Your Gun with Donna Jeff followed in the footsteps of two uncles McKechnie, and You’re a Good Man Charlie (John CdeP 1925 and Fred Bixby CdeP [1918]) Brown with JoAnn Worley, the last two at San and his brother Robert CdeP 1949 when he Francisco’s Geary Theatre. Jeff then wound up arrived at Thacher for his last two years of in the San Luis Obispo area, where he became high school. Enthusiastic and energetic, Jeff one of two musical directors for musical theatre made friends quickly as he jumped into every productions, and he continued singing with variaspect of School life, but especially athletics ous community groups. In the late nineties, Jeff (a fine tennis player and a natural on the moved further north to the Monterey Peninsula basketball court at 6 feet, 3 inches; he served and continued the same type of work but he as captain of the Varsity Team in his senior also thought about teaching at the local junior year), music (singing in Los Troubadores and college, an impossibility without a master’s serving as president of Glee Club), and lead- degree in music. His extensive experience in ership roles (dorm prefect and Indoor Club choral directing gave him advanced placement Committee). Jeff’s green-broke sorrel, Zorro, standing at San Jose State, but he still spent accompanied him to Thacher, where they four grueling years earning a master’s degree in enjoyed trail rides and some choral conducting. “Do you know that performgymkhana events together, ing arts courses which require 12 to 14 hours although he remembers Jack work each week yield only one credit each!?”

Huyler and Jesse Kahle “shak- He also took a few courses in lighting to help ing their heads at the way I was him set the mood for productions and thereby training Zorro. We’d start at enhance the audience’s experience. a lope and soon it became an all-out race, without much pre- Even with the master’s degree, Jeff still conducts cision.” Having learned to ride by a feel that grew out of “not really knowing horses from his mother at the what I was doing but knowing what I wanted. age of two, Jeff had rounded Music should mean something. It should impact up cattle and enjoyed long trail the audience, be it the lyrics, the quality of the rides on his mother’s family’s music, or its structure. Listeners should get goose (Bixby) ranches on California’s bumps.” His philosophy for the participants of Central Coast. He planned to study animal the productions is pretty simple, too: 1) Have husbandry in anticipation of becoming a fun: “I combine humor and camaraderie in cattle rancher; he matriculated from Thacher practices. If we’re not enjoying our time toto Michigan State University to pursue that gether, why bother?” and 2) Make good music: career path, but continued his choral work “I want standing ovations from every piece.” including singing “Bill” in Kiss Me Kate while The crowning glory for Jeff, however, is when working on his MBA at Michigan State and a performer—who has sung a particular piece participating in the US Army’s Quarter Master many times before—tells him after the finale, Command Chorus.

“I learned something from having worked with you.”

In the late sixties, Jeff became an investment counselor for a Menlo Park based firm and Scouring the Central Coast and Bay Area for lived in Ojai. Beyond his day job, Jeff did some choral and musical events helps Jeff stay curfundraising for Thacher, served as Assistant rent with local talent; that knowledge helps Choir Director for Ojai’s Presbyterian Church him match particular voices to specific songs in 1974, appeared in Little Mary Sunshine when creating programs. Last year he worked at the Ojai Art Center with Cricket Twichell with a county-wide high school all-star cast playing the title role, and was Musical Di- performing the musical Les Miserables, which rector of Oklahoma! the following year. His was very gratifying. “These kids were so tallong-time interest in choral music started to ented!” Beyond conducting and singing, Jeff shift towards conducting as he found that continues to play tennis, trail ride, and round “it’s incredibly rewarding to take a group of up cattle when given the chance. strangers, work very hard with them for several months, and turn out a highly polished, Jeff learned by doing and has been rewarded professional piece.” for his dedication and efforts. e

Performing Artists

Bruce B. Donnell CdeP 1963 Increasing Life’s Riches

by Nicholas S. Thacher CdeP 1963

that have sustained his adult life and livelihood as one of America’s most esteemed opera directors. “Donald was the best language teacher I ever had,” he notes; that’s high praise from a student who majored in languages as an undergraduate and secured his master’s in French from Columbia.

Bruce acknowledges the impact of his many artistic mentors at Thacher. “Fred Lamb, the McDougalls, Gui Ignon, Michael Ehrhardt, Marvin Shagam: each opened doors into history, language, and theatre. I think of them as family. They taught me that it was okay to fail at recess baseball and to pursue other interests.” Bruce remembers Mr. Ignon’s willingness to share his art studio on Saturdays, tuning the radio to the Met’s weekly opera broadcast as they painted; Mr. Ehrhardt’s teaching him to read music and giving him free reign with the extensive classical music collection housed in the “Music Box”; Mr. Shagam’s insistence on personal here is little doubt that the integrity, which bore fruit a breadth of a Thacher educafew years after Bruce’s gradution has always played an ation from Thacher when he enormously powerful and positive became a conscientious objecrole in its students’ development. tor. In sum, as he looks back at The life and career of Bruce Donthe relatively cloistered years nell testify dramatically to that enjoyed at Thacher, Bruce is fact. grateful for the ways in which teachers expanded his vision In the fall of 1959, already deeply imbued beyond the peaks that define Ojai. “They made with a love of the arts, Bruce passed through me hungry to see the wider world and apprecithe stone pillars of CdeP, leaving behind his ate it,” a hunger which subsequently led him close-knit family in the Bay Area. He took up on extensive travels around the globe. residence in the Lower School and no constellation of dorm masters (and mistress)—Mr. Beyond Bruce’s language studies in New York, Lamb and Mr. and Mrs. McDougall—could he satisfied his burgeoning interests in music have been more serendipitous. As Bruce re- and theatre by wangling cheap (or free) seats calls, “They saw who I was before I did; they at Carnegie Hall, the Met, and Lincoln Center. nurtured my interests and made me feel they He completed two years of service as a consciwere worthwhile.” entious objector, rising in the United Nation’s Office of Public Information from proofreader The challenges of recess baseball, treasured to handler of press briefings. But he always by the hearty jocks, held little appeal to a returned to opera: the Bayreuth Festival in youngster reared in the world of classical Germany in 1965 and as an apprentice stageopera. Bruce had already rubbed elbows with hand at the Santa Fe Opera in 1967.

Marilyn Horne and Joan Sutherland, but that counted for little in the rough-and-tumble Music and travel were Bruce’s constant lures. life at Thacher. In the brilliant historian Fred When he set off on a two-week ski trip to EuLamb—whose legendary record collection rope in 1972, he never dreamed it would lead of classical music was as dazzling as his wit ultimately to a three-year position in Geneva’s and erudition even to the philistines among Opera House. A career which owed so much us—Bruce found a kindred operatic spirit. The to his family’s musical interests and the sensiMcDougalls encouraged his inchoate love of tive nurturance of Thacher’s faculty had been theatre and foreign languages—twin passions launched: Bruce’s extensive knowledge of for-

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eign languages and music made him indispensable to directors who spoke only English.

From Geneva, Bruce moved to the Metropolitan Opera in New York—where, he notes with pride, “I’m now one of the old timers,” as he commences his thirtieth year as a director, “eligible for my pension.” Those three decades have been immensely fulfilling, as Bruce has risen to prominence as a director in New York and Santa Fe, for instance; as a judge for auditions at the Met, the George London Foundation, and elsewhere; as a teacher of apprentice opera singers in Santa Fe (where he now resides, though he retains a permanent New York City phone number that rings in New Mexico), the Music Academy of the West, the University of Illinois, and even Spearfish, SD. It is perhaps in that last role that Bruce’s accomplishments seem particularly apposite from the CdeP perspective: the 13-year-old whose talents and interests were recognized and nurtured by his Thacher teachers has become, in the world of classical opera, a leading teacher himself. When he speaks of Fred Lamb, Donald McDougall, and others, Bruce becomes passionate: “These men gave their lives to Thacher—and to us.” And now, as he practices what he preaches, he preaches what he practices: “Directing opera can be wonderful, but it’s a lot of homework, scheduling, and hard work.” He tells budding young singers just what generations of Thacher instructors have told their students: “Show up on time and be prepared.”

Bruce’s life of opera has given him immense satisfaction: “I have worked with people I’ve respected and idolized,” such as directing Leontyne Price’s “Farewell Opera Performance”—many decades after their initial meeting in 1959, when Bruce was a Thacher smut. Speaking of 1959, what did Barbara Griggs (classmate Steve’s mother) suspect when she volunteered to drive Bruce and a handful of Thacher students down to Los Angeles for the San Francisco Opera’s Sunday matinees?

The prescient Mrs. Griggs and our Thacher faculty must have known that Bruce would have the last laugh on his more prosaic classmates. He learned early what the School and its teachers have always understood: A broad education, which attends as much to creativity and character as to academics and athletics—ultimately and very powerfully—increases the richness of life. e Spring / Summer 2004 21

Performing Artists

William W. Horvitz CdeP 1965 An Inimitable Style

by Jane D. McCarthy

Ted Rhodes shared all sorts of music. “During our junior year, a prefect in my section, Tony Power, was a John Coltrane fanatic; most didn’t like it, but for me it was an opening into an exciting and inspiring new world.”

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rowing up in the fifties around NYC and in Arizona, Bill Horvitz’s parents exposed him to swing, jazz, classical music, and musicals. He listened mostly to rock such as Elvis, Little Richard, Chuck Berry, and Buddy Holly, and he took guitar lessons when he was eight and again a few years before Thacher. “I found it more enjoyable to listen than to practice and didn’t get very far,” Bill recalls. “I became frustrated with the preBeatles and Stones pop music and discovered the world of jazz at Thacher.”

Bill’s musical forays at Thacher included: • learning a few folk songs; • listening to music with friends; and • attending concerts—Miles Davis, Modern Jazz Quartet, Pete Seeger—with faculty including “Hub” Segur and Marvin Shagam.

“The teachers were really helpful about getting to concerts, which was great because Thacher didn’t offer many outlets for structured instrumental music in those days,” Bill remembers, “and I wasn’t into vocals.” He was more intrigued with playing sports—baseball, soccer, and tennis, but he remembers most how the communal nature of life in Upper School exposed him to many different types of music. Bill and his like-minded musical friends Richard Scholtz, Jock Hayward, and 22 The Thacher News

After Thacher, Bill matriculated at Colorado College, where he studied for two years before realizing that music was his calling. He worked in San Francisco, focused on learning to play the guitar, and studied music theory and piano at College of Marin and Sonoma State University. After two-plus years of study, he moved to the East Bay, where he played various music types—funk, rock, folk, jazz—in clubs and coffee houses, as part of groups and on his own.

In the late seventies in San Francisco, he experimented with modifying electric guitar sounds (as musician John Cage had done on piano).

During daily jaunts to the local hardware store, Bill purchased cotter pins, wire whisks, and other oddities to place on the strings or strike the guitar. To incorporate his repertoire of new sounds, he composed music in what he later termed a “sonic landscape.”

During a decade-long New York stint beginning in 1978, Bill’s musical career broadened and coalesced. Living alongside vibrant, eclectic performing artists in Manhattan, he played and composed in diverse genres. Time spent with influential composers and improvisers—Butch Morris, Elliott Sharp, Shelley Hirsch, Bobby Previte, Phillip Johnston, and John Zorn—complemented his more formal musical studies and spurred on his unique style of musical composition. Juxtaposing funk over swing, atonality with the blues, or turning folk melodies into a jazz motif, Bill’s extensive background is evident in his compositions.

Forceful, inspirational, and innovative, they are still accessible to listeners and players alike, and also include an abundance of good-natured fun.

He especially enjoys composing for particular artists: “I generally have a good sense for the direction they’ll take when improvising; it gives them freedom and room for creativity that enhances the piece.”

