The Frederick Gunn School Bulletin Spring 2024

GUNN SCHOOL Celebrating

On the cover: Lizzie and Jonathan Tisch ’72 at the

for The Lizzie on

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photo by Kristin Moore

Dear Frederick Gunn School Community,

TOWARDS THE END OF APRIL , hundreds of Highlanders gathered on the Quad to celebrate the opening of The Lizzie & Jonathan Tisch Center for Innovation & Active Citizenship (“The Lizzie”).

Together with 13 other donors, Lizzie and Jon stood in front of the school to demonstrate what a sustained commitment to caring for this school looks like philanthropically. It was one of the loveliest celebrations at the school in recent memory. I like to think of the early alumni weekends where students would return to see Frederick and Abigail, and I can imagine the joy that would have been felt, as is evident today, when so many who care deeply about the school gather.

What The Lizzie, as the building is affectionately called, embodies right at the center crossroads of campus is our longstanding commitment to educating students for public character and active citizenship. Our Center for Citizenship and Just Democracy (CJD), which is housed in The Lizzie, is highlighted in the article on page 12. One of the extraordinary synergies of the past few years is how that work is intersecting with our college counseling philosophy and practice. Students are asked in CJD to consider where they come from, what they believe, to frame their story, and to demonstrate what kind of impact they want to have in the world. This four-year progression helps our students speak clearly and confidently about the impact their high school years have on them as they transition to college and beyond.

As we all know, it is our place, like The Lizzie, our programs, such as CJD, and our people that shape our students’ experiences here. In this issue, we reconnect with former faculty Steve Henrikson and Roger Wasby and can hear in their reminiscence the deep threads and traditions that hold this school together. School Walk stands for more than just a connection to our founder; it is that moment where generation after generation of students find a sense of rootedness and place. During their tenure, teachers were engaged confidently with

the defining issues of the day, as are ours today. The idea that “always learning,” as in our school motto, is a moral quality that pertains to a good life well lived has deep roots that shaped these two former faculty members into lifelong educators, and friends, whose work continues today. These are also faculty who taught Jon Tisch ’72 and two of his closest school friends, who joined us to celebrate the opening of The Lizzie. One can see how it all ties together.

Recently, I was speaking with an alum from the early 1990s, and we were discussing the idea of “relaunching the school” as set out in the Strategic Plan that was written for 2020–2025. He wrote in follow-up to that call, and I quote with permission, “You mentioned the word ‘relaunch’ early in our call, but over the course of our call, I experienced a reconnection. I suspect that there's something powerful in understanding how these two trajectories can be true at the same time.”

"We are driven by leading research, high standards, and a holistic vision of the thriving of our students. We are also genuinely connected to our heritage, our ideals, and, most importantly, one another."

We just finished another (yes, another!) record enrollment season. Families are choosing The Frederick Gunn School because we are at the same time driven and connected. We are driven by leading research, high standards, and a holistic vision of the thriving of our students, as is best captured by our Core Values: integrated humans, immersed in a learning ecosystem, surrounded by hopeful faculty, and engaged in moral character development, become active citizens. We are also genuinely connected to our heritage, our ideals, and, most importantly, one another. Boarding schools of our size have known that the combination of these two things — deep drive and genuine connection — offers an unparalleled environment for a formative education. This mentorship model of teaching and learning drives our faculty standards and school structure.

IT CAN BE TEMPTING to believe that because 2024-25 is our 175th year, that the school’s persistence into the future is inevitable. This seems to me a mistake that Frederick and Abigail would find deeply problematic. In truth, we

don’t remain as a school because our 175 years demands it; we drive into the future because this mentorship model of teaching and learning is a profoundly, singularly good form of education. The affirmation of this can be seen in the incredible momentum our school has achieved, as Jon and Lizzie and so many other generous donors have stepped up in dramatically impactful ways for our school. As Jon announced at the dedication of The Lizzie, over the past four years, we have raised $91.6 million toward The Campaign for The Frederick Gunn School. That is so incredible, and on behalf of the school, we are so grateful for the support to make that happen.

The impact of that matters to our programs, to our faculty, and especially to our students. In my time here, I have watched them find their footing and feel more ennobled to step proudly into that future, surrounded by a vision of what it means to live a good life and give back to the community. I think all of us as parents, as alumni, and as faculty, understand that we need to believe in our teenagers. We need to believe, as Frederick and Abigail did, that the optimism and the energy that teenagers bring into the world can be channeled in a direction that is good for them, for their neighbors, and for the world around us. We need them to be together in these amazing spaces, and we need them to know that we are going to support them in

so many ways; we are going to give them concrete resources, and we are going to let them have fun, because that is the context in which they are most figuring everything out, not just committing to a life of purpose and vision, but to a life that is sustainable, where they can go off to college and beyond.

There is more to do and much more to share about this exciting time for our school. As we look to the next 12 months, and the celebration of our 175th anniversary, our goal is to raise $100 million. We are more than 90% of the way there. There will be many moments to gather as we celebrate our 175th year, and as we do I hope we will find joy in being a boarding school that knows it exists for its students, and one that invests in its future, sustained by a connection to our ideals and our community. When we gather around this institutional imagination, so much is possible. I hope that you will join us.

Always learning,

Emily Raudenbush Gum Head of School

In October, Emily and her son, Hezze, left, joined current students and faculty on School Walk, which remains a cherished Gunn tradition.

Dedicating The Lizzie

On April 27, The Frederick Gunn School community celebrated Lizzie and Jonathan Tisch ’72 and 13 other generous donors at a ribbon-cutting ceremony for The Lizzie & Jonathan Tisch Center for Innovation & Active Citizenship.

Students and faculty were joined on the Quad for the celebration by Trustees, alumni, parents, and friends to acknowledge and thank all those who helped to make this transformational new building possible.

The Lizzie, as it is known on campus, officially opened to students and faculty in January and has quickly become a beloved gathering space. Designed as an interdisciplinary hub of learning, the 24,000-square-foot, state-of-the-art academic building houses the school’s innovative programs in science and

math and three centers that support keystone programs: the IDEAS Lab, the Center for Entrepreneurship, and the Center for Citizenship and Just Democracy.

“Combined with the founding principles of Frederick and Abigail Gunn, The Lizzie, in the heart of our campus, reinforces our commitment to ensuring that students become principled, active citizens, who will be a force for good in the world. What is happening day-to-day in this building is helping our students learn and grow in big and small ways,” said Head of School Emily Raudenbush Gum. “As they look out onto this historic Quad, where you all are now, I hope they picture a world that is bigger and more magical than they can imagine it here, and where they can apply all they have learned for the good of their neighbors.”

The event provided an opportunity to thank everyone who contributed to the success of the project, most notably Lizzie and Jon Tisch, who made the lead gift of $25 million — the largest, single gift in the school’s history. “Thank you, Lizzie and Jon, for elevating our sights and helping us to think boldly, reimagining what the heart of campus could look like. You literally brought light to the core of who we are, and helped open our minds to

Above left: Trustee Omar Slowe '97 and Marta Guerra-Pastrian, Associate Principal, Designer, Sasaki; and Board Vice Chair Wanji Walcott P'19, speaking at the luncheon.

see beyond the work we do in class, and the impact that this building and so much of what we do will have on generations of Gunn students,” Raudenbush Gum said. “Your gift started a chain reaction that has inspired so many others to do extraordinary things for this school, and we are only getting started.”

A Building Named After a Dynamic Woman

At the dedication, Trustee Emeritus Jon Tisch reflected on his family’s history at the school. “This is a day when I think back to 1963, when my brother, Steve ’67, started as a freshman. It wasn't so easy to get here in 1963, and I would ask my mother quite frequently, ‘How did you pick The Gunnery in Washington, Connecticut?’ I would come visit him on many occasions and became very close to a dean that many of you remember, Norman Lemcke P’84, and his wife, Nancy P’84. That was my impetus for wanting to become a student here, starting in 1968. We’ve come a long way in all those years, but actually, we’re right back to where we started with the ideals of Abigail and Frederick Gunn, about humanity, about treating people with respect, about educating the whole student,” he said.

Looking back, Tisch shared that the idea to call the new building “The Lizzie,” came out of a conversation he had with then-Head of School Peter Becker. “I said, ‘Peter, what are we going to call this building?’ No one is going to say, ‘Oh, I’ll meet you at 12 o’clock in front of The Lizzie & Jonathan Tisch Center for Innovation & Active Citizenship.’ So he said, ‘What do you think?’ I said, ‘Let’s call it The Lizzie.’ Well it stuck, and it’s very meaningful to me that it has stuck in a significant way because The Lizzie represents the Lizzie,” he said, referring to his wife, who was seated next to him at the dedication. “The Lizzie, who I am blessed to be married to, is an incredible person who looks at life in a way of treating people fairly, of understanding their potential, of representing the best of the best. So I get quite a thrill to see the signs, to see the swag, to see all these references to the most important person in my life, now being so forward at The Frederick Gunn School.”

Cutting the ribbon (left to right): Board Vice Chair Wanji Walcott P'19, Head of School Emily Raudenbush Gum, Chris Bozzutto P'08 '14, Trustee Emeritus Jon Tisch '72, Lizzie Tisch, Trustee Dick Tager '56, Trustee Jon Linen '62, Board Chair Patrick Dorton '86, Trustee Josh Feil '98, Class Agent Nick Molnar '72, and Susan Trinter. Above: A neon sign based on Lizzie's signature was donated by Wykeham Rise alumnae.

Addressing his wife, he added, “Lizzie, thank you for the inspiration. Thank you for lending us your name. Also, there’s a special charm that when I was here, it was all boys. To have a building named after a dynamic woman is very meaningful.”

A Launchpad From Which Young Minds Can Leap

Prior to acknowledging the donors individually, Raudenbush Gum invited Board Chair Patrick Dorton ’86 to share a resolution unanimously passed by the Board of Trustees that morning with a sense of enthusiasm and excitement for the new building at the heart of campus, and with gratitude to the donors who invested in it. The Lizzie, the resolution stated: “provides an environment for students to be at once deep thinkers and wide-reaching dreamers. From science and math to citizenship and engineering, the classrooms provide the perfect launchpad from which young and adult minds can leap.”

The new building “ensures students have inspiring, modern, and natural-light-drenched spaces that are conducive for communication and collaboration to flow with their peers and teachers,” and “houses cutting-edge resources for students to see the world in a new way, with a different perspective, through a fresh lens. It is a place where academic risk-taking is encouraged, be it with a Bunsen burner, slide rule, or pen in hand.”

“It provides a bright light, in the center of all activity and with sweeping views of campus, where students can gather to celebrate the simple joys of boarding school life,” the commemorative resolution said.

With that, Raudenbush Gum offered words of gratitude for all of the donors, especially: Trustee Emeritus Steve Bent ’59; Former Trustee Gretchen Farmer P’05, who sadly passed away a year ago; Gunn’s newest Trustee, Josh Feil ’98, and his wife, Nell Solley; Trustee Adam Gerry P’21; Gary and Beth Glynn, a Trustee for whom the faculty lounge in The Lizzie is named; Class Agent Nick Molnar ’72; Trustee Emerita Joan Noto P’97; Dick Tager ’56, one of Gunn’s longest serving Trustees and for whom the pavilion seating in The Lizzie is named; Chris Bozzuto P’08 ’14 and Former Trustee Bill Tolley P’08 ’14, who made a gift in honor of their sons, Andrew ’08 and Jared ’14; Belinga Peng Wong P’23 and William Peng P’23, who generously funded the terrace in honor of their son, Zachary ’23, and current and future students; and one anonymous donor whose quiet yet substantial investment in the building speaks volumes.

Raudenbush Gum thanked Chief Financial Officer Chris Cowell, Director of Campus Safety Zach Mihaly, and Director of Facilities Rob Daly, who were instrumental in managing the construction process; the faculty, including Associate Head of School Seth Low P’26, who helped craft and implement the Strategic Plan. Gratitude was expressed to the project architects at Sasaki, the construction managers at O&G, and the team at Colliers, which represented the school during construction. She thanked the neighbors, who supported the project, and the

Board, which approved the project and recognized it would be a game-changer for the school. Following the ribbon-cutting, guests toured The Lizzie and gathered for a celebratory lunch at Conroy House, the Head of School’s residence.

A Goal to Raise $100 Million by December 2025

At the Founders Society Annual Dinner on April 26, and again at the dedication of The Lizzie, Tisch shared the exciting news that The Frederick Gunn School has raised $91.6 million towards a goal of $100 million by December 2025 as part of The Campaign for The Frederick Gunn School. This comprehensive campaign is investing in our People, Place, and Program, guided by the school’s 2025 Strategic Plan.

“The Board, starting with former Head of School Peter Becker and now Head of School Emily Raudenbush Gum, and under Board Chair Patrick Dorton’s leadership, asked me to chair the comprehensive campaign, working very closely with my wonderful co-chairs, Wanji Walcott P’19 and Jon Linen ’62,” Tisch said at the dedication. “We were in the quiet phase of this comprehensive campaign until last night. In the quiet phase, our goal was $75 million. Last night, we announced we are now in the public phase of this campaign and I can say we're not trying to raise $75 million anymore. Our goal is $100 million. We have one year to raise $8.5 million to get us to that $100 million goal. I have every confidence that we will get there. But we can’t stop there. We have much more work to do.”

With Mr. Gunn’s values as our North Star, the school has made historic strides to invest in the people at the heart of this community; reimagine the campus so that our place fosters a healthy learning ecosystem; and enhance the academic programs that encourage students to be curious, solve problems, take risks, think independently, and be a force for good.

Alumni and parents have stepped up at record levels to help us accomplish those goals, with 16 donors giving $1 million or more, 61 donors making their largest-ever gift to the school, and 45 donors making gifts doubling their previous lifetime giving. The following accomplishments are only a snapshot of all the exciting things happening on our campus through the generosity of those who have contributed thus far:

• The implementation of a pay band structure that competitively and fairly compensates faculty based on education, tenure, and responsibilities;

• The elevation of keystone programs such as Gunn Outdoors and the Center for Citizenship and Just Democracy, now housed in The Lizzie;

• The establishment of the Thomas R. King ’60 Family Teaching Chair through the generosity of Trustee Tom King ’60 and his wife, Kathy, to honor a member of the faculty in the fields of science, technology, engineering, math, and entrepreneurship;

What we are creating is a very special environment to educate the future leaders of our country. What they will experience on this campus will guide them very well as they go off to college, graduate college, and then make this world a better place.” Jonathan Tisch ’72

• The exceptional growth in attracting and retaining faculty, and students, as reflected by a 67% increase in applications over the past four years and four consecutive years of record enrollment;

• The opening of the Thomas S. Perakos Arts and Community Center and the creation of the Koven-Jones Glade in January 2020, and the opening of The Lizzie & Jonathan Tisch Center for Innovation & Active Citizenship in January 2024 — two projects that, combined, represent $52 million of the $91.6 million raised;

• The dedication of $37 million to the school’s endowment and planned giving;

• The nearly 40% growth in The 1850 Fund, which is heading toward a sustainable $2 million annual fund in 2025.

“We are going to make this school a gold star for every single person who came here, was a parent here, or may come here in the future. That’s very much the goal,” Dorton said.

Funds raised over the next year will continue to support priorities outlined in the Strategic Plan, including faculty compensation, financial aid, and support for our academic program. Beyond this, the Strategic Plan includes long-range goals, such as improvements to the athletic facilities on the

east side of campus, which are envisioned as part of the transformation that began in 2020.

“Our program is incredible. Our kids are incredible. The vision that’s driving the school that’s founded way back into our deep roots and our DNA is really enlivening the place. It’s such a privilege to get to lead the school at a moment where all of that momentum is there and now we’re asking ourselves much more nuanced questions about what standards of excellence and success will carry us into the future,” said Raudenbush Gum.

“Thanks to your generous investments in The Frederick Gunn School, we are really on our way to realizing our 2025 Strategic Plan, which is really exciting,” Walcott said. “With the opening of TPACC and now The Lizzie, really as bookends, there are again so many great and tremendous things happening at the school right now. I’ve been a Trustee seven years now and just the transformation that has taken place during my short time as a Trustee has just been incredible.”

