Cyrus a magazine for alumni and friends of The Blake School
Spring/Summer 2021
Ancient History Jenifer Neils ’68 digs life in Athens
So Happy Together Life at Blake in a pandemic
Close to Home
Fatiya Kedir ’17 on food insecurity at college
FROM THE HEAD OF SCHOOL
Cyrus Photo: Julia McMahon, LB Jeffries Photography
a magazine for alumni and friends of The Blake School Editor Kristin Stouffer Managing Editor Tracy Grimm Graphic Designer Cate Hubbard Thanks to the many Blake community members who have contributed to this publication. Mission
Better Together
Blake engages students with a dynamic, academically challenging education in a diverse and supportive community committed to pluralism and a common set of values. Students pursue an integrated program of academic, artistic and athletic activities, preparing for college, lifelong learning and purposeful lives as community and global citizens.
Among the things interrupted by the pandemic is our cover story for this issue of Cyrus. Bonny Wolf ’68 had written the profile of Jennifer Neils ’68 before the coronavirus’ spread. As I revisit her article, the way it illustrates the power of hands-on learning seems particularly relevant. Whether it’s an archeological dig, student performance, science experiment, band practice, research presentation, gallery walk or virtually anything else, there’s simply no substitute for teaching and learning in person.
Commitment to Pluralism A vibrant learning environment springs from a diverse school community. For this reason, Blake seeks and values students, families and employees with a wide range of backgrounds, identities and life experiences. Individually and collectively, we strive for understanding across differences in an inclusive environment where everyone can belong, contribute and thrive. Core Values Respect Love of Learning Integrity Courage The Blake School Administrative Offices 110 Blake Road South Hopkins, MN 55343
Despite the distances—geographic and social—students and teachers made meaningful connections this past school year. The In Photos section offers a glimpse into daily life on campus. The creativity, care, resourcefulness and resilience I’ve seen among our students, faculty and staff have been remarkable. One silver lining has been discovering new ways to connect with those further afield. For instance, alumni and friends near and far can now more easily spend time together (graphic on page 5). I’m pleased to report that we’ll make events like Blake Trivia Night and other virtual gatherings a part of our ongoing offerings. Whether you’re joining an event online or you’re on campus for reunion and homecoming the first weekend of October (learn more at blake.mn/reunion21), I look forward to seeing you. In the meantime, take care and thank you for all you do to support our students.
952-988-3440
cyrus@blakeschool.org
Anne E. Stavney, Ph.D. Head of School The Blake School b Cyrus
CONTENTS Spring/Summer 2021
COVER STORY
DECODING THE ANCIENT WORLD Archaeologist and art historian Jenifer Neils ’68 has spent her halfcentury career deciphering the past. PAGE 6
IN PHOTOS
DEPARTMENTS
Zoom Out
In Brief 2
Navigating school life in the midst of a pandemic.
Cover Story 6
PAGE 12
Q&A 18
Q&A
Hope for a Hidden Hunger Fatiya Kedir ’17 confronts food insecurity on her college campus and in the wider community. PAGE 18
In Photos 12 In Print & Production 20 Class Notes 21 Voices 29
IN BRIEF ACADEMIC HIGHLIGHT
ARCHIVES
ARTS HIGHLIGHT
AWARDS
COMMITMENT TO PLURALISM
COMMUNITY SERVICE
COMMITMENT TO PLURALISM
ART INSTALLATIONS REFLECT ACTIVISM AND BLACK JOY
Sixth graders turned research into art, giving others the opportunity to learn from and enjoy the results of their hard work. In KK Neiman’s social studies class, students explored the Black Lives Matter movement, which provided context for class discussions about George Floyd and the Derek Chauvin trial and verdict as they were happening in Minneapolis. As a final project, each chose a particular Black activist and studied their life, the causes they championed, and the actions they took to improve the world. Students then created a podcast, documentary or children's book. Finally, they contributed to an art installation celebrating the activists the class had studied. Kendra Cass’s social studies students explored agents of change that have been influential in the struggles for social justice. Students researched activists, artists and movements that, through their commitment to equality, have paved the way for Black joy, expression and liberation. Their exhibition, Black Joy Matters: Changemakers and the Pursuit of Black Joy, includes collages, paintings (some on denim jackets) and posters, which are displayed with the artist’s statement about their subject and the impact that person made.
COMMITMENT TO PLURALISM
during a virtual visit made SQUIRMY & GRUBS possible by the Upper School Shane and Hannah Burcaw Unified Committee, Special (aka Squirmy and Grubs) are an Olympics MN and Blake's 2020 interabled married couple who, Polar Plunges. The couple through their work as vloggers, spoke candidly and with great authors and public speakers, humor about their relationship, debunk disability stigmas and their experiences with ableism educate about ableism. Middle and how we can advocate for and Upper School students greater accessibility for and had a chance to hear from Shane authentic representation of and Hannah and ask questions those with disabilities. 2 Cyrus
IN BRIEF
COMMUNITY
ACADEMIC HIGHLIGHT
THANKS A LLAMA
STUDENT PODCAST OFFERS STORIES WITH SOLUTIONS
Llama gram! As a token of their thanks, Highcroft faculty arranged for two llamas from the Weeping Willows Acres hobby farm to pay a visit to Lower School administrators and office team for their support during a challenging school year.
This fall, Upper School Environmental Science students created a podcast that explores solutions for reducing atmospheric carbon to sustainable levels for all life on earth. The result, Our Inheritance, is a 12-part series of seven- to 12-minute, peer-reviewed episodes (one from each student) featuring interviews with at least three experts. Matt Carlson ’21, who explores tropical forest restoration in episode three, says what struck him most about the project was realizing how many different ways there are to work on climate change. “Just realizing the amount of solutions are in little things you can do that have a big impact, if many people do them. I'd say that was the most valuable thing for me.” Find Our Inheritance on multiple podcast platforms or visit blake.mn/podcast.
SERVICE
ALUMNI SPRING INTO SERVICE
This year’s Alumni Service Day was particularly special for two reasons: it was the first in-person alumni event since the pandemic began and it involved an organization co-founded by a Blake alumna. This spring, 25 alumni and family helped Appetite for Change’s Seed and Plant Distribution Day. During the outdoor event, volunteers distributed seeds, plants and other garden resources. Appetite for Change’s mission is to use food as a tool to build health, wealth and social change in North Minneapolis. The nonprofit, co-founded by Michelle Horovitz ’98, brings people together to cook, eat and grow food, creating change that lasts. ACADEMIC HIGHLIGHT
A PLACE FOR ALL TO SWING, SLIDE, SHOOT HOOPS A seventh grade science project challenges students to design an inclusive playground, accessible to all, that encourages kids of various abilities to play together. Working in small teams, students choose a theme for their playground, which must adhere to safety regulations, and each member creates a piece of equipment using the computer-aided design software SketchUp. The groups present their designs, which include equipment such as merry-go-rounds with ramps and wheelchair locks, swing sets and zip lines with chairs and seatbelts, basketball courts with adjustable hoops, sensory activities and quiet areas for those who need a break from action. Spring/Summer 2021 3
IN BRIEF
COMMUNITY
BEFORE AND AFTER ENTRY HALL DELIGHTS Overlooking the construction site of the Hopkins campus Entry Hall, Head of School Anne Stavney’s office offered an unparalleled view of the space as it took shape last year. Many of Blake’s littlest Bears proved to be the biggest fans of the spectacle, which at various times included excavators, cranes, concrete mixers and metal welding. Prekindergarten and kindergarten classes made regular stops in the top office to observe the project’s progress. Now complete, the beautiful new space remains an exciting attraction for young students, who use the wide corridor with its soaring ceilings as a second gymnasium.
words. Patchwork comprised 668 6"x6" squares, representing each person on the Northrop campus. The Martha Bennett Gallery curatorial team provided art supplies and encouraged everyone to find their name on the wall and to draw or write something that speaks to their identity, creating what faculty advisor Bill Colburn ’88 described as “a rich and varied quilt.”