Since the early nineties, The Bill Horvitz Band (consisting of Bill on the guitar, saxophonist/flutist Steve Adams, and drummer Joseph Sabella) has played throughout the United States and Canada and has made several recordings. Based in the

San Francisco Bay Area, their 1997 release, Dust Devil, continues receiving rave reviews from jazz critics, including Chris Kelsey: “In the extended tradition of composer/performers of Western art music…reaching back at least as far as J.S. Bach, Bill’s music is about honesty of intent, and, while I am happy to call it jazz, it is ultimately of little consequence what it’s labeled.

What matters is the quantity and quality of his ability and inspiration, and in both areas Bill Horvitz checks out admirably.” And The Jazz House in Berkeley posted this on their website a year ago (when the Band was reorganized with drummer, Harris Eisenstadt): “The Bill Horvitz Band is critically recognized as among the finest instrumentalists and composers on the American Jazz/New Music scene…[and] moves with fluid grace between tight compositions and improvised solo and ensemble work, communicating with a telepathic rapport. Driving swing, lyrical ballads, and funky grooves all contribute to an exciting performance that moves the head, heart, and soul.”

Beyond composing and playing with his band, Bill writes music to go with spoken word. He spends the third weekend of August at the Tuolumne Meadows Poetry Festival in Yosemite National Park. Bill says: “Hearing the cadence and expression of the poet helps in collaborating and constructing music for readings.” This year, Bill played six original acoustic guitar pieces between the poet’s readings in Parsons Lodge. “It’s an ideal setting for 80 to 100 people to hear the nuances of poets’ work and share music together. It’s an incredible venue and always a highlight of my summer.”

Bill is branching out to compose music for theatre and for independent film projects. He is also studying voice and writing folk style songs with his partner, Robin Eschner. He also hopes to work more with young kids, teaching them how to compose and improvise. Just to round out his days, he continues to write educationrelated workbooks and background materials for teachers, primarily in language arts. These latter demands are flexible and allow him time to practice, compose, and play guitar with his 16-year-old son, Asa, or occasionally with his brother, Seattle keyboardist Wayne Horvitz.

Even though he comes from a jazz background, Bill coalesces every creative facet he’s realized into his artistry—be it playing, composing, or singing. His audience—and he—would be illserved if any aspect of his experiences were not incorporated. e

Performing Artists

Raúl Pacheco, Jr. CdeP 1986 Cuando Canto Mi Canción (When I Sing My Song)

by J. Eric Gross CdeP 1985

just decided that I was going to play guitar and be in a band. My father was freaked out: ‘you went to that school and did all that work just to come home and hang out? Get a job!’” He worked at Target and was very happy. For a while he played in a band with Paul Gutierrez CdeP 1985.

covering how to be a good father and partner.

“Love is about giving and letting go of your self. The only way the band can survive is if you let go of your ego and play what makes everybody happy and want to stay together. That is the politics that interests me: taking care of the collective, looking out for everybody else, helping each other move forward, like the Raúl stopped playing with Paul to become a Zapatistas do. We are 10 men with different political activist. “I became more interested in styles, and we have to make sure that everyone fighting stereotypes and reflecting on society.” is happy. It is the same way in relationships. I While enrolled at the community college, he travel, but I still have my family because we saw a flyer for internships in state government. have figured out how to make it work using The applications were due the same day. In a those values.” few days, Raúl was accepted into the program, accepted into school (a requirement), sold Raúl’s kids are going to school now. Santiago some guitars and amps for cash, packed the (5) is joining his sister Alma (7) at a Montesguitar his mom had given to him and moved sori school in Pasadena. His amazingly strong to Sacramento in his ’63 pick-up. “I’m the wife Michele is a nurse who holds down the kind of person who doesn’t fort while Raúl is on the road. The arrangeneed everything to be worked ment must be working well because Ozomatli out ahead of time. I just need has a new record out called Street Signs. “I am to want it and then there are really proud of this piece of work. It helped us no significant obstacles.” grow. When you are stable enough to focus aúl Pacheco’s home in East LA and work hard it really pays off. We have to was full of music when he was Raúl wound up working with learn not to be selfish in our art, working and growing up. His mom sang the mayor of Sacramento, and growing up with each other. We’re traveling along to Mexican pop like Trio within weeks he was cavorting the world right now, doing radio shows, TV Los Panchos. His dad preferred with senators. “It was another shows and giving concerts…oh my plane is country like Hank Williams. His very different situation for me.” leaving, I’ll call you tomorrow!” three older sisters went through He wore suits at the statehouse many musical phases during their during the day and jeans to the From hopping toad to rolling stone… e teen years, and Raúl sang along UFW rallies he attended on the with each of the transitions: from Bobby Sher- weekend. Being a student, staffer, and activist man to Cat Stevens to The Pretenders. Then aided him in discerning his true calling. “Being Raúl’s mom bought him a guitar when he in Sacramento helped me realize what made turned 14 because he “wanted to rock out me happy. Politics was important, but it didn’t and make noise.” touch my heart the way music did.”

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Raúl’s parents were liberal, second generation Mexican immigrants. “They weren’t traditional, so I grew up with a lot of freedom.”

Since singing is what captured his attention, they allowed him to join a professional boys’ choir when he was eight. He left home and toured the country. In addition to improving his voice, he also overcame a lot of fear, becoming comfortable away from his community: “that openness that my parents had—and had fostered in me—helped me get to Thacher and helped me while I was there because Thacher was so different economically and culturally from what I was used to.”

The day Raúl returned to LA was the day the band Ozomatli* started. A friend told him of striking workers who sought a band to raise money for their efforts. A diverse group of musicians answered the call. One guy liked Reggae; another brought his Indian tablas.

There was a Cuban percussionist, a hip hop turn tablist, and several others with different musical backgrounds and activist sensibilities.

“That is how the band’s eclectic style came about and how our political perspectives co- * NPR’s Renee Montagne interviewed members alesced.” of Ozomotli for the “Morning Edition” show in mid-August. They explained why they chose In the band’s nine years, they have won a their moniker and its meaning: “It repGrammy, a Latin Grammy, and other prestiresents a little monkey on the Aztec Raúl remained focused on music while at gious awards; toured Europe, Asia, Australia, calendar; it represents fire, dance, Thacher. “I wasn’t the best student, but I did and North America; and made three records. the new harvest, the orchestrator of learn a lot.” Despite Peter Robinson’s best Working with such diversity is the most importhe jungle, and a lot of mischief. It’s efforts, Raúl decided not to attend college. “I tant lesson Raúl has learned—aside from disperfect for the vibe of this band.”

Spring / Summer 2004 23

Performing Artists

Noah S. Wyle CdeP 1989 Beyond ER

by Jane D. McCarthy

“I welcomed the opportunity to play the nuances of these scenes and find new aspects of my character,” Noah reflects. These scripts put Carter in an environment completely foreign to him. It was liberating to work on a story aligned with my personal politics.” [Noah visited Macedonia in support of Human Rights Watch, supports Doctors of the World, and is spokesperson for Cover the Uninsured Week.] “Stories on the news seem so distant,” Noah says. “Seeing a story unfold through the character gives the audience a frame of reference—they can understand the horror, shock, and frustration of facing a village of sick people without modern medicine to treat them. To illuminate the problems in the Congo on a mass scale—38 million viewers—each Thursday evening with the support of Warner Brothers and NBC is a luxury.”

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roducers of long-running, award-winning television series face dilemmas of creating fresh and provocative story lines that appeal to dedicated viewers and new audiences too. The problem is compounded when most of the original cast members leave to pursue other careers.

In the case of NBC’s Emmy-and-Golden Globewinning medical drama, ER, the lone original cast member is Noah Wyle CdeP 1989, aka Dr. John Carter, whose life has grown in lockstep fashion with his character and the show.

“A decade ago,” Noah recalls, “I was a young man with my first big break into television and wanted approbation for my work.” The audience first met the sweet, funny, bumbling, medical student when he was trying to define himself; over the years, Dr. Carter matured into a resident who dealt with more complicated situations such as his cousin’s heroin addiction and pulling victims from a chemical explosion. Last year featured a triad of shows set in the Congo that showcased the proficient Dr. Carter helping some of the 3.4 million people dying from genocide and the thousands dealing with AIDS. Putting Dr. Carter in a different world and circumstances heightened the emotional drama, vividly connected the characters with humanity, and even changed Carter’s perception of himself.

24 The Thacher News

The thespian bug bit Noah at Thacher when Tim Regan cast him as the widower preparing for his wife’s funeral in Joe Orton’s Loot.

He skipped college, waited tables, and played minor roles, most notably as a Marine in A Few Good Men, until he grudgingly auditioned for the ER part. “It was a big decision for him to do television because he really wanted to be a Johnny Depp,” recalls actor/writer and Noah’s close friend JP Manoux CdeP 1987.

“Well before ER, I think Noah knew his turn would come. He’s always had people tell him he’s good because he’s always been good.”

George Clooney, who played Dr. Ross opposite Noah’s Dr. Carter, concurred in an interview with US Magazine several years ago: “Noah and I had great benefits being close friends…I could keep him relaxed through the first-year Delving into issues and re- run…I could watch the way he worked and searching his roles is the seri- steal things from him, because he’s innately the ous but very evident flip side smartest actor I know.” of Noah. “It’s every actor’s responsibility to learn as much Just as Carter has matured, Noah thinks he as possible about the char- acts better: “My confidence playing this role acters they play in order to comes from experience. Carter’s journey brings achieve believable portrayals. the audience into the world of ER. I love his I fall back on how I studied at character and the show.” Some of the themes Thacher.” When he first played begun last year will continue this season, inDr. Carter, Noah talked with cluding the Congo-oriented shows and Carter’s doctors, crammed medical ter- relationship with Makemba “Kem” Likasu minology into his head, and (a health ministry administrator) when she observed medical procedures joins Carter at County General. As last season in order to understand the demands placed on wound down, Kem was rushed to the ER, physicians, the tough decisions they make, and where she and Carter learned that their baby the demanding hours they keep. had died in utero; whether the couple moves closer together in their grief or breaks apart More recently, Noah starred as Flynn, “the will entice ER’s audiences this season. smartest man in the world” in TNT’s actionadventure film, The Librarian, due to be re- Fatherhood parallels Noah’s life, too. He and leased at year-end. The meek Flynn is tapped wife Tracy have a nearly two-year-old son, as librarian for a secret cache of the world’s Owen. Noah loves his new role, but hates being magical and mythical objects from throughout an “absent father” when he works 14 hours, human history; when some artifacts are stolen, five days each week for 10 months every year. he fights a group bent on world domination for “I don’t want to miss any of ­Owen’s developtheir return. Noah researched every antiquity ment. He is the most precious gift of my life.” mentioned in the script, its role in history, and To recharge, the Wyles spend as much time as learned phrases in Mongolian, French, Italian, they can at their ranch in Santa Ynez, where they and Portuguese to play a believable, brilliant have a menagerie: horses, pigs, goats, chickens, but nerdy Flynn: “It was fascinating to learn sheep. As Noah quips, “With my name, I feel an about these objects and their roles in society. obligation to care for God’s creations.” Although That’s what I love about acting: it’s a career of being Dr. Carter has been enjoyable for both never-ending learning.” If successful, TNT will Noah and his fans, this will likely be his last consider making a series on this theme, some- season. He wants to spend more time with his thing Noah would relish: “Although Flynn family and pursue other acting possibilities with was a dweeb initially, he became cool by the more manageable hours. Besides, he feels that end; playing ‘Indiana Jones’ was fun because it’s time for ER to move into its next iteration it wasn’t so serious.” and that necessitates cast changes. e

Performing Artists

Matthew J. Shakman CdeP 1993 A Perennial Bloomer

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hen only one of every ten small businesses survives its first year, it’s indeed rare when one exists for four years, at its original small size, in a major metropolitan area where 250 other small—and large—companies compete in the same business.

