2002 October Harker News by The Harker School

OCTOBER 2002 (VOL. 9, NO. 1)

M O N T H L Y

N E W S L E T T E R

F R O M

T H E

H A R K E R

Siddarth Satish, Gr. 9, thinks that the seniors are really nice and the food is great. Serena Liou, Gr. 10, is glad she is not a freshman anymore! Munazzah Javid, Gr. 11, feels older and likes having a laptop. Brian Chow, Gr. 12, has “senioritis,” and Adi Goradia, Jonathan Louie and Debrorah Tu agree that they are excited to be graduating this year!

FRIDAY, OCT. 18TH PAL Stadium (see web site for directions)

7:00 p.m. Homecoming Pre-Game Show 7:30 p.m. Varsity Game Admission: $5 per person Alumni Free! (see pg. 16)

top stories Bucknall Tamagawa visitors arrive for taste of American West ....... 7

Saratoga - MS Middle School launching new and exciting academic trips ... 9

Saratoga - US US Service Day and other commmunity service news .. 12

important dates Fri., October 11 Gr. 9-11 Service Day Mon., October 14 Columbus Day - No Classes Fri.-Sat., Oct. 21-25 Gr. 6 in Yosemite Mon.-Wed., Oct. 28-30 Tamagawa Student Visit Thurs., Oct. 31, 2:45 p.m. Bucknall Halloween Parade

S C H O O L

Harker Students Enthusiastic about New School Year!

Mark your calendars and don't miss the 2nd Annual Harker Homecoming!

Mark Tantrum

est. 1893 • K-12 college prep

There was lots of excitement as students arrived on campus for their first day of the 2002-03 school year. Upper school students star ted their year with matriculation and orientation on Aug. 26th, the middle school students began classes on Aug. 27th and our Bucknall students had an exciting first day on Aug. 29th. Some of the students were asked what the best thing was about their grade level this year, and here are some of their responses: On the Bucknall campus, Claire Brendenoord, Gr. 5, is glad to not have to use the “tag boards” anymore, and Yash Khandwala, Gr. 5, likes the fact that he won’t have to wait in line this year before being dismissed from the lunch tables. Payal Modi and John Patrick Doherty, both Gr. 2, are happy to be learning cursive this year. And Matthew Harris, also Gr. 2, was most excited that his Sept. 10th bir thday was already written on the white board! Amanda Pennell, Gr. 3, said having lockers was the best thing about 3rd grade, and Ollie Peng, Gr. 3, was happy to have a binder for the first time, adding that his father had bought if for him the night before. Eileen Wu, Gr. 6, is most happy to be a member of the “oldest” class on campus and Patrice Lin, Gr. 6, likes the 6th grade teachers. The MS students enjoyed coming back to see all their friends and teachers. In the 7th grade, Ariel Gaknoki enjoys relying more on

herself rather than teachers, and Hayley Steele likes the navy blue uniforms. Alissa Kawahara likes the bigger campus and thinks that sports will be more competitive at this age. All 3 of these girls are excited about all the clubs and the social events, such as dances that will keep them busy! In the 8th grade, Young Byun, a new Harker student, likes the food and enjoys being the “biggest” people in the middle school! Grayson Hurd thinks they have the best football coaches and likes having Coach Calli for P.E. Anne Giomi is excited about the 8th grade trip to Hawaii and having lockers in Shah Hall, and Andrew Hospodor thinks science is very interesting this year. In the US, students didn’t waste a minute catching up with all their friends and shared these thoughts about their class this year:

Welcome to the new school year, everyone, and thanks for sharing your thoughts with us! See more photos on pgs. 2 and 3

Remembering September 11th The entire Harker community observed a minute of silence and reflection on Sept. 11th to honor the memory of those who died in the events surrounding Sept. 11, 2001. In his announcement, President Howard Nichols noted, “This is also an appropriate opportunity to reflect on the precious freedom we enjoy in this great country— a freedom that has come only after great toil and sacrifices throughout our history.” Where appropriate, our faculty, advisors and counselors provided our students with support and oppor tunities for discussion.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Welcome to Harker's 110th year! We’ll be sharing items from our archives (see back page) thoughout the year to celebrate this historic occasion. We're also delighted to publish our 2nd edition of the Alumni Update (pages 16-19). With Homecoming just around the corner, our new Alumni Office has been getting lots of e-mails, photos and notes from Harker alums, many of whom will be at Homecoming this month. We hope to see you all there, too! —Pam Dickinson, Director Office of Communications Remember to check the Parent Home Page for detailed calendars, updates and additional news between editions of the Harker News!