If you are interested in learning more about the Campaign for The Frederick Gunn School, please email campaign@frederickgunn.org.

The Revival

Washington Eagle Project Seeks to Forge Community Connections

THIS SPRING, STUDENTS in Bart McMann’s Civic Journalism and Media Making class were hard at work on the third edition of The Washington Eagle, a community newspaper they introduced at the start of the academic year in collaboration with the Town of Washington.

McMann, who is Director of the Center for Citizenship and Just Democracy, began to formulate plans to relaunch the Eagle in 2023, after noticing old copies of the newspaper on display at the Washington Food Market. Pondering what it would take to rebrand it, he decided to turn that challenge into a class project that would align with the school’s commitment to encourage students to become active, engaged citizens in their communities and the world.

One of his first steps was to introduce students to the American Journalism Project, which is working to reshape the future of local news in the U.S. The nonprofit organization is supporting nonprofit news organizations and helping communities build new newsrooms to address the information gaps created by the closure of more than 2,500 local newspapers across the country. Those losses are contributing to a decline in voter and civic engagement, and increases in government waste and political polarization, the journalism project says on its website.

“We have a very serious situation with the local news ecosystem in the United States in which local news in many communities is either withering or dying out all together,” Margaret Sullivan, the author of Ghosting the News: Local Journalism and the Crisis of American Democracy, said in an interview on the PBS NewsHour, which students in McMann’s class also viewed.

“We may still have wonderful sources of national news, but we have to think about our local governments, our town councils, our city governments, our school boards. As that [local coverage] dwindles, citizens become less politically engaged. They become more tribal in the way they vote and all kinds of things happen that are not really good for a functioning democracy.”

Preparing the first issue

McMann’s class used the American Journalism Project as their model for relaunching the Eagle. Students were

Bart McMann teaching Civic Journalism and Media Making in his new classroom in The Lizzie & Jonathan Tisch Center for Innovation & Active Citizenship.

Above: Matis Molina Ricard ’24 and Martha Ewing ’26 marking up pages of the two newspapers produced by Gunn students

Below: Karl Hammer ’25 working with students at Washington Montessori School on content for the second edition of The Washington Eagle

divided into small groups and presented proposals in the spring of 2023 to Washington First Selectman Jim Brinton, who was so impressed, he helped to secure a grant from the Washington Community Fund to cover start-up costs for the newspaper.

“Some groups built mock websites, newspaper templates, financial plans, and new logo designs. After the presentations were given, the class came together as a whole and picked the best ideas from each group,” Martha Ewing ’26 wrote in an article for the school newspaper, The Highlander, noting that a few students continued working on the project over the summer and upon their return in the fall, “hit the ground running.”

“The newsroom was bustling, and articles were being completed on the daily, along with various pieces written by members of the Washington community, such as the staff at the Gunn Memorial Library. The completed paper was sent off to a local printing press, and by early October, a cardboard box containing 500 freshly printed editions of the Washington Eagle had arrived at Gunn,” Ewing wrote.

“It was a big hit. People loved it. Right now, we’re trying to get copies of the newspaper around town,” said another student in the class, Peter Murphy ’24, who was working with Brinton this winter to place four vending boxes, donated by a local resident, in key locations around town to make the Eagle more accessible.

Bridie Bolger ’24 took the lead on the design and layout of the print edition, and this spring, she and Karl Hammer ’25 were building a website to support a digital edition of the Eagle. Bolger hopes students will be able to promote it using social media. “It’s really important that we get content out there so we can be a presence in the community,” Bolger said.

During the Winter Term, Bolger reached out to other schools, including Washington Montessori School, whose young journalists partnered with the Eagle team to produce two sections of content for the second issue of the newspaper in February.

“These students have put enormous effort into their pieces, and we are beyond impressed and inspired by their drive,” The Washington Eagle Team wrote. “We believe that newspapers have the potential to provide not just stories, but inspiration to younger generations, and we hope this to be the first of many educational endeavors we join as we forge connections in the beautiful community of Washington.”

Good for democracy and the community

If all of this sounds ambitious, consider that enrollment in the journalism class has essentially tripled over the past few years, and Gunn students now produce two newspapers, The Washington Eagle and The Highlander, as well as The Highlander Podcast (available on Spotify) and The Highlander

Bridie Bolger ’24 uses a computer in the new IDEAS Lab to lay out pages of The Washington Eagle

News Network (on YouTube). Stories for The Highlander are featured in both print and digital editions, which are supported by a student-run website and Instagram account. In January, the newspaper class also moved into The Lizzie & Jonathan Tisch Center for Innovation & Entrepreneurship. Students now work in both the Center for Citizenship and Just Democracy and the IDEAS Lab, equipped with computers well suited for designing newspaper pages.

Art Cummings, who was Executive Editor of the Eagle’s former parent company, Housatonic Valley Publishing Company, from 1972 to 1998, said the paper originated in the 1980s as a way to appeal to readers at a time when local newspapers were thriving, and competing, for stories and advertising. Lamenting the dramatic decline in local journalism, Cummings was excited to hear that Gunn students had brought the newspaper back. “I think it’s a really exciting project for the school and the kids to take on and it’s good for the town. I hope it lasts because it’s really important that there are print newspapers in terms of democracy and community,” he said.

So far, Brinton has been impressed by the work the students have done. “The paper is beautiful. They really strike the balance as a combination of what’s happening at Frederick Gunn, but also what’s going on in the community. That’s what they said they were going to do, and they did it. It’s pretty cool,” he said.

Gail MacDonald, a former staff writer for The Day in New London who teaches a course in Community Journalism at the University of Connecticut in Storrs, was unaware of any other high school in the state producing a newspaper in collaboration with a town. “It’s great to see the interest in journalism in any form,” said MacDonald, who sees real-world applications for the work the students at Gunn are doing.

“Local news has been diminishing as small town newspapers have been forced to close or gotten bought up.

relying on social media, which is totally unreliable and is just riddled with rumors and gossip.”

Hope for the future

MacDonald offered to the students at Gunn the same advice she gives to those in her class: “It’s essential to start developing those relationships with people in all facets of the community. You

have an obligation to cover the community in total, and that’s not just the people in power. You also need to develop sources out in the community, and that can be the bigger challenge.” Through the work on the Eagle, Gunn students are developing communication and interpersonal skills, for example, by conducting face-to-face interviews or calling someone in the community for an assignment, as opposed to texting or emailing them. “You can’t be writing about something without actual human interaction,” said Paige Jackson ’24, who has been enrolled in the civic journalism class for two years. “You will get the information so much faster, you’ll have a better conversation, and you’ll get better information if you just call them or you talk to them face to face. I think conversation is always going to be better than a text chain.”

The paper is beautiful. They really strike the balance as a combination of what’s happening at Frederick Gunn, but also what’s going on in the community.” WASHINGTON FIRST SELECTMAN, JIM BRINTON

With our responsibility as journalists to be watch dogs over people in authority, certainly that comes down to the local level,” MacDonald said. “It’s likely the public isn’t really aware of what isn’t being noticed anymore. There isn’t the number of news outlets out there, and even where there are, fewer people seem to be focused on getting local news. They are instead

Jackson, who will attend Washington and Lee University in the fall and plans to pursue a career in journalism, said it is encouraging to see so many young people interested in making newspapers. “You hear a lot of people talking about how journalism is a dying art, because people are finding all their information on social media and Twitter and reading news on their phone. But knowing that so many of my peers are also interested in it gives me hope that we can keep it alive,” she said.

Martha Ewing ’26, right, mentoring students at Washington Montessori School

The Collaboration

Citizenship Curriculum Helps Students Stand Out in the College Process

UNN ALUMNI OFTEN REFLECT

on the fact that just about every aspect of their time at The Frederick Gunn School prepared them well for college — and life beyond Gunn. One of the factors driving that success today is a partnership between the College Counseling Office and the Center for Citizenship and Just Democracy (CJD), which is helping Highlanders to stand out in the highly competitive college search process.

“The majority of our applicants have really strong grades and test scores so the question really becomes how are they going to distinguish themselves in a pool of really strong applicants,” said Kate McMann ’05, Director of College Counseling.

Students have multiple opportunities over the course of the school’s four-year citizenship curriculum to prepare for writing a personal statement for their college applications that will reflect who they are, their values, personality, experiences, and beliefs. It’s a process that extends from the “Letter to Self” students write as freshmen in Pathways, to the “This I Believe” statement they craft as sophomores in Citizen Gunn, to their Junior Speech, a right of passage for every Highlander, and finally the Civic Changemakers Project, where they put what they have learned into action.

“They’re always practicing their narrative, always going back to their values to see if they’ve changed,” said Bart McMann, Director of the Center for Citizenship and Just Democracy. “We’re always trying to give students a way to think honestly about themselves and to live a life of purpose, meaning, courage, and conviction.”

“Before coming here, I dedicated a lot of my time to robotics. I was part of a team and I would go with them almost every week for four hours on Saturdays. I would play in tournaments and ended up winning the regionals in Madrid,” he said. For his project, he organized a series of Lego robotics workshops for faculty children in the Tisch Family Library on Sundays as well as a STEM Lego Explorers Program in February at the Gunn Memorial Library, where he helped children ages 7-14 work together to design, build, and program Lego robots.

“I think all of this experience taught me that you can be really good at something, but you are even better if you can teach it to other people. That’s what most of my essays to colleges have been about — how I have been able to translate my love for robotics into teaching kids,” said Gutiérrez, who will attend a university near his home in Madrid this fall. College Counseling has introduced several touch points

We’re always trying to give students a way to think honestly about themselves and to live a life of purpose, meaning, courage, and conviction.” — Bart McMann, Director of the Center for Citizenship and Just Democracy

ALEJANDRO ZAFRA GUTIÉRREZ ’24 said that after giving his Junior Speech last year, his teacher, Kent Burnham, asked him to think ahead to what he wanted to do for his Civic Changemakers Project. That prompt helped him decide to focus his project on his love for robotics.

within the citizenship curriculum to get students thinking about how to build on their interests and passions. Kate McMann presents to students as freshmen in Pathways, challenging them to visualize their next three years at Gunn. She provides an example of the transcript that will be submitted to colleges, and introduces My Gunn Portrait, a tool

Alejandro Zafra Gutiérrez '24 leading a robotics workshop in Tisch Schoolhouse for faculty children, including Brooklyn Badger, Benjamin McMann (partially hidden), and Riker Napoleone '27

that empowers students to keep track of their accomplishments.

“It helps students from an organizational standpoint by putting all of their information together in one place. Colleges want to know who you are, what you’ve done, what you believe in, and what you will bring to their campus. With My Gunn Portrait, students will have a lot to pull from when we start working on their essay and writing supplements,” she said.

In junior year, students participate in a college essay workshop, led by faculty from the English Department and the Center for Citizenship and Just Democracy. “We show them what the Common App prompts are, what colleges are looking for, and engage them in different quick writing exercises to brainstorm the topic for their essay. At the end of The Declaration, after they’ve given their Junior Speech, they go through a Civic Changemakers Project boot camp, where they’re introduced to LinkedIn, learn how to write a cover letter and build a resume, and participate in mock interviews,” Bart McMann said.

College admissions officers often look for essays that indicate how a prospective student will make a positive impact on the community.

“We try to get students to think about completing their application with that in mind,” Kate McMann said. “We ask them to think about

For some of these kids, fishing isn’t something they get to experience often or at all, really. I want to give them that experience." — Henry Cruise '24

what kind of classmate or roommate they are going to be, or how they are going to contribute to the college community. When they fill out the descriptions for activities, we try to help them highlight their contributions to their athletic teams or student leadership roles.”

HENRY CRUISE ’24 WROTE in his college applications about his work as a volunteer with the C.A.S.T. for Kids Foundation, which enriches the lives of children with special needs through fishing. Each June, Cruise serves as the coordinator for an event that helps children with disabilities, ages 6-18, go fishing for a day at the Pond at Central Park in New York City. Participants receive a reel and tackle box, lunch, and a personalized plaque,

presented at an awards celebration. There is no cost to the families.

“For some of these kids, fishing isn’t something they get to experience often or at all, really. I want to give them that experience,” said Cruise, who will serve as event coordinator again this summer. “I’ve always been surrounded by the ocean. I’ve always been a big fisherman. It’s always been one of my favorite pastimes and passions. I figured I love it so much, why not give an opportunity to other people to do what I love most.”

Cruise was able to act on his convictions on a much larger scale when he volunteered last summer with the Peconic Bay Scallop Restoration Program. The program, sponsored by Cornell University, is seeking to restore the bay scallop population in Peconic Bay, which is located between the south and north fork of Long Island and has suffered mass die-offs due to environmental factors such as algal blooms, warming water, and parasites.

Henry Cruise '24 presenting an award to a participant of the C.A.S.T. for Kids Foundation event at the Pond at Central Park

“It’s a real problem that we’re trying to fix,” said Cruise, who wrote about the scallop restoration project in his college applications as well and made his experience the focus of his Civic Changemakers Project, which he presented at The Highlander Summit in April. He now plans to major in marine science and environmental studies at Northeastern University.

In his Junior Speech, Cruise spoke about the positive influence of his grandfather, for whom he was named. “He really motivated me to be who I am today. I don’t think I would have indulged in either of those projects if it wasn’t for him,” he said. “He taught me to not give up on things.”

My job was to read primary sources from the 1800s and organize them. I learned a lot more about Washington and the history of the town and where I live. Actually I ended up writing my college essay about that." — Layla Copen '24

and how that has changed. “He showed me an example for Charleston, South Carolina, and my Civic Changemakers Project involved replicating that for the Pathways curriculum for next year,” Copen said, explaining that beginning this fall, freshmen will have opportunities to experience three different parts of the town — New Preston village, Washington Green, and Washington Depot — through the Place as Text project she created. “You map your surroundings, reflect, observe and experience the town, and you write

Working together, CJD and College Counseling are helping students to recognize as early as freshman year that everything they do at Gunn is integrated and interconnected. This helps students to develop their sense of identity and purpose, and map out their fouryear experience at Gunn intentionally, which makes it easier for them to craft a personal narrative for their college applications.

FOR LAYLA COPEN ’24, that moment of connection was sparked by a conversation she had with Kate McMann about her interest in history, her favorite subject. Copen had already learned about school founder Frederick Gunn and the history of the town in her Citizen Gunn class, and McMann recommended that she apply for an internship at the Gunn Historical Museum. She spent part of the summer working in the museum’s archives.

“My job was to read primary sources from the 1800s and organize them. I learned a lot more about Washington and the history of the town and where I live. Actually I ended up writing my college essay about that,” said Copen, who read letters written by local residents and felt as if she was seeing the town come to life in the historical context of the time through what they were talking about.

When Copen returned to school in the fall, Bart McMann shared with her an experiential learning curriculum called Place as Text, which examines the historical record of a town,

a summary. The goal is that students at the school get to know Washington better, and get to know the history of the town and develop a better appreciation for where they live,” said Copen, who will attend Cornell University in the fall.

The project, like other aspects of the citizenship curriculum, will also encourage students to think about the impact they want to have in their community as citizens, in the model of Mr. Gunn.

Layla Copen '24 outside the Gunn Historical Museum, which inspired her Civic Changemakers Project on local history

Student-Run Model UN Program

Brings Young Delegates to Gunn

FOR THE FIRST TIME in recent memory, students in the Model United Nations co-curricular program participated in two national conferences this year at Yale and Georgetown universities. During Winterim in December, Highlanders also hosted the first Gunn Model UN conference for middle school students on campus.

About 40 students from Rumsey Hall and Washington Montessori schools participated in the two-day conference in Tisch Schoolhouse. The young delegates practiced their public speaking and problem-solving skills and learned to work together on committees. “We had a great time and couldn’t believe how quickly the hours went by,” Daphnee Bodson of Rumsey Hall School said via Instagram.