Such is the case, however, for The Black Dahlia Theatre, a living room-sized space of 30-seats where late arrivals aren’t admitted. It’s not that management is showing their disapproval of tardiness; it’s just that the entrance is at the back of the stage and to get to one’s seat would require walking through the actors on stage.

Dahlia is the brainchild of Matt Shakman CdeP 1993, a childhood actor who opted out of stage tutors for a “normal” high school experience at Thacher. His favorite teachers include Peter Robinson who introduced him to Shakespeare and the Classics, Marvin Shagam for whom Matt served as prefect in Lower School, and Steve Carter who oversaw his independent project of creating a bronze bust of Fred Lamb CdeP 1940 that remains in Thacher’s library.

There’s also Fred Lamb himself who advised Matt for his independent projects producing two plays: Agatha Christy’s “Ten Little Indians” and Edward Albee’s “Zoo Story.” He codirected the latter with classmate Jose Klein; they entered it in a festival of one-act plays in Ojai where it won top honors. Matt followed

by Jane D. McCarthy

in the footsteps of his brother Andrew CdeP 1990 by collaborating with classmates Chris Johnston and Tony Hernandez in producing Senior Night Live. At Yale, Matt spent some time acting but more time directing student plays, while dreaming of starting a theatre.

Matt spent two years in New York—directing and acting—before he returned to Los Angeles where his family lives. He realized it would be a good place to start a theatre: “There are so many talented actors out here, who started in the theatre, with time and passion to spare in between their television and movie demands.” Matt founded the Black Dahlia Theatre in 2000, one of the few performing arts organizations focused solely on bringing new plays—by both established and emerging writers—to stage. After offering some workshops and readings, Dahlia’s first production was Austin Pendleton’s play Orson’s Shadow in the spring of 2001. “A friend sent me a copy of Orson’s Shadow,” Matt recalls, “and I thought it would be a great show for us.” Getting the rights, however, wasn’t so easy. “Friends knew Austin Pendleton, who also went to Yale. They recommended me to him, and I eventually got a call from Austin.

The play was going to be done at the Old Globe in San Diego, but he gave us the LA premiere.”

Doing the show was dicey, especially since The LA Times gave the San Diego show a bad review. The Hollywood Reporter came early to Dahlia’s five-month run of Shadow and, fortunately, gave it a glowing review. The Times gave it a “Critics’ Choice” and it went on to win nine awards including the BackStage West “Garland Award” and the LA Drama “Critics’ Circle Award” for Best Production.

It was listed in the Top Ten Plays of 2001 by the LA Weekly and New Times newspapers.

The night before it was set to close in July, actor Bud Cort came; he returned the next night with producer Paula Holt, owner of the Tiffany Theatres, who offered Matt the month of August at the Tiffany if he wanted to extend the run. “We made the move and ran another four weeks.”

staff including set and costume designers, and access to wonderful actors and playwrights.

We focus on developing plays from readings to workshops to full productions. I direct television as well (Judging Amy, Everwood, Oliver Beane, Once & Again, Showtime’s Huff, and WB’s Summerland), where there’s very little time to shape the script or the actor’s performance. The shaping is done in the editing room once the camera stops rolling. I prefer the slower rhythm of theatre: guiding the actors, and working with the playwright, over a longer period of time.”

Some theatre people deride the film and television culture of Los Angeles, claiming that it makes doing quality live stage work difficult.

Matt agrees that “good theatre is often overshadowed by the quantity of bad showcases (productions done to get the film and television world’s attention),” but argues that “actors involved in film and TV make a fortune in a couple of weeks and then they’re idle. Many passionate actors want to be involved in stage work, and they have gaps of time to devote to it, without worrying about making a living from it. This works well for our non-profit theatre.”

Black Dahlia does several productions yearly, including the world premiere of Charles Evered’s The Shoreham, starring Eric Stoltz, and the west coast premiere of Den of Thieves

by Stephen Adly-Guirgis, both of which are now published. Dahlia co-produced Belfast Blues, a one-woman show written and performed by Geraldine Hughes, and Richard Kramer’s Theatre District, a drama that is now on an extended run. No relocation to bigger haunts lurks in the future. “I like intimate drama; proximity helps. I would rather spend any money we make on higher fees for our crew and better sets, than expanding or changing our theatre. Besides, if we were bigger, I’d have to focus more on fundraising and getting grants; that’s not the part of theatre that I love.”

Matt’s belief that “if you do good work, people will come” has proven true given that Black Dahlia has won the same awards that bigger, more established theatres such as Mark Taper Forum and the Geffen Playhouse have received through the years. Even “I don’t have a formula or favorite genre,” though he declines to have a formula, says Matt. “I look for plays that speak to me, Matt has filled a niche in a competithat will surprise the audience; an eclectic mix tive market that plays well for theatre of productions. We’re fortunate to have a great lovers, and Matt, too. e Spring / Summer 2004 25

Performing Artists

Todd P. McCloskey CdeP 1993 David P. McCloskey CdeP 1996 Two Instrumental Toads

Lauren P. McCloskey CdeP 1999

String Cheese Incident. I was literally watching and ate at UC Santa Cruz, deafened by Todd’s my brothers become, well, rock stars. first attempts on the fiddle. The heat of Boston the summer they studied at Berklee School of As they would say, it’s been a soulful jour- Music. Friends eagerly enrolling in David’s ney. Todd and David’s musical progression Banjo class in Boulder (he was the first Banjo began with the sounds of traditional bluegrass, graduate of CU’s Music Department). Sellmerging into “mountain newgrass,” and, most ing out Aspen’s Double Diamond New Year’s recently, to straight-up rock ’n’ roll. A review Eve 2001. The epic “tour stories” brought

by Scott Snidow of rockzilla.net captured the home from over 200 days of national touring essence of their sound pretty well: last year. The caged ocelot in their Bozeman motel room. Endless night driving fueled by “To understand The McCloskey Brothers Ho-Hos, Red Bull, and homemade burritos. sound without hearing it, you will have to That sharp U-turn into three Georgian cops on use your imagination just a little. Let’s pre- horseback. Idaho bars with an audience of one. tend that years ago Cat Stevens…had hooked The 300-pound man who, after extinguishing up with the Grateful Dead…then to show- his cigarette on his forehead, shouted “play case their sound, they hired the banjer!” And those unforgettable “pickin’ Bela Fleck as the musical front sessions” with the likes of Phil Lesh, Nickle man, working in tandem with Creek, Sam Bush, and David Grisman. that easy, mellow vocal style of Jerry Garcia…. The music As we know, the music industry is often short had never felt so cool in my life. is very much in the same vein lived by one-hit wonders. If there’s one thing The sweet, spicy smell of brewas that relaxed sound the Dead I can assure TMBB followers, it’s this: you’ve ing Chai, smoky campfire, crisp cultivated years ago, punctu- only just the seen the beginning. As The Mcmountain air, and patchouli oil ated with some very impres- Closkey Brothers prepare to release their second permeated the makeshift army sive, sometimes jazzy licks on CD entitled Golden State, I would urge you to tent. “These guys rock,” the banjo and mandolin.” stay tuned to the journey that once began on bearded man standing next to me The Pergola. Listen. Every CdeP student and said, shaking his head from side to While their style has evolved over the years, the alum alike will relate to the message of their side. “Yeah,” I said, smiling. “No, I mean these underlying message of Todd and David’s music music: a harmonious tune carrying the virtues guys really jam,” he said louder. “I know,” I remains unwavering: to strive for conscious of honor, fairness, kindness, and truth…with laughed, “they’re my brothers.” lyrics that express the human experience; or, as a whole lot of soulful jammin’. e Todd sings in “Waiting,” it’s about our “Time It was one of those nights you never forget. For here on Earth.” some, it was just the lull between sets—after Leftover Salmon, waiting for Sam Bush—on Raised in Aspen, Todd and David’s foundation Saturday night at the Telluride Bluegrass Festi- is deeply rooted in a love for the outdoors, and val. But as I stood, embedded in a sea of danc- the belief that art and nature together foster ing hippies, I couldn’t believe I was watching the human spirit. The Colorado backcountry my two older brothers on that campground has seemingly ignited an inner Rocky Mounstage. tain High that infuses their music. But it wasn’t until Thacher that the brothers solidified a It was u-n-r-e-a-l. disciplined lifestyle that emphasized a balance between physical, intellectual, emotional and That was seven years and two albums ago. And spiritual growth. Undeniably, they both agree, as far as I’m concerned, that night in Telluride Thacher cultivated their individual sense of marked my introduction to The McCloskey selves, which later propelled both of them to Brothers Band. Music had become their mis- explore careers as musicians sion. From gigs in homespun cafes and teeming bars to sold-out shows at The Fox Theatre in There have certainly been memorably points Boulder, Todd and David—The Mc- along the way. Nestled under a wool blanket Closkey Brothers—exploded onto the at St. Andrews University in Scotland, watchmusic scene. Shortly following was ing David workout the lyrics to “Hurricane” their center stage debut beside the All- (I was visiting from SYA Spain). The explodman Brothers, Widespread Panic, and ing juices of countless navel oranges I peeled

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26 The Thacher News

Performing Artists

Jane G. Casamajor CdeP 1994 Behind the Scenes

by S. Skye Rohde CdeP 1994

BC Calculus, AP Biology, caring for her beloved horse Beast, and stage-managing Guys and Dolls without ever appearing flustered.

She even managed to go to sleep by 9 p.m. at Thacher, except on performance nights.

Now Jane volunteers regularly at the Museum of Natural History in Washington DC to get her science fix.

It took just one one-act play at Thacher for Jane to realize she’d rather work behind the scenes than onstage. But she says it took a little longer to learn life lessons from a few teachers. Peter and Bonnie Robinson, in disagreeing with each other’s advice, taught Jane that diverse viewpoints can coexist in a small, tight-knit environment. Peter also taught her that strong, clear writing is a valuable tool.

Arena Stage, a 54-year-old theatre dedicated to producing American plays, has a $12 million budget, an 832-seat theatre-in-the-round and a 514-seat proscenium theatre. It’s a far cry from the Thacher auditorium where Jane spent her junior and senior years stage-managing plays and musicals.

And Jake Jacobsen taught her about making the most of available resources. “I think Jake did an excellent job of showing us what we can do with little, which—although not at Arena Stage—at a lot of professional theatres is the most important thing you can know,” she remarks.

Though she is a step removed from performance, Jane enjoys being the hub of the wheel that is Arena Stage. This meeting of different worlds is, in Jane’s words, “fascinating, energizing, and comane Casamajor CdeP 1994 isn’t pelling.” She relays the needs your typical theatre person. of the administration to the “We have a lot of people who stage managers and the needs work at the theatre to pay their of the technical staff to the bills but do community theatre business managers. She keeps to keep their hearts alive,” she track of what the development explains. “I would do science to and marketing departments keep my heart alive, which makes are doing. She writes contracts me a little different.” and fields phone calls. In short, she’s always translating. “I don’t really think After graduating from Thacher in 1994, Jane what I do is an art form, but I think there’s was on the pre-med track at the University of a real art to being able to talk to a variety of Wisconsin at Madison. She took theatre classes people,” she explains. for fun, though. And after college graduation, she landed an internship at Arena Stage, one Jane believes she has always felt a bond of the premier regional theatres in Washing- with people who are drawn to the theatre. ton DC. Six years later, Jane is the produc- At Thacher, she was inspired by the dedication office manager at Arena Stage. She makes tion of light guru Eric Dachs CdeP 1994, sure that everyone involved in the theatre’s and set designer Allison Glass CdeP 1993. productions has what they need: sets, props, Now, at Arena Stage, she has found herself costumes, lights, house management, mainte- discussing the literary merits of a play with nance. This means working 60-hour weeks on someone who’s welding sections of the set a regular basis, but she says it’s worth it. together. Jane says many of her co-workers have unique outlooks and varied interests.