to school

Mark Tantrum

Back

Welcome to all of our new students in the 2002-03 school year! Marco Abellera • Maia Adar • Anishka Agarwal • Nikita Agrawal • Rahul Ahuja • Alexander Alonzo • Alyssa Amick • Jeremiah Anderson • Peter Auvil • Priscilla Auyeung • Sharon Babu • Oishi Banerjee • Arjun Banerjee • Nikhil Baradwaj • Madison Beine • Ravi Bhandia • Rishi Bhandia • Shwetha Bharadwaj • Raghav Bhardwaj • Zoe Bhargava • Neyha Bhat • Tiara Bhatacharya • Killashandra Biesele • Olivia Bigazzi • Jeremy Binkley • Michael Bloch • Nathan Boone • Madeline Bourquin • Lucas Bruketa • Yeun Byun • Young Byun • Karena Chan • Tara Chandra • Ryan Chang • Patricia Chang • Vikram Chari • Maya Chatterjee • Denaly Chen • Albert Chen • Mercedes Chien • Nirav Chitkara • Zoey Chopra • Philip Chu • Carissa Chu • Jessmyn Chung • Isabella Conrad • Christopher Creary • Ethan Cutler • Ashley Dang • Anjana Dasu • Nandini Datta • Kiran Deen • Rahul Desirazu • Nikhil Dilip • Igor Dulkin • Nina Duong • Roohi Ebrahim • Stefan Eckhardt • Shenel Ekici • Katia Elisman • Maxim Elisman • Sara Eslinger • Sarah Estrada • James Feng • Jonathan Friedland • Vlad Furman • Vamsi Gadiraju • Grant Getzan • Corey Gonzales • Ida Gorshteyn • Paris Grabeel • Vishesh Gupta • Neil Gupta • Michaela Halpern • Christian Halvorsen • Wilson Haung • Sebastion Herscher • Melanie Herscher • Matthew Ho • Benjamin Ho • Catherine Ho • Timothy Ho • Thomas Holford • Matthew Hong • Caroline Howells • Eric Hsieh • Jessica Hsueh • Christine Hsueh • Allen Huang • Kevin Hwa • Srivinay Irrinki • Nikhita Iyar • Leena Iyar • Anika Jackson • Salmaan Javed • Muzammil Javid • Jason Ju • Alexandra Ju • Kritika Kailash • Kristin Kaiser • Divya Kalidindi • Varun Kamat • Joshua Karnes • Mayur Kashi • Sanketh Katta • Curran Kaushik • Charisma Kaushik • Brennan Kee • Michael Keller • Allison Kerkhoff • Derek Keung • Eunice Kim • Amanda Kim • Jonathan Kim • Michael Kim • Izabella Kipnis • Meera Kler • Jagdeesh Kottapalli • Sidhart Krishnamurthi • Arjun Kumar • Neha Kumar • Joshua Kwan • Calvin Lam • Madeline Lang-Ree • Daniela Lapidous • Diana Le • Lenna Lederman • Sophie Lee • Brian Lee • Justin Lee • Bernie Lee • Theodore Lee • Tao Lei • Matthew Leong • Elliott Leung • Noah Lin • Daisy Lin • Tiffany Lin • Spencer Lin • Tiffany Liou • Max Lipscomb • Eric Liu • Michelle Lo • Rachel Lo • Stephanie Lu • Clara Lyashevsky • Yash Mahajani • Emma Rose Malysz • Divya Mandava • Avinash Mandava • Amulya Mandava • Molly Mandell • Daniel Mao • Delaney Martin • Joshua May • Roshni Mehra • Amritha Minisandram • Ben Montrym • Keerthana Moudgal • David Murdter • Rasta Musick • Juhi Muthal • Sarah Nader • Somon Nader • Alexander Najibi • Gail Nakano • Maya Nandakumar • Mohini Narasimhan • Christopher Nasser • Jasmine Nee • Craig Neubieser • Chris Ng • Nicholas Nguyen • Andrew Nguyen • Chau Nguyen • Daniel Nguyen • Kelly O’Reilly • John Ollila • Phillip Oung • Anisha Padwekar • Michelle Pagnon • Sean Pagnon • Daniel Pak • Kevin Pan • Jaya Pareek • Nikita Parulkar • Aamir Patel • Elissa Patel • Aalok Patel • Jordan Peetz • Sriram Prakash • Piyush Prasad • Ajit Punj • Dylan Qian • Derek Quach • Alan Quach • Maximilian Quertermous • Govind Raghunath • Nishadh Raghupathy • Nikhil Raghuram • Ariq Rahim • Varun Ram • Akshay Ramachandran • Aeshna Raman • Zainab Rangwala • Namita Ravi • Arvind Ravinutala • Sindhu Ravuri • Jay Reddy • Vivek Reddy • Rahul Reddy • Mark Roh • Eric Roxlo • Thomas Roxlo • Nina Sabharwal • Neil Sadhu • Zaynah Sadiq • Jianna Salinas • Johanna Sambyal • Urvashe Sameer • Nicolas Sancen • Katy Sanchez • Saagar Sarin • Maya Sathaye • Priya Sathaye • Siddarth Satish • Awen Saunders • Supna Saxena • Pooja Shah • Ankita Shah • Neil Shah • Saurabh Sharan • Rishi Sharma • Ankur Sharma • Sophia Shatas • Lucy Shen • Wendy Shwe • Shrestha Singh • Paloma Solorio • Eugenia Sorotokin • Rahul Sridhar • Sangeetha Srinivasan • Ruchi Srivastava • Michelle Stack • Aleksandra Stepanenko • Jayasree Sundaram • Sapna Suresh • Deanna Surma • Joseph Swernofsky • Sarah Swernofsky • Sarah Syrett • Priya Takiar • Ishan Taneja • Sarah Taylor • William Thomas • Thomas Tiernan • Shizuka Tiernan • Lauren Titus • Trent Titus • Sheridan Tobin • Andrew Tran • Andrew Tran • Gabriela Triant • Viet Trinh • Nephele Troullinos • Michael Tsai • Deborah Tu • Sachin Vadodaria • Chetan Vakkalagadda • Ariane Vartanian • Sabena Vaswani • Abhinav Veerina • Harish Venkatesan • Jacqui Villarreal • Christine Vu • Alexandra Walker • Cameron Walker • Gillian Wallin • Timothy Wan • Julia Wang • Joseph Wang • Diane Wang • Michael Wang • Johnny Wei • Jeremy Whang • Zoe Woehrmann • Kathryn Wolfson • Alexandra Wong • Victoria Wong • Gene Wong • Alber t Wu • Natasha Wu • Daniel Wyleczuk-Stern • Benjamin Yang • Shilpa Yarlagadda • Tyler Yeats • Richard Yee • Christine Yeh • Aditya Yellapragada • Eric Yu • Brendon Yu • Kelly Yu • Rachel Yuan • Alyssa Zachariah • Andrew Zhang • Christopher Zhang • Apik Zorian