ACADEMIC HIGHLIGHT
EIGHTH GRADERS FIND MEANING IN MIDDLE SCHOOL MOMENTS ARCHIVES
THE DODGE MEMORIAL ENTRANCE
When one door closes, another opens; and when the original Blake campus entrance shutters, a memorial honors the role it played in welcoming students to school from 1912 to 2018. When the Blake School opened in 1912, large wooden white doors and a wide stoop marked the main entrance. At the dedication ceremony in 1963, the entry was named the Dodge Memorial Entrance to honor Edwin Noyes Dodge ’26, an accomplished scholar and athlete. After graduating from Yale in 1931, Dodge began a career in the insurance industry, one marked by civic leadership and community service. He died in 1958 at age 50. In honor of their 50th reunion in 2008, the Blake class of 1958 funded replicas of the original doors for the Dodge Memorial Entrance. As construction began on the Blake Entry Hall in 2019, the Dodge entry closed. Earlier this year, a display featuring the Dodge entry’s history, photos and the 1963 dedication plaque was installed. 4 Cyrus
ARTS HIGHLIGHT
ART EXHIBIT DRAWS ON ‘RICH AND VARIED’ UPPER SCHOOL COMMUNITY A collaborative exhibit invited Upper School community members to share a bit about their identities through art and
As a capstone to their time in Middle School, each eighth grader reflected on an influential experience from the past three years and shared their story in a short video. Individually, they’ve found meaningful lessons in field trips, books, class assignments, clubs and after-school activities. Collectively, their stories provide an insider’s look at a formative time in their lives, one that was interrupted by a global pandemic and the restrictions that came with it. “Sometimes, when I’m having a hard time on a project or just in general, I think back on that experience and try to remind myself that I can push through,” one student says about a challenging science project. “Difficult experiences can lead to growth and improvement, especially when you find motivation in the actions of
IN BRIEF
others,” shares another, who found inspiration from her classmates during a Socratic-style seminar. And others wrestled with the assignment itself as one student expressed, “Being able to take a step back and widen our perspective just isn’t a skill a lot of middle schoolers have yet, and that’s fine for our age. Reflection is something that takes years to learn.” Watch highlights from this year’s eighth grade Spotlight videos at blake.mn/spotlight21.
ACADEMIC HIGHLIGHT
BIRDS, PUPPIES, SHARKS VISIT PRE-K CLINIC
COMMUNITY
SENIORS GIVE IN HONOR OF LEARNINGWORKS Carrying on the longtime senior tradition, the class of 2021 presented a collective gift to the school. Wishing to address disparities in education exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, this year’s seniors, led by a committee of five classmates (pictured below), chose to support LearningWorks, Blake’s private-public partnership with Minneapolis Public Schools dedicated to preparing youth for success in high school and college. Their contributions funded 98 care packages containing supplies for students attending this summer's program.
Pre-kindergartners transformed their classroom into a veterinary clinic, complete with animal patients of all varieties. During a morning of fun and creative play, children designed costumes of their favorite animals
and visited the clinic where they acted out conversations about nature and health. AWARDS
JOHN EDIE HOLIDAY DEBATE TOURNAMENT WINS HOST OF THE YEAR Zoom rooms, pets on parade and a holiday sweater fashion
show were just a few examples distinguishing Blake’s 58th annual John Edie Holiday Debate Tournament from its previous 57 runs. But one constant participants of the prestigious event could count on was high-quality, competitive debate. Aware of online fatigue, Blake’s debate directors and coaches aimed to offer “more than just another tournament weekend at your desk” with features like the Pets of Blake Debate video showcasing friends of Blake debaters and coaches, a holiday sweaters video that included participants from the various schools and Zoom breakout rooms where high school debaters could meet coaches from college debate programs. Their creative hospitality garnered the 2021 National Debate Coaches Association’s Tournament Host of the Year Award, which Blake also won in 2009 and 2017.
COMMUNITY
AN EVENTFUL YEAR People around the world became accustomed to attending events from the comfort of their homes as pandemic lockdowns gave rise to virtual events. Four Blake offices in particular—Admissions, Advancement, College Counseling, and Equity and Community Engagement—seized the opportunity to broaden their interaction and connect with those living across the country and even abroad by collectively hosting:
86
Virtual events for
4,817
Participants representing:
+ Australia + Canada + China + Thailand
Spring/Summer 2021 5
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Archaeologist, art historian and academic Jenifer Neils ’68 has spent half a century deciphering the past, making discoveries that have changed the way we understand the ancient world. Now as director of the American School for Classical Studies at Athens, she’s leading the next generation of scholars in the place that inspired her career.
COVER STORY
JENIFER NEILS ’68
DECODING THE ANCIENT WORLD By Bonny Wolf ’68 Illustrated by Owen Davey – Folio Art
Spring/Summer 2021 7
J
enifer Neils had been thinking about the seating arrangement of the Olympian gods on the Parthenon frieze for decades. The 524-foot-long sculpted marble scene that once ran along the exterior walls of the ancient temple is regarded as one of the masterpieces of Western art. Neils was puzzled by why the dozen gods were split into two groups, facing in opposite directions, all with their backs to a ceremony honoring the goddess Athena. Scholars long cited the arrangement as a design flaw. Hearing that over the years made her antennae go up, says Neils. “I would say to myself, ‘No, there are no design flaws in this building.’” Then one day when she was teaching, it came to her. “Literally, I had a blink moment,” she says. “I had the gods section of the frieze on my screen, and I realized what the artist was trying to show.” The Olympian deities, she concluded, were sitting in a semicircle. “If you bring the two groups together, they actually face the ceremony.” An inability to visualize the scene three
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dimensionally had been the barrier to solving the mystery. In the world of academia, art history and archaeology, this was a radical concept. “People didn’t believe me,” she says. “One scholar told me the Greeks don’t think three dimensionally.” Neils disagrees and explains her reasoning: “I see the frieze as a documentary film strip,” she says. “People used to say the Greeks did monoscenic representations, meaning they didn’t create scenes that move through space and time. Yet, the frieze begins outside the city gates with a ceremonial procession of horsemen, musicians and sacrificial animals and moves through Athens as people prepare for the festival. The end of the film strip is the presentation of a gift to Athena—a beautifully woven robe called a peplos.” When Neils speaks, those who study the ancient world listen. Her work on the Parthenon, built in the mid-5th century BC to honor the goddess Athena, has earned her a reputation as one of the world’s authorities on the monument. For nearly four decades, she was a professor of
art history and classics at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland. During that time she published prolifically, excavated in Greece and Italy, and held fellowships at the American Academy in Rome, the Getty Research Center and the Mellon Center for British Art at Yale University. She has been a visiting professor at the University of California at Berkeley and Johns Hopkins University. Her 2001 book The Parthenon Frieze, which includes her thesis on the seating of the gods, was published by Cambridge University Press and is the most comprehensive study of the subject. “Jenifer is one of the foremost classical archaeolo gists in the world,” says Alan Shapiro, professor emeritus of archaeology at Johns Hopkins University, who has known her since graduate school at Princeton University. “She became the most prolific scholar of Greek art and arch aeology of her generation.” At the end of her tenure at Case Western, Neils won the first-ever award for distinguished scholarship in the
humanities. “She’s brilliant. Prolific. Her mastery of the field is mind-boggling. Her knowledge is encyclopedic,” says Rachel Sternberg, an associate professor in the classics department.
DIGGING FOR DETAILS Neils has been on the path that leads to the Parthenon since reading The Gold of Troy in fifth grade when she was at Northrop Collegiate. (The all-girls school, one of Blake’s three predecessor institutions, is the current Upper School.) The story of Heinrich Schliemann’s 19th-century excavation of ancient Troy fired a passion for classical archaeology that she has retained ever since. She attributes much of her early focus on classical archaeology to Northrop teacher Beatrice Blodgett from whom she learned Latin and Greek. As a tenth grader, Neils traveled to Europe with Blodgett and a group of junior girls. “When I saw the Acropolis,” she says, “I was hooked.” Neils found a role model in her aunt Pat Neils Boulter ’44.
“WHAT MAKES ARCHAEOLOGY EXCITING IS THERE’S ALWAYS SOMETHING NEW SURFACING THAT MAKES US RECONSIDER ALL THE ASSUMPTIONS AND CONCLUSIONS WE’VE REACHED ABOUT A CULTURE.”
Boulter earned an undergraduate and master’s degree and a doctorate in Greek at Bryn Mawr College, where Neils also chose to go. At the time, it was the only college in the country to offer an undergraduate major in classical archaeology. As a senior, Neils went on her first archaeological dig near Siena, Italy, excavating a monumental Etruscan building covered with terracotta sculpture. The experience led to her first publication. After receiving a doctorate at Princeton in 1980, Neils began work at the university’s archaeological site in Morgantina, Sicily. Colleagues had been digging there since 1959, trying to ascertain how far Greek colonists had penetrated to the interior of Sicily. The seafaring Greeks had founded colonies as far back as 900 to 700 B.C.E., mostly on the shores of the Mediterranean and Black Seas. Less was known about their activities inland. She began studying fragments of painted vases and realized they were pieces of a crater, a large mixing bowl for
water and wine. She was able to attribute the bowl—one of only two in existence—to a famous Athenian painter. “This imported pottery proved they were drinking wine out of Greek vases in the middle of Sicily,” Neils says.
with Athena on one side and a wrestling match on the other,” she says. It was what is called “a prize vase,” awarded at the Panathenaic Festival to victors in athletic contests. Neils recommended that Hood mount a show on the
Jenifer Neils ’68
Neils’ expertise in Greek vases led to her first opportunity as a curator. The Hood Museum of Art at Dartmouth College was interested in an exhibit on Greek art and contacted Neils. “I thought about their collection, and they have only one Greek vase,
Panathenaic Festival, held every four years to honor Athena— the same celebration depicted on the Parthenon frieze. “They said, ‘Great, you do it,’” she says. “And I did it and I loved it, because one of the more fulfilling parts of my career has been as a museum curator.”