Jane says she opted for theatre when she re- “What’s always fascinated me about theatre alized science might drive her crazy. “I had is the people who put it on, particularly the always done both science and the arts and people who work backstage. It’s that grab bag had that balance. At Thacher we always had of skills that I find really interesting.” Jane a balance in what we were doing, and I re- savors the genesis of each and every show ally missed that when I was taking all science she helps create; she enjoys the entirety of the classes [when I started college].” process: from initial designers’ sketches and brainstorms to the chaos of rehearsals to the Jane still defines the term “liberal arts” just performance itself. as she did at Thacher. Back then, she juggled

A favorite Thacher stage moment is still vivid in Jane’s mind. Not surprisingly, few people saw it happen. The musical was Fiddler on the Roof, which was performed in the spring of 1993. Laura Brinton CdeP 1994 and another stagehand were lowering a ladder stage right.

It had to be lowered slowly, incrementally, and silently. Jane watched nervously as—inch by inch—the ladder shrunk to its normal size and disappeared from the narrow doorway without a creak. “It’s one of those things that’s supposed to be invisible, and when it is, it’s beautiful because the audience doesn’t know,” Jane adds with a smile. “And that’s the fun part, when it’s magic to the audience.”

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Jane isn’t sure how long she’ll stay at Arena Stage, or what she might do next. But she knows she wants to stay involved in theatre no matter what. The joy and camaraderie of performance and production are addictive, she says. e

Spring / Summer 2004 27

Performing Artists

Cynthia L. Lee CdeP 1998 Living the Dream

photo by Sarah Yardney

photo by Sarah Wardney

by Kim P.E. Turner CdeP 1998

Following her brother to Thacher [Jeffrey CdeP 1995, a gifted pianist and dancer] Cynthia undertook an impressive course load and a wide array of activities. Joy Sawyer-Mulligan described Cynthia as a truly “multi-gifted young woman, capable of dazzling with her intellect and her artistry, expressed not only in dance but in poetry and painting.” Cynthia participated actively in the Literary Society and Symposium, regularly contributing pieces during readings and in print. Peter and Bonnie Robinson shepherded this club of aspiring “literati” and creatively encouraged Cynthia during the group’s readings and meetings after Formal Dinner. Articulate, Cynthia is equally agile on stage and on paper when expressing the academic, technical, and spiritual components of dance to a wider audience.

At Swarthmore, Cynthia studied English literature, focusing much on contemporary women’s poetry. She minored in dance, specifically choreography, which or Cynthia Lee, the physiprepared her well for performcal spirituality of dancing is ing and teaching professionally. like “the freedom of sailing Cynthia’s fluency in non-western through space.” Dance grew into dance took root in college while a passion for Cynthia while atshe was enrolled in African and tending Thacher. Although she Kathak dance classes as well as had dabbled in Chinese folk modern, contact improvisation, dancing with friends and relaand yoga. Beyond performing, tives, Thacher marked Cynthia’s she has explored the construction entrance into a dance world that has led her of dance from translations of poetic form. across the academic and physical map. Cynthia further developed her practice at Swarthmore The idea for Cynthia’s senior choreography College, culminating in a Watson Fellowship project sprang from the “intercultural body: to study dance in three countries the year fol- one not rooted in a single culture or tradition lowing graduation. Her initial steps on the but rather between cultures…. Modern dance Lamb Auditorium stage set her on a remark- choreographers routinely steal from ‘tradiable path. tional’ dance forms without understanding them.” As a choreographer she works to be Under Gallia Vickery’s guidance, Cynthia aware of the “uneven power relations that quickly became a central member of Thacher’s make possible inspirations and borrowings, Dance Ensemble: a diversified and vibrant and the aesthetic and philosophical assumpdancer. “For her Senior Exhibition,” Gallia tions on which dances are structured.” recalls, “Cynthia choreographed a piece she called ‘Dream Walker’ to music by Astor Piaz- Cynthia applied for a Watson Fellowship in her zolla using four Dance Ensemble members. senior year at Swarthmore, hoping to explore After performing it at Thacher, they performed the study of religious dance. After a rigorous at the Young Choreographer’s Showcase at application process and several interviews, the Lobero Theatre in Santa Barbara, where she was one of just 60 college seniors, nationher work was highly praised.” About her wide, to win the fellowship. Cynthia spent a initial exploration of dance, Cynthia whirlwind year in Thailand, Brazil, and India, explains, “I found dance freeing…I learning Thai classical dance, the ritual dances didn’t decide at the time that I would of the Afro-Brazilian religion Candomble and pursue a career in dancing, but I knew Kathak. She examined the physical spirituality I loved it.” achieved through dance as well as the ecstasy and

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28 The Thacher News

meditative sensations that dance can produce. A classical dance from North India, Kathak, has two aspects: abstract (nritta) and expressive (abhinaya). Cynthia explains, “In its abstract form, complex rhythmic patterns provide the backbone for intricate footwork, lyrical arm movements, subtle use of breath and eyes, and swift turns, while its expressive form involves sensitive facial expressions and hand gestures which enact and interpret secular and devotional poetry, set to music.” The origins of the Kathak style stem from a time when Brahmin priests called “kathaks” traditionally recounted Hindu myths, using mime and gesture for dramatic effect. As the movements became more stylized the dance was explicitly formed. In this HinduMuslim dance form, the performer’s ability to express a theme in many different ways, with infinite nuances, is emphasized.

Last year Cynthia returned to Philadelphia to become a professional dancer. She taught, choreographed, danced in modern pick-up projects, and performed with the permanent troupe “Courtyard Dancers” led by her former professor Pallabi Chakravorty. These Dancers often perform pieces that engage social issues and themes of modernity, through Professor Chakravorty’s academic lens of anthropology.

One recent dance, “Threads,” centered around domestic workers by tracing the journey of a sari from the village where it was woven to the marketplace. Finally, the sari is shredded and used as decoration for jean-bottoms in a fashion show. Cynthia is drawn to Professor Chakravorty’s style that departs from evolutionary narratives of history and linearity for more non-linear juxtaposition pieces.

Cynthia recently returned to India to continue her Kathak study with her guru. Since then, she has set out for a five-week stint in Taiwan to dance in a month-long contemporary Asian project involving choreographers from Indonesia, Thailand, Australia, and Malaysia. This summer, Cynthia performed in Philadelphia’s renowned Fringe Festival that attracts over 40,000 people each year for colorful performances of dance, theatre, music, and more.

This fall, Cynthia will pursue her Masters in Fine Arts in the dance program at UCLA. Even when skipping from one city or continent to another, Cynthia fondly recalls one of her favorite Thacher haunts: the tangerine trees clustered behind Maintenance that offered her a tangy-sweet fruit and respite from dance practice on hot Ojai days. e

Performing Artists

Lucy E. Milligan CdeP 2000 Ensemble to Expressions

by Gallia K. Vickery, Thacher’s Dance Ensemble Director

form and how different they can be on stage fascinated her. Likely Lucy’s favorite piece was a quartet entitled Passages that she danced in her junior year with classmates Yui Scribner and Margaux Lloyd and Melanie Larkins CdeP 1999. Choreographed to the music of Adeimus—composed by Karl Jenkins—Lucy often listened to it while studying at Prince­ ton. She remembers all of the pieces to which she’s danced, as well as the numerous costume squabbles. It seems dancers are seldom happy with what they are wearing, except for the lovely, long blue dresses used for Tides, a piece to Dvorak’s Symphony from the New World that Lucy performed two different years, the second time sharing the stage with her sister Claire CdeP 2002.

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enter stage in Lamb Auditorium, right arm held high, chin lifted, Lucy Milligan stood alone as the lights faded. She had already come a long way from the three-year-old who went to ballet and tap classes to help improve her hand-eye coordination and flat feet. At Thacher, Lucy joined Dance Ensemble in her sophomore year and, in the next three years, became part of a group that was instrumental in establishing the quality of the dance program. The Dance Ensemble began performing off campus at other schools, and for two consecutive years traveled to the Dance Educators of America conventions, where the group was awarded gold medals.

A scholar in many academic areas, Lucy fondly remembers Kurt Meyer and Derick Perry CdeP 1983, but being embarrassed when Jake Jacobsen, photocopied and distributed her Hamlet paper to the class. Outside of the academic day, Lucy spent much of her time taking dance classes and rehearsing for Ensemble performances. Lucy could always be trusted with difficult entrance cues and more challenging parts in movement canons. Studying music to find different strains with which to choreograph made sense to her. As Lucy expanded her movement vocabulary from her ballet roots, she worked to become a more confident and expressive performer. Fellow dancers inspired her; how other people per-

lines and danced to a pop song, showing off how high their legs could go.” In her first attempt at choreography Lucy used these formulaic pieces as examples of what not to do.

She created movement for certain strains of the music, but soon discovered that filling in the open spaces was agony.

Many of the dancers in Expressions were exclusively ballet trained. Lucy enjoyed guiding her dancers to learn new ways of dancing, specifically “getting them to loosen up,” while admiring and valuing their abilities to catch on quickly and execute movement precisely.

Lucy recalls “teaching the dancers how to run in a more real and grounded way, similarly to how Ms. Vickery worked to teach us to run in Dance Ensemble pieces.” Much of the joy of After performing in The Pajama Game and creating came from seeing the dancers bring to the infamous “Steam Heat” life what she had just envisioned in her head. dance sequence in her sophomore year, Lucy realized she In the summer of 2003, Lucy took jazz and didn’t really have the voice for hip-hop classes at the Edge Performing Arts musical theatre. She was very Center in LA. These classes continued to exappreciative, nonetheless that pand Lucy’s versatility and resulted in her Jake and Greg Haggard kept bringing new ideas back to Expressions Dance her involved with productions. Company. No longer the ballerina in the modThe organizational and leader- ern company, Lucy saw herself as the jazz, ship skills that Lucy developed hip-hop dancer amongst the ballerinas. In her as assistant director of Once own choreography, she has never tried to say Upon a Mattress and Sweet anything specific, but rather has simply tried to Charity at Thacher were em- convey moods. In her favorite choreography to ployed again when she later music by Prodigy, Lucy was most pleased that served as president of Expressions, a post she she got such a positive response from her dancbegan in the spring of her sophomore year at ers, who loved doing the work. It was a fast, Princeton. dark, and almost scary piece, in which dancers could show frustration.

Shortly after arriving at Princeton University, Lucy joined Expressions, one of three student- Although Lucy knows that the first question run dance companies. To revitalize the dance many might ask a college graduate is “What group and to build a larger, loyal audience, she are your plans?” she does not yet have a defibegan designing new posters and programs, nite answer to the question. After the Milligan finding a more knowledgeable lighting de- family travels to Australia in September, Lucy signer, updating the web site, badgering the describes her future plans as vague. She would university newspaper to write reviews, sup- like to do something in the fields of education, porting the use of technology (such as videos in performing arts, and community service. She performance), discussing ideas with the artistic has no illusions about becoming a dancer or directors, and dealing with the logistics of choreographer, although Lucy could envision rehearsals and performance preparation. Lucy working for a dance company. She does know also rehearsed four times a week as a dancer that dance will somehow remain a constant and a choreographer to prepare for a new in her life. concert each semester, not to mention going to classes, majoring in history, and writing a Lucy’s life parallels mine: a Princeton Unithesis her senior year. versity graduate with a bachelors degree in history who happens to adore When Lucy first joined Expressions she found dance. Perhaps, Lucy will follow a the choreography to be unimaginative and few more of my dance steps and teach quite boring. Dancers often “just stood in two at Thacher some day. e Spring / Summer 2004 29

Performing Artists

Jonathan M. Tucker CdeP 2001 The Pretender

by Lee E. Wittlinger CdeP 2001

would fail to entertain in the face of Jonathan’s inevitable success. While watching a screening of Ball in the House in which Tucker stars opposite Jennifer Tilly, I realized for the first time that I had forgotten that I was observing my Thacher classmate and became immersed in his character’s dilemmas. After seeing The Deep End, the critically-lauded drama, I knew the time for off-handed remarks about Tuck’s career as a “pretender” had come to an end.