The event was so successful, organizers are already planning to reprise it next year. “Kids are interested. I think that we can definitely make this an annual thing,” said Marley-Austell Kennedy ’25, who planned the conference with Bridie Bolger ’24 and Bart McMann, Director of the Center for Citizenship and Just Democracy.

“It’s a nice way to get prospective students on campus. A lot of the middle school students who came said, ‘I want to go here,’’ McMann said.

The students came up with the idea of hosting a Model UN conference on campus after competing in the 2023 North American Invitational Model United Nations (NAIMUN) at Georgetown University, the largest student-run Model UN conference in the world. “We just started brainstorming. It was very hypothetical. We thought, ‘Oh, it would be very cool if we could make something similar for people on our campus,’” Bolger recalled.

McMann helped them turn that idea into a Winterim class, titled How to Run a Model United Nations Conference. A

total of 10 Gunn students signed up for the course, which gave them the opportunity to dive headfirst into the intricacies of conference planning and logistics along with experience in delegate selection, committee management, and crisis handling. In short, they had to learn how to teach MUN etiquette and manners and the rules of the game to middle schoolers.

Once Rumsey Hall and Washington Montessori School signed on, Kennedy and Bolger designed a logo for the conference, and created the curriculum for their peers to run it. As Co-Secretaries General, Bolger and Kennedy were also tasked with creating a second curriculum for the middle school delegates who participated in the conference.

“It was really enjoyable. A lot of people, when they think of Model UN, they assume it’s really strict and really dry. It was our job to break that,” said Bolger, who worked with Kennedy to devise crisis scenarios that mirrored real-world events but featured aliens, a zombie apocalypse, and a galactic senate inspired by Star Wars.

“We had a crisis happening and it was forcing people to leave Earth, and then we had Martians on Mars. People on Earth had gone there and it created this tension. We had to figure out how to live together,” Kennedy said. “It was interesting to see the thought processes and see things click. As the conference went on, the students started talking about real-world situations and saying, ‘These are some of the connections that I made.’ It made me a little bit proud to say I had a part in that.”

In February, Kennedy and Bolger were among the six Highlanders who returned to Washington, D.C., for the 61st annual NAIMUN Conference at Georgetown. They also were among 19 students who represented Gunn at the 50th Yale Model United Nations (YMUN) conference, held January 18-21 on the campus of Yale University. Ryan Ryu ’25, another MUN veteran, was honored with a “Best Delegate” award at YMUN.

“It was interesting to see the thought processes and see things click. As the conference went on, the students started talking about real-world situations and saying, ‘These are some of the connections that I made.’” – Marley-Austell Kennedy '25

PHOTOS BY ROBERT MANDL

Clockwise from above: Marley-Austell Kennedy ’25 and Bridie Bolger ’24 presented the Best Delegate Award to Gugulethu Ndlovu of Rumsey Hall; students from Rumsey Hall and Washington Montessori School practiced their problem-solving skills and parliamentary procedure skills; Highlander Oliver Sevarino ’27 cracked the gavel.

THE EVOLUTION OF AN IDEA

WALK THROUGH THE LIZZIE & JONATHAN

Tisch Center for Innovation & Active

Citizenship on any academic day, and one of the first things you’ll notice is the windows. Not just the ones that offer amazing views of the campus, but the ones that allow you to see inside the classrooms.

To Eric Hunt, who teaches robotics and engineering in the Innovation, Design, Engineering, and Applied Scholarship

(IDEAS) Lab, the windows are a game-changer. “It’s a bigger space. We can definitely accommodate more things, and students can work more comfortably in this space. But I think one of the key things is, it’s open. With the windows, it’s been great. Students who are not involved in any of the IDEAS classes who are walking by can see the stuff that we’re working on. Already, almost on a daily basis students who I don’t know come in and they’re like, ‘Oh, what’s going on? This looks so cool.’ This new space is allowing us to get the word out that IDEAS is doing some really cool things.”

Those “really cool things” include building Vex robots, RC hovercrafts, and racing drones that students learn to fly using FPV goggles. In the lab, students have access to an extensive array of materials, tools, and equipment, including five desktop 3D printers and a floor model 3D printer that arrived this spring and will allow students to print larger-format pieces.

Among the “really big stuff” Hunt has in mind are panels for a “Lizzie robot” that would be able to talk to visitors and answer questions using OpenAI.

Alejandro Zafra Gutiérrez ’24 and Matthew Neu ’24 began building a Lizzie robot in their free time earlier this year, inspired by the version depicted in an architectural rendering for the new building. Hunt is

PHOTO

BY ALI HECK SOUTHWORTH

Evan Bailey '26 working on a robot in the IDEAS Lab

hoping students in his robotics class next year will complete the project. He pointed out that IDEAS Lab students have already done something like this, on a smaller scale.

“These are ChatBots,” Hunt said, holding up a small box that looked a little bit like a toy toaster. “It just has a Raspberry Pi inside with an LCD display. ChatGPT runs the back end. It’s got a microphone on it, so it runs voice to text.”

When the ChatBot displays a message, indicating that it is listening to you, you can ask it a question. “It would talk to you, just as if you were working with ChatGPT online,” Hunt said, explaining that his goal is to apply the same technology to a Lizzie robot.

Currently, students in Introduction to Engineering use the lab’s desktop 3D printers to design and print parts for projects, such as the rudder and the mounting for the motor on a hovercraft. “We build small, RC hovercrafts as a way to introduce the engineering design process. The focus there is the process. It’s the project planning, it’s the teamwork and communication, it’s the design work,” Hunt said.

THE ENGINEERING PROCESS is something that, once learned, can be applied to any discipline. Similarly, Hunt believes that Advanced Computer Science, which he also teaches in The Lizzie, is a class that has the potential to benefit every student, because the skills can be applied to any discipline, not just STEM. “People think, ‘Coding — I’m never going to need to code.’ But the class is more about problem-solving, finding software solutions to problems, and we use Java to do that. Java is just the tool. If you can problemsolve, think logically, and apply the solution, that, again, applies to any discipline.”

In March, students in Introduction to Robotics were using more conventional tools to build wooden goals into which the Vex robots they were also designing, building, and programming could drop tennis balls. “It’s manipulating objects, so claws, arms, intakes, lifting mechanisms, we do all of that. We talk about all of the different options. We talk about weight distribution and what you need for gear ratios in order to be able lift things that are heavier or lighter. The challenges vary throughout the year. Right now, they’re working on robots that have to pick up tennis balls and drop them into the wooden goal.”

in different parts of the world. We practice flying toy drones, and then, once we get good at that, we actually build our own racing course. We build those with the goal of being able to fly a drone in a racing course. It’s what they all want to do. We did it last year and it was huge. The kids loved it. It was a lot of fun and we’re very good at flying,” Hunt said.

The new IDEAS Lab in The Lizzie is already providing students with inspiration to build and try new things. “They step back and it’s like, ‘There’s so many things in here. What’s that? How do I use that? Can I do something that uses that?’ And when that happens, that’s the cool thing,” said Hunt, who has been inspired, too, to collaborate with Arne Rees, Director of Entrepreneurship, to have students in his Entrepreneurship class market and sell products that students in the IDEAS Lab could build. “The applications there are sort of endless,” Hunt said.

“If the kids can imagine it, we can make it happen. We’re not limited, really, by anything except their imagination, their innovation, their thoughts and ideas, their creativity.”

– Eric Hunt, IDEAS Lab faculty

IDEAS Lab classes do fill quickly prior to the start of each term. One of the most popular is Engineering I. “We learn all about drones, how they work, the pros and cons of using drones

Likewise, Hunt sees no limit to what students in the IDEAS Lab can create as the program, now in its eighth year at Gunn, continues to evolve. “If the kids can imagine it, we can make it happen. We’re not limited, really, by anything except their imagination, their innovation, their thoughts and ideas, their creativity. If they can think of it, we can do it, make a plan, figure it out, do it. That’s really what this space allows us to do.”

Siena Castonguay '27 building a hovercraft

A Midwinter tradition continues in Lake Placid

AT THE END OF JANUARY, the Class of 2027 embarked on the 28th annual Freshman Class Trip to Lake Placid, New York. As part of this enduring midwinter tradition, the students, who were accompanied by the Prefects and adult chaperones, enjoyed skiing, snowboarding, or snowshoeing at Whiteface Mountain, and skating at the Olympic oval as well as a game of broomball at the Olympic rink.

“Each year, Gunn freshmen have enjoyed this Lake Placid experience, and every spring, fouryear seniors fondly recollect the memories made together on this trip as a highlight of their time at The Frederick Gunn School,” said Jesse Perkins, Freshman Class Dean.

This year, the opportunity to participate in this Gunn tradition was extended to the Class of 2024, so seniors could enjoy the Lake Placid experience they missed as freshmen, due to the global pandemic. A total of 24 seniors joined the optional, two-day excursion, and like their younger counterparts, were able to enjoy downhill skiing or snowboarding, ride the gondola up Whiteface, visit the Olympic Museum, and skate in the same arena where, in 1980, Eric Heiden won five gold medals.

“Our seniors and PGs were eager to share in the memories that other Highlanders have made and we were excited to extend this invitation to all students in the class,” said Emily Gorman, Senior Class Dean.

Placid on February 19. After dinner at Dack Shack, the seniors had time to explore the town, go ice skating, or hang out at the hotel pool before going skiing and snowboarding the next day.

Above right: On the Freshman Class trip,

’27, Charlotte Friedman ’27, and Sam Blackwood ’27 enjoyed a day of skiing and snowboarding at Whiteface in January.

PHOTOS

Tamaki Nakane ’27, Lilla Trotta

Changing the world of one family

A THREE-DAY LANGUAGE and cultural immersion trip in Costa Rica in December proved life-changing for one local family, and gave eight Gunn students the chance to be a force for good in the world. The students, who were accompanied by World Languages Department Chair Teresita Magaña

P'26 and Dean of Faculty Jessica Lyon, stayed in the quaint village of Sitio de Mata with local families, who spoke only Spanish. While the students enjoyed rafting along the Pacuare River, and ziplining and canyoning through terrain that included tropical rainforest and stunning waterfalls, the primary focus of their journey was a community service project, and specifically, improvements to a small house.

“An elderly woman lived there with her granddaughter, who had three children. The home needed painting. It didn’t have any windows. It had plastic to cover the window openings, and it was down a hill that had no steps. When it rained, it got slippery. It was a hazard,” Magaña said. “The

“An elderly woman lived there with her granddaughter, who had three children. The home needed painting. It didn’t have any windows. It had plastic to cover the window openings, and it was down a hill that had no steps. When it rained, it got slippery. It was a hazard.”

students painted the house. The two front windows were installed and we created steps on the hill. It was a lot of work. We stabilized the area. We put in crushed stone, and we did some landscaping. That family really needed help.”

Magaña, who accompanied students on a medical immersion trip to Belize last year, said her intention in organizing the Costa Rica excursion was for students to understand the history and the culture of Latin America and its people. “The culture is so

rich. Students want to learn the language, but they don’t learn about the culture, and to really enjoy and respect the language, they need to know the culture,” she said.

The students returned to Gunn with greater appreciation of the culture, and more proficient Spanish-speaking skills, and were rewarded in other ways. “To see these people happy changed something in them,” Magaña said. “They were so proud of themselves when they were done with the project. They looked back at what they did and they understood that they can give a helping hand to others. You don’t need a lot. Maybe you cannot change the world, but you can change the world of a person, of a family. They understood that they are very blessed.”

These photos show the small house in Costa Rica before and after students made improvements. They applied waterproof paint to protect it from the rain, installed windows, and built steps so the family living there can walk safely down the hill from the road to the house.

CLEVE GRAY Towards an Art of Hope

ARETROSPECTIVE EXHIBITION , “Cleve Gray: Towards an Art of Hope,” featuring works by Abstract Expressionist painter Cleve Gray, opened in April in the Perakos Family Cares Art Gallery. The show, which ran through May 30, demonstrated Gray’s progression as an artist, from his earlier, more figurative work, to the large, abstract canvases for which he was best known, to more gestural works created toward the end of his life.

The exhibit in the Perakos Family Cares Gallery included the artist’s first self-portrait, painted in 1934, when he was just 16 years old, and more figurative work, including "Old Lady Sewing a Cotton Dress," 1950, "London Ruins: Toppling Wall," 1949, and "Cello Player," 1947.

The pieces in the retrospective were selected by eight Frederick Gunn School students enrolled in an art history course during Winterim in December, along with their teachers, Lincoln Turner and Andrew Richards P’20 ’23 of the Visual Arts faculty, and Tim Schatz of the Mathematics Department faculty.

Luke Gray, an abstract artist in his own right who has exhibited his work at galleries in New York, Washington, D.C., Santa Fe, New Mexico, and throughout Germany, helped to guide the students and faculty as they culled through the substantial body of Cleve Gray’s work, stored in an expansive barn in Litchfield County. “It was wonderful,” Luke Gray said. “We knew where every painting was, and we just pulled stuff out. Slowly, the whole trajectory of the show took shape.”

A prolific artist, Gray maintained a home and studio nearby in Warren, Connecticut, for five decades. Following his death in 2004, his wife, the late Francine du Plessix Gray, an author and New Yorker staff writer, and their children, Luke and Thaddeus Gray, established a foundation in his name, to preserve his legacy and promote his work as an important artist of the postwar period. Part of the mission of the Cleve Gray Foundation is to perpetuate the scholarship of Gray’s work by the viewing public, and to provide an educational experience for students to enhance their knowledge and enjoyment of modern art.

The Art of Hope

The title of the exhibit was inspired by the words of the artist, who said: “Abstract art is the art of hope,” Turner said, acknowledging that we all need more art in our lives, and the joy

PHOTO BY KRISTIN MOORE

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Born in New York in 1918, Cleve Gray studied at Phillips Academy and graduated summa cum laude from Princeton University, where he studied painting and Far Eastern Art under the acclaimed scholar George Rowley. Like many of his generation, he joined the United States Army during World War II, serving in England, France, and Germany. After the war, he remained in Paris on the GI Bill, where he furthered his study of painting under the cubist Jacques Villon.

In the 1960s, Gray experienced an artistic metamorphosis, dissolving his earlier cubist compositions in a sea of distilled color. This dramatic body of work marked the beginning of an artistic meditation that would last for over 40 years. The rigors of French modernism, the ethos of Abstract Expressionism, and the meditative restraint of Chinese and Japanese scroll painting commingle with astounding affect. Much of his work from the last three decades of his career feature striking graphic brushwork that conjures the influence of Japanese and Chinese calligraphy.

— CLEVE GRAY FOUNDATION

of looking at abstract art is discovering how you respond to it. “The gesture of the brush strokes or the color combination — if you like it, that’s all that matters.”

“I think he referred to the word ‘hope’ several times in his life in interviews,” Luke Gray said of his father, pointing to his 1973-74 mural series, “Threnody,” as “the primary example of hope surrounded by darkness.” A series of 28 panels spanning 250 feet, “Threnody” was created specifically for the Neuberger Museum of Art at Purchase College. Coincidentally, it was also on view this spring as part of the museum’s 50th anniversary exhibition.

The retrospective included a self-portrait Cleve Gray painted in 1934, when he was 16, the same age as some of the students, as well as his last self-portrait, painted in 1999, one of several works never before exhibited. These included pieces the artist painted while serving in the U.S. Army during World War II. More gestural pieces from his final series, “Letting Go,” created in 2003 and 2004, were painted with oil sticks, which the artist smudged in places with his finger, a rag, or brush. As Luke Gray explained:

“He had macular degeneration. I often thought he considered oil sticks an extension of his finger. I think using oil sticks was a way for him to be more exacting when he wasn’t seeing as well, because the oil sticks are rigid and the marks are finer, so he had more control.”

Another painting, “Rocks and Water #8,” was inspired by a landscape near the artist’s home. “There’s a story,” Turner said. “Creatively he was stuck. He wasn’t happy with whatever he was making at the time, and his wife came into the studio and she said, ‘Let’s go take a walk. I want to show you something.’ They had a beautiful piece of property in Warren and she took him out to where there was a stream flowing over some rocks. That’s when he started making these pieces.”