This marked the first of two major exhibitions Neils curated for the Hood. The second, which focused on childhood in ancient Greece, like the first, traveled throughout the U.S. and was accompanied by catalogues, symposia and lectures. Studying hundreds of Greek vases has given Neils a grounding in visual artistic conventions and a keen eye for detail. “Many ancient historians say read ancient texts,” she says. “What text-based people don’t realize is that the Parthenon frieze is also a text, if you know how to read it. A hairstyle can denote something about age, gender and social status,” the kind of details she learned from studying hundreds of Greek vases. Neils says she particularly loves deciphering the details of the Parthenon frieze and tells a story to illustrate. “At the beginning of the frieze, there’s a man leading his horse and both he and the animal are posed awkwardly,” she says. Neils brought this up at a colloquium, where an audience member who knew a horse trainer offered to send him a picture of Spring/Summer 2021 9
“MANY ANCIENT HISTORIANS SAY READ ANCIENT TEXTS. WHAT TEXT-BASED PEOPLE DON’T REALIZE IS THAT THE PARTHENON FRIEZE IS ALSO A TEXT, IF YOU KNOW HOW TO READ IT.”
the horse and rider. They got an answer right away: He’s parking the horse. In 250 years of studying the frieze, no one had noticed this. Neils tells students to consult experts even if they are way out of their field.
TAPPING THE TACTILE Neils has always used unconventional teaching methods. As an enthusiastic Latin student 10 Cyrus
at Northrop, she invited class mates to her home for a Roman banquet. Under a long colonnaded patio, students lounged on mattresses while they were waited on by her two younger brothers, dressed as Roman slaves in short tunics and sandals. When Blodgett taught Caesar’s Gallic wars, students were assigned to make a map
depicting the action. Most drew on paper. Neils found a large piece of plywood and a wood-burning kit and burned the entire map of the Gallic campaigns into the wood. “It looked like one of Caesar’s legion naires had actually made it,” she says. In her senior year, she gave a Northrop chapel talk on the Oresteia of Aeschylus, which was playing at the Guthrie Theater.
Her Parthenon frieze thesis provided another opportunity for creative teaching. In 2011, she assigned each of the 12 art history majors in a seminar a Greek deity to research. Then, one chilly spring day, she assembled the students in front of the classical columns at the nearby Cleveland Museum of Art, where they dramatized the seating of the
“AND IF YOU CAN SHOW IT TO STUDENTS…SOMETHING THEY CAN HANDLE IN A MUSEUM STUDIES CLASS OR DIG UP IN THE FIELD, IT IS MUCH MORE MEANINGFUL THAN STUDYING IT IN A BOOK.”
gods, each dressed in white and carrying symbolic objects to identify their deity. Neils collaborated with a professor from the theater department to show the students how to walk like gods. Colleagues from the music department provided trumpet and lyre. The production was captured on video (parthenonproject.com). “Who in an art history class gets to do something as innovative and as fun as making a video to enhance their professor’s thesis on a really influential subject?” the student playing Dionysos asks on camera. Neils had asked a student to create a computer-generated 3-D model to show how the gods would appear in a semicircle. In the video, students assemble in the exact formation of the gods on the Parthenon frieze: divided into two groups, one facing south and the other north. “As soon as we shifted into the semicircle, it felt a lot more natural and a lot more elegant,” says the student playing Apollo. It is this kind of exercise
that led Mary Lefkowitz, professor emerita of classical studies at Wellesley College, to talk of Neils’ “rare gift” for teaching complex subjects to non-experts.
RECONSIDERING HISTORY Her appointment as director of the American School for Classical Studies at Athens in 2016 brings Neils full circle. In 1970, she attended the American School’s summer program. In following years, she returned as a visiting professor, a National Endowment for the Humanities fellow and as chair of its managing committee. While the school is America’s oldest overseas research institute, Neils is its first female director. Founded in 1881, the school attracts graduate students and scholars from nearly 200 American colleges and universities who come to Greece for research and archaeological excavations. It has operated sites at the Athenian Agora since 1931 and at ancient Corinth since 1896, one of the longest continuing excavations in the world.
“What makes archaeology exciting is there’s always something new surfacing that makes us reconsider all the assumptions and conclusions we’ve reached about a culture,” Neils says. Even road construction and looting sometimes bring forth discoveries. What binds it all together, Neils says, is interest in material culture. “Anything man-made tells us something about life, beliefs, political systems,” she says. “And if you can show it to students not just with slides but with something they can handle in a museum studies class or dig up in the field, it is much more meaningful than studying it in a book.” Even after half a century, her enthusiasm for the ancient world has not dimmed. “One of the great thrills—and it never stops being a thrill—of living and working in Athens is that I get to take students, visitors, friends to the top floor of the Acropolis museum, which has the Parthenon gallery,” Neils says. “For the first time since antiquity we have an almost complete collection of the
entire sculptural adornment of the Parthenon.” The majority of the original figures from the frieze—the so-called Elgin Marbles, named for the British ambassador who had them removed from Greece—are in the British Museum in London. The remaining fragments along with plaster casts are part of the complete display at the Acropolis museum. “I still pinch myself when I see the Parthenon,” Neils says. “I still can’t believe it’s there. From the first time I saw it to this day, I am always amazed.” Jenifer Neils was named Outstanding Alumna of the Year 2020. She will be honored and speak at Breakfast at Blake in November. Bonny Wolf ’68 has been a journalist and National Public Radio commentator and lives in Washington, D.C. She is the author of Talking with My Mouth Full: Crab Cakes, Bundt Cakes, and Other Kitchen Stories.
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IN PHOTOS
ZOOM OUT IN THE MIDST OF A GLOBAL PANDEMIC, THE BLAKE COMMUNITY APPRECIATED TIME SPENT TOGETHER AND THE EFFORT REQUIRED TO MAKE VIRTUAL AND IN-PERSON LEARNING POSSIBLE.
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Photos by Murphy Byrne
Spring/Summer 2021 13
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Making Space: To provide social distance on campus, familiar spaces were repurposed. The Bovey Chapel served as a Middle School cafeteria (photo 1) and, later, as a bandroom. The Lower School libraries went mobile, checking out books to students from carts (photo 2), so the library spaces themselves could be used as classrooms for smaller “pods” within each grade. When the weather allowed, teachers brought learning outside (photos 3 and 4).
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Staying Safe: Faculty, staff and students took precautions to promote community health. Hand sanitizer, cleaning wipes, plexiglass protectors, social distance, temperature checks and, of course, masks all played important roles in daily life at Blake.
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5 Inspiring Creativity: Performing arts moved from stage to screen, with the theater departments in all three divisions producing original movies (photos 1 and 2). Modifications such as special masks for instrumental use and xylophones in lieu of singing made music classes possible (photos 3 and 4). Bears had limited opportunities to watch games in person, but athletes knew fans were there in spirit (photo 5 – with inset).
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Finding Connection: Anything but typical, the 2020-21 school year brought myriad logistical shifts as teaching and learning moved from hybrid to remote to full in-person classes. Students, teachers, staff and administrators persevered through challenges to make the most of unprecedented times.
Spring/Summer 2021 17
Q&A
HOPE FOR A HIDDEN HUNGER FATIYA KEDIR ’17 UNDERSTANDS FOOD INSECURITY ON A PERSONAL LEVEL AND CONFRONTS THE ISSUE DAILY IN HER COMMUNITY.
At Macalester College, Kedir uses her position in the school’s student government to address hunger and accessibility to food and other essentials that exist on campus and in the wider Twin Cities. As a senior majoring in international studies, Kedir considers how she might broaden her mission after graduation.
Photo: David J Turner
Question: Where does your interest in combating food insecurity come from?
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Answer: I was born in a refugee camp on the border of Somalia and Kenya and came to the United States when I was 6 years old. At a very base level, I think coming from a family of refugees and being a refugee has deeply fueled my interests and understanding of food insecurity. Unsurprisingly, there is a great amount of hunger and food insecurity in a refugee camp. But I was surprised to notice it’s something that happens often here in the U.S. as well. I had neighbors, friends and classmates who experienced food insecurity, but the issue seemed invisible.