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have known Jonathan Moss Tucker—or simply Tucker, as most everyone knows him—for over six years. During this time I have had the pleasure of living with him twice, first during our junior year at Thacher and then one summer living in Los Angeles, when I had the privilege of watching him grow as a person and as an artist. I remember one particularly hot afternoon in the Ojai Valley, when Tucker and I sat in our fourth floor suite in Upper School, discussing politics and ruminating about life, as we often did. When the topic came to careers, I wryly asked “The Tuck” (a moniker he would often ascribe to himself) how he felt about spending his life merely “pretending” to be other people in often fictitious and irrelevant situations. I asked if he would not prefer being a “productive” member of society, like the businessman I was aspiring to become. My absurd characterization of his craft was as funny to Tuck as it was to me; thereafter I began referred to him as “The Pretender.”

Tucker’s Thacher friends often roasted him about his acting career; his initial decision to defer from Columbia University was excellent fodder for ribbings about his lack of a college education. I have always admired Tuck’s artistic acumen, persistence, and talent, and I knew there would be a time when such remarks 30 The Thacher News

introduce himself to and develop long-lasting relationships with so many members of the Thacher Community. He is a perennial student of people, their histories, personalities, and motivations; a characteristic undoubtedly complementary to his career as an actor.

His involvement in the Thacher Community was such that almost nobody knew Tucker was at the same time so fully committed to pursuing his artistic ambitions, often on the phone with his manager and acting coach and frequently shuttling between Ojai and Los Angeles for auditions. I did not entirely appreciate the extent of his “dual-life” until rooming with him when, at one point, Tucker moved out for a month to begin shooting The Deep End in Lake Tahoe. [While I was sad to see him leave, his departure provided me with significantly more square footage per capita and introduced me to the concept of per diem during my first visit to the set!]. Such experiences did not come without sacrifices however; Tucker often had to finish the semester’s work and exams during vacations, and he eventually chose to quit the lacrosse team when his schedule became too hectic. Nonetheless, Tucker remained a significant presence on campus and in the world of film.

Jonathan made his foray into the world of performing arts at the age seven, donning tights and entertaining crowds of bedecked New Englanders for five years with the Boston Ballet. [If only his ever-supportive and culturally-attuned Thacher comrades could have attended one of these performances!] He was cast as Fritz in a production of The Nutcracker in the third grade and later performed in The Ice Maiden and Punichello before focusing on acting at age 11. Tuck first graced the silver screen in the western comedy Troublemakers and soon followed that film with Two if by Sea. It was not until the production of Sleepers, however, that Jonathan gained true exposure to Hollywood’s elite and, by coincidence, The Art has been a constant presence in Jonathan’s Thacher School. life. Son of Paul Hayes Tucker, the art historian and world authority on Claude Monet, After attending the film’s Los Angeles premier, Jonathan is very much the product of his with the star-studded cast, including Robert diverse and culture-steeped upbringing. His DeNiro and Brad Pitt, Jonathan took the op- childhood, extensive travel, and general richportunity of being on the West Coast to “lit- ness of experience (of which, Tucker repeatedly erally drag” his parents to the Ojai Valley to notes, Thacher plays a huge role) are often visit Thacher. He had heard of the School from reflected in the choice and quality of films in his seventh-grade teacher, Comfort Halsey, which he participates. He has been repeatedly and upon their arrival on campus, he was im- applauded by those within the industry for the mediately attracted to Ojai’s natural beauty. sophistication of the roles he undertakes, and Intrigued by the School’s balance between the he was honored with Dubrovnik’s Libertas and intellectual and natural, this self-described Argosy Award for “Daring Choices Made in “raving Bostonian” was “bit by the bug,” as an Acting Career” (Ball in the House). This his parents describe it, and he ventured west. is not to say he shies away from bigger budget pictures with more mainstream appeal; Tucker embraced his time at Thacher with catch him running from the clutches of the an impressive passion and energy. He dove chainsaw-wielding lunatic in the remake of into his coursework with relish, pursuing the the cult classic The Texas Chainsaw Massacre intellectual both inside and outside of the class- or the leading role in the new Bruce Willis’ room. He organized hiking and horse camping action/drama Hostage, set to release later trips, joined the boys’ varsity lacrosse team, this year. In all his films, however, regardless and demonstrated his Kennedy-country heri- of genre, Tucker strives to “remain truthful tage on stage before the Sir Winston Churchill to his character.” If his previous work is any Debate Society. Most importantly and most indication of what is to come, I look forward characteristically of Tucker, however, was his to watching what will be a highly successful concentrated and highly successful effort to career as a “pretender.” e

Chapel Reunion Weekend

Looking Out and Looking In Thacher Outdoor Chapel Talk

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t is wonderful to be here in the Outdoor Chapel and have the chance to think out loud about Thacher and the gathering of alumni, friends, and family that create this special weekend. In an unsettled world, such times seem especially important as a way of reaffirming who we are and how we are bound together in a shared history. Because I am a design editor with a relatively short attention span, I’ll jump around a bit. As magazine types like to say, I’ll pursue “multiple points of entry.” So here are two brief vignettes to set the stage.

Justin Faggioli CdeP 1969, Dan Gregory CdeP 1969, and Jesse Adams CdeP 1969 saddled up for a trail ride

Some years ago my wife Mary and I were attending a Senior Exhibition presentation on a warm spring evening. As we crowded into the classroom in the Humanities Building with one of the teachers, we saw a student walk in with the headless body of a rattlesnake in his hand.

Just before taking his seat, he tossed it gently into a corner of the room for safekeeping while he turned his full attention toward the podium.

The teacher with us commented: “Oh, I just hate it when they do that.”

But what about this destination, this setting, that is Thacher’s Outdoor Chapel? Emily Dickinson ends one of her nature poems with the line: “Place was where the presence was, circumference between.” She is describing how birds start to sing in the predawn hours and then quiet down as dawn brightens into day.

But she could have been talking about where we are now. There is a presence here, even when the space is empty, because the generous sweeping curve of the design encompasses and clarifies the view. And the view is so majestic it stops time and fills the silence. I have often pondered what Emily meant by circumference—Dickinson scholars can enlighten me— but perhaps it is just this: in such a place it is possible to see both far and near; the outward possibility and the inner truth. The juxtaposition, the contrast between the two prompts a process of heightened perception. I think that is what education is all about and it is part of what Thacher teaches. Indeed, looking outward and inward at the same time sounds a lot like a certain saying about the outside of a horse being good for the inside of a student.

by Daniel P. Gregory CdeP 1969

Casalls were playing doubles and watching one of Steve Smith’s serves—perhaps to Bob Lutz?—go right through the cyclone fence...

• On a spring evening, after dinner and just before attending a lecture in the Auditorium, watching from The Pergola as a large gray Cadillac, owned by the senior partner in a prestigious Los Angeles law firm and the parent of a classmate, drifted slowly away from its parking place in front of the Schoolhouse and then quietly rolled down the hill and crashed into the stone wall in front of the Kitchen.

Now there was a torte to remember…

• The Bonus questions on Mr. Lamb’s History exams...

• The lazy susans in the Dining Hall. Have you ever played the game of finding a metaphor for your mind? Do you think of it as a filing cabinet? A safe? A computer? One acquaintance told me she thought her mind was like an ocean: one minute it was full of ideas and the next it was empty because the tide had gone out. Well, I sometimes think of my mind So what are some near and far views of as a lazy susan, with just a few ideas going Thacher and our time here together? Some round and round, and I am always thinking of quick images—close in memory but distant in those Thacher dining tables. For me, returning time, for me at least—include the following: to Thacher is sometimes a way of restocking that mental turntable or making it spin a little • Boulders crunching against each other in faster... the raging waters of an overflowing barranca after several days of downpour, and Thacher So what are some longer, perhaps more interbecoming an island of relief for flood victims pretive, views? I like to think of Thacher not at this end of the valley.... just as a chambered nautilus—linked compartments spiraling outward in a time-hon• Seeing an Extra-Day Trip steak dinner disap- ored metaphor for growth in body, mind, and pear into thin air as a flock of ravens plucked it spirit—but as a nautilus-with-the-top-down. out of a shallow pool in the Sespe River where Or better yet, as a sort of chambered corral. it had been naively put to keep cool…

For in my memory, Thacher’s outdoor rooms were at least as important as the classrooms.

• Thinking I was experiencing a form of freshman torture as my first horse, a wise but somewhat Take The Pergola. You could call it a ceremoset-in-his ways 25-year-old named Spider, refused nial corral, where the School gathers before to stop trotting on a hot and seemingly endless meals or a play or a lecture. I see the pepper ride to Fillmore, when Jack Huyler took pity trees and the dark wood posts and beams edgon me and came up with the novel solution of ing the terrace in shadow against the heat. clipping a clothespin to Spider’s right ear as a I see the trellis framing views out across the way of distracting him enough to change his gait. valley. Like a great heavy hammock, The It worked for about five minutes. But that was Pergola suspends us above the orange trees, enough to give me hope. Now thinking back the tennis courts, and The Ojai, shaping the on it, I can only wonder at how Jack happened pauses in a day, forming a resilient anchor, to have a clothespin on hand... pushing us to activity, drawing us to rest.

Then more recently, I have enjoyed hearing about the headmaster-led trail rides into town.

It seems there is a favored route that passes though a place called Dog Alley. The path runs near several houses where a variety of breeds live behind sturdy fences. Mr. Mulligan is an enthusiastic horseman who enjoys a good gallop. And this particular venue is attractive because it is fairly flat and as the riders lope past, the environmental transformation is remarkable: each dog successively hurls itself against the fence to protest the equine invasion until the sleepy backwater erupts in a frenzy of barking. As philosophers have so often observed, sometimes the journey is the • Ballboy duty at the Ojai Valley Tennis destination.

Tournament when Billie Jean King and Rosie

Continued on page 38

Spring / Summer 2004 31

Reunion Weekend 2004 M

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ore than 300 alums and their families gathered again inside the gates of

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CdeP to celebrate both recent memories and those of 70 years past. Those classes that end in “4” and “9” spent three days catching up in all kinds of ways: chatting in courtyards, dorm rooms, on The Pergola, on the trail; playing soccer or swimming, dancing to the music of Preston Smith and the Crockadiles. The Class

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of 1954 celebrated their Golden Anniversary with a special luncheon at the Head’s Home, followed by a trail ride. And, correspondence continues to filter in that confirms that everyone had a fantastic time.

1959 32 The Thacher News

1964

1984

1969

1989

1974

1994

1979

1999 Spring / Summer 2004 33

Alumni News

1949 Otis Wickenhaeuser wrote in that certainly the sky is falling into the Sespe, if not over the whole Ojai when Mr. Vosburg’s name was inadvertently spelled with an “e” in the profile for Peter Henze CdeP 1957 in the last issue of The Thacher News.

We can assure one and all, the firmament is still in its proper place. Good catch, Otis.

1951 David Lavender shared the wonderful news that classmate John Miller, MD, emeritus professor of pediatrics at Stanford Medical Center, was named Master of the American College of Rheumatology at its annual scientific meeting last October in Orlando FL. John was recognized for his major contributions and the highest professional standards in advancing the art and science of rheumatology, especially for “his recent research exploring the patterns of serologic abnormalities, complement activation and cytokine profiles in different forms of arthritis and rheumatic diseases of children,” according to the December 3, 2003 issue of the “Stanford Report.” Congratulations to Dr. Miller, and thanks for letting us know, David.