to school

Mark Tantrum

Back

We also welcome these full-time staff and faculty to the community: STAFF Shena Bachman, US College Counselor; Rosemarie Balani, Finance; Diane Bick, US Counselor; Joseph Gill, Asst. Head Non Academics; Patricia Jenecke, Admin Asst.; Peg Krumbach, Admin. Asst.; Lin Ng, Dir. Community Service, Sub & French Intern; Lori Philipp, Admissions.

FACULTY FINE ARTS: Pilar Aguero-Esparza ENGLISH & LANGUAGE ARTS: Bina Barnabas, Ruth Benson, Monica Crane, Marcie Gilbert, William Hawks, Paul Lukes, Alexandra Mattraw FOREIGN LANGUAGE: Therese Delamarche, Anita Gilbert, Sandra Murillo, Paul Pickering, Deborah Martinez, Kumi Matsui SCIENCE: Lorna Claerbout, Ilona Davies, Violeta Grigorescu, Holland Lincoln, Timothy Woods MATHEMATICS: Carlynn Keilty, Danae Romrell PERFORMING ARTS: Sarah Lougheed, Monica MacKinnon, Susan Nace, Mark Vail HISTORY: Ruth Meyer COMPUTER SCIENCE: Campbell Miller

Thanks to all our students in the Buddy Program! Once again Harker 4th - 8th graders participated in a program designed to welcome new students to the school. Selected Harker students are connected with incoming students, and during the summer the Harker buddy writes and calls the new student to make him or her feel welcome and answer any questions. They also join them for a special pool party and come early to orientation to help the new students find their homeroom, locker and classrooms. During the first few weeks of school the buddies are asked to check in daily with the new students to be sure that they have no questions or problems, eat lunch with them a few days a week, introduce them to

their friends and generally help them find their way around campus. Jamie Woolsey, Gr. 7, enjoys being part of the program since it is fun knowing all the new people in her class. Hayley Steele, also Gr. 7, wanted to be a buddy because when she was new, she had an “awesome” buddy and wanted to be able to do the same for someone new this year. David Linder, Gr. 8, thinks it is fun because you get to show people around and get the “feeling of doing a service for Harker.” His Gr. 8 buddy, Andrew Tran, “is cool” and David is happy to have made a friend! Thanks to all 110 of our Harker students who helped make our new students feel welcome. It’s going to be a great year!

EVENT

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Kicko d n e t t A 5 7 ver 4

There were also ongoing showings of the “Four Cornerstones” video in the faculty dining room, and lots of relaxed conversation and “getting to know you” time between new and returning parents, and our

Parent Book Sale The 2nd Annual Used Book Sale was another great success, with over 100 families participating in the June and August events where students sold and/or purchased used textbooks from fellow Harker students.

of other parents, including a number of teachers. Thanks again!” Thanks to all of YOU for attending, and we wish you all a wonderful year!

“It was a wonderful evening of getting to know one another,” said event organizer Bill Bost. Parent Sue Prutton agreed and sent us this e-mail: “We came to the Kickoff on Friday and had such a lovely evening that we just wanted to thank you for all your hard work. It was such a relaxed and pleasant way to start the new school year, and we got to meet lots

Mark Tantrum

The 2nd Annual Parent/Teacher Kickoff Party was another great success with over 475 in attendance. It was a balmy evening in the quad at the Saratoga campus, with tiki torches, “mood” music, wine-tasting stations and beverages and snacks. A special thanks to Harker parents Vonda and David Reid for their donation of pies from Marie Callendars!

administrators and faculty. The evening came to a close with a raffle ticket drawing for the private “Monopoly in the Park” game event, which was won by veteran Harker teacher John Near, AP U.S. history teacher and department chair.

2nd Annual Harker Homecoming

Mark your calendars and don't miss the 2nd Annual Harker Homecoming! Fri., Oct. 18th PAL Stadium (see Web site for directions)

7:30 p.m. Varsity Game, Harker vs. Valley Christian-Roseville Admission: $5 per person, alumni free! (see page 16)

Pam Dickinson

This year all 7-12 grade singing ensembles will perform the Star Spangled Banner and Harker Anthem before the game! These groups are Harmonics, 7/8 grade choir, Show Choir, Bel Canto, Guys Gig and Cantilena. We'll also have the adorable mini-Eaglettes from Bucknall, the US cheer squad and the Harker Pep Band to keep us in the spirit…as well as a special cheer by some of our very own teachers. The halftime show includes finals of the Class Tug of War, presentation of the Homecoming court and the crowning of 2002 King and Queen. Don't miss it - Go Harker! See you at the game!

Mark Tantrum

7:00 p.m. Homecoming Pre-Game Show

faculty Editor’s Note: For teachers, summer is a time for rejuvenation, selfimprovement and preparation for the coming school year. Many of our teachers also work in the Harker Summer Program or in summer fellowship and internship programs to gain additional skills . Here are just a few examples of some of the exciting ways our faculty spent their summers to expand their horizons and bring new knowledge, skills and programs to your students this year! ■ Dr. Rand Harrington, chair of the US science department and physics teacher, spent a week at MIT with physics professor David Pritchard working on the online physics tutorial program called Cybertutor. Dr. Harrington and Prof. Pritchard are also working on a joint grant proposal to the National Science Foundation to develop online tutorials specifically for high school physics courses. ■ US British literature teacher Beverly Manning went to China over the summer to immerse students in English language and American culture. ■ US music teacher Cathy Snider, was the musical director for Foothill Music Theatre’s “On The Town” by their award-winning theater company. This is Snider’s 9th show there.