Q: Macalester has a program called Open Pantry, which serves as a resource for students who need supplemental food and essential items. Can you talk about this program and your involvement? A: Open Pantry was created by the vice president of student government [as part of the Student Services and Relations Committee] in my first year at Macalester. She was a great mentor and an advocate for the theory that we all do better when we all do better. And I absolutely love and uphold that. I took over operations of Open Pantry when I became student government vice president in my junior year. I feel like most higher education institutions strive to create a diverse learning environment,
“I FEEL LIKE MOST HIGHER EDUCATION INSTITUTIONS STRIVE TO CREATE A DIVERSE LEARNING ENVIRONMENT, BUT YOU CAN'T HAVE DIVERSITY IF YOU'RE NOT PROVIDING PEOPLE WITH THE TOOLS TO FULFILL THEIR POTENTIAL.”
but you can't have diversity if you're not providing people with the tools to fulfill their potential. I believe that’s an important reason for Open Pantry to exist. Q: How common is food insecurity among Macalester students? A: Food insecurity is really ingrained in so many different communities that people don't notice. It’s hard to believe there is food insecurity at a wealthy, higher education institution like Macalester. But what I’ve realized is food insecurity isn’t just about affordability; accessibility is also a factor. For example, Open Pantry went from offering just ramen, which most low-income, college students already eat, to having a wide range of produce and foods that fit people’s cultural needs. We went from having 90 users per week at the start of the program to about 200. And, at the height of COVID, it was about 350 users. Some students said they felt guilty for using the service—there
can be a stigma attached to using services like this—but many relied on it during the COVID shutdowns, in part because whatever option students usually had for work wasn’t available. We also realized Macalester’s neighbors are impacted by food insecurity. So we created, and the school helps fund, physical donation sites all around campus that anyone in the neighborhood can use. Q: This year you’re student government president. How does having a leadership role affect your ability to further your mission? A: I think being president helps place me in rooms and conversations where I can vocalize concerns about food insecurity, for example with our board of trustees, which sets the school’s funding and structures. I’ve been invited into spaces like this because of my role, and I can bring my personal passions along with all the other things that are on the student government’s to-do list.
Q: What are some of the misconceptions about food insecurity and how do you address those? A: A lot of people think those who face food insecurity are homeless, non-working individuals. But so many people facing food insecurity include families and children who aren’t homeless and are working one or more jobs. The reality is people do work, and it's still not enough. There’s also misunderstanding around the racial and geographic elements of it—food insecurity is diverse. A range of individuals and families use welfare. And, due to a lack of accessibility and infrastructure, a lot of rural communities have been facing food insecurity. Food insecurity has definitely been racialized. Segregation and redlining have led to minority communities where food deserts [areas where it is difficult to buy affordable or quality fresh food] are common. These food deserts cause further health issues and decrease people’s quality
of life. Food insecurity creates a lot of cycles of trauma. Q: What are your plans after college and how do they relate to food security advocacy? A: I’m really interested in economic development and investing in small businesses, in particular, as a way to combat inequality and food insecurity. It’s not enough to just give food to people; there need to be infrastructures that allow people to create and sustain their own security and independence. I’m excited about the potential of being part of an international organization where I can help make the connection between economic growth and food security. Do you know Blake alumni who are doing interesting work? Let us know at cyrus@blakeschool.org.
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IN PRINT
& PRODUCTION
CHARLES BAXTER ’65
The Sun Collective (Pantheon)
Once a promising actor, Tim Brettigan has gone missing. His father thinks he may have seen him among some homeless people. His mother has been searching for him all over Minneapolis. She stumbles upon a local community group with lofty goals and an enigmatic leader who will alter all of their lives. Christina, a young woman rapidly becoming addicted to a boutique drug that gives her a feeling of blessedness, is inexplicably drawn to the same collective by a man who’s convinced he may start a revolution. As the lives of these four characters intertwine, a story of guilt, anxiety and feverish hope unfurls.
EMILY CHAMBERS BLEJWAS ’96
Like Nothing Amazing Ever Happened (Delacorte Books for Young Readers)
Justin doesn’t know anything these days. He doesn’t know why his mom suddenly loves church or if his older brother will ever play baseball again. Justin doesn’t know how people can act like everything’s fine when it’s so obviously not. Most of all, he doesn’t know what really happened the night his dad died on the train tracks. And that sucks. But life goes on. As it does, Justin discovers that some things are just unknowable. Set in a small town on Lake Minnetonka in 1991, Like Nothing Amazing Ever Happened is about learning to go on after loss, told with a warmth that could thaw the coldest Minnesota lake.
KATHARINE WOODMAN-MAYNARD ’04
The Great Gatsby: A Graphic Novel Adaptation (Candlewick)
F. Scott Fitzgerald’s 1925 American masterpiece roars to life in K. WoodmanMaynard’s exquisite graphic novel—among the first adaptations of the book in this genre. Painted in lush watercolors, the inventive interpretation emphasizes both the extravagance and mystery of the characters, as well as the fluidity of Nick Carraway’s unreliable narration. Excerpts from the original text wend through the illustrations, and imagery and metaphors are taken to literal, and often whimsical, extremes, such as when a beautiful partygoer blooms into an orchid and Daisy Buchanan pushes Gatsby across the sky on a cloud.
MIEL JASPER ’12 (MIEL MORELAND)
It Goes Like This (Feiwel & Friends)
Eva, Celeste, Gina and Steph have been through a lot together, including the astronomical rise of Moonlight Overthrow, the world-famous queer pop band they formed in middle school. But after a sudden falling out leads to the dissolution of the teens’ band, their friendship, and Eva and Celeste’s starry-eyed romance, nothing is the same. Gina and Celeste step further into the spotlight, Steph disappears completely, and Eva, heartbroken, takes refuge as a songwriter and secret online fangirl...of her own band. That is, until a storm devastates their hometown, bringing the four ex-best-friends back together. As they prepare for one last show, they’ll discover whether growing up means growing apart.
Alumni are encouraged to inform Blake of their publications, recordings, films, etc., and, when possible, to send copies of books and articles. Contact us at cyrus@blakeschool.org.
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Ames Sheldon ’66 Lemons in the Garden of Love (She Writes Press) While seeking a topic for her doctoral dissertation in 1977, Cassie Lyman finds a trove of suffrage cartoons, diaries and letters left behind by Kate Easton, founder of the Birth Control League of Massachusetts. She soon discovers that she and Kate are closely related—and they have more in common than she could have imagined.
Adam Ehlert ’91 Atrial Frustration (self-published) Adam Ehlert chronicles his yearslong saga with cardiac arrhythmias, sharing the difficulties facing patients and providers alike when dealing with a condition that has no linear cure. Henry Riter, a cardiologist and fellow Blake 1991 classmate, provides the book’s introduction.
Michael Olson ’01 of Lake Street Dive Obviously (Nonesuch Records) In Lake Street Dive's seventh studio album, the band’s wideranging taste in pop, rock, R&B and jazz blend to create an impressively cohesive sound, combining retro influences with a contemporary attitude.
Molly Bloom ’01, Marc Sanchez and Sanden Totten Brains On! Presents...It’s Alive: From Neurons and Narwhals to the Fungus Among Us (Little, Brown Books for Young Readers) The creators of the award-winning science podcast for kids Brains On! present a humorous, highly illustrated, fact- and fun-filled look at life on Earth—from deep sea creatures and carnivorous plants to the human body and stinky bacteria.
CLASS NOTES Class notes and photos received after April 2021 will appear in the next issue of Cyrus. Notes are provided by alumni or their friends and family, and some have been edited for length and style.
Reunion & Homecoming Weekend 2021 Sept. 30–Oct. 2 Learn more at blake.mn/reunion21
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Kingston Fletcher returned to the Twin Cities from Cincinnati, Ohio, more than seven years ago. He writes, “I lost my wife, Doris, there after 55 years of
marriage. Now living happily in sin with old acquaintance Topsy Simonson, who has watched three men perish. Get a little nervous at times as number four on her list. Working on a bio of my life with a professional writer.” Steve Woodrich is in his 95th year. He served during World War II as first scout in his company of the Tenth Mountain Division (1944–45).