Thaddeus Gray said he hoped people took from the show a sense of the range and depth of his father’s work, and an appreciation for abstract art in general. “It’s interesting to see how the work of an artist evolves over many decades, how it changes. It’s a very broad retrospective so I think it’s very powerful.”

Caption for gallery image to go here with mention of selfportrait above here. Caption for gallery image to go here with mention of self-portrait above here.

Left to right: Allison Gray, who represented her husband, Thaddeus, at the exhibit opening, with Gallerist Lincoln Turner, and Luke and Dorke Gray, who is holding their dog, Romeo; behind them is Cleve Gray's "Rocks and Water #8."

ON STAGE Theatre Director Kent Burnham Is All In

SINCE ARRIVING AT THE FREDERICK GUNN SCHOOL

three years ago, Kent Burnham has sought to take the Theatre Program to the next level. Whether introducing students to the joys of performing without a script in improv class, or the thrill of staging a sword fight in stage combat, Burnham raises the bar high for his students. He has brought to the stage of the Tisch Family Auditorium plays that explore themes of inclusion, acceptance, and love, and challenged the way audiences think about history, science, and even ecological disaster.

In the summer, you can find Burnham teaching theatre to middle and high school students, or working with the Youthstage program at Sharon Playhouse, where he has directed Newsies, Shrek, Jr., The Writer’s Playground, and this summer, High School Musical, Jr. He and his wife, Tracy Liz Miller, an actor and director who teaches in the Theatre Department at the University of Rhode Island, are also co-founders of the nonprofit Connecticut Theatre Exchange. Launched in 2023,

CTX is in residence at Gunn for two weeks each summer, creating opportunities for artists to explore new work or develop new skills through summer residencies for playwrights, screenwriters, actors, and theatremakers, and a youth Shakespeare Intensive that is new this year and sold out months in advance.

Discussing his vision for Gunn Theatre, Burnham acknowledged he is intentional in the choices he makes, often turning to contemporary works. For the fall play, he selected Silent Sky by Lauren Gunderson, which looked at Henrietta Leavitt and other women who were exploring and mapping the universe at the Harvard College Observatory in the early 1900s. Often, these women were ignored for their contributions to science, while their male counterparts took credit for their discoveries.

Coincidentally, Leavitt was featured in March in The New York Times series, “Overlooked,” about remarkable people whose deaths were previously unreported by the newspaper.

KENT BURNHAM, DIRECTOR OF THEATRE ARTS

It’s really exciting when these students get to introduced to new playwrights and to have their finger on the pulse of what’s happening in American theatre at this time.”

When Leavitt was working at Harvard, “astronomers had no idea how big the universe was,” The Times noted, yet she “found a way to peer out into the great unknown and measure it.”

Gunderson, Burnham noted, has been named one of the most-produced playwrights in America three times since 2015. For fall 2024, he is planning to direct a contemporary adaptation of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice by Kate Hamill, one of the most-produced playwrights in America for the last seven years.

“It’s really exciting when these students get to be introduced to new playwrights and to have their finger on the pulse of what’s happening in American theatre at this time,” he said.

Choices like the satirical musical Urinetown, presented in February, and Jaclyn Backhaus’ Men on Boats, a New York Times Critics Pick produced at Gunn in fall 2022, are intended to provoke or challenge conventional thought in some way.

Asked how he engages students in their roles, Burnham said it’s about sparking their imagination, empowering them

to make strong choices, and helping them to understand their character, and their character’s motivation. As a director, he emphasizes creativity and collaboration. “We’re an ensemble and you can see that out there. Every single person is just as important in that storytelling as the next person,” he said.

Beyond collaboration, the skills he teaches in acting can be applied beyond the stage, in life, which is one of the reasons he hopes to grow the Theatre Program, so that anyone can be involved, on the stage or off, or in a class. “You empathize. You understand other people. It allows them to find their voice and find out more about themselves and others,” he said. “Everything that we do in class or on stage can be applied to anything in everyday life. It’s an exploration, it’s about being in a mode of discovery. It’s being curious and being OK with not knowing. I think that’s really empowering: the idea of ‘Let’s find out.’”

MUSICAL INSPIRATION

Joy and nostalgia were two themes that emerged during the winter months, as Gunn Music students performed on and away from campus, and welcomed some impressive musical guests.

A High Note

Eight students from the Gunn Music Program performed at the Connecticut Music Educators Association Northern Region Music Festival on January 12 and 13, and three — Colin Hall ’24 (bass voice), Aryel Sealey ’25 (tenor voice), and Stella Zhu ’25 (alto voice) — were selected to perform at the CMEA All-State Music Festival, April 4 through 6, at the Connecticut Convention Center in Hartford.

RON CASTONGUAY P'27

BIG NOISE FROM THE NORTH POLE

In December, Vocal Ensemble, String Ensemble, and Jazz Band presented “Big Noise From the North Pole,” the annual holiday concert, featuring songs ”intended to celebrate a season and time of year that truly brings everyone together in spirit,” said Ron Castonguay P’27, Director of the Arts and Music Director. The repertoire included songs from favorite holiday movies, classic Christmas and Hanukkah melodies, and a rollicking version of “The 12 Days of Christmas,” a Gunn tradition (above).

A Cappella Awesomeness

From January to March, music students had the opportunity to listen to, and learn from, four special guests: The Yale Alley Cats (below), a world-renowned a cappella singing group; The Yale Spizzwinks, America’s oldest underclassman a capella group; a jazz quintet; and The Dissipated Eight (above), Middlebury College's oldest a cappella group, whose members include Gunn Music alumnus Will Dyer ’23, fourth from right.

LISTEN TO THESE ARTISTS PERFORMING AT GUNN

We had an awesome time working with the students and performing. In my year and a half in the group, that may have been the quickest we've ever taught and performed ‘Everybody Wants to be a Cat,’ a testament to your great group.”

CHARLES CALKINS, THE YALE ALLEY CATS

On Canterbury Day, A Full Varsity Sweep

CANTERBURY DAY, A GREAT GUNN TRADITION , was a cause for celebration this year. Six teams of Highlanders took on the Saints on their home turf on November 11, and came away with a record of 4-1-1. The day resulted in a full varsity sweep: Boys Varsity Soccer won by a score of 7-1, Girls

Varsity Soccer won 3-0, and Varsity Field Hockey won 2-1. It was a great day to be a Highlander!

Each year, athletic teams from Gunn and Canterbury come together in the spirit of competition, sportsmanship, and camaraderie on Canterbury Day, which is held at the end of the fall athletic season. Game-day locations rotate between the two schools on an annual basis, and school spirit is at an all-time high as both schools seek to accumulate points toward their yearlong bid to win the Gunn-Canterbury Cup.

Throughout the school year, one point is awarded to the winner of each head-to-head interscholastic athletic contest between Canterbury and Gunn, regardless of level. Ties are worth half a point. At the end of the Spring Term, Gunn had accumulated the most points and claimed the cup for the coming year!

Leading up to Canterbury Day, the Prefects organized a Spirit Week celebration that included an evening pep rally and bonfire on November 6. Connecticut bagpiper Jesse Ofgang led a procession through the east side of campus, where torches were used to light the fire.

PHOTO BY PHIL DUTTON '81 P'23

FALL 2023 11 Highlanders Earn All-NEPSAC Honors

Congratulations to these studentathletes, who received All-NEPSAC and All-NEPSAC Honorable Mention Awards for fall sports.

All-NEPSAC Awards were presented to:

Bea Flynn ’24, Forward, Class C Field Hockey

Jordan Hopping ’24, Goalie, Class C Field Hockey

Dom Nicholas ’24, Eight Player Football

Andrew Rainville ’24, Eight Player Football

All-NEPSAC Honorable Mention Awards were presented to:

Taylor Brown ’24, Eight Player Football

Angus MacArthur ’24, Eight Player Football

Megan Sladish ’25, Class C Field Hockey

Cassidy Cotton ’27, Class C Field Hockey

Karl Hammer ’25, Class B Boys Soccer

Emily Fonte ’24, Class C Girls Soccer

All-State

Victor Pozuelos Hage ’25

Class B Boys Soccer

PHOTO

Taylor Brown ’24

Dom Nicholas ’24

Andrew Rainville ’24

Jordan Hopping ’24

Bea Flynn ’24

Cassidy Cotton ’27

Angus MacArthur ’24

Megan Sladish ’25

Victor Pozuelos Hage ’25

Karl Hammer ’25

Emily Fonte ’24

FIELD HOCKEY EARNS THIRD CONSECUTIVE CHAMPIONSHIP BID

IN NOVEMBER, VARSITY FIELD HOCKEY advanced to the New England Field Hockey Championships for the third consecutive year. The #4 seed, Gunn beat #5 Canterbury 1-0 in a highly competitive NEPSAC Quarterfinal game, played at home on November 15.

The win propelled the Highlanders to the NEPSAC Semifinal against #1 seed Greens Farms Academy. Gunn fought hard

but was defeated 5-2 in that match-up, which was played on November 18 at Greens Farms Academy in Westport.

The Highlanders ended their regular season with a record of 12-6, winning their last nine games and outscoring their opponents 43 to 3. In the last game of the season, the Highlanders beat the Saints 2-1 on November 11, Canterbury Day.

WINTER 23-24 10 STUDENT-ATHLETES RECEIVE AWARDS

In March, the New England Preparatory School Athletic Council (NEPSAC) honored these 10 Highlanders with awards for their athletic achievements in the winter season.

All-NEPSAC Awards were presented to:

Luke Calabria ’24

Defense, Boys Ice Hockey, East Division

Alex Loguercio ’24

Forward, Boys Ice Hockey, East Division

Santana Sinvilcin ’24

Guard, Class B Boys Basketball

All-NEPSAC Honorable Mention Awards were presented to:

Bea Flynn ’24

Forward, Girls Ice Hockey, Small School Division

Bella Schifano ’24

Forward, Girls Ice Hockey, Small School Division

Jake Johner ’24

Defense, Boys Ice Hockey

Michell McCusker ’24

Goalie, Boys Ice Hockey

Emily Fonte ’24

Forward, Class C Girls Basketball

Juliet Denman ’24

Class C Girls Alpine Skiing

Andrew Baron ’24

Class C Boys Alpine Skiing

Bea Flynn ’24

Emily Fonte ’24

Alex Loguercio ’24

Luke Calabria ’24

Bella Schifano ’24

Santana Sinvilcin ’24

Jake Johner ’24

Andrew Baron ’24

Michell McCusker ’24

Juliet Denman ’24

PHOTOS

SANTANA SINVILCIN ’24 SCORES 1,000TH POINT

SANTANA SINVILCIN ’24 hit five of eight from the threepoint line in the Boys Varsity Basketball game at home against King School on December 13. But it was his first three-pointer of the night that mattered the most. About two minutes into the game, Sinvilcin came down the court and positioned himself in his favorite shooting spot, just outside of the three-point line. Jack Guevara ’24 passed him the ball and Sinvilcin floated it up for three – scoring his 1,000th point for Gunn.

Family and friends rushed onto the court to celebrate, carrying a handmade “1,000 points” banner. Sinvilcin’s mom, Nydia Blackwell P’24, even brought a few boxes of his favorite Krispy Kreme doughnuts to enjoy after the game.

“He worked so hard for this. This has been a dream come true — 1,000 points,” said Blackwell, who noted that Sinvilcin’s grandfather, Louis Blackwell GP’24, an uncle, two aunts, and brothers were also in attendance.

“He’s been playing since the age of four. He played in New York City. He’s been all over,” said his father, Shaaron Sinvilcin P’24, who played basketball in college, at Central Connecticut State University, and encouraged his son to pick up the game from an early age.

Head Coach Brian Konik, Ph.D., who is also Director of Counseling at Gunn, said Sinvilcin was inspired to score 1,000 points at Gunn after watching four-year senior Natalia Zappone ’23 hit the same milestone in January 2023, in her 46th game at Gunn. “The desire he had to work towards having that kind of experience — I think you could see that by how emotional he was during the celebration,” Konik said, emphasizing the commitment required to realize this level of accomplishment.

“I’m a very dedicated person in basketball. I’m dedicated to putting in the work every day.”

“I’ve been coaching for over 25 years and Santana is one of the hardest — if not the hardest — worker that I’ve ever coached. Everybody knows that he’s going to be in the gym before school and after school. He’s going to go to bed early and make all the right choices and decisions. It’s hard to argue that success follows hard work when he’s such a clear example of it,” Konik said.

At School Meeting on January 12, Sinvilcin was presented with a commemorative 1,000th point ball. Standing at the podium, he thanked God, his parents, who were in attendance, and Guevara for passing him the ball. Sinvilcin also thanked the community “for showing up for me that day. That meant a lot, showing that you guys care,” he said.

Although the game against King was early in the season, Sinvilcin said he knew he was getting close to achieving his goal. “I started tracking it last year, in my junior year. I was the leading scorer ever since I was a sophomore. It was pretty intense. I didn’t really care about it that much last year but then this year, of course, I wanted to score 1,000,” he said.

He put up 29 points in Gunn’s game against Pomfret School on December 2, and racked up another 32 points in the game against St. Luke’s on December 8, which brought him to 997 points prior to the game December 13, just three points shy of his goal.

Asked how he maintains his commitment to the game, Sinvilcin said his dad and his teammates encourage him to get up every day and practice: “I’m a very dedicated person in basketball. I’m dedicated to putting in the work every day.”

THE 2023-24 HOCKEY SEASON came to an exciting conclusion, as both the Boys and Girls Varsity Hockey teams were selected for the 2024 NEPSAC Tournament. The teams played their respective New England Quarterfinal games at home in a doubleheader at Linen Rink on February 28.

Highlanders Host NEPSAC Tournament Doubleheader

Boys Varsity Hockey, the #4 seed in the Piatell/Simmons Tournament Bracket, beat #5 seed Groton School 3-1, and advanced to the NEPSAC Semifinals. Girl Varsity Hockey, the #3 seed in the Dorothy Howard Bracket, took an early lead in their quarterfinal game against #6 seed The Rivers School, but the Red Wings came back and tied the game 3-3 and were the first to score in overtime, ending the game 4-3.

An Awesome Season

“It was an awesome season,” said Dan Allen, Head Coach, Girls Varsity Hockey. The team ended its regular season with a

record of 14-10-2. “The girls played hard. They progressed and continually got better as the season went on, buying into the team culture and how we wanted them to be on and off the ice. We went 3-0 at our holiday tournament. We beat Millbrook twice and had two different three-game winning streaks.”

Allen, who coached six of the team’s nine seniors in all of the seasons they played for Gunn, said the team was positioned early for a playoff bid, and worked hard to earn it. By the end of the season, Gunn was one of the top six teams in the small school bracket, and ranked 16th overall in New England.

“Going back to 2015, we had the most wins in a season as a program,” Allen said. “They should be proud of the way that they played and of their season. The seniors should be proud of the way they came into the program and helped build the momentum of the program to be the 16th ranked team in New England, and all the hard work they put in on and off the ice.

They should be able to hold their heads high with all that they accomplished in the season and as a group.”

“The program has been getting better each and every year under Coach Allen’s leadership,” said Athletic Director Mike Marich P’23 ’24. “We were super excited to see them take the next step in their development and earn a playoff bid.”

A Great Experience

Reflecting on his team’s quarterfinal win, Craig Badger, Head Coach, Boys Varsity Hockey, said: “Groton had a good team. They played hard, their goaltender was very, very good.

Anytime you’re in a tournament and you get a home game, it’s a great experience. You have to show up and play well. It doesn’t matter who is seeded where or who played who during the regular season. In the one-game elimination playoffs, if you don’t show up to play, you’re going to lose. I thought we did a good job of playing for 54 minutes that game and not getting

frustrated early on, just keeping it to what we needed to do and coming out with a victory.”

In the tournament semifinal on March 2, Gunn took on #1 seed The Rivers School at Rivers. It was a challenging matchup and the score remained 0-0 until almost the end of the second period, when Rivers scored with less than a minute left, and went on to win 5-0.