1952 “Life is great at Wombats’ Farm,” writes Clarence Kent. “Celebrated glorious 70th with Don Yates and Jane.”

1953 Sue and John Carver enjoyed a two-week visit to Santiago in January. Besides the great weather, they particularly enjoyed two days at an estancia in southern Chile where they breed horses whose ancestors arrived in late 1500.

Adelle and Joe Di Giorgio spent July at their new home on Whidbey Island in Washington.

Kate and Toby Briggs flew over to San Francisco from a convention in Reno to join Liz and Jim Funsten, Lyn and Lee Follett, Traci and Charlie Stephenson, Sue and John Carver, and Adell and Joe Di Giorgio for dinner at the Plumpjack Café.

A great time was had by all!

1959 Bill Myrin was sorry to have missed the 45th Reunion, but he plans to be on hand for the 50th. He’d love to hear from classmates: bmyrin@SKNT.com.

34 The Thacher News

Class Notes

by Jane D. McCarthy

1960 John Williams is planning to write a book regarding the structures that housed material handling equipment/facilities for loading/unloading “lakers”: ships unique to the Great Lakes. Some examples: Duluth/Superior; South Chicago; Montreal with their grain elevators; ore docks; steel mills; coal docks etc. He’ll also portray how the railroads “switched” these ports. “Any alumni with any info are welcome to contact me.”

1961 Casey Escher’s daughter, Cassie, asked for his help to go to law school. He asked her, “Why do you want to go to law school?” “To sue you,” she answered. He said, “What for?” Cassie said, “I don’t know now but I’ll have three years to find a reason.” She’s at USF Law School, working as an intern this summer for San Francisco’s City Attorney Office in Litigation Dept. Son, Chris, graduates from Cal Poly in December.

1969 According to Scott Kennedy, “Alison gave birth to Gabrielle Kennedy at the height of Portland’s snowstorm on January 6, 2004. This is my second do-it-yourself grandchild (Madeleine is now four and easily destined to be taller than I am).”

The whole tribe was on hand for the Reunion in June. He hopes folks will drop by their home in Portland!  Justin Faggioli, his wife Sandy Donnell and

father Richard Faggioli visited Mui Nimmanaheminda at his home in Chiang Mai, Thailand. Mui and his wife Victoria are busy working with their family businesses in Northern Thailand. Their son, Ricky (19) is an engineering student at Notre Dame, IN. Their daughter, Arisa (23), recently married and lives with her husband, Tada, in Tokyo. In addition to their work activities, Mui and Victoria are making substantial contributions to the economic and social fabric of Thailand, including Mui’s position as Chairman of Thailand’s national Kayak team. It was a wonderful visit of old friends.”

1963 When next on line, check out the site: www.dublinjaffreyrindgedemocrats.org/nick_thacher.htm.

You’ll see that running for the New Hampshire of House of Representatives is none other than Nick Thacher, running on the platform, “Our State must find a way to fund public schools without pitting towns and citizens against each other. We need a viable and equitable solution to school funding!”

1965 Sam Eaton joined the Past Parents Club late in May when Chris graduated from Thacher. They took a cross-country “road trip” in August to drop off Chris at St. Lawrence University in New York for the fall term. “He’s planning on playing lacrosse there after a great season this year. And, on another front, for all you Class of 1965 horsemen, get this...Ruth picked up the sack this spring off her Dad’s gigantic horse. Anyone think they can do that? So…what’s new with you guys?”

Jess Adams reports that the 35th Reunion was wonderful in many ways, “but the ‘high point’ was climbing Twin Peaks, on foot, early in the morning, with Justin Faggioli, Dan Gregory, and Scott Kennedy. A close second was the late night ‘bull session’ with classmates Stew Abercrombie, Jim Richardson, Mike Morse, Ross Anderson, Scott Kennedy, Craig Chisholm, and Jim Watts in the Upper School. The years melted away as if they’d never happened, and we were friends and teenagers again. Also great to see Marsh Milligan, Pete Dragge, and my friend and college roommate at Cal, Greg Smith, and old owl-hunter, Jim Howard.

1971 All of the Scotts are doing well. Stephen remains with the City of San Mateo as Principal Planner. Lynn works for Malcolm Plant, running his sales office. Daughter, Stephanie, just completed her junior year at Colorado University-Boulder, majoring in Broadcast Management. And son, Tyler, is wrapping up seventh grade . . . and will not even be in high school before his sister is out of college. “Oh boy, nine more years of school to pay for!”

Todd Oppenheimer’s second son, Moss PritchardHirsch Oppenheimer, was born in May. As Todd says, “As usual, I was a little late to the party (i.e., marriage and family), but got there. My best to all in class of 71, and its neighbors.”

“Although it has taken until I was 48,” reports Ryan Wood, “our first child was born in September of 2003: Kylie A. Wood. After about six months, fatherhood has become extremely fun. On the business side, after a 14-year career in semiconductor marketing, computer sales and medical device engineering I have spent the last ten in commercial energy conservation. I do dabble in some weird stuff, like UFO documents (www.majesticdocuments.com) and raising venture money for a breakthrough supersonic aircraft patent.”

1976

1979 Hans Sinha, wife Sharon, daughters Alexa (7) and Mia (5), and son Anders (3) are living in Oxford, MS. “Any Thacher folks living in or passing through the south are welcome to visit.”

1980 Lest you think a new fellow has been added to your class, take note that Rob Turner in last magazine’s Class Notes section is none other than Rod Turner. Sorry for the potential confusion.

1981  According to the

Christmas card from the Calhoun family, Alex hit the big 4-0 last year and continues appraising commercial real estate in the Silicon Valley; he’s also become the family dinner chef extraordinaire. Katie purchased the wine and spirit PR company she worked for and renamed it Calhoun & Schwartz Communications. Walker is into guitar, soccer, baseball, basketball, skiing, and backpacking; sister Natalie spends her time playing piano, soccer, skiing, backpacking, swimming, and reading.

If you’re in the Milwaukee area, Peter Morse hopes you’ll come and visit!

to ski Alpine Meadows in February: John Cicerone, Nick Kent, Brock Metcalf, Nick Noyes, Miquel de Sanz, and Chuck Henderson.

Kathleen and Nick Kent recently moved to Healdsburg, CA. Daughter Grace (10) is attending Summerfield Waldorf School and is a budding actress. Nick continues to provide forestry consulting services to clients in Northern California.

1978 We’re seeing more of John Breckenridge now that he’s settled in Ojai with sons Jonathen  and Garrett . In the fall, he’ll be working at Ojai Valley School with students and sports. He is very interested in the Theosophical Society at Krotona.

Bridge to Camp

Carolyn Chandler spent some of her time at GTC last summer feeding the burros.

Unique style, Carolyn! 

1982

 Six members of the Class of ’76 rendezvoused

Photos of Brian Kopperl’s Return Trek to Golden Trout

Half House Stone

Belinda Hanson enjoyed her visit with Shawna Weseloh Biel and her family in San Diego. At the Hanson/Thomas home, there’s a new paddock area at the barn so that their horse, Angel Mist, can live with the family: “I will be back to mucking out stalls before breakfast!”  John Herzog

recently climbed Nevado Pisco (19,190 ft) in Peru to raise funds for a Santa Barbara drug treatment center for teens.

“I figured it was a good way to start my forties!” John has lived in Santa Barbara for 20 years now, and is the Sales and Marketing Director for a health club group.

Windy Gap, elevation 11,000 ft.

Brian Kopperl CdeP 1982, August 2003

Spring / Summer 2004 35

1983 James Bell Cunningham is building a timberframe house from an old barn in Old Chatham, NY. “I’m looking for visitors and hard workers, preferably at the same time.” Bring a hammer.

Email: jake@browntroutsystems.com Like Derick Perry, Eva Burns Khattab chose to return to a place of her youth where she found so much joy. Her husband, Mohab, accepted a position with a Saudi conglomerate to develop a new business in Dammam, Saudi Arabia. In June, Evan and their three children (Yesmeen, Tarek and Omar) left Northern Virginia to join him and live in Bahrain, an island kingdom off the coast of Saudi Arabia. “No, I do not have to wear a veil, I can drive a car and although I am not promising to work, I may change my mind once we get settled. Bahrain is the banking capital of the gulf region, and I may find it difficult to pass up consulting opportunities. I will miss visits to Ojai, but maybe Thacher will call me back as my daughter will be 15 in ten years (that is a scary thought), and she is crazy about dogs and horses.

Reach me at eva@khattab.biz or ebinrt@yahoo. com. And unlike Saudi, we can actually have visitors in Bahrain.”

Thomas Cole recently won a world title at the 2004 Masters’ World Overall Flying Disc championships. It’s no wonder since Tom spends his time coaching Ultimate Frisbee, when he’s not growing food, teaching gardening, or tending to daughter Allie (5) and Tobias (3). His wife Linda just graduated from UCSB.  A mini Class Re-

union! JP Manoux found Katie Parsons in a hip Madrid Jazz club on a hot July night.

 Wedding bells rang on July 19, 2003 for Jean Richards when she became Mrs. Jamie Damon.

On hand for the wonderful festivities were close Thacher friends Molly Clarke, Tim Butler, Meghan Jeans, and JJ Eklund. Jean’s father, Rowland Richards, Jr. CdeP 1953, gave her away.

1988

1994

Kevin and Louise Branch Charbonneau happily announce the arrival of Nicolas Watson Charbonneau on March 11, 2004.

1984 Liam and Diana Lewis Callahan are enjoying their second son, William “Will” Lewis Callahan who arrived February 12, 2004. While vacationing with the boys in Kauai in March, Connor and Diana talked to a mother and her daughter on the beach who turned out to be Mike O’Toole’s wife, Jennifer, and daughter Rory! “Small world. Since returning from our trip Mike and his wife have visited the creamery to sample cheeses for their new investment in a wine and cheese restaurant in Napa!”

Carmen and Beau Sterling were sorry to miss the Reunion, but hope that if you are in Las Vegas, you’ll get in touch: bsterling@beckleylaw.com.

1986 Ami Becker Aronson lives in Bethesda, MD, with her husband Lou and four kids—stepdaughters Caroline (11), Melissa (9), and son Isaac (2), and daughter Goldie born April 8, 2004. When not playing Mom, she “continues to serve as a strategic communication consultant in entertainment education and social marketing working on national public health campaigns.”

1987 Thomas Huntley and family are really enjoying the Sonoma County wine-country life with McCabe (6), Grace (4), chocolate lab (Toby), three bunnies, six chickens, a cat, 16 apple trees, and $510 pinot noir wines. Tom spent last year building a mortgage banking/broker company in the North Bay. Nancy is a realtor and enjoys helping others move to that beautiful part of the state.

36 The Thacher News

1993

 Elizabeth Macy Graham married Lawrence

Tanji on September 27, 2003. Her Matron of Honor, Kalai Kennedy Vincent (on her right) is married to Scott Vincent and they had a baby, Nicholas Justin Vincent, on April 24, 2004.

Life is exciting for Rhodes and Emily Loomis Murphey. Rhodes graduated from veterinary school in May; as of June 13, they’re parents of a beautiful baby girl, Malinda Catherine Murphey (8 lbs, 3 oz,); and they moved to East Texas (Jacksonville) on June 24. All three are adjusting to their new lifestyle.

1992 Gatsha Small has been married for a year now.

They are stationed at Edwards AFB, CA, where Gatsha works as a civilian Aerospace Engineer doing flight tests: “Lots o’ fun, cool planes and a miserably hot desert.” His wife is finishing up school and managing a small band in the Antelope Valley.  Suzanne Bird

and husband Terry Boyden joyfully announce the birth of their daughter, Parker Isabel, on July 9, 2004.