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Mitzi Rice Bray graduated from Brown University, where she met her current husband, George Bray. She also attended Yale’s graduate school of nursing, where she met her first husband, Bill McClanahan, with whom she had four sons and a daughter. She r earned an M.A. and M.P.H. and worked for many
years as the director of a nonprofit health agency for Los Angeles County. She writes, “At my 25th reunion from Brown, George Bray, the student I had dated, appeared ‘across the crowded room’...Things went from good to better, and we were soon married. George and I have had an adventurous life traveling to seven continents and more than 150 countries. We lived in San Francisco for more than 20 years and recently moved to Rossmoor, a retirement village in Walnut Creek, California. As with everyone, life has not always been rosy. I lost two sisters, a grandson and several close friends. I had the challenging job of a single mother. Fortunately, all of my children found the careers they wanted. They have produced 11 grandchildren and three great- grandchildren. We hope to travel when we have been vaccinated” REUNION
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Pete Rogers writes, “In spring 2020, my poor eyesight led to totaling my car, thus ending over 73 years of driving. I moved into an apartment in the Presbyterian Homes in Wayzata, downstairs from my brother, Jim [Rogers ʼ54]. Once the pandemic
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Jud Snyder is a graduate of Dartmouth College and the University of Michigan Law School. He worked mainly at Transtar, a subsidiary of U.S. Steel, where he was senior director of labor relations. In retirement he and his wife, Betty, golf in Pennsylvania, in Florida and with their daughter Karen, who was an all-American in college.
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ends, John Cardle and I will resume our weekly chess games.”
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Jack Spencer died on August 19, 2019, just days away from his 85th birthday. He worked as a computer systems analyst and lived in Denver, Colorado, with the love of his life, Gloria Bates, for 44 years. Despite dementia, his humor never abated and he still chattered away with bits of German, French and Spanish. Jack enjoyed photography and the outdoors until the end. His last years were in Tucson, Arizona, under the care of his sister Cynthia Spencer ’61. He was no longer able to ski or mountain climb, but from his room he could see a pool, a big stretch of Saguaro desert and the Tucson Mountains.
Steve Olmsted writes, “Before the shutdown, I was able to travel to Nashville to witness the baptism of our youngest great-grandson and to visit with our oldest grandson, Ben, and his wife, Rachel, along with our oldest daughter, Mary-Anne, and her husband, Dale. Mary and I have seven grandchildren and four greatgrandchildren with a fifth on the way.”
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Bob Larson and Gwen Remington Larson ʼ56 have been married for 63 years. Cynthia Maughan Powell passed away on January 24, 2021, at age 80. She lived in Greenwich, Connecticut, and remained active until her final days. In Northrop’s 1957 Tatler yearbook, Cindy was noted as an “enchanting combination of Vivian Leigh and Martha Raye.” She served as president of the drama club in her senior year and as choir librarian in tenth grade. She graduated from Smith College and earned a master’s degree from Manhattanville College. In 1969, Cindy married Spring/Summer 2021 21
CLASS NOTES
MITZI RICE BRAY ’49 RECENTLY MOVED TO ROSSMOOR, A RETIREMENT VILLAGE IN WALNUT CREEK, CALIFORNIA.
Joseph Wright Powell III, and the couple had three sons, Charles, Philip and David, and three grandchildren, who will fondly remember Cindy for her intellect, humor and, above all, devotion to family.
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Joan Argetsinger Steitz is one of three RNA researchers to be awarded this year’s Wolf Prize in Medicine, considered the second most prestigious award in science and a predictor of the Nobel Prize. A professor of molecular biophysics and biochemistry at Yale University, Joan began researching RNA in the 1960s. Her groundbreaking work has had a direct impact on medical breakthroughs, including the basis for RNA-based COVID-19 vaccines. REUNION
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Susan Bradford writes, “As a result of COVID, the class of ʼ60 became Zoomers and held three Zoom reunions in 2020. Most classmates showed up, some learning Zoom as they arrived! It was wonderful connecting from our isolations—and for our NCS [Northrop Collegiate School] 60th anniversary. In wonderfully important ways, people haven’t
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JACK SPENCER ’52 DIED ON AUGUST 19, 2019. HIS SISTER CYNTHIA SPENCER ‘61 SAYS, “DESPITE DEMENTIA, HIS HUMOR NEVER ABATED.”
changed that much. Yet each of us has charted our own unique path through life. A wonderful catching-up and reunion!” REUNION
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Cynthia Spencer was married in October 2020 to retired Col. John R. Grobmeier. They live in Tucson, Arizona, and Carmel, California. After losing 135 pounds, in 2019 Cynthia published her first book, Losing me; Finding Me. She is about to publish a second book, The Time to Love. Cynthia is a retired Episcopal priest and a spiritual director/life coach who teaches integrative well-being. She and her husband and their greyhound, Obi Wan Kenobi, enjoy walking along the California coast.
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Sherm Malkerson writes he is “still on the Hill Trail…skiing Buck Hill and more.” REUNION
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Charles Baxter (See In Print and Production)
Henry Doerr reports, “Living in New Zealand has largely shielded us from the COVID-19 pandemic… So we may be relatively unscathed
ARTWORK BY JACK MITHUN ’55, WHO SHARES, “SCRIBBLING AWAY AT HOME KEEPS A BODY FROM POSSIBLE NUISANCE AND NONSENSE IN THE OUTSIDE WORLD.”
here but, speaking personally, my sister in Florida developed COVID and previously her daughter and her children tested positive. Happily, they have all recovered… I Zoom regularly with my university class, family and friends. And email volume must have increased tenfold. On balance, here in NZ, we are coping better than most and send our best wishes to all in the Blake community, who are certainly doing it tough.” REUNION
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Ames Sheldon (See In Print and Production)
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Mette Moeller studied at Northrop during the 1970-71 school year as an AFS student from Denmark, where she finished high school and graduated from the University of Copenhagen’s medical school in 1982. She became a general practitioner and retired in 2018. She writes, “My husband, Klaus Fuglsang, and I live in Naestved, an hour south of Copenhagen. We love kayaking Denmark’s coastline and many fjords. Before the pandemic, we had been trekking in the Alps almost every summer, skiing every winter in Italy/France/
Switzerland, and [spending] three to six weeks every winter traveling to places such as Bhutan, Myanmar, Indonesia, Costa Rica and Argentina. I have loved every minute of retirement. My children, Malene and Anders, live within an hour drive. Six grandchildren bring a lot of joy, though the pandemic has set a lot of restrictions. I am back at work as a doctor at a big COVID-19 vaccination center, which is a very meaningful job...If any classmates come to Denmark, Klaus and I would love to show you around our little country.”
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Greg Bezat created a short video for his class to look back on 1972. It is available on YouTube at bit.ly/gregbezat. Felicity Peacock Caramanna is in her 10th year on the legal team at the New York office of the French bank Credit Agricole Corporate and Investment Bank. Over the years, she has lawyered derivatives in over 100 structured finance deals for power, alternative energy, shipping and freeway facilities. Learn more about Felicity’s work at bit.ly/peacockcaramanna.
CLASS NOTES
CYNTHIA SPENCER ’61 ENJOYS LEARNING, TEACHING AND WALKING ALONG THE CALIFORNIA COAST WITH HER HUSBAND AND OBI WAN KENOBI, THEIR GREYHOUND.
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Gary Goldstein continues to live in Plymouth, Minnesota, working for Lakefield Veterinary Group, a national veterinary practice. Last summer he moved into a new position as executive vice president of mergers and acquisitions. REUNION
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Mike Gould is touring with his band, the Rendered Useless. Check them out on SoundCloud. David McCary writes, “Our family’s 2020 was broken into ‘before the pandemic’ and ‘after.’ Before, our daughter Lindsay (30) married Ben Miner (32) on February 29 in a beautiful wedding in Denver, where they live. After, on March 15, I received my license to include other wealth management clients in my 20-year-old, family-only wealth management practice, McCary Anheuser Wealth Management, LLC. I’d planned for a virtual practice via Zoom. Before the pandemic few people knew how to use Zoom, but now most do. That's at least one silver lining to this pandemic. All the best to my fellow Blake alumni.”
PEGGY SEARLES ’66 SHARES THE “WONDERFULLY JOYOUS NEWS” OF NEW FAMILY ADDITION, ZARA GRACE TORRES JONES, WHO WAS BORN ON DECEMBER 5, 2020. ZARA’S MOTHER, MADELINE TORRES, IS PEGGY’S GRANDDAUGHTER AND DAUGHTER OF KATHERINE POINDEXTER ’91. PICTURED (BACK, L TO R) PEGGY, KATHERINE AND (FRONT) MADELINE WITH ZARA.
Andrea Carla Eisenberg Michaels writes, “Silver linings of lockdowns: being able to participate on Zoom with Northrop gals in a virtual book club/gabfest; attending the [alumni] holiday party that I’d never attended before (due to Minnesota winters); and joining Blake trivia night, which allowed me to reconnect with old friends and make new ones. This was an unexpected delight in these ‘interesting’ times.”