summers ■ Gr. 6, 7 and 8 Spanish teacher Deborah Martinez went to Spain this summer, collecting literature and material in preparation for the Harker school year. One of her preparation activities was collecting food packages and boxes (cereal boxes, milk cartons, juice cartons) in order to show students how food is packaged in Spain. She also took extensive photos of street and billboard signs. ■ MS athletic director Theresa “Smitty” Smith helped ensure our Harker athletes came back from summer vacation ready for fall sports! She helped run the Eagle Iron Club conditioning program and ran open gym volleyball. ■ US Latin teacher Lisa Masoni attended a workshop on spoken Latin at the University of Kentucky. “It was an immersion program; I had to sign an oath promising to speak nothing but Latin for the ten days of the workshop. It was fabulous!,” Masoni said. ■ MS history teacher Cyrus Merrill spent his summer visiting many of the sites he teaches about in his Ancient History course to improve his knowledge of the curriculum. Among the sites he visited were neolithic excavations in Mesopotamia, Egyptian trade sites and locations along the Silk Road. Merrill said that he was able to get

Small World for Harker Teacher and Student

Mark Tantrum

Kristen Janiak, a Gr. 5/6 math teacher at Harker, spent her summer working for an outdoor adventure company, where she spent six weeks backpacking with a group of 11 teenagers on the Big Island of Hawaii. “During my four-day backpacking trip to the Waimanu Valley with my group, the craziest thing happened. We were camping on the north side of the Waimanu River, and we were supposed to exit the Valley by backpacking south 9 miles. That morning the river had risen so high that it was over our heads, and we weren’t sure how we would be able to get all of our gear over the river. Two fathers and their sons were across the river trying to help us come up with a plan. Our resources were a sur fboard and some rope. So the boys set up a system that would involve pulling my participants across the river on the sur fboard. I was extremely nervous about having my participants put their heavy backpacks on and cross the river this way. However, one of the boys volunteered to ride the board with all 12 of our packs. After we all successfully crossed the river, we discovered that the boy helping us was Brian Thurgate, a sophomore at Harker. I tell ya, small world!” —Kristen Janiak

tours from several museum directors and archeologists at the various locations and brought back many examples and even a few relics to share with his class. “I even got to help assemble an ancient sculpture at a site in the high mountains of Turkey,” he said.

Harker Teacher Chosen Nationwide

■ US English teacher Judith Conant Steinbach taught English literature and composition in England for seven weeks at TASIS, The American School in England.

US biology teacher Maria Diaz was the only teacher chosen from the state of California to join 17 other selected teachers from around the U.S. and four representatives from Singapore to participate in the Leadership Institute in Human and Molecular Genetics this past summer.

■ MS teacher Henry Cunningham attended a seminar at Santa Clara University entitled Spotlight On the Middle, a seminar focusing on middle school-age students. “Some of the most memorable workshops I chose were about using picture books (middle schoolers are not too old!), creative vocabulary instruction and the mind of a middle schooler,” said Cunningham.

The intensive three-week workshop was funded by The Pfizer Foundation and conducted at the Dolan DNA Learning Center (DNALC) of the world-renowned Cold Springs Harbor Laboratory in Cold Springs, New York. Noted scientist James Watson, who shared the Nobel prize for the discovery of the structure of DNA, was one of the speakers.

■ US Japanese teacher Yukiko Konishi attended the Asian Studies Conference Japan at Sophia University in Tokyo, a three-day conference of lectures, discussion and research presented by college professors on Asian literature, linguistics, sociology and politics.

On attending the workshop, Diaz said, “It was the highlight of my life as a biologist/ geneticist.” She plans to integrate bioinformatics in the discussion of DNA structure and function and evolution, and she will also be using the biotech labs that she learned there in her work with the students at Harker.

■ US programming teacher Mark Micek took a networking course over the summer. ■ Lin Ng, US community service coordinator and French intern, attended her first summer of three summers at UC Santa Barbara to earn her MA in French. “For six weeks I was allowed to use only French, except to my husband and family, of course, and I improved unbelievably!” she said. ■ US teachers Marc Hufnagl and Nicholas Manjoine attended a workshop at the Center for Digital Storytelling in Berkeley to learn how to write, shoot, edit and produce digital film to incorporate this medium into their classrooms. ■ US psychology teacher Ray Rogoway is on the development team for the Golden State Examination in Physics, which is an honors exam for California high school students. Over the summer he helped hand score the lab section of 152,000 exams. Rogoway also attended a one-week intensive workshop on the teaching of AP Physics. ■ Gr. 3 language arts teacher Ruth Benson completed the final course