The Highlanders had a good year overall and finished the regular season strong. “The last 15 games we were 10-3-2. We finished very strong,” Badger said. “We beat Avon in that stretch, and tied Salisbury, both of whom made the Elite 8. We beat Canterbury, which won the small school tournament, and beat Berkshire. So it was a good stretch and showed how our group was capable of playing when we played well.”

“They were resilient,” Marich said. “They started off the season really well and hit some bumps in the road and were able to finish strong, earning the playoff opportunity.”

Left: Girls Varsity Hockey took an early lead against The Rivers School in the NEPSAC Quarterfinal on February 28; this page: Boys Varsity Hockey celebrating their quarterfinal win over Groton School.

50 YEARS

OF TEACHING & FRIENDSHIP

Steve Henrikson and Roger Wasby became friends and began their teaching careers at Gunn in 1968.

“Those few years that we were there showed us what boarding school education could be,” Henrikson said.

Gunn

alumni often talk about the lifelong friendships they forged on our campus, and reminisce about the classmates and teachers who influenced them during their time here.

So we were delighted to hear in January from two former faculty members who developed a similar bond. Steve Henrikson, who taught history and served as the JV Boys Tennis Coach from 1968-1971, and Roger “The Waz” Wasby, who taught French and music from 1968-1972, are still friends and both continue to teach more than 50 years after their experiences at Gunn.

This winter, Wasby visited Henrikson at his home in Carmel, California, and the two began reminiscing about their time on campus. “For me, and even more for him, The Gunnery was formative. It was the first boarding school I taught at after one year of public school. It was a fascinating time period to be there,” Henrikson said.

The two remembered with great fondness many of their former colleagues, including then-English Department Chair Wally Rowe III H’57 P’77 ’79 and Michael Eanes H’90 P’90 GP’20 ’23 ’25, who taught chemistry and was named Director of Admissions in 1971 (and later Head of School), and others who have since passed away: Mac Simms P’76, who taught English and served as Assistant Head; Ron Whittle P’80 ’82, who was History Department Chair; Norman R. Lemcke P’84, Dean of Students; and Ned Swigart P’82, who taught biology and served as Director of the Outdoor Club when it was credited with finding some of the oldest Native American remains in New England, in 1970.

“There was a group of real veteran, superb teachers, who were very inspiring,” said Wasby, who grew up in Belmont, Massachusetts, and earned a bachelor’s from Amherst College and a master’s in educational administration from New York University. He arrived at Gunn in the fall of 1968 having taught at Berkshire School and St. Peter’s Episcopal School in Peekskill, New York. In addition to teaching at Gunn, Wasby ran the Language Laboratory and served as Director of Music, Glee Club, and Vesper Choir. He also was a dorm parent in Gibson and later Bourne, and he coached general tennis for students who were not competitive but needed to fulfill the school’s athletic requirement.

HENRIKSON TAUGHT Modern European and Ancient History, served as a dorm parent in Memorial, and coached JV Tennis, basketball, and skiing. Raised in Minnetonka, Minnesota, he earned a bachelor’s degree in history from Carleton College and spent his junior year abroad, studying history and divinity at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne. He later earned a master’s in teaching from Northwestern University and taught at a public high school in New York before joining Gunn.

“Those three years there set the course for my entire teaching career, which is ongoing,” Henrikson said, recalling that his favorite course at Gunn was co-taught with Whittle. “He was the American history

teacher and I was the European history teacher and we taught it together. When we talked about the American Revolution, he took the part of the Americans and I took the point of view of the British. The kids were just mesmerized by that, because they learned that certain things could be looked at from different points of view, rationally and passionately.”

“We had some amazing students,” Henrikson said, reeling off a list of Gunn alumni, including Jon Tisch ’72 (who was his son Charlie’s first babysitter), Dick Lehr ’72, Peter Sutton ’68, Ken Foreman ’69, the late Mike Morin ’71, Mark Van Allen ’72, and Bob Hazlehurst ’71.

“Jon Tisch, Dick Lehr, and Mark Van Allen were in my dorm. They were three of the brightest, liveliest students who contributed positively to the school. It gave me a wonderful feeling about the kids at The Gunnery back then,” Henrikson said. “They were the Three Musketeers.”

As he recalled, dinner at the school was formal. Coats and ties were required and students rotated their assigned seats to a new table every month or so. “I thought that was a really good way of getting kids from other classes to know one another. It gave the school a sense of wholeness. If you’re always with students from your own class, it doesn’t have that kind of feeling,” Henrikson said.

Ogden D. Miller H’69 P’50 ’54 ’55 GP ’84, who hired him, and C. Burgess Ayers, who led the school following Miller’s retirement in 1969 until 1977, “set the standards for school leadership that inspired us over the years,” Henrikson said. “I think ‘Burge’ in particular showed a kind of dignity, an authority without being harsh. I remember his announcements in the dining hall. I felt secure in him being the leader.”

“Steve and I were both hired by Oggie,” Wasby said. “I loved him, we both loved him. Everybody loved him.”

Henrikson also loved Gunn’s traditions, including the School Walk to Lake Waramaug. A copy of The Master of The Gunnery was presented to one student each year on Prize Night, and students knew a head’s

holiday would be called when Ayres wore red pants. And although he greatly prefers the original Latin version, he maintains the Gunn motto, A Good Person is Always Learning, is “the best school motto of any high school or college that I know. I’ve kept that with me for lo these many years,” he said.

Both Henrikson and Wasby have enjoyed teaching careers that span six decades and two coasts, and both became school administrators. Wasby credited Lemcke with encouraging his interest in college counseling. “He became my mentor and I learned from him.”

From Gunn, Wasby made the leap to Moorestown Friends School, where he became Dean of Students, was a college counselor, and also taught. He was also Assistant Head of School at Flintridge Preparatory School in California. The last nine years of his high school career, he taught French in public schools. He has been teaching English as a Second Language for 15 years in an adult education program at a community college.

Henrikson taught at Foxcroft School in Virginia, at San Francisco University High School, The Branson School, and The Putney School, from which his son, Charlie, graduated before pursuing a career in education. Charlie recently celebrated his 30th year of teaching and has taught physics for 23 years at Stevenson School in Pebble Beach, California. Since 2019, Steve Henrikson has taught at The Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI) at California State University, Monterey Bay, a learning community for adults age 50 and older. “One of the reasons I continue to teach is that I get to research things that I’m really interested in,” he said. “The idea that you’re always learning, I believe in it all the way.”

Steve Henrikson (above left) and Roger Wasby (above right) from the Red and Gray, 1968

Left to right: Walter Addicks, Business Manager, Mac Simms, Assistant Head, and Michael Eanes, Assistant Head for Development, in a photo from the archives, 1977-78; and above right, Ron Whittle P’80 ’82, History Department Chair

TThe History of John and Mary Brinsmade

he accomplishments of our founders, Frederick and Abigail Gunn, have been well documented but less is known about our second Head of School, John Chapin Brinsmade, and his wife, Mary Gold Gunn Brinsmade, whose leadership spanned 41 years, from Mr. Gunn’s death in August 1881 until their retirement in 1922. John C. Brinsmade was our longest serving Head of School,

and his wife, the only surviving child of Mr. and Mrs. Gunn. At the request of Head of School Emily Raudenbush Gum, we looked into the archives with Moira Conlan P’26, Director of Library and Archives, to learn more about these quiet leaders.

John was born in Springfield, Massachusetts, in 1852 to Charlotte Chapin and William B. Brinsmade, a Yale graduate and civil engineer who was Abigail Gunn’s brother. John attended The Gunnery as a young boy, leaving Washington in 1864 at the age of 12, and graduated from Harvard in the Class

of 1874, joining the faculty at Gunn that fall. Two years later, on October 4, 1876 (which marked the occasion of Mr. Gunn’s 60th birthday) he married Mary Gold Gunn, who was born at The Gunnery in 1853, and was both a student and teacher at the school. The Stray Shot and letters in the Paula and George Krimsky Archives and Special Collections reveal the pair were committed to carrying on the work that Mr. and Mrs. Gunn had begun, while gradually expanding and reorganizing the campus to allow for growth in enrollment.

A new gym, built under Mr. Gunn, was dedicated on the east side of campus in December 1881. The Schoolhouse, designed by Ehrick K. Rossiter, Class of 1870, was dedicated on October 4, 1883, providing classroom space beyond the old Gunnery for the first time. As early as 1884, John Brinsmade was buying property on the east side of campus, including approximately 12 acres for a new ballfield, now Underhill Memorial Field.

“There are now 83 pupils at the Gunnery,” The Stray Shot reported in November 1884. “Of this number, twenty eight are day scholars; there are twenty girls in the school, three of them boarding in the family. The family numbers seventy five, fifty of whom are boys. There are seven teachers.”

In 1904, Bartlett, a new, three-story dormitory designed by Rossiter, was built on the east side of campus (across from Whittlesey House) with rooms for 23 boarding students, and at least two faculty apartments. It was enlarged in 1908, adding rooms for 13 more students, and continued to house 36 boys until it was destroyed by fire in 1947. Girls were enrolled at The Gunnery through the 1890s, with John and Mary’s daughter, Mary Brinsmade, being the last and only female student to graduate in the Class of 1905.

A FAMILY PORTRAIT Mary Brinsmade, seated at left, and John Brinsmade, seated at right, with Abigail Gunn, center, and seven of their eight children (left to right), Abigail Irene, who was named for her grandmother and died in the Spanish flu epidemic of 1918, Frederick, Gunnery Class of 1898, who was a teacher at the school, Eleanor, who graduated from Vassar and was an instructor in languages at Gunn, Charlotte, who also graduated from Vassar, Chapin, who taught at Gunn and Yale, Mary, who graduated from Gunn in 1905 and went on to Vassar, and John, Gunnery Class of 1910. Missing from the photo is William Bartlett Brinsmade, who died at age 10.

As headmaster, John Brinsmade was known for his love of baseball, playing third base for the Gunnery first nine, and in 1892 football became a formal sport at the school. He instituted the annual School Walk, referenced for the first time in The Stray Shot in November 1886. “The objective point was the ‘pinnacle’ near Waramaug Lake,” the editors wrote, foreshadowing the feeling of generations of Highlanders to come: “The day was all that could be desired, and all enjoyed an unexceptionably good time. Many of us had never beforehand an opportunity of enjoying the beautiful view presented from that point, and our highest expectations of it were more than realized.”

Like Mr. Gunn, Brinsmade fostered a relationship between the school and the town, serving as President of the Washington Dramatic Association and a member of the Executive Committee of the Reading Room, an early version of the town library. Beyond the school, he was active in politics, winning election as a representative of the Connecticut General Assembly and serving as a delegate of the State Constitutional Convention of 1902.

MARY GUNN BRINSMADE , 1902.

“For me, there was a person in my life and the lives of scores of others who was a saint and always will be, and that was Mrs. Brinsmade. She was a devoted and understanding wife; the most wonderful mother one can hope for; a teacher of skill; a nurse of complete compassion, and, perhaps most of all, a human being who would listen, comfort, and advise with complete honesty,”

John M. Lockwood, Class of 1930, wrote in “Memories and Notes About The Gunnery.”

JOHN BRINSMADE , second Head of School. He “was a school master from the day he arrived in Washington,” attorney S. Howard Armstrong P’65 wrote in a letter to the editor of The New York Times, published November 4, 1930. “He succeeded the famous Frederick Gunn as head of the Gunnery School and for many years carried on a tradition in education as advanced for its day as the work of Dr. [Thomas] Arnold at Rugby.”

The Brinsmades also embraced Mr. Gunn’s love of fun. Through the 1880s, The Stray Shot recorded a stream of social activities, including musical and theatrical performances, “whist clubs” for playing cards, receptions, dances, summer bonfires in the Grove, summer picnics at the lake, the Pinnacle, and Steep Rock. Students were engaged in musical and sketch clubs, a debating society, singing school, dancing classes, chess tournaments, and ice fishing. They started a newspaper and

LATER IN LIFE

“We have put our lives, all that we have and are into this school, and we are not permitted to lay it down while life lasts,” Mary Brinsmade wrote to Hamilton Gibson on January 3, 1921, after negotiations for the sale of the school nearly fell through. “I am still feeling the burden of the care, and I would love to have you and Brooke fill our places.”

From The Biography of Frederick Gunn

In 2022, the school reprinted The Master of The Gunnery in a new paperback edition under the title, The Biography of Frederick Gunn What follows is an excerpt from the chapter, The Home Life, in which James P. Platt, Class of 1868, remembers Mary Gunn Brinsmade, the daughter of Frederick and Abigail Gunn.

“We grew from early childhood, side by side, and were nearly of the same age,” Platt wrote. “Mary — in those days, a cheerful, lighthearted, frolicsome little maiden, with childish ways that were ever tempered by a vein of womanly dignity as sister and companion taught every boy with whom she was associated the lessons that a sweet girlhood always impresses, and to-day she carries on her shoulders the burden of perpetuating at the Gunnery the genius and character inherited from her parents. It is largely due to her efforts that the effects which Mr. Gunn wrought did not perish when his body was laid at rest upon the western slope of that sun-kissed hill; and, as an old boy of the sixties watches the genial sweetness and equable serenity that beam through her glasses now, he lives again his boyhood days and sees her mother’s spirit still hovering over the Gunnery, warming every chill with its glow and tempering all commotion with its calmness.”

instituted an Athletic Association. The Stray Shot editors noted in 1885: “secret associations have been and still are in vogue, taking the place of the Debating Society and Cooking Club of the last.” Fraternities on campus followed, beginning in 1889.

The school was run as a family business, as reflected in John Brinsmade’s letterhead circa 1903, which read: “The Gunnery: A Family School for Boys.” In 1906, The Gunnery formally became a college preparatory school when Brinsmade declared the school “will take no more day scholars except for those who wish to go to college and who have obtained all the preparation they can.” In 1915, the school was incorporated and its directors were John and Mary Brinsmade and five alumni: Fred Brinsmade, Rossiter, William E. Wheelock, Class of 1869, Irving H. Chase, Class of 1874, who became a Connecticut Senator, and Lewis H. Bronson, Class of 1896.

Three years later, the Brinsmades began corresponding with W. Hamilton Gibson, Class of 1902, inviting him to come to Gunn from the Berkshire School with his wife, Brooke.

Negotiations continued over the next several years, and various plans were debated until Gibson’s purchase of the school was finalized in 1922.

Mary Gunn Brinsmade, age 10, with her brother, Dannie Gunn, who was four years older and died in 1865 at the age of 16.

WARM WELCOME

The Frederick Gunn School is pleased to announce the appointment of a new member of the Board of Trustees.

JOSH FEIL ’98 served as Vice President of the Feil Organization, a familyowned, New York-based, real estate management company with over 26 million square feet of assets under management. Josh’s work at the Feil Organization focused primarily on residential development, property management, and energy efficiency initiatives. Before his work at the Feil Organization, Josh was an analyst at RCG Longview, a New York-based real estate opportunity fund, and North Fork Bank. He is a 2002 graduate of Hamilton College.

Josh and his wife, Nell Solley, have deep family connections to the Gunn community and the town of Washington. Josh’s father, Jeffrey Feil, was a Trustee from 2005 to 2009. The Solley Dining Hall is named in celebration of our first female Board Chair, Virginia Hamilton Solley de Sieyes Risley deCourcy, a relative of Nell’s and one of our most generous benefactors. Additionally, Nell’s aunt, the late Pamela Solley P’96 ’96, served as a Trustee from 1995 to 2012.

Josh and Nell have two daughters, Olivia and Layla, and reside in Stamford, Connecticut. In Josh’s free time, he enjoys many outdoor pursuits, including sailing with fellow Gunn alums Spencer Meyer ’96, Jesse Terry ’97, and Pete Feen ’99.

FOND FAREWELL

The Board of Trustees expressed its admiration and gratitude on behalf of the entire Frederick Gunn School family to Daniel Troiano '77, who retired in April after serving as a Trustee for nine years.

Dan has long contributed to, and wisely counseled, multiple committees, including the Finance Committee, the Campaign Steering Committee, and the Alumni & Development Committee.