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Paul Hyde, cofounder of Hyde Development, was named Executive of the Year at the Minnesota 2020 Real Estate Awards show, presented by the Minnesota Real Estate Journal. REUNION
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The Minnesota Golf Association (MGA) named Betsy Aldrich its 2020 Senior Women’s Player of the Year. Betsy finished in first place twice in the season, with a win at the MGA Women’s Senior Amateur Match Play Championship and the MGA Women’s Senior Amateur FourBall Championship. Reuters correspondent Michelle Conlin, along with a team of her
METTE MOELLER ’71 MADE LIFELONG FRIENDS DURING HER TIME AS AN AFS STUDENT AT NORTHROP.
fellow reporters, was named a 2020 Deadline Club Awards finalist for an investigation of how U.S. courts cover up deadly secrets. Their report, Hidden Injustice, was one of three considered for the Daniel Pearl Prize for Investigative Reporting.
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Paul Skrowaczewski Sebastien writes, “I had my 15 minutes of fame back in the ’90s as the singer/songwriter/founder of the
Family Additions John Paul Farmer ’97 son, Rafael Apollo February 4, 2021 Andrea Kay McFarland ’01 daughter, Abigail Ann August 14, 2020 Mark Webster Jr. ’01 daughter, Sienna February 24, 2020 Ashley BakkenMartin ’02 and Matt Martin ’02 twin daughters, Juliet and Camille October 5, 2020 Kara Johnson Wegermann ’04 daughter, Ilsa Helen August 18, 2020
band Psykosonik, for which I won a Platinum Record Award and a couple of top 40 hits. Since then, I’ve done music under the name Basic Pleasure Model and my own name as a solo artist. Recently I scored a mini-hit on Spotify with the song Where Do We Go From Here, as well as a solo ambient/ chillout piece, The Turning of Summer. I’ve been living in the San Francisco Bay Area for the last decade.”
Kathryn Davis Malhotra ’05 son, Theodore Sullivan Léon September 5, 2020
Marriages
Will Peterson ’05 son, Henry October 22, 2020
Kate Cowley ʼ04 and Bud Ahrens October 2020
Jeremy Robert ’05 daughter, Layna Rose July 3, 2020
Spencer Chute ʼ10 and Anna Tuck February 1, 2021
Susie Lipinski Siegel ’05 daughter, Piper Elizabeth April 21, 2020
Kevin Cronin ʼ15 and Shelby Bi April 17, 2020
Cynthia Spencer ʼ61 and John Grobmeier October 14, 2020
Owen Holm ’06 daughter, Alison Payson July 29, 2020 Kelsey Atherton Aden ’09 son, Oliver Thomas March 24 2020
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CLASS NOTES
PROUD AND HAPPY PARENTS ANNIE GOAN CRONIN ’80 AND NICK CRONIN ’80 SHARE THAT THEIR SON KEVIN CRONIN ’15 MARRIED SHELBY BI ON APRIL 17, 2020. THE NEWLYWEDS RESIDE IN SAN JOSE, CALIFORNIA.
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Bergie Bergerson continues to grow his practice at Merrill. He writes, “I offer myself as a resource (no fees, strings or commitments) to Blake alumni, their family and friends. I have short, easy books for parents on how to discuss money and wealth with children. I am building my database in hope of facilitating networking and career help for alumni (both hiring and seeking). I’m interested in speaking with alumni, especially those who are hiring or can mentor or share career advice.” He also writes, “[My family] recently visited Puerto Rico for the first time, and it was incredible. While the hurricane brought devastation, the people are resilient and the landscape is diverse and beautiful. Wishing everyone the best as we look to return to some sense of normal.” After a 27-year pause, Bill Charette has resumed downhill skiing and is jumping in head first. Three weeks after his first session back on skis, he participated in an on-hill ski skill evaluation for the Wild Mountain (Taylors Falls, Minnesota) Ski Patrol. He writes, “I’m hopeful, but if they say I’m not ready yet, I’ll try again next year.”
24 Cyrus
KATE JACKSON ’88 TOOK UP NORDIC SKIING THIS WINTER AND COMPLETED THE MORA VASALOPPET 21K CLASSIC IN FEBRUARY.
Kate Jackson is in year three of her business, Ensō Wellbeing Coaching. She is making in- roads with small companies and improving the mental and emotional wellbeing of their employees. She has collaborated with Blake alumni. In December, she was a guest on the Antidōt podcast, started by Paul Skrowaczewski Sebastien ’87, where they discussed ways to manage anxiety and uncertainty. After reconnecting with classmate Jennifer Morris in 2019 through a networking organization, Kate has facilitated workshops on the Enneagram personality assessment for Jennifer’s nonprofit organization, Daisy Camp, which provides support and education to women facing divorce. Jennifer’s nonprofit has been fortunate to receive a sponsorship from Avivo, where Erik Aamoth ’90 is vice president of career education and employment services. Marta Cohen Musolf launched Musolf Mediation, which offers mediation and divorce coaching services to support clients through the intense emotions, complex logistics and overall experience of divorce.
IN MAY 2020, TOMMY MORSMAN ’20 CELEBRATED HIS BLAKE GRADUATION WITH FAMILY AND FELLOW ALUMNI PARENTS JEFF MORSMAN ’88 AND AMY SKRAMSTAD MORSMAN ’88, BROTHER TRUMAN MORSMAN ’23, GRANDFATHER TOM SKRAMSTAD ’63, AUNT KAREN SKRAMSTAD ANDERSON '85 AND UNCLE JUDD ANDERSON ’81.
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Melissa Oszustowicz is senior vice presi dent and head of the agribusiness practice for the executive search firm Raines International. REUNION
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Sarah Jane Lapp, who in pre-pandemic days led workshops called Peace by Piece with Pie in which participants co-assembled jigsaw puzzles she designed, has since launched Puzlkind, a multiplayer jigsaw puzzle app with voice chat capability. She leads workshops within the app and invites fellow alumni to puzzle with their friends and family or make new worldwide connections within the app’s Happy Hour. Download the free app at puzlkind.com. Andrij Parekh won the Emmy for Outstanding Directing for a Drama Series. He received the award for his work on HBO’s Succession (season 2, episode 3 Hunting). Amy Schachtman Zaroff, founder and creative director of Amy Zaroff Events + Design, was named one of the 100 People to Know in the Twin Cities by Twin Cities Business in the innovator category.
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Adam Ehlert (See In Print and Production)
Haley Schaffer serves as assistant general counsel, litigation for 3M. In her position, she has helped the company work with law enforcement to stop PPE counterfeiting, which has seen a surge since the beginning of the pandemic.
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Britta Lindvall Hovey’s son Dane Borene ’24 became a Blake Bear this school year. She writes, “He was given the opportunity to play on the varsity basketball team as a freshman, and even had some news coverage due to their great roster and winning streak!” REUNION
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Tom Winston, founder and CEO of Grizzly Creek Films, and his team received an Emmy for documentary cinematography for their four-part series Epic Yellowstone, which aired on the Smithsonian Channel.
CLASS NOTES
BORN ON FEBRUARY 4, 2021, RAFAEL APOLLO FARMER IS THE FIRST CHILD OF JOHN PAUL FARMER ’97 AND BRIT MCCANDLESS FARMER.
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Emily Chambers Blejwas (See In Print and Production)
John Paul Farmer and Brit McCandless Farmer welcomed their first child, Rafael Apollo Farmer, on February 4, 2021. John continues to work as chief technology officer of New York City, where he has helped the Big Apple use tech to respond to COVID-19 and has made historic progress on bridging the digital divide. Bisi Agunbiade Wilson started a new law practice, Ward & Wilson, P.C., focused on neutral investigations, family law and litigation.
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John DeNero is co-founder and chief scientist at Lilt, an enterprise language translation platform that builds AI-powered software and sells translation services to companies worldwide.
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Brooke Barrett launched BenchK12, technology that matches educators with schools to ensure a great substitute teaching experience.
ALEXANDRA WELCOMED NEW SISTER ABIGAIL (DAUGHTERS OF ANDREA KAY MCFARLAND ’01) TO THE FAMILY ON AUGUST 14, 2020.