for her CLAD Certification (CrossCultural Language and Academic Development) through UC Santa Cruz to add to her multiple subject CA certification in education. ■ US math teacher Steve Earth taught the History of Math course for the Johns Hopkins’ CTY (Center for Talented Youth) site at Stanford. Earth noted that there were several Harker students who attended the program. ■ US Spanish teacher Susana Hartzell attended the AP Spanish literature conferences at Stanford. Har tzell explained that beginning this year the exam will include works of 38 required authors. ■ A number of our US teachers were asked to be AP readers over the summer. Cindy Morgan, AP Modern European History exam reading in Lincoln, Nebraska; Fred Morgan, AP U.S. History exam reading in San Antonio, Texas; Robb Cutler, AP Computer Science exam reading in Clemson, South

faculty

■ Lee Carter, US history teacher, attended a one-week AP U.S. Government & Politics seminar course, designed to help prepare teachers to improve the skills and

Bill Barnes

Carolina and Judith Conant Steinbach, English Language and Composition exam reading (and faculty consultant) in Daytona Beach, Florida.

summers

Brigid Flanagan explains a Harker digital video project to a conference attendee ■ US chemistry and physics teacher Hem Navangul attended a two-week Physics Modeling Workshop at the University of North Carolina, Greensboro, and will be rteturning to UNCG twice this year for updates. ■ US computer science teacher and sophomore class dean Robb Cutler attended the California Association of Student Councils Summer Conference at UC Santa Barbara with three Harker sophomore student council officers: Najm Haque, Erika Gudmundson, and Samheda Singh. ■ MS math teacher and dept. head Cindy Kerr was hired as a consultant by a local company to write teacher support materials for 6th, 7th and 8th grades. The materials are in the “proof” stage and will be out on the national market soon. Kerr said, “I have always wanted to produce materials and was ver y excited to ‘get my feet wet’ this summer, and it was a lot of fun, too!” ■ MS teacher Mark Gelineau taught a summer school course on the literature of film and television. “It was a junior high literature class that looked to television and movies instead of books for analysis,” Gelineau explained. A professional television critic, novelist and television writer were also used as resources for the students in the class.

knowledge of the students. Carter also worked extensively to build the records within the Chester database, built last summer by a team of Harker teachers. The database is a collection of supplemental readings, photos and art for students and teachers to access. ■ US math teacher Evan Barth received a professional development grant from Harker to write a course text for the Introduction to Engineering class he designed and taught last year and will teach this year. According to Barth, the text parallels the course in that it provides an introduction to statics, economics of engineering and energy use and conservation. Throughout all the units there are “real-world” examples and projects for the students to study and analyze.

■ Gr. 4 language arts teacher Marcie Gilbert worked for The International Math and Science Study (TIMSS-R) analyzing and comparing secondary ed/teaching cross-culturally. The study involves videotaping and analyzing teaching practices in more than one thousand classrooms in various countries. Gilbert explained that she was the U.S. research associate and worked with representatives countries the study is interested in because they are leaders in secondary school math and science education: Czech Republic, Japan, Australia and the Netherlands. “I've also always had a hand in Hollywood—I directed a show this past summer in Hollywood and completed a project for television. So please keep your fingers crossed and knock wood and all that good stuff,” she laughed. ■ A number of Harker teachers participated in programs through IISME, a nonprofit committed to improving education by placing educators in local industry for eightweek summer fellowships. Gr. 4 science teacher Giresh Ghooray participated in a program sponsored by IISME and RET (Research Experience for Teachers) at Stanford University's CPIMA program, which involved conducting experiments on the relaxation time of polystyrene particles at a decane/water interface. “I enjoyed being part of a research team and gaining insight about research at the university level,” said Ghooray.

■ Laura Miller, director of K-8 instructional technology, attended the National Educational Computing Conference in San Antonio, TX.

US French teacher Nicholas Mangione worked at Intel writing technical documentation for the Itanium 2 processor, an enterprise chip used for software developers at companies that make operating systems. “This was my first summer in this program, and while it was a great experience, it also confirmed for me how much I love teaching,” said Mangione.

■ US chemistry teacher Bob Dowling worked for Web Assign, an online homework delivery and feedback company, editing and checking questions for high school and college chemistry texts…including the text we use here at Harker for regular chemistry. The company is a leader in its field (especially in the sciences) based at North Carolina State University.