Alexei Angelides just finished a two-year stint as a Visiting Assistant Professor of Philosophy at City University of New York after having written a Master’s Thesis on Logic. “This year will be my third in NYC. I took two years off in the middle of college at Rice University and moved to London where I became a sous chef at a four-starrestaurant. After graduating, I came to the New School for Social Research in NYC to work on my Master’s Thesis, which I defended in February, 2004. During these three-and-a-half years here, I have been teaching at CUNY as an adjunct, and this last year, full time. I was the Managing Editor of an academic journal, the Graduate Faculty Philosophy Journal, for three years. In September, I moved to Palo Alto to finish my PhD in philosophy at Stanford.

The big news in Robert and Jovi Young Geraci’s life is that son, Zion Joseph, was born at home on March 17, 2004. They are totally in love with him and “being a mom rocks! He still doesn’t look much like me.” Jovi wrapped up teaching religious studies at UCSB’s summer session and then hit the road for Ohio, where she’ll be a Visiting Assistant Professor in the Religion Department at Denison University. If in the neighborhood, please stop by.

Rika Howe will be teaching first grade this fall at a local public school. She’s looking forward to seeing many friends at Devon Brown’s wedding in October; she’ll also get to meet Jovi’s new baby boy. Nate Toll is a full-time graduate student at UGA, earning a masters in hydrogeology. He has been competing in triathlons in the Southeast, and he is raising his fourth puppy for Canine Companions for Independence.

Joshua Kurlinski married Heather Harvey on June 5, 2004 in Las Vegas.

Anne Jack earned her master’s in plant science in May.

1995 Meagan Darrow reports that she dined with Monica Garg’s grandfather the evening before her beautiful wedding; beyond that, Leyla AbouSamra CdeP 1996, Brittany Sanders CdeP 1996, Omar Abou-Samra, Aracelis Girmay, and Rhia Hurt are “all amazing and doing so well. A wonderful break from the stresses of teaching in South Central.”

1996 After eight years in the Bay Area, Joanna Farrer is moving to Los Angeles this fall to begin a master’s program at the UCLA School of Public Policy and Social Research. She recently completed work on a research project for UCSF studying public health and safety issues in child-care settings.

Joanna will continue to study early child health and well-being at UCLA. Alexia Allen Stevens is all a-twitter about her new beehives: “It’s a girl! Several thousand of them!

They are growing, just in time for the blackberry bloom. Our organic gardening yields dividends of delicious chickens, tasty goats, and buckets of raspberries. Maybe one of these days the Seattle rain will cease and we’ll get some summer sun.”

Maria Banman was sighted working at Cheap Sports in Ventura, but not for long. She’s on her way to Colorado (to live with Diana Garcia CdeP 1995) while she applies to medical schools.

According to her parents, “Catherine Pinkerton and her husband Travis Keeling are half way through a two-year Peace Corps assignment stationed in Cano Negro, Costa Rica. It is a small rural town of nearly 300 in a large wildlife reserve in the northern lowlands that shares a border with Nicaragua. They have a small house, a cat, and no electricity…. They are assisting several women’s groups in starting small businesses.

Travis is teaching a class to children in 5th to 8th grade showing how an education can enhance one’s ability to earn a better wage and improve life. Many of the children stop school at the 6th grade. Catherine is teaching English classes to park rangers so they can give better tours to English–speaking scientists who visit the refuge. The classes have been popular and have grown into an adult education program for the local townsfolk.

Similar to our local school’s garden program, Travis and Catherine have also started vegetable gardens in the local schools.”  The latest artist book of Brittany Sanders,

Last Night We Were Awoke, was on exhibit at The Metropolitan Museum of Art this spring as part of a show entitled Highlights from the Permanent Collection: Prints, Drawings, and Illustrations.

This limited edition accordion book follows the journey of Lewis and Clark as they venture west to the Pacific Ocean. Seen through how the night sky appeared to the two trekkers, the book also features a series of watercolor paintings that evoke their journey.

 Michele Weber

shared her happy news that she became Mrs. Brian Hunt last summer.

Their wedding took place on a deck overlooking Lake Travis in Austin, TX. A few Thacher alums enjoyed the festivities: Kate Gulbransen, Tommy Thornhill, and Leyla Abou-Samra. Michele is teaching middle-school science in Dallas, while Brian is working on his law degree at SMU. Peyton Holmes is still living in Bozeman, MT, where he enjoys all the outdoor recreation the state offers, as well as the occasional freedive spearfishing trips. “Hello to all my Thacher friends and family, and best wishes to all.”

1997 On March 1, Chris Labbe was hired as Program Coordinator for Montana MarketManager, a joint education program of the Montana Grain Growers Association and the Montana Stockgrowers Association. As of May 1, Chris is engaged to Tiffanie Huson.

According to Erica Moore, “It’s a small world indeed. I spent a week traveling across the state of California in early May. I camped at Yosemite for a few days and really wanted a bed, so I checked into a local lodge/hostel where who did I run into but my former charge Mollie Gardner CdeP 1999! It was great to see her; she was enrolled in a Wilderness EMT course that sounded pretty rigorous. When her class finished their exams on that Friday, I bought them all a couple of pitchers of beer to celebrate. When I returned to NYC, I had a voice mail message at work from none other than former School Chair Tim Hatch CdeP (1995), asking me to help with his upcoming CD! ...it’s a crazy world!”

Ryan Kurlinski began a doctorate program in Economics/Alternate Energy at Carnegie-Mellon in Pittsburgh, PA in August.

Joining the fun at this year’s Big Gymkhana Weekend were Brian Shaw and his girlfriend Maggie, along with Gavin Back and his girlfriend Emaleigh Benner (sister of PJ ’06). 

Barrett Reiff began an MBA in Entrepreneurship at the University of Southern California in August.

1998 When Louisa Footman turned 24, Kim Turner was on hand for the festivities in Baltimore last year.

1999 Once Sarah Bruss married Jeremy in Maine in August, they moved to the Far East to “teach English, improve our Chinese, make connections, travel, and have fun. It was wonderful to see so many of our class at reunion weekend! Love to you all!”

Nine weeks of cycling 4,000 miles cross country to benefit Habitat for Humanity came to an end on July 31, when the thirty cyclists, including Erin Hoppin, rode through the fountain below Seattle’s Space Needle and into the arms of loved ones.

Beyond seeing incredible scenery (the Badlands of SD, Grand Tetons, Glacier National Park, and the North Cascades), the group helped construct Habitat homes in NY and ID, and shared their experiences with host churches where they spent their nights. Now Erin is heading back to Brooklyn where she’ll begin working as a legal assistant at Davis, Polk, & Wardwell in September. Check out her website (www.hoppin.org) or the group’s website (www.yale.edu/habitat) for more information and photos.

2000 Trevor Chase McProud graduated from Colorado College with a BA in Environmental Science on May 17, 2004.

And, on the last day of May, Seth Kurlinski graduated from Bates College in Lewiston, ME.  Yet one more graduate is Peter

Hartnack, who graduated from USC with a degree in history.  The proud

mother of Bennett Barbakow snapped this shot of two new graduates at Brown: Bennett and Katie Russell CdeP 1999.

Devon Tarasevic asked Michael Mulligan for a backpacking suggestion up Wheeler Canyon and thoroughly enjoyed a long weekend with her friends. They visited Pine Mountain Lodge, the Three Mile area, and lunch by the river. Once started, the scenery looked familiar, and her old knot-tying expertise (butterfly, figure-eight, clove hitch, and trucker’s) came in handy. She’s looking forward to her next trek in the Sespe.

According to her mother, Erin Blankenship was awarded Student of the Year for International Studies at graduation from Trinity University this year. Now Erin is applying for a Rhodes Scholarship. Best of luck!

Spring / Summer 2004 37

 Tim Stenovec

CdeP 2001 sent this photo of Marley Orr and himself on a nice day at Colby in Waterville, ME where Marley graduated in May; Tim plans to follow suit next year.

In an interview in TIME magazine (August 23, 2004), page 10, Bob Costas spoke about his and Katie Couric’s rivalry over producing “the most ridiculous piece of Olympics minutia that you’ve read about.” Costas responded, “Oh, this is the one: ‘Gabon’s President Omar Bongo (father of Amissa Bongo) has promised any Gabonian medal winner a new house and vast sums of cash.

But the wily Bongo is hedging his bets, insofar as Gabon has never won an Olympic medal.’ If Katie cribs my ‘wily Bongo’ note, I’ll deck her.”

2001 David Babbott was awarded The Samuel Walley Brown Scholarship at Amherst College. It is awarded to that member of the junior class who shall, in the estimation of the Trustees, rank highest in his/her class in character, class leadership, scholarship, and athletic ability. Well done, David!

In March, we heard from father Robert CdeP 1967, that Emmett Hopkins had surgery for thyroid cancer that seems to have been successful, although he had to take the quarter off. This summer, Emmett has a Fellowship at the San Francisco Redevelopment Agency. The focus is on a green building and other urban environmental concerns. Check out his website that he created to share the songs he’s written/recorded: www. stanford.edu/~ehopkins.

2002 On the last day of May, Jamie Everett joined the ranks of the few playing in a national championship when he hit the field in the Navy-Syracuse Lacrosse game! Navy was the runner-up for NCAA Division I Men’s Lacrosse.

2003 Back in April, Lucy Hodgman had lunch with Val and David Lavender CdeP 1951 at their new home in Northfield, MN. They shared and compared stories and tales about Thacher and Carleton.

Apparently Chance Phelps has found his calling.

According to Uncle Jack Huyler, Chance earned a 3.9 GPA in his second semester at the Maine Marine Academy. Now he’s on a training ship on the Atlantic. Way to go, Chance!

Faculty News: Past and Present English Department Chair Jake Jacobsen will be juggling another hat this fall, the one for Dean of Faculty. In this role, he’ll work closely with faculty members in a broad array of roles: hiring, evaluations, advancement, and orientation.

Beginning this fall, Admission Officer Jason Carney will teach history full time, oversee the upperclass boys in Upper School, and will continue coaching Boys’ Varsity Basketball. Jason and Megan welcomed ­ Riley’s baby brother Robert Pels into their family on September 8, 2004. He tipped the scales at 8 lbs., 5 oz., and will soon be working on his baseline jumpshot.

After seven years as Dean of Students, Chris Mazzola has a new title: Associate Director of the Admission Office.

Roger Klausler spent the month of July in northern Spain, traveling and studying; Molly Twichell Perry CdeP 1985 spent three weeks studying in southern Spain; Chuck Warren finished the second of his three-year summer sabbatical; he’s studying advanced equine techniques and Portuguese in Portugal.

Math teacher Theanna Hancock is taking a NOLS course on the Wind River with Will Barkan CdeP 2002.

Three faculty members finished their post­graduate degrees this summer: Jason Carney earned a MEd from the University of Hawaii, Kara Hooper earned a master’s in English from Breadloaf, and Emily Etchells McCarren earned a master’s in Spanish from Washington University while studying in Madrid. Bravo!  Former faculty members

Wendi and Jamie Parker-Dial welcomed Connor James to their family on July 15; note: she tried to make him arrive early at Field Day at school’s end, but, alas, no luck. Daughter Morgan started Montessori School in June and loves every minute of it. Jamie is working, continuing school, and adventure racing. Wendi is painting, especially now that she returned from Santa Fe, inspired by so many wonderful artists. Bela is shedding in an attempt to cool down in Tennessee.

John and Merilee Lin and their sons returned to the West Coast; John is now the Head of School at San Francisco Day School.

After receiving the last Thacher News, Edgardo Catalan wrote from Chile to say that he is teaching at the University of Valparaiso at the School of Design and Architecture. In July, he dropped by the School to say hello to old friends. e

Dan Gregory Continued from page 31

If The Pergola is one of Thacher’s centers offering focus and fixity, then the trails are among the School’s extremities, providing freedom and flexibility. There’s that inward and outward refrain from my lazy susan again. Each trail is an axis, an open-air corridor, a carefully enhanced contour on the hill. No journey along one is the same. As we saw with Dog Alley, each trail carries the potential for excitement, for incident.