Eric Dayton was appointed to the Minnesota Governor’s Advisory Council on Climate Change, which works together with the Climate Change Subcabinet to identify opportunities for and barriers to policies and strategies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and increase climate resiliency in the state. REUNION
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Molly Bloom (See In Print and Production)
Andrea Kay McFarland reports, “Wes and I welcomed our second daughter, Abigail Ann McFarland, into the world on August 14, 2020. We are overjoyed, including big sister Alexandra! I continue to run Kay Tutoring and in my free time love keeping up with my Blake friends (often via group text or Facebook while both kiddos are sleeping). Hi to our entire awesome class of 2001!” Michael Olson (See In Print and Production) John Redgrave is co-founder and CEO of Sentropy, a company that builds software to help businesses protect their users and brands
MARK WEBSTER JR. ’01 SAYS THAT, WHILE CHALLENGING, THIS YEAR HAS ALSO BROUGHT HIS FAMILY CLOSER TOGETHER AND TAUGHT THEM ABOUT RESILIENCE AND PERSEVERANCE. PICTURED, MARK AND JUDY, HIS WIFE, WITH THEIR CHILDREN, ALI, SIENNA AND EMJAY.
from abuse, harassment and malicious content. Ace Rice illustrated the cover art for Black History Always—Music For The Movement Vol. 2. The EP, featuring multiple artists, is part of an ongoing collaboration between Hollywood Records and the Undefeated, ESPN’s initiative exploring the intersection of sports, race and culture. Stephanie Rich is head of platform for Bread and Butter Ventures, an early stage venture capital fund. Mark Webster Jr. is owner and operator of the Fatburger Food Truck in Los Angeles. Like many others, the pandemic has had a profound impact on his business and family, who moved back to Minnesota while Mark stayed in LA to “keep the wheels rolling with the Fatmobile.” Mark’s story was featured on NBC LA and, he shares, “One cool thing that came from this is I was able to use my truck to serve over 10,000 health care heroes early on during the pandemic—10,000 is a special number being from Minnesota.”
03
Ben Meiches received the 2019 Review of
International Studies Best Article Prize for Non-human humanitarians, which outlines three cases of non-human actors that expand and complicate international humanitarian practices: dogs, drones and diagrams. An associate professor of global politics at the University of Washington Tacoma, Ben’s focus is in armed conflict, genocide and the development of international law. He is the author of The Politics of Annihilation: A Genealogy of Genocide (University of Minnesota Press, 2019). He is currently working on a book that explores animals in the context of humanitarianism. Kelly McLaughlin Nolan, a former litigator-turned-time-management strategist, has developed the Bright Method, which converts tasks into units of time by scheduling them into a digital calendar.
04
Kate Cowley moved to Ely, Minnesota, and is working at Vermilion Community College (part of Minnesota State Colleges and Universities) as a faculty counselor. In October, she married Bud Ahrens, winter program director at the Voyageur Outward Bound School.
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CLASS NOTES
ASHLEY BAKKEN-MARTIN ’02 AND MATT MARTIN ’02 HAVE DOUBLE THE FUN WITH TWIN DAUGHTERS JULIET “JULES” AND CAMILLE “MILLIE” MARTIN, WHO WERE BORN ON OCTOBER 5, 2020.
Kara Johnson Wegermann writes, “Zach, big sister Ingrid and I welcomed Ilsa Helen to the family on August 18, 2020. The hospital continues to be busy, but we are hopeful that summer will bring better health to all.” Katharine Woodman-Maynard (See In Print and Production)
KARA JOHNSON WEGERMANN ’04 WITH HUSBAND ZACH AND DAUGHTERS INGRID AND ILSA
the NHL’s Seattle Kraken. She was a guest on Women Blazers, a podcast that features women in the sports industry who are breaking barriers and blazing trails in the front office. Kendall also participated in a Women in Sports Tech (WiST) webinar to inspire adolescent girls to explore careers in sports tech. REUNION
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Mia Greene Como is founder and executive director of Amplifying Voices for Youth. The nonprofit’s mission is “getting own-voices books into the hands of colonially marginalized youth. Amplifying Voices works with teachers, schools, library specialists and youth programs to bring increased and more accurate representation to BIPOC, disabled and LGBTQIA2S+ youth and supports the work of educators and youth leaders around the world by providing easier access to these materials.” Learn more about Amplifying Voices for Youth, and listen to their podcast, at amplifyingvoicesforyouth.org or on Instagram: @amplifyingvoicesforyouth. Kendall Boyd Tyson is vice president of strategy and analytics for
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06
Kate Aizpuru was named to the 2020 list of Super Lawyers: Rising Stars in the Washington, D.C. area. The peer designation is awarded to a select number of attorneys in each state. Jessica Swenson, an assistant professor at the University at Buffalo, is one of four engineering education educators to receive a 2020 Apprentice Faculty Grant from the Educational Research and Methods Division of the American Society of Engineering Education. The grant honors promising engineering education scholars who demonstrate the potential for substantial contributions to the community. On December 17, 2020, Daniel Walden defended his doctoral dissertation To Sing the Deeds of Men: Epithet and
Identity in Homeric Epic. He looks forward to the next step in his academic career.
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Laura Komarek, a senior associate with Alston and Bird, received the law firm’s Philip H. Alston Award for her extraordinary pro bono legal work in the community, including her representation of survivors of domestic violence and asylum.
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THEODORE SULLIVAN LÉON MALHOTRA WAS BORN SEPTEMBER 5, 2020, AND IS THE FIRST CHILD OF KATHRYN DAVIS MALHOTRA ’05 AND JEREMY MALHOTRA.
a pro bono social justice program to help expand the reach of nonprofit organizations. REUNION
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Michael Graham returned to the Twin Cities to launch and run Capsule, a new kind of pharmacy that provides a modern way to manage and receive medi cations, including free same-day delivery.
Minneapolis City Council member Jeremiah Ellison, together with his parents, Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison and Minneapolis Public Schools board member Kim Ellison, were named to the 100 People to Know in the Twin Cities list by Twin Cities Business in the change agent category.
Javi Reyes is a member of the band Post Animal, which had just begun a tour with dates in Europe and Canada when COVID-19 brought travel to a halt. Since then, Javi has been recording music and is releasing a new solo album, one song at a time, on streaming services.
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Benton Graham is a freelance writer and graduate journalism student at the University of Texas at Austin. This election season he wrote a piece on Vox about what it’s like working at the polls in the middle of a pandemic.
David Brenton is co-founder of BluShark Digital, an agency that helps small businesses build their online brand. BluShark Digital was recognized by Inc 5000 as the fastest-growing digital agency in the metropolitan D.C. area and among the top 750 fastest-growing companies in the U.S. David recently launched
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Max Johnson is co-founder of Awe Inspired, a fine jewelry brand he founded in 2017 with
CLASS NOTES
WILL PETERSON ’05 WRITES, "MY WIFE, KAIT, AND I ARE THRILLED TO SHARE THAT OUR SON, HENRY PETERSON, WAS BORN OCTOBER 22, 2020. I'M ESPECIALLY EXCITED THAT I AM NOW OFFICIALLY ALLOWED TO MAKE DAD JOKES. I COULD BEARLY WAIT!”
his mother, Jill Johnson, and brother, Adam Johnson ’13, to create designs that celebrate iconic women of the past and present. Since its inception, the company has donated over $500,000 to organizations including NAMI, the Trevor Project, CancerCare, RAINN, Emily’s List and NAACP. Sarah Carthen Watson got engaged to her partner of nearly four years, Manny Anderson, in October 2020. In addition to wedding planning, Sarah, her fiancé and their puppy will soon be relocating to New Orleans, where she will begin in a new role as the legal director of the Louisiana Fair Housing Action Center. Sarah is very excited to be a new member of the Blake Alumni Board and is looking forward to being more actively involved in the Blake community.
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As a front-end engineering student at the Turing School of Software and Design, Bailey Dunning was part of a threemember team that took first place in the school’s demo competition for its application National Parkfinder. Khyle Eastin, a Washington, D.C.based geopolitical analyst focused
JEREMY ROBERT ’05 AND HIS WIFE, REBECCA, LIVE IN BOSTON WITH THE NEWEST MEMBER OF THEIR FAMILY, LAYNA ROSE, WHO WAS BORN ON JULY 3, 2020.
PIPER ELIZABETH SIEGEL, WHO ARRIVED ON APRIL 21, 2020, IS THE DAUGHTER OF SUSIE LIPINSKI SIEGEL ’05 AND HER HUSBAND, ADAM. THE TRIO RESIDES IN BOSTON.