In addition, his generous support of pivotal and transformational projects on campus were influential in the school’s expansion.

Dan holds an MBA from the University of New Haven and has enjoyed a distinguished career in the world of business and electronics. A long time professional in the aerospace industry, he worked with Sikorsky Aircraft Company and Ducommun, Inc. Since 2010, he has served as President Emeritus of NEA Electronics, a company he co-founded and subsequently sold to Ensign-Bickford Aerospace & Defense, the global leader of non-explosive release mechanisms for mission critical space applications.

Dan has leaned on his entrepreneurial savvy and experience in advising The Frederick Gunn School and his voice is well respected among his fellow Trustees. The Board extends best wishes to him for many happy endeavors and rewarding experiences in the years ahead.

SPOTLIGHT ON GUNN PARENTS

We recently caught up with Adele Pellicane P’25 to ask about her family’s experience at Gunn. Adele works in sales and advertising and is an active member of the Parents Council who generously gives her time and talents to both the Student Life and Faculty & Staff Appreciation committees.

A regular contributor to Faculty Appreciation Fridays, she coordinated a special gift of Gunn holiday-themed cookies for faculty and staff in December and has supported initiatives for students, including exam care packages and Play4theCure.

Adele and her husband, Tom, live in Long Beach, New York, with their older daughter, Candice, and son, Jake Pellicane ’25, who earlier this year brought the Shoulder Check initiative to Gunn and shared his experience with the entire school in his Junior Speech. Shoulder Check was founded by Rob Thorsen, whose 16-year-son, Hayden, a hockey player who attended Darien High School, died by suicide in May 2022. The organization is making an impact at the local high school level and with the support of the National Hockey League, by seeking to inspire “a culture of support through small actions that have big impact. Like a hand on a shoulder that lets you know you’re not alone.”

According to Shoulder Check: “1 in 4 young adults experience a mental health crisis each year. The risk remains high amongst youth athletes, as they face added pressure to perform at the individual and team levels. That’s what Shoulder Check is all about. It’s a commitment to reaching out, checking in and making contact with those around you. A Shoulder Check is something everyone can do — in locker rooms, in the halls, on and off the ice. It’s as simple as a ‘Hey, how’s it going?’ to ensure the person next to you feels appreciated, supported and loved.”

Q:

Why did you choose The Frederick Gunn School?

The opening to look at prep schools came through athletics. Jake was very clear that he wanted to be in a small school. He wanted a school that had good athletics, but also good academics, and he wanted a school that felt like a community. We toured a couple of schools and the minute he

saw Frederick Gunn he said, “This is where I want to go. This is it.” We let him kind of drive the decision. And for us, it’s a little over two hours to get there, so we can come up and go to a bunch of his events, hockey and lacrosse games.

Q:

What was your experience like once Jake was on campus?

His first year at the school, Jake had a lot going on. One of his close friends took his own life before Jake moved away, and another close friend was hit by a car in January, right after Christmas Break. It was seven months apart. He was still processing Hayden’s death. We were trying to manage supporting Jake but also giving him the space to process his losses and continue to acclimate to school and boarding life. I knew it was the right place when his teachers, coaches, faculty, teammates, and classmates rallied around him, giving him the Shoulder Checks he needed and making me feel it was OK to not be up there. The communication between the school and me and my husband was amazing. I was trying to figure out how to let Jake branch out on his own and develop the independence to be on his own.

That’s why I got involved in the Parents Council. It was a way to support the students and the faculty. Hannah Alley-Keller and Ashley Judson ’16 and the whole alumni team have been great. I get to feel like I have my finger on the pulse of things and not have Jake feel like, “Why is my mom in the middle of everything?” And it’s fun things that I can help them with, whether it’s Play4theCure or the exam care packages, or teacher appreciation. I have a new respect for boarding school teachers, because Jake’s dorm parent is also his assistant coach for hockey, and his college counselor is also a dorm parent. I don’t think people realize, they never stop working. If you’re on campus and it’s off-hours, you’re still a representative of the school.

Q:

How has Jake grown in his time at The Frederick Gunn School?

Gunn has been a great fit for him. One of the things that I’ve noticed is he’s definitely matured. To see him be more selfreliant and self-sufficient is great, but also I feel he’s more appreciative of things. The things that he takes notice of now when we are with him are interesting and all of the people I’ve talked with say, “Oh! Jake is your kid!” It’s always positive. We were always told he was like a silent leader. Here he is taking younger kids under his wing. I’ve always called him an old soul. He’s never been that outlandish kid. It’s been nice to watch him grow into who he is.

Q:

What are your hopes and dreams for Jake?

Honestly, it’s going to sound kind of clichéd, but my hopes and dreams are that he is happy and fulfilled in whatever direction he wants to go in. He’s a bright and brilliant person, and whatever path he chooses, he will excel in it. He has a beautiful heart. An example of this is Jake's initiative to take something important to him, like Shoulder Check, bring it to the school, and help spread the word to help others. Jake also contributed to an article written by Joe Nathan, Co-Director of the Center for School Change in Minneapolis, who writes

for local Minnesotan newspapers, to bring attention to the initiative to schools out there. My hopes and dreams are that whatever path he chooses, that he continues to go through life in the lens of love and compassion, and he’ll excel in anything. I think with his experience at Gunn, I could see him being an educator. This Winterim, he went to the local schools and he said he really enjoyed it. I could see him being a prep school teacher and coach.

Q:

Why do you choose to volunteer with the Parents Council?

I volunteered to be connected and support Jake and the school in ways that made sense. It wasn’t to keep an eye on him, because half of the stuff I do there, he is really not involved in it. I would ask him if there is anything else the kids want in their exam care packages, just because I want to get some feedback. Being fairly close I'm able to help out — whether it's stuffing care bags or snacks for games. When I'm up at school for these things I don't expect Jake to go out to dinner with me all the time. My husband Tom jokes with me, “You drive five hours and see him for five to 10 minutes afterward.” That's all I need. My goal is to watch him play and just give him a hug after the game.

Jake Pellicane ’25 and his mom, Adele P’25, at The PO

HIGHLANDERS RETURN HOME FOR FIRST ALUMNI HOCKEY GAME IN FOUR YEARS

ON FEBRUARY 10 , 18 alumni whose graduation years spanned four decades returned to campus to play in the Alumni Hockey Game, which was held at Linen Rink for the first time since 2020. Participants included Logan Adams ’15, Jen Archer ’11, Cam Barbieri ’15, Bill Boguniecki ’90, Jack Cary ’18, Desiree Biron Casian ’06, Marc Cibelli ’13, Connor Dahlman ’16, Cam Donaldson ’16, Chris Fonte ’93, John Fonte ’93 P’24 ’26, Jake Kantor ’15, Charley Kellogg ’84 P’25, Patrick Street ’06, Gus Wollenberg ’09, and Aidan Zabit ’17.

Teams were led by player-captains Shane Gorman ’10, Assistant Coach for Boys Varsity Hockey, and Julie Petrillo ’18, Assistant Coach for Girls Varsity Hockey. Among the spectators were: Michael Hespos ’84, Art Lobdell ’82, Mark Magnoli ’74, Justin Vangor ’00, Talia Zabit ’19, Paul Zabit P’17 ’19, Jill Zabit P’17 ’19, and Mary Fonte P’93 ’93 GP ’24 ’26 Current faculty members Bart McMann, Director of the Center for Citizenship and Just Democracy, and Kent Burnham, Director of Theatre Arts, along with former faculty member Jim Balben joined the alumni teams on the ice. Afterwards, alumni, families, and friends enjoyed lunch and a family skate at the rink, and were invited to stay to cheer on the Girls and Boys Varsity Hockey teams as they took on Greenwich Academy and Lawrenceville School, respectively.

For the Fonte twins, who grew up in nearby Southbury, Connecticut, hockey has remained a constant throughout their lives, and Linen Rink feels like home. “We started our hockey careers playing for Washington Youth Hockey, so The Gunnery was our first rink that we played at as kids. We spent many late nights there, skating and learning to play hockey, so it’s really been a part of our lives since we were about 11. That was probably one of the main reasons we attended The Gunnery in high school,” Chris said.

“We still play hockey, obviously. It’s something we’ve kept up. When I was in the UK, I was playing on a club team. It’s something that we do together when we’re able to see each other, and the alumni hockey game was an extension of that,” said Chris, who currently lives on Long Island.

The Gunnery was our first rink that we played at as kids. We spent many late nights there, skating and learning to play hockey, so it’s really been a part of our lives since we were about 11." — Chris Fonte ’93

Leading up to this year’s game, John and Chris attempted to wrangle some of their former teammates, including Bill McIntosh ’90, who returned to play in 2019, his brother, Jack McIntosh ’92, who was inducted into the Athletic Hall of Fame in 2012, and Eric Boguniecki ’93, who graduated from Westminster and played in the NHL. Eric's brother, Bill, who did return this year, scored two goals.

This year’s event was made more special because John's children, Emily ’24 and Jack ’26, got to see him put on a vintage Gunnery jersey and cheer him on as an alumnus playing at the school they now attend.

“I certainly enjoy going back to play because they’re in school and they like to come watch and be a part of their father coming back to campus.” said John, who lives in Woodbury, Connecticut. “For myself and Chris, too, The Gunnery was a very critical portion of our lives and our maturing. We have very

fond memories of being at The Gunnery, even more so than the college level. I love coming back, and we’ll continue to do so. It’s just a wonderful place to be.”

Chris said one of the best experiences that has come from having his niece and nephew at the school has been seeing the transformation of the campus. “Certainly the game is great, just to be able to play and skate at The Gunnery again. That certainly brings it back, but really just walking around campus, walking down that hill from the Field House to the rink, that’s ingrained in our memories. We used to play baseball down there, and then, of course, the football field, where we spent most of our fall days — that certainly brings back a lot of memories. Athletics has been so important to us throughout our lives. Two years we won the New England Championships on the football team. It was in the Hugh Caldara era, so that was fun. But really, John’s kids going to school there, and being able to walk around and see a lot of the fantastic new buildings, it’s really quite a sight to see.”

Left: Alumni and current faculty wore vintage Gunnery jerseys for the game. Above: John Fonte ’93 P’24 ’26 and Chris Fonte ’93 with The Gunnery banner; and Charley Kellogg ’84 P’25 with his daughter, Poppy Kellogg ’25, who ran the scoreboard (see Class Notes, page 64).

HIGHLANDERS GATHER ACROSS THE COUNTRY

ALUMNI ENJOYED CONNECTING with each other and catching up on the latest news from campus at Highlander gatherings across the country, beginning with our annual holiday receptions in Washington, D.C., Boston, and New York City in December.

Head of School Emily Raudenbush Gum met with alumni in San Francisco and Los Angeles, California, at receptions on January 30 and February 1, and Arne Rees, Director of Entrepreneurship, spoke at an alumni event in New York on March 27, to discuss the Entrepreneurship Program and share his plans for the future.

Gunn is global! In anticipation of the 175th anniversary of the school, alumni who are living internationally are encouraged to update their contact information at frederickgunn.org/alumni or email us at alumni@frederickgunn.org.

To view more photos from our alumni events, please scan this code:

The relationships, the connections, the community that sustain Frederick Gunn School graduates are unique.”

HEAD OF SCHOOL EMILY

GUM

RAUDENBUSH

YOU'RE A GUNNSPIRATION

THIS YEAR’S I ❤ FRED CHALLENGE was one for the record books. In 48 hours, 667 alumni, parents, friends, students, staff, and faculty members came together to invest $120,256 in celebration of the traditions at the heart of this vibrant community. It was one of the most successful I❤Fred challenges in eight years, securing the highest number of donors and dollars.

We are #GUNNSPIRED by you! A heartfelt thank you to …

❤ The nearly 300 students, faculty, and staff who gave.

❤ The alumni class with the highest number of donors: Class of 1990, led by Class Agent Laura Eanes Martin ’90 P’20 ’23 ’25, who will carry the class banner to the summit when she joins School Walk in October!

❤ The Class of 2024, which won the student-faculty challenge — with 82% participation!

❤ The class year with the highest percentage of donors: Class of 2027 — thank you, parents! And congratulations on scoring a pizza party for your students!

❤ The 62% of current students who participated.

❤ And 100% of faculty who participated – for the first time ever!

#GUNNSPIRED Traditions

As part of this year’s #GUNNSPIRED event, alumni and parents were invited to post photos and share stories about their favorite Gunn traditions on a Kudoboard. Here are just a few of their heartwarming reflections.

An alternative return I think I used at least once (it was a longer distance, although flatter) was to follow the old railroad bed through Hidden Valley until it emerged on Route 47 near Washington Depot.”

Phil Dutton ’81 P’23 shared photos of the Stray Shot, which he and Hal Kuhn ’81 were “motivated to protect” from potential thieves.

Charlie Baum ’71 reflected on the route he and his fellow Highlanders followed from campus to Mount Tom for School Walk in the late 1960s and early 1970s. “Some former Rumsey Hall students liked to cross the Bantam at Romford and go through their alma mater on a back trail up to the mountain.

“I have fond memories of The Waterbury Project, where we assisted disadvantaged children, an activity Mr. Gunn would have endorsed,” wrote Gary Wingfield ’74, who was looking forward to celebrating his 50th Reunion on campus in June. “The annual School Walk was a refreshing activity. Of course, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention The AudioVisual Club, an activity that I enjoyed immensely.”

“As a Gunn alumni-parent, my favorite tradition is move-in day. It’s a day of swirling emotions the strongest of which is pride,” wrote Ray Whitney ’87 P’24. “Of all Gunn traditions, perhaps ‘Legacy’ is the strongest…”

Want more #GUNNSPIRATION?

Scan the QR code to view our Kudoboard.

Honoring Our Founders Society

THE ANNUAL FOUNDERS SOCIETY Celebratory Dinner, held April 26 at Conroy House, honored our school’s most generous donors and the unique opportunities their gifts have created for Frederick Gunn School students and faculty.

“This is a particularly wonderful Founders Dinner because it is the launch to the celebration to open The Lizzie & Jonathan Tisch Center for Innovation & Active Citizenship,” said Head of School Emily Raudenbush Gum, who recognized Trustee Emeritus Jon Tisch ’72 for “showing up for this school, not just philanthropically, but as a friend and mentor.”

She spoke about Frederick Gunn’s expertise in teenagers, and his belief in their ability to impact the world around them, which is reflected in the daily work of the school today. “It makes our educators, who have devoted their lives to this place, driven to know our kids well, and to not let them ever settle for a life that’s less than what they have to offer. That’s the magic that’s happening at our school, and it’s hard not to be proud of that when you really stop and think about the impact that’s going to have on the communities that these students are going to go into,” she said.

“Gunn has provided me with an environment that encourages growth and learning,” Zhang said. “Thank you for your generosity, support, and belief in our potential, empowering us to pursue our dreams with confidence and determination. As we step into the next chapter of our lives, may we continue to honor your legacy by striving for excellence, embracing new challenges, and making a positive impact on the world.”

Last year, 88 percent of the overall total given to The 1850 Fund, or $1,594,453, came from Founders Society donors. “We would not be here without the generous support of everyone in this room,” said Board Chair Patrick Dorton ’86. “We ended the fiscal year last year with a record-breaking $1.8 million in our annual fund and unrestricted gifts from over 1,300 donors. That’s a 37 percent increase just in the last four years, and most of our donors now have given for three or more consecutive years. So there’s very much been a change in the philanthropic culture around the school.”

As we step into the next chapter of our lives, may we continue to honor your legacy by striving for excellence, embracing new challenges, and making a positive impact on the world.”

– Gunn Society Co-President Yoyo Zhang ’24

One of the highlights of the event, she noted, was the opportunity for Founders Society members to talk with and hear directly from students, including Head Prefect Bea Flynn ’24, Head Prefect-Elect Gordon Bennett ’25, and this year’s Gunn Society Co-Presidents: Caroline Marich ’24, who plans to study political science at the University of Mississippi in the fall, and Chengyue “Yoyo” Zhang ’24, who plans to major in mechanical engineering at Tufts University.