For my second horse, Eliza Jane—Spider retired after my freshman year—each trail appeared to function as an approximation, a rough idea about direction, or perhaps even an abstraction, because we often found ourselves vaulting above the track or plunging below it for no apparent reason. I once went riding up Thacher Canyon with several classmates only to find myself lagging behind. I tapped Eliza Jane lightly, thinking we would move a little faster to catch up, and the unpredictable horse instantly accelerated, veering off the trail at high speed. Of course I now know that my lack of control was entirely my fault—there was no horse whisperer in my gene pool. Her sense of direction, while not reliable, was confident, and as we thundered through the sumac I could see a low-slung oak limb looming up ahead. The demonic horse seemed to know what she was doing for the pommel passed cleanly under but I did not. My companions only noticed my absence when a riderless horse galloped past. ”Gee, I wonder where Dan is?” was the idle observation. This trail had a structure and it was made of oak.

It occurs to me that Thacher’s most memorable outdoor spaces—from The Pergola to the Barn Area to the Soccer Field to the horse trails to the Sespe campsites themselves—are among the School’s most successful “buildings.” For each space seems to suit its site while vividly articulating its function. Several—like the Outdoor Theatre and this chapel—go a step further to celebrate the setting, heightening the experiences that take place within them.

But in the end, the place of Thacher and the presence of Thacher—and by presence I mean all of us, the students, the teachers, the alumni, the community, and the life of school—overlap and intertwine until they are extensions of each other. They become both the central point and the circumference. They become both the looking out and the looking in. The distant and the near. The past and the present. The dawning and the day. Returning to this place and reconnecting with this presence helps us see that we are part of a larger whole. How lucky to be together. In this widening circle. On this day.

At this moment. And in this place.

Thank you. e

38 The Thacher News

Participants in the Golden Trout Encampment

Bob Johnson CdeP 1967

David CdeP 1962 and Cathy Marsten

The family of Boun Ly CdeP 1974

Samuel Pond CdeP 1974

Golden Trout Encampment 2004 Kevin Flynn CdeP 1978

Kate Pond, daughter of Pete Pond CdeP 1932

Spring / Summer 2004 39

Obituaries Alumni News

Losses to the Community Alumni Who Will Be Sorely Missed

by Jane D. McCarthy

Morgan Adams, Jr. CdeP 1933 died March 25, 2004 in Los Angeles.

While at Thacher, Morgan was known for composing rich and wonderful poetry, captaining the soccer team, and running dances.

He also played baseball, ran track, became a “B” Camper, rode on the Second Gymkhana Team, and served as secretary for the Gun Board. A member of the Committee of Ten, Morgan also served as prefect for the Upper Upper and earned “All Privileges.” He matriculated at Yale, where he earned a degree in history in 1937. He served in the US Navy’s Pacific Fleet during World War II. When he returned home from active duty, he married Suzanne Vidor, daughter of movie director King Vidor, and later married Ruth Swanson.

employer network for employing students in Chicago and nationwide. He continued to serve as a Consultant to the Career Development Center until his death.

As a builder and businessman, Morgan and a few friends developed the first ski lifts at Mt. Baldy. He and his brother Peter also developed office buildings along Wilshire Boulevard near downtown. He was an active Director of LA’s YMCA, a founding member of the Southern California Ski Lift and Tow Operations Association, a 50-year member of the California Club, and a member of the Yale Club of Southern California. He will always be remembered for his love of the arts and skiing, generosity, and dedication to his family. Preceded in death by his eldest son, Morgan III (CdeP 1965), he is survived by two children, Robin and John; six stepchildren, and numerous grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

Granger Farwell Kenly CdeP 1936 died on June 16, 2004 in Lake Forest, IL. He had been active in Chicago communications work and civic affairs; he retired in 1984 as Senior Vice-President for corporate and Investor Relations of IC Industries in Chicago (now the Whitman Corporation). Following his retirement, he served as Career Development Officer for Lake Forest College, where he was responsible for counseling both students and alumni of the College on career selection and career opportunities, and for establishing an

40 The Thacher News

While at Thacher, “Grange” was “a four-­letter man:” Baseball, Soccer, Track, and Tennis; he was also quite a horseman, but couldn’t squeeze all of these pursuits into an already busy schedule that included Notes Board, Business Manager of El Archivero, Committee of X, and Big Tournament Committee. Grange matriculated at Princeton, but graduated from Harvard in 1941. He served as a Major in the US Air Force in Europe in World War II. He also served as director of various non-profit agencies in the Chicago area. He is survived by his wife Stella Brown Kenly of Lake Forest; by his daughter Margaret and son Granger Jr.; three step children, and seven grandchildren.

Perry Gwynne More Austin, Jr., MD CdeP 1940, who devoted much of his nearly five-decade career to the healthcare of veterans, died February 12, 2004, from complications of pneumonia. He strongly advocated for veterans’ health treatment and the desegregation of hospital admissions. He received many honors during his career, including a citation for outstanding services from the Disabled American Veterans for 1984-85.

According to the 1940 El Archivero, “A eulogy on Perry Austin could quite fairly deal with one or two characteristics and still give a reasonably well-rounded picture, for ‘Aust’ is a single-minded, well-integrated personality.”

He played and captained the second soccer team, ran track and relays, and was the cellist of the String Quartet. He became an “A” Camper; participated in Dramatics and Glee Club; became a member of the Committee of Ten; and served as a Prefect his senior year. He matriculated at Princeton, where he graduated in 1944, and then went on to Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York City. He served his internship at LA’s County General Hospital and was a research fellow at the Johns Hopkins University from 1949 to 1951. He was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Air Force Medical

Kenneth W. Vidato CdeP 1973 passed away peacefully of kidney failure on March 14, 2004 at Doctors Hospital in Lanham, Perry married Sally Evans, the daughter of his MD. During Ken’s three former commanding officer, at the US Embassy years at Thacher, he parin Ankara Turkey. They lived in Baltimore, ticipated in various comwhere he was on the faculty of Johns Hopkins munity service projects, School of Medicine from 1957 until 1987. He Literary Society, School Council, Discipline is survived by his wife; three sons David, Peter Committee, and Debate; in his senior year, he CdeP 1977, and Christopher CdeP 1978; a earned commendations in English and Spansister, Camilla; and six granddaughters. ish. Following graduation from Harvard, Ken worked for more than 20 years on educationrelated projects for the Close-Up Foundation in Washington, DC. Ken became very active in Robert A. Hiller CdeP his church and hoped to go to Divinity School 1943 died on April 1, in order to explore the possibility of pursuing 2004 in Corte Madera, a Christian religious vocation.

CA. Raised in San Francisco, Bob attended Ken’s health had been good until last SepThacher for three years tember; he was acutely ill for only a couple and earned the admiration of months before his death. According to his of his peers for his easywidow, Renee, “Kenneth fought a good fight going and good-natured and now lives forever in victory in the presence manner, likely the reason he was the object of of the one he loves the most, the Lord Jesus much teasing. His “distinctive ‘Huh!’ inter- Christ.” Classmate Walter Rieman says that mingled with his rapid and often incoherent Renee would be comforted by letters from chatter is one of the indestructible memories of Ken’s friends: Renee Vidato, 6024 St. Mortiz his classmates...[known as] Hillaresque jargon Drive, Temple Hills, MD 20748; email: vidato. which is often close to a foreign language in group@verizon.net. e the understanding of his classmates,” as reported in the 1943 El Archivero. In his senior year at Thacher, he was Captain of the First Soccer Team and earned the Fay Soccer Trophy; he also played on the First Basketball and Baseball Teams. School Prefect, Committee of Ten, Gun Board, Cabinet, and Indoor Club rounded out his extracurricular activities. He matriculated to the University of California at Berkeley. He graduated from the US Merchant Marine Academy at King’s Point and served throughout the South Pacific.

Corps and was posted to March Air Force Base in Riverside, CA, where he worked as chief of medicine during the last years of the Korean War.

Bob was president of the State Terminal Company and served as a director of the San Francisco Warehouse Property Company for 40 years. He was a 50-year member of the Olympic Club and a longtime docent at the SS Jeremiah O’Brien. Preceded in death by his wife of 37 years, Elizabeth Maloon Hiller, he is survived by his two daughters, Susan Marshall and Molly Brilliant, their husbands, and two grandsons.

Thomas A. Barkan MD CdeP (1944) died of cancer on March 12, 2004 according to his widow, Victoria Barkan. He graduated from Stanford with a BA in 1947 and earned his MD from Stanford in 1952. Tom is also survived by a daughter, Caroline.

Spring / Summer 2004 41

Calendar

Thacher Gatherings and Events

Fall 2004 – Winter 2005 Tuesday, October 5 Los Angeles Gathering Tuesday, October 12 Washington, DC Gathering Wednesday, October 13 New York Gathering Thursday, October 14 Chicago Gathering Friday-Sunday, October 29-31 Family Weekend Wednesday, November 3 New Track Dedication Honoring David S. Lavender Wednesday, November 10 Portland Gathering Thursday, November 11 Seattle Gathering Saturday-Sunday, November 13-14 Cultural Weekend Friday-Saturday, January 28-29 Board of Trustees Winter Meeting Saturday-Sunday, February 19-20 Departmental Weekend

The Campaign for Thacher TILL THE BEST WE CAN DO IS ALL DONE Thacher alumni are fiercely loyal to their school because of what they experienced here and of how they have come to understand that experience as the years have passed. Thacher parents and friends are also committed to the School because they have seen what it has meant to the people they love. Over time, this understanding deepens, and with this deepening comes an immense gratitude and commitment to see Thacher continue and thrive for succeeding generations of young people.

Continuing in this issue of The Thacher News, we share some of the stories of people whose recent gifts represent the generosity of so many who are now giving to Thacher in new magnitudes. Their particular reasons for giving may differ, but they share a common understanding that Thacher is an important and singular work in progress—till the best we can do

STACEY COWLES CdeP 1978, JAMES COWLES CdeP 1951, and BETSY COWLES Spokane, Washington Unrestricted Giving for Where Thacher Needs It Most

T

is all done.

he bond between the Cowles family and Thacher is long and deep, reaching through

three generations and across the continent. Sherman Day Thacher’s father, W. L. Thacher, was W. H. Cowles’ classics professor at Yale. Mr. Cowles moved to Spokane in 1890 to work in the newspaper business; three years later, he owned The Spokesman-Review. Three generations of his family followed him as publishers and executives. And three generations attended Thacher, including W. H. Cowles, Jr., who arrived here in a horse-drawn wagon in 1918 and graduated two years later. W. H. Cowles III graduated in 1947; his brother Jim in 1951; Jim’s nephew Stacey graduated in 1978. Between cousins and extended family members, the total is now 19.

The Cowles support Thacher because it shares their strong familial values, has an excellent academic program, and each member—through the decades—has found something rare, real, and essential here.

Jim and Stacey share memories of CdeP, while Jim’s niece Betsy speaks of being We support Thacher because we have such a long history with the School and we think that the

“

School’s done a tremendous job at staying true to its tradition while growing, changing, and remaining relevant to the modern world. It’s worthy of our investment.” —Stacey Cowles CdeP 1978

“We want to see that Thacher is there for other students. That’s the reason we support it. Thacher is pretty special. It has everything: the outdoor experience and athletics, as well as the academics. And the students are well-prepared for the best colleges.” —Jim Cowles CdeP 1951

raised in a family where Thacher’s values played an integral role. Although this unbreakable bond between Thacher and the Cowles began in a different era, the underlying human need for meaning and purpose are precisely the same now as they were then.

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