In Memoriam
Michael Abramson ’55 John Egermayer ’57 January 16, 2020 January 16, 2021 Caroline “Bambi” Barton ’64 May 18, 2020 Joshua Bell ’94 September 14, 2020 James Brown ’71 July 27, 2020 Nancy Nelson Casey ’49 September 13, 2020 Lynn Christianson ’67 former parent December 7, 2020 John Colwell ’50 April 4, 2021 Timothy Connolly ’67 November 28, 2020 Jean Cornell former librarian July 27, 2020 Gretchen Kerkhof Crosby ’59 former parent former grandparent former faculty former trustee October 29, 2020 Scott Donaldson ’46 December 1, 2020 Warren Dorn ’64 June 26, 2020
Catherine “Baba” Cole Finch ’45 former parent former grandparent November 14, 2020 Thomas Gallagher ’52 former parent January 2, 2021 John Gregg ’44 August 7, 2020 Harold Hagen Jr. ’55 former parent June 29, 2019 Douglas Hall ’61 April 28, 2019
Virginia Raynolds Humphrey ’38 former parent May 3, 2020 John “Traver” Hutchins Jr. ’79 November 30, 2020 John Idstrom II ’59 April 23, 2020 Mark Jones ’73 June 26, 2020 David Ketroser ’70 November 7, 2019 Kevin Kimber former faculty October 1, 2020
William Abbott Robert Harding Jr. ’66 King Sr. ’37 October 13, 2020 former parent April 18, 2020 Benjamin Hartman ’96 November 19, 2020 Karen Lipschultz Knopf ’60 David Heegaard ’51 February 17, 2021 former parent August 13, 2020 Jaime Laughlin ’76 December 1, 2020 Katherine Heffelfinger ’68 Robert Loudon ’55 July 3, 2020 former parent December 28, 2020 Lynn Hollander ’68 August 15, 2020 Martha Anderson Lyman ’59 Edward Holmberg ’53 January 25, 2021 former parent February 9, 2021 Ann Converse Marx ’52 August 9, 2020
OWEN HOLM ’06 AND HIS WIFE, VICKY, WELCOMED THEIR SECOND DAUGHTER, ALISON PAYSON HOLM, ON JULY 29, 2020. OWEN WRITES, “SHE WAS 8 POUNDS 5 OUNCES, 21.5 INCHES LONG AND ARRIVED WITH A FULL HEAD OF HAIR. CHARLOTTE (2) IS A PROUD BIG SISTER.”
Dennis “Matt” Mathisen former parent former trustee July 22, 2020 Thomas E. McCary III former parent former grandparent November 24, 2019 Andrew McGlynn ’70 June 21, 2020 Penelope Plass Mieritz ’60 March 22, 2019 John Neumeier ’55 June 3, 2019 Nancy Osborne ’51 March 13, 2020 Reuben Palm ’46 former parent former grandparent August 9, 2020 John Pearson ’60 January 5, 2019 Ruth Peterson former faculty October 9, 2020
Cynthia Maughan Powell ’57 January 24, 2021 Virginia Riddiford former faculty October 23, 2020 David Rosenblatt ’60 March 5, 2021 James Slocum ’48 January 7, 2021 Gregory Smith former parent former faculty November 26, 2020 John Spencer Jr. ’52 August 19, 2019 Stephen Sullivan ’66 January 6, 2021 Peter Van Dusen ’54 March 2, 2021 Sharon Gallagher Walsh ’50 former parent October 25, 2020 Lillian Weber former parent May 15, 2020
Evelyn Arey Pewitt ’53 Susan Opstad July 2, 2020 White ’54 Donald Piccard ’43 former faculty September 13, 2020 November 17, 2020 Philip Pillsbury Jr. ’53 March 3, 2021
This list reflects deaths reported to the school from June 2020 to April 2021. Later notifications will appear in the next issue of Cyrus. Please inform the Institutional Advancement Office of Blake community member deaths by calling (952) 988-3440 or sending an email to cyrus@blakeschool.org.
Spring/Summer 2021 27
CLASS NOTES
FELLOW CLASS OF 2009 ALUMNI MICHAEL MELAMED, KATE LAXSON, DIXON PETTENGILL, KEEGAN DUBBS AND HARRISON BLANKENSHIP REUNITED ON A SKI TRIP IN JACKSON HOLE, WYOMING. MICHAEL SHARES, “WE HAD A GREAT TIME SKIING WITH MORE THAN THREE FEET OF FRESH POWDER."
on China and foreign affairs in Asia, won the Center for a New American Security competition the Pitch, which invites selected applicants to pitch policies that renew American competitiveness. Miel Jasper (See In Print and Production) Inder Majumdar left his consulting job at Deloitte in the summer of 2019 to work at WayCool Foods, a farm-to-fork agricultural supply chain company based in India. He writes, “I currently lead a team of data scientists and product managers to develop digital market participation platforms for marginalized farmer communities in Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Kerala. I’m constantly reminded of the ninth grade world history curriculum (Power, Perspective and Privilege are omnipresent!) and never in my wildest dreams would have thought that Mr. Drill-Mellum’s Human Geography class would be such a prescient indicator of things to come. I plan on coming back stateside within the next
SPENCER CHUTE ’10 MARRIED THE LOVE OF HIS LIFE, ANNA TUCK, ON FEBRUARY 1, 2021, IN COLORADO SPRINGS, COLORADO.
two months to pursue graduate coursework. The Majumdar household has also recently welcomed a new family member; Tolstoy (an Indian shorthair cat) has graced my apartment with her presence as of this past August. Vasiliki Papanikolopoulos created Coimatan, an online community where small brick and mortar businesses can collaborate with each other and connect with customers. Learn more about Coimatan via the Instagram account @Coimatan.
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Alison Ahn and Aliya Feroe are back in class together at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Good news—they both passed biostats! Cole Norgaarden is an organi zer with the Debt Collective, a national union of indebted people working to combat the predatory loan servicing and debt collection industry. He was one of three people profiled in a Philadelphia Inquirer article about their partici-
pation in a student loan debt strike to pressure President Biden to cancel all existing federal student loan debt within his first 100 days in office.
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Hirsh Shekhar, an M.D. candidate at the Yale School of Medicine, co-authored the essay As COVID-19 Accelerates, Governments Must Harness Mobile Data to Stop Spread, which was published in Scientific American.
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Carly Bullock, a professional hockey player with Linkoping HC in southern Sweden, is among the top scorers in the Swedish Women’s Hockey League.
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Rachel Eggert writes, “Since 2013, I have participated in the Boy Scouts of America’s co-ed Venturing program. Last summer, I planted a native-wildflower pollin ator garden for the Holy Nativity Lutheran Church community. This January, I passed my Summit Board of Review and received my
SUBMIT YOUR CLASS NOTES AND PHOTOS TO CLASSNOTES@BLAKESCHOOL.ORG. 28 Cyrus
INDER MAJUMDAR ’12 RECENTLY WORKED WITH WAYCOOL FOODS, A FARM-TO-FORK AGRICULTURAL SUPPLY CHAIN COMPANY BASED IN INDIA, WHERE HE LED A TEAM OF DATA SCIENTISTS AND PRODUCT MANAGERS TO DEVELOP DIGITAL MARKET PARTICIPATION PLATFORMS FOR MARGINALIZED FARMER COMMUNITIES.
Venturing Summit Award, the highest award in the program, equivalent to the Eagle Scout.” Alyssa Story, a journalism and film, television and media studies double major at Loyola Marymount University, has been named editor-in-chief of the school’s student newspaper, the Los Angeles Loyolan.
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Ali Fine was named the 2020 Hy Truman/ Rae Kleinbaum Memorial Award winner by the Mercury Club, which annually selects outstanding Jewish female and male senior high school athletes in Minnesota.
Former Faculty
Ann James, former Northrop third grade teacher and Lower School admissions counselor, writes, “My daughter, Kathryn, and Andy Keil are the proud parents of their first child, Elleanor Ann Keil born April 20, 2020. They couldn’t be happier and look forward to the journey ahead with little ‘Ella.’”
VOICES The Perils of Organized Life In 1941, Jorge Luis Borges published a short story about an infinite library comprised of hexagonal rooms. The library contains every book ever written and every book that could be written. One book contains a detailed history of the future. Another describes the true story of your death. There’s commentary on the gospel of Basilides, and commentary on the commentary.
Initially, the residents of the library are filled with
unbounded joy. But time passes and enthusiasm turns to despair. Because the books are filled with every possible sequence of characters—one has the letters M C V repeated for 410 pages—nearly every book is nonsense. How could they distinguish the faithful catalog from the innumerable false ones? Sam McNerney '07 is a researcher at Flamingo Group, an agency that lives at the intersection of insights, culture and strategy. His writing has appeared in Scientific American, Psychology Today and The Washington Post.
The Library of Babel is an eerie illustration of what
we encounter every day: information overload. We live in an era where information has become a commodity. And while access to information is a good thing, it often comes at the expense of sorting through heaps of gibberish. In a way, we’re all living in the Library of Babel.
Or are we?
If you trace history you’ll notice that each time we
invent something that spews more information into the world, we ingeniously respond by creating a system that organizes it. Contemporary critics rightfully complain about information overload, but we’re simultaneously living in an era of extreme organization.
This might be costly. History is also filled with instan
ces of accidental discovery, from Darwin stumbling on Malthus’ essay on population to Alexander Fleming discovering penicillin.
So, in an era in which everything is tracked and stored,
a suggestion: Live life like an open-minded tourist; don’t be the prisoner of a plan; welcome a degree of haphazardness; be able to make revisions.
Don’t be organized. Be messy.
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