Growing up at Gunn as a faculty child, Marich had an opportunity to witness the physical transformation of the campus and form close bonds with students, faculty, and alumni. “I am so excited to see how I can continue to stay involved in this community as I switch over and become an alumna,” she said.

“To be here tonight with four Board Chairs in attendance, Steve Baird ’68, Jon Linen ’62, Gerrit Vreeland ’61, and our current Chair, Patrick Dorton, says a lot about our community,” Tisch said. “It says even though you might not be in a specific role anymore, you still deeply care. That’s why I believe all of you are here. You have some connection to this school. For some of us it goes back a few years; for others it’s a bit more recent. But the connection is strong and the connection is emotional. What you are doing for this institution is vital. It’s important, and deeply appreciated.”

“The Founders Society remains one of the most important giving societies because of its annual impact on the health of Gunn,” said Trustee Paul McManus, Jr. ’87 P’21 ’23. “I want to thank you for realizing the importance of supporting The 1850 Fund with a leadership gift. You are the leaders in our community. I hope you all consider renewing your support, but more importantly, reimagining your support during this critical time at the school. We have a lot of upward momentum. It needs to be sustained.”

If you are interested in becoming a Founders Society member, please visit our website or scan this QR code with your mobile device:

THE PODCAST

A Conversation With Patrick DePeters ’06 and Tucker Paron ’19

ON FEBRUARY 1, PATRICK DEPETERS ’06, an entrepreneur and founder and CEO of The Latitude, an executive coaching platform that aspires to provide training, mentorship, resources, and community for entrepreneurs of any age or income level, returned home to Connecticut and visited Gunn. While on campus, DePeters met with Bart McMann’s Citizen Gunn class and was interviewed by two students in Civic Journalism and Media Making, Matis Molina Ricard ’24 and Karl Hammer ’25, for an episode of The Highlander Podcast.

In their conversation, DePeters mentioned a new project he was starting, a podcast called Quiet Leaders (find it on YouTube @thelatitudeio), which tells the stories of unsung heroes who have one thing in common: strength of character. The first episode DePeters recorded featured another alumnus, Tucker Paron ’19, who earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in data science from the University of Vermont, and through persistence and determination, fulfilled his dream to play for the college’s NCAA Division 1 Men’s Soccer Team in 2023.

Although their paths at Gunn were separated by more than a decade, and they live nearly 3,000 miles apart, DePeters and Paron share some unique connections. Both grew up in Woodbury, Connecticut, and attended Gunn as day students.

As a college student, DePeters also worked for Paron’s father, Thomas P’13 ’19, a successful entrepreneur who became a role model and mentor, instilling in him an entrepreneurial philosophy that has guided DePeters throughout his career.

When Things Don’t Go According to Plan

As a sophomore at the University of Richmond in 2008, DePeters’ plan to work on Wall Street as a summer intern was derailed by the financial crisis. So he returned home to Woodbury and with a college friend began advertising their services as “Two Men and a Truck.” Tom Paron hired him to mow his lawn in Woodbury, a project that took him four days

to complete, and then he essentially had to start over again.

“Two weeks in, I started talking to Tom. As I remember, he asked me what I was listening to while I was mowing the lawn. I said, ‘I’m listening to Freakonomics and Bloomberg Radio,” said DePeters, who earned his bachelor’s in business administration and leadership studies at the University of Richmond, and later, took classes in the Innovation and Entrepreneurship Program at the Stanford University Graduate School of Business.

As luck would have it, Tom Paron had an asset management firm in Southbury, and that same summer hired DePeters as an intern, which helped him stand out when he returned to college and began applying to banks and Wall Street firms. He and Tom Paron also forged a connection that has remained strong for more than a decade, and it was Paron who challenged him to start a podcast.

“I’ve always really liked Tom, not only because he’s an awesome guy, but also because he’s super wise, and over the years, whenever I have encountered any kind of crossroads, or even just want to hear about how he and his family are doing, we have a catch up,” DePeters said.

It was after one of those “catch ups” that Tom Paron sent DePeters a link to a news clip

that aired in September 2023 on WCAX-TV, the CBS affiliate in Burlington, Vermont. It featured Paron’s son, Tucker, who after four years of hard work had become the newest addition to the UVM Men’s Soccer Team, ranked fourth in the country by a United Soccer Coaches poll in fall 2022.

At the individual level, we have more agency than many of us assume, to take action, to in some small way contribute. That, in a way, is the central idea behind Quiet Leaders. You don’t have to be Jeff Bazos to make an impact.”

– Patrick DePeters ’06

Paron had played soccer since the age of three, including four years at Gunn, and although he was not recruited to play in college, he was not ready to give up on his dream. After being accepted to UVM, he set a goal to become the best player on the club team as a freshman, which he thought would allow him to walk on to the men’s team the following year. After he was cut from the club team his first year, he came back more determined than ever. He earned a spot on the club team as a sophomore, and as a data science major, was offered an opportunity by one of his professors to work with UVM Athletics. He provided teams including men’s soccer with analytics to help guide their strategy on the field. Paron leveraged that opportunity to build relationships with team members and coaches, and in his

senior spring, he landed a roster spot, along with a coveted Catamount jersey. He would later receive from his coaches, Brad Cole and Rob Dow, the Hal Greig Award, presented “to the player who, through his desire, hustle, and love the game, does the most for the Vermont Men's Soccer program.”

“There was a lot of emotion. I was happy that this thing I’d wanted for so long came true and I got to share that moment with my teammates,” he told WCAX-TV.

Redefining Success

Paron still lives in Burlington, and is now working for a start-up called Biocogniv, Inc., using AI to help detect sepsis in hospital patients, and identify those who have an increased risk of developing sepsis, a potentially fatal complication from an infection. The medical technology received Breakthrough Device Designation from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in April 2023.

Since doing the podcast together in February, he and DePeters have remained in contact and talk often about things like the value of education, character, risk-taking, being curious, and being open to learning and trying new things. Ultimately, their experiences have taught them to value the process more than the outcome, and both are focused on

making an impact on the world around them.

“I think we really connected. We just matched up really well. We’ve been in touch pretty frequently since then,” Paron said, describing the work that DePeters is doing with Quiet Leaders as very important, because he is essentially praising people who are “doing things for the greater good.”

DePeters’ career path took him from his first job working on Wall Street to a career in investment banking in London to serving as the Chief Financial Officer and co-founder of BondIt Media Capital, a specialty finance company for the film and entertainment industry. He moved to Los Angeles to work with Highlander Matthew Helderman ’07 at BondIt Media and its sister company, Buffalo 8 Productions, and successfully raised over $35 million before selling control of BondIt Media to a Canadian company. (See the Bulletin Fall 2018.)

“The role that Thomas played for me as a mentor was, I think, defined in part by him having a broad view. That was encouraging for someone, certainly in their 20s, to take some risks and not worry so much about the path that everyone else seemed to be pursuing, or on,” DePeters reflected, noting that he saved one particularly helpful piece of wisdom from an email from Paron. “He was telling me about how, when he was my age, he did a cross-country road trip and essentially

Left: Tucker Paron ’19 in a training session at UVM; and above, shaking teammate Andre Millar's hand after being awarded his roster spot.

slept in his car sometimes, and just explored and adventured. I found that quite encouraging, because he was saying, ‘Look, you have an incredible education, and you have an enormous amount to offer. So if you have a dream, and you want it, you should take a chance.’”

His definition of success is also something that stems from his conversations with Tom Paron, who wanted three things for his children: “He wanted to give them enough, and especially their education, so that they could be happy. They could have purpose and fulfillment, and then the last one was to be productive. He was essentially giving the stamp of approval as a mentor/parent that the definition of success is an internal one,” DePeters said, adding, “It’s about what you want and where you’re going to thrive. It landed for me and it still lands for me, because I think it’s right.”

experiences of trying can get you closer to the thing that you’re meant to do, which is how I feel about Latitude and Quiet Leaders.”

... you have an incredible education, and you have an enormous amount to offer.

Both Highlanders recalled the many teachers, coaches, dorm parents, and advisors who were positive influences during their time at Gunn, as well as experiences that continue to resonate with them today. “The most important thing that I think it taught me, and I think this is common, is just to be more independent,” Paron said. “You also learn how valuable it is to be part of a community like that, to have a group of people you connect with and share values with and share meals with, and how important that is to living a happy life.”

So if you have a dream, and you want it, you should take a chance."

He reflected on the fact that his last project, a direct-to-consumer pet food company driven by technology, did not achieve the outcome he expected. “But I learned so much from the process of failing in the traditional sense. I don’t think I failed in the sense of one of my core values, which is personal growth and learning. All these

DePeters agreed, adding: “Being encouraged to try new things, whether that’s a new sport, a new domain like the arts – I was Peter Quince in A Midsummer Night’s Dream because I lost a poker bet — it was a great experience. Being a tour guide was actually extremely helpful to me. I can easily talk to just about anyone.”

Left: Thomas Paron P’13 ’19 with Tucker at his graduation from UVM; and below, Patrick DePeters ’06 turns to nature when he needs to reboot.

ON THE ROAD

Rees Shad ’83 Talks About Making Music and His RV Trip With Michael Eanes H’90 P’90 GP’20 ’23 ’25

Rees

Shad ’83 never seems to slow down.

Inducted into the Arts & Letters Hall of Fame last June (see the Gunn Bulletin, Fall 2023, page 53), the prolific singer-songwriter has been busy touring with his band, The Conversations, promoting his latest album, The Galahad Blues, and working on new projects, including one that inspired an RV trip around New England with former Head of School Michael Eanes H’90 P’90 GP’20 ’23 ’25 last fall.

As a student, Shad remembers viewing Eanes respectfully, from a distance, and sought out the counsel of his wife, Susan Eanes H’91 P’90 GP’20 ’23 ’25, whose office door was always open if students wanted to stop by and chat. When Shad married Pamela Kleber ’81 at the Congregational Church on the Green in Washington, the Eaneses were in attendance, and the couples remained friendly at alumni events through the years.

BY

PHOTO

ED RODE

I’m a storyteller with music. If you ever hear my music, you’re going to hear a lot of different stories about a lot of different people that I meet, or a lot of people that I imagine.”

Then in November 2022, Michael Eanes noticed that Shad was posting on Facebook about a cross-country trip he had taken by train. Shad had traveled via Amtrak from Boston to Chicago, and continued west to Portland, Oregon, and then Emeryville, California, where he visited his son, Dylan, before heading back home to Great Barrington. Along the way, Shad posted scenic pictures from Michigan, North Dakota, California, Utah, Colorado, and Nebraska. Eanes reached out to him via email to learn more.

“I’m intrigued by train travel and had done a train trip in Canada. I wanted to talk to him about it,” Eanes said. “I had lunch with him and Pamela in Great Barrington. We were talking about trips and trains and vacations. I mentioned that I had done an RV trip and he just about jumped out of his seat.”

Shad explained to Eanes that his plan was to travel across the U.S. by RV, with the goal of finding interesting people to interview as inspiration for a “modern American songbook.” Eanes had already traveled by RV with another friend, Loren Hickman, who lives in San Francisco, and Shad offered to help with some of the driving on their next trip. “By the end of that conversation, we got very excited and we decided to test it out on a New England trip,” Shad said.

In October 2023, the trio rented a “decked out” 32-foot RV in Ellington, Connecticut, and set off on an eight-day excursion that took them to New Hampshire, where Hickman had family, and Maine, where they met up with Jeremiah Lowengard ’82 and Kirsten Johnson ’82, who now goes by Leyli. “We had a lovely dinner in Freeport together,” Shad said.

“One of the things that Michael said right off the bat was, ‘We like a five-star hotel in our RV,’” Shad said, admitting, “It was a little bit of a bear to drive. You’re very close to the lane lines on either side of the vehicle, so you have to be very, very careful not to drift. More so than any other driving

experience that I’ve had, you kind of turn off the radio and you ask people not to talk to you. It’s just like, ‘I need to pay attention right now,’ especially when you’re on the highway. But it’s an amazing way to travel. It’s a lot of fun.”

There were nights when the three men prepared dinner in the RV’s small kitchen, after which Shad would pull out his guitar and work through some of his songs while they sat around the campfire. “Rees and Loren got along really well. Loren was interested in Rees’ music a lot. The whole thing went well,” Eanes said, pointing out that Shad is a self-taught guitarist. “It’s amazing. I can’t believe he remembers all of the words to all of the songs he sings, and all of the songs he’s written – hundreds.”

From their trip, Shad has already interviewed two people for his project. “I’m a storyteller with music. If you ever hear my music, you’re going to hear a lot of different stories about a lot of different people that I meet, or a lot of people that I imagine,” he said.

He is pursuing grants that will allow him to go back on the road and gather more interviews for his songbook. “It’s sort of a grandiose name, considering how wonderful the real American songbook is,” he said, referring to the collection of jazz standards and popular songs by composers such as Irving Berlin, Cole Porter, George

Loren Hickman, Rees Shad ’83, and Michael Eanes H’90 P’90 GP’20 ’23 ’25 at Portland Head Light last fall

Gershwin, and Richard Rogers. “But it’s also very dated and represents a part of America that really kind of ended in 1950.”

The goal of his project is to discover what the American songbook is today. “We hear about just how divided this country is, but when I travel the country, I don’t really see that. I see people who have a difference of opinion on points A, B, and C, and the rest of life is much more of a blend; it’s much more of a conversation,” he said. “Whatever story I hear in there is going to turn into a song, and in the long run, it will be a collection of songs about people from across the spectrum, and across the country, that reflects what this nation is today.”

IN THE MEANTIME , Shad is continuing to promote his current album, The Galahad Blues, which debuted in March. He was touring with The Conversations through June, when the band was scheduled to record yet another album, which Shad has already written. It is scheduled to be released in January 2025.

The Galahad Blues is “a kind of reinterpretation of the Arthurian legends and midcentury Gangland Chicago. The knights aren’t noble. They’re thieves and gangsters, so it flips the narrative on its ear,” Shad who partnered with Christine Bump of Big Elm Brewing Company in Sheffield, Massachusetts, to produce a Galahad Blues Ale, after trying to imagine what characters from the album would have been drinking in a speakeasy in the late 1930s and 40s.

Raised in New York City, Shad wrote his first song at the age of four and music was an important part of his experience at Gunn. He would put together bands for concerts and dances, and his senior page in the 1983 Red and Gray includes photos of him playing guitar and singing, along with a reference to Sweetfish Records, Inc., the record label he created at the outset of his career.

“One of the things I remember Michael telling me at the first alumni weekend that I came to was, ‘You know,

the place is a lot quieter without you and your band playing every weekend,’” Shad said, laughing as he added, “It was, I think, what made Pamela pay attention to me. She wasn’t a groupie but she definitely was attracted to the guitar player in the band.”

Aside from meeting his future wife, Shad has fond memories of his time at the school, including an independent study project that allowed him to pursue yet another of his childhood interests: archeology. Shad worked at what is now the Institute for American Indian Studies (IAIS) in Washington with Dr. Roger Moeller, who taught at Gunn from 1975-1982 and was Director of Research at IAIS.

“I was, you know, itemizing, sorting, and doing pretty mundane archaeology work but that is so necessary to the whole process. Then one Wednesday, Doc walks in. He goes, ‘Hey, we’re going up to Sheffield. They found a mammoth. I dug up a couple of mammoth tusks with him. I actually got to present at a conference. It was an extraordinary experience,” Shad recalled, pointing to the archaeology program, established earlier by the late Ned Swigart P’82, one of the founders of IAIS, as the reason he chose Gunn.

Moeller, who now lives in Bethlehem, Connecticut, has spent more than 50 years researching, presenting, and writing about archeology in New England, and said the mammoth tusks were initially discovered by a man who was digging a pond for his cattle using a backhoe. “All of a sudden he saw this white log. It wasn’t a log. It was a piece of a tusk. He called the archaeology institute,” Moeller said.

The find, which they presented at the Middle Atlantic Archaeological Conference, included five tusks and slabs of leg bones, as well as preserved seeds, which were even more valuable as they provided clues to the surrounding ecosystem.

Moeller recalled that Shad was one of quite a few students at Gunn who were very interested in archaeology and anthropology. Although they did not pursue those subjects in college, it was something that “got them interested in learning.”

Shad also developed close bonds with Ed Small, who taught him algebra and became “another parent;” the late Hugh Caldara, who was hard on him as a student but became a friend; and the late Pamela Taylor, his fearsome English teacher, who had a lasting impact. After graduating from Gunn, Shad earned a bachelor’s degree in English literature from Skidmore, a master’s in communication from Rensselaer, and two additional master’s. He became a college professor and author as well as a musician.

“I love meeting new people and I love learning new things,” Shad said. “I think that was instilled at the Gunn school.”

Above: Shad with his future wife, Pam Kleber ’81, in the 1983 Red and Gray; and the cover of his latest album, The Galahad Blues

Read All About It

By Ian Rathkey, World Languages Faculty

ACROSS

1. Myth states that this only grows on the north side of trees

5. Word after nail or ankle

10. Org. for Lydia Ko and Michelle Wie

14. **{p.20} With 22-Across, host of the 1932 and 1980 Winter Olympics

15. Parisian goodbye

16. Those who might opt for platonic affection only, informally

17. Memphis record label for Otis Redding

18. Kingdom

19. Jeans maker Strauss

20. Heartless character of classic film

22. See 14-Across

24. “That’s clear to me now”

26. Water color

28. Wrath

29. **{p.33} Band with the hit song “Smooth” that was number one on 12/31/1999 (sorry, Prince!)

31. Needs for some int’l students wanting to study in America

33. Rowing machine, informally

34. 2013 film about a snail that acquires super-speed after being sucked into a supercharged engine

36. Certain hair product

37. **{p.21} Central American country with no standing military (1 of 2, actually!)

40. Sound after entering a hot spring

42. Bourguignon or bolognese

43. Automated social media poster

46. Actress Ronan of “Lady Bird” and “Little Women”

49. **{p.16} Simulation used to teach students diplomacy, in brief

51. Tip pct., e.g.

52. Early version of software

54. “Anything!”

55. **{p.4} “___ McGuire,” early 2000s Disney comedy starring Hilary Duff

57. Early responders to a news scene

59. Soothing succulent

60. Female frenemy in “Calvin and Hobbes”

62. Word after Rocky or Silk

65. “The Dutch House” author Patchett et al.

66. Up, on a scoreboard

67. Emmy-winning “Breaking Bad” actress Anna, or what the features in this issue referenced by the answers to the starred clues are all about

68. Partner of greet

69. "Moby Dick", for one

70. “I’d Rather Go Blind” singer James

DOWN

1. Org. that Lionel Messi currently plays in

2. Ingredient paired with raisin in a common cookie

3. Bad thing to be doing on thin ice

4. Like policies that would be prohibited by the proposed Equal Rights Amendment

5. Lists of ales and apps

6. What a lightbulb can represent

7. “The Princess and the Frog” protagonist, Disney’s first (and only) Black princess

8. What unagi is in sushi

9. Hubbub

10. “___ Land,” 2016 musical that infamously was wrongly announced as winning Best Picture

11. Exact

12. Start trending, say

13. Words that break the fourth wall

21. “Far out!”

23. Loo

24. Atlanta to Miami dir.

25. Rowing equipment

27. It may be needed to vote

30. Kit of brushes and pencils

32. World tennis number one Swiatek

35. Sound at a petting zoo

37. ___-Town (hub on Lake Michigan)

38. Words of resignation

39. Popular wood for making furniture

40. “Winnie-the-Pooh” author

41. Dangerous area due to the outbreak of war or disease

43. Extinguished, like birthday candles

44. Parisian yes

45. Explosive inits.

46. Common greeting in North Africa

47. Offensive baseball stat

48. Playground device that is also a simple machine

50. Surface, as from the water

53. Completely puzzled

56. Baking flavoring

58. Glass container for an apothecary

61. Sound from someone thinking

63. Protagonist of “A Bug’s Life,” e.g.

64. Double-helix molecule

A Lasting Legacy

PETER BERGEN ’84 has given back to Gunn as a loyal alumnus and supporter for more than 30 years. He has served on The Gunnery Council, as a Class Agent, Reunion Chair, and member of The Founders Society. In 2022, he chose to become a member of The Underhill Society by choosing to include the school in his estate plans.

“I’ve served as an ambassador for a lot of things for a lot of years. This was an easy way for me to leave a more significant gift as a legacy,” Peter said.

“I’ve served as an ambassador for a lot of things for a lot of years. This was an easy way for me to leave a more significant gift as a legacy.”

Oftentimes, people associate estate planning with a certain age group. But as Peter said, “There’s no age in which to do this. That’s hard to believe when you’re thinking of estate planning, but it’s really more

of a reflection on the overall experience, and this allows an alternative way of giving back to the school.”

“It was really the best experience overall in my life, other than marriage and the birth of children, in the sense of what I got out of it. It allowed me to learn leadership, it allowed me to discover my strengths, and weaknesses, and the class was phenomenal. I think our reunions demonstrate that. It changed a lot of people’s lives.”

Consider making a gift to the school as a lasting legacy like Peter Bergen ’84. All alumni, parents, and friends who have The Frederick Gunn School in their estate plants and alert the school are honored through the H. Willets and Samuel Jackson Underhill Bequest Society.

For more information, please contact Bill Curren at currenb@frederickgunn.org.

IN MEMORIAM

The Frederick Gunn School Community is saddened by the loss of many cherished alumni and sends its condolences to their friends and families:

Mr. R. James Latimer, Jr. ’47 1/16/2024

Dr. Roberto E. Chaskel ’66 1/20/2023

Mr. Andrew Y. Rogers, Jr. ’61 P’87 1/24/2024

Mr. Adam H. Bernstein ’69 4/20/2020

Mr. Richard H. Todd ’74 1/21/2007

Mr. John B. Walker, Jr. ’87 3/22/2024

Mr. William B. Webb ’74 8/13/2022

Mr. William J. Affinito ’86 10/23/2023

Mr. Brian D. Hawkins ’89 10/26/2023

Mr. Samuel K. Chionuma ’05 7/27/2023

Andrew Y. Rogers, Jr. ’61 P’87,

a much-loved and dedicated alumnus and Former Trustee, passed away on January 24, 2024, at his home in Florham Park, New Jersey. A loyal friend and supporter of Gunn,

Tony served two terms as President of the Alumni Association, from 1974 to 1977, was a member of the Board of Trustees from 1974-1976, a Class Agent, and Reunion Committee member.

Born in New York City, Tony graduated from The Buckley School in 1956, and was enrolled at Andover before arriving at what was then The Gunnery as a sophomore in January 1959. “At Gunnery, the way he felt about it, I think he grew into who he was meant to be. He loved his teachers, and he wasn’t an academic person, but he found a place where he learned to learn. And he loved the coaches,” his wife, Judy Rogers P’87, recalled. “The same was very true of our son. It was those relationships with adult people helping you to grow up, learn who you were and how to relate to other people, and be part of a community and be responsible in a community.”

AT GUNN, TONY was a member of the Athletic Council, a junior and senior monitor, and a three-sport varsity athlete in football, basketball, and baseball. He served as secretary of the Student Council his senior year, was elected captain of the Varsity Baseball Team, and was awarded both the Gunther Football Cup and The Gunnery Athletic Cup.

Following his graduation, Tony earned a bachelor’s degree in sociology from Dickinson College, where he played varsity football and served as captain of the varsity squash and golf teams. He was named most valuable player in golf and squash as well as vice president of the Athletic Council. He was a member of the Skull & Key, a junior honorary society, and Raven’s Claw, a senior honorary society, serving as its president. He was also president of Beta Theta Pi fraternity and director of the Intramural Sports Program.

From 1966-1968, Tony served in the U.S. Army, and then began a long and successful career at J.P. Stevens & Co., Inc., which was then the oldest diversified textile company in the world. Tony served as a vice president and national sales manager before moving on to C.S. Brooks Corporation in New York, where he was vice president of marketing, and then to Springs Industries and Fashionaire Home Products.

Following his retirement in 2003, Tony continued to be actively involved at Dickinson, serving as a class agent, and

a member of the alumni council and steering committee. In 2023, he was named to the Dickinson College Hall of Fame in recognition of his athletic talent and devotion to the school’s athletic programs.

“He was just as happy at Dickinson as he was with The Gunnery,” said his friend and classmate, former Board Chair Gerrit Vreeland ’61, who recalled that Tony was eager to share his experience at Dickinson with Gunn students as they began their own college process. “When those students met Tony, they saw Dickinson through the prism of his eyes, and if Tony recommended a student, the people at Dickinson had that much confidence in them.”

“He so loved the school and Dickinson that he wanted to facilitate others having the same experience he had, which was going from here to there and thriving. And he loved Gunn sports, so he was drawn to finding athletes who would thrive at Dickinson,” said Associate Head of School Seth Low P’26, adding, “When a kid went from here to there, Tony became a lifelong mentor to that person.”

“He loved The Gunnery,” recalled Jeff Marsted ’60, who in 1974, asked Tony to succeed him as President of the Alumni Association. “I knew it was a good choice because other people liked him and he was close to the school. He was popular with most everybody. He will be missed. He was a good athlete and he had a lot of friends. I think he would like to be remembered that way.“

Like many Highlanders, Gerrit and Tony became friends soon after they met as students at Gunn, and remained close through college and the rest of their lives. Gerrit was a member of Tony and Judy’s wedding party in 1965. He and Tony helped to plan the 25th and 50th reunions of the Class of 1961, and together became the namesakes of The Vreeland-Rogers Athletic Awards, the highest athletic awards bestowed at Prize Night. The awards were established in 1998 as a way for both of their names to be permanently attached to Gunn.

In addition to his wife and children, Andrew Y. “Beaver” Rogers III ’87 and Elizabeth (Rogers) Hall, Tony is survived by four grandchildren and his three siblings. A memorial service was held on February 3.

Ten Minutes With Betty Hagymasi

THIS IS BETTY HAGYMASI’S 20th year of teaching chemistry. The milestone was made even sweeter in January, when Hagymasi moved into her new classroom on the second floor of The Lizzie. When she first saw it, she was moved to (happy) tears, and has said the airy, light-filled space feels like a treehouse.

Now in her third year at Gunn, Hagymasi teaches all levels of chemistry and was named the holder of the Anne and Henry Zarrow Chair in Math and Science in September. “She puts her heart and soul into everything she does,” said Kori Rimany ’14, who coaches JV Field Hockey with Hagymasi in the fall. “To me, she embodies exactly what it means to be a hopeful faculty member.”

In the summer, you can still find Hagymasi teaching. She trades her periodic table and Bunsen burner for a first aid kit and a whistle in her role as a lifeguard instructor for four private summer camps in Northwestern Connecticut. She and her husband, Seth, and their children, Molly and Tommy, live off campus.

What is your favorite Gunn tradition? My favorite Gunn tradition is Mountain Day. I love the fact that everybody goes and does something that takes them outside of their element during a time of year when everyone has a tendency to stay inside. When you’re on the mountain, the only thing you can focus on is what’s in front of you. It’s such a unique opportunity to this school that’s just so much fun!

What is your favorite lesson or day of the academic year? Halloween is, far and away, my favorite time of year. There is so much

Education

> BA in chemistry Skidmore College

> MA in science education New York University

Honors and Accolades

> Anne and Henry Zarrow Chair in Math and Science, 2023-2026

Current Responsibilities

> Teacher, Chemistry, Honors Chemistry, AP Chemistry

> Head Coach, JV Field Hockey

> Assistant Coach, Boys and Girls Varsity Skiing

> Advisor

> Leader, Professional Learning Community

chemistry going on around Halloween. We learn about chemiluminescence, fluorescence, and phosphorescence. I call it The “Escence” of Chemistry: A Day in the Dark. It is usually a pretty great day. My philosophy on teaching is that kids will remember things that they experience. I really try to make chemistry come alive in the classroom. Even if all they remember is that if you take a glow stick and put it in hot water, it will glow brighter, I will be very happy!

Who has been your greatest influence? My mother taught me to be a better human as well as to be a better teacher. She was an early childhood educator professor. I would sit in the back of her classroom and watch her teach. I knew growing up that was what I wanted to do. I wanted to teach. I wanted to have an impact. I wanted to see smiling faces and those “aha” moments. It has truly been a dream of mine, more so than anything else.

What is your favorite expression? Grades do not define who you are and who you are going to be in life. It’s what you do with the feedback that matters.

What would you say to Mr. Gunn if you had the opportunity? I’m very grateful for the values that he set for the school. I truly do believe a good human is always learning. I truly do believe that getting outside and experiencing learning is important. I also think it’s important to build trust, because we only can grow if we feel like the environment that we’re in is comfortable.

OFFICERS 2023-24

Patrick M. Dorton ’86

Board Chair

Wanji Walcott P’19

Vice Chair

Beth W. Glynn

Secretary

Ashleigh Fernandez

Treasurer

TRUSTEES 2023-24

Stephen W. Baird ’68

William G. Bardel

Robert Bellinger ’73

Kevin Bogardus ’89

Sarah Scheel Cook ’82

Jon C. Deveaux

Natalie H. Elsberg P’25

Josh Feil '98

Adam C. Gerry P’21

Emily Raudenbush Gum

Head of School

Sherm Hotchkiss ’63

Timothy Jackson P’24

Thomas R. King ’60

Jonathan S. Linen ’62

Damien Marshall P’24

Paul M. McManus, Jr. ’87 P’21 ’23

Bonnie A. Pennell ’86

Missy Cuello Remley ’87

Krystalynn Schlegel ’96

Omar Slowe ’97

Richard N. Tager ’56

Robert M. Tirschwell ’86

Rebecca Weisberg ’90

ALUMNI ASSOCIATION EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE BOARD OF TRUSTEES

BULLETIN Spring 2024

The Frederick Gunn School Bulletin is produced biannually (spring and fall) by the Marketing & Communications Department. Send alumni news to: classnotes@frederickgunn.org.

Editor

Jennifer Clement P’22 ’25

Associate Director,

Strategic Communication & Marketing clementj@frederickgunn.org

Chief Strategy Officer

Doug Day dayd@frederickgunn.org

Chief Development Officer Alumni & Development

Sean Brown P’22 ’27 browns@frederickgunn.org

Chief Enrollment Officer

TRUSTEES EMERITI

Steven P. Bent ’59

Leo D. Bretter ’52 P’88

Jonathan Estreich P’06

Edsel B. Ford II ’68

Joan Noto P’97

Jonathan Tisch ’72

Gerrit Vreeland ’61

Laura Eanes Martin ’90 P’20 ’23 ’25 President

Omar Slowe ’97 Vice President

Scott A. Schwind ’89

Krystalynn M. Schlegel ’96

Suzanne Day days@frederickgunn.org

Design

Alison Wilkes / alisonwilkes.com

Printing

David Emery ’73, GHP / ghpmedia.com

West Haven, Connecticut

Send address corrections to: alumni@frederickgunn.org or visit gogunn.org/alumni or write Alumni & Development

The Frederick Gunn School 99 Green Hill Road, Washington, CT 06793

THE FOUNDERS SOCIETY recognizes The Frederick Gunn School’s most generous annual donors who make leadership gifts of $1,850 or more. Alumni who have graduated in the last 15 years who give at least $925 are also recognized as Founders Society members.

Starting July 1, 2024: THE EVERGREEN SOCIETY honors our most loyal donors who have made gifts of any size to The 1850 Fund for three or more consecutive years.

THE UNDERHILL SOCIETY pays homage to our most philanthropically-minded alumni, parents, and friends who have included The Frederick Gunn School in their estate plans. Their generosity will provide critical future resources, ensuring that Mr. Gunn’s School thrives for generations to come. The society is named in honor of H. Willets Underhill ’31, a long-time trustee and benefactor of The Frederick Gunn School, and in memory of his brother, Samuel Jackson Underhill ’35, who was lost in combat during World War II. Together, and with the help of Samuel’s wife, Margaret, they bequeathed gifts totaling $2 million to the school.