Gr. 5 Math teacher Pat Walsh is a veteran of the IISME program. Having spent two previous summers as an IISME fellow working at Intel and Micro Metallics, he took a position this year at Silicon Valley Bank’s corporate headquarters, where he spent eight weeks researching and writing materials for the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award. Besides working on the assigned

tasks for sponsoring companies, fellows are given time to work on a project to bring back to their students. Walsh said his fifth graders are going to be using PowerPoint to build presentations that correlate with the fifth grade math curriculum based on his ETP (Education Transfer Plan). “I’ll freely admit that given the choice between spending an afternoon sitting next to a cold mountain stream or contemplating the complexities of Dr. Deming's industr y quality vision, I'd opt for the former,” laughed Walsh. “However, the project work I have done through IISME has been interesting, relevant and skill enhancing. I have greatly improved my technical capabilities and have brought projects back to Harker that have helped engage the students in the use of technology.”

Harker Teachers Take Center Stage A team of Harker faculty made a presentation in late June at the annual international conference of the Association for the Advancement of Computers in Education (AACE), held this year in Denver, CO. In the two-hour presentation made by director of instructional technology Bill Barnes and US teachers Robb Cutler, Rob Morrill and Brigid Flanagan, attendees viewed the movies created by students in Rob Morrill and Brigid Flanagan's classes and asked questions about their research and what the students learned. CDs of the movies, along with the management scheme for doing this type of project, were provided to attendees, and the abstract paper of the Harker project was also published in the Proceedings of the Conference materials. Attended by educators and researchers from Europe, Australia, Japan, China and Nor th America, this was a wonderful opportunity to share the great work of both our students and our faculty. “Rob and Brigid were stars,” said Barnes, “and Robb Cutler had an excellent display showing some software he wrote.”

AROUND ■ The 5th grade is showing off its spirit with a great new club called the 5th Grade S-club (Spirit Club). The club will be meeting each week throughout the year to plan for spirit events and activities.

bucknall and where they would store their crown at the end of the day.

Led by Gr. 5 teacher & club advisor Jason Oncay, the class participated in their first spirit event with a game of “Scavenger.” Seven homerooms competed in such spirited events as grape tossing, tortilla throwing and cracker eating contests, and the teachers took turns trying to eat six crackers as fast as possible without The “kings” and “queens” wore a single drop of water. Ms. crowns during the project to get Giammona finished first in the into character. One queenly cracker eating contest, eating six proclamation from Lorainne Wong crackers faster then the rest of the states her “royal chefs will be homeroom teachers! “The crowd serving macaroni and cheese, fruity was intense,” cereals and ice said Oncay. cream daily.” “During the When Sondra tortilla toss, Costa’s busy day we saw as queen of her students trying kingdom ends, anything to “she will take off catch a tortilla her royal crown without using and put it on a their hands. royal pillow before Some caught jumping into her the tortilla on crystal bed.” Our kindergarten students recently their lap, some traveled to San Francisco for a special ■ Katherine with their field trip to the Teddy Bear Factory!" Harris, Gr. 4, was wrists, but it principal for the was definitely day last spring as the picnic winner a game for contortionists,” he of this fun honor. She was seen laughed. The big win went to Mrs. making rounds, atending the tree Townzen’s homeroom, and the planting ceremony, conducting a victors are now the proud custoditeacher observation and write-up, ans of the coveted “Spirit Stick,” a introducing the Bucknall Dance 3 foot pole engraved with “Harker Spirit” and decorated with colored ribbons representing a color for each homeroom. Standings for the year, as well as photos, will be posted on Oncay’s web page soon, so watch for them!

Mark Tantrum - all Bucknall photos

■ Mrs. Sudderth used the welcoming theme of “Our Kingdom”

Concert show, visiting the Saratoga campus to visit a few VIPs there and dining on a specially prepared lunch in Ms. Sarah Leonard’s office. Time willl tell whether this experience will inspire Katherine towards a career in education! in her 2nd grade class. A creative writing project asked the children to describe their kingdom including a description of their castle, the menu, one important proclamation,

Editor's Note: Our apologies for inadvertently running a picture of our 2001 winner with this article in the June issue. We're repeating the story again this month...with the right photo!

Tamagawa “Pardners” Arrive Oct. 28!

Harker’s International Programs will continue this year with their 9th annual educational exchange between a group of Harker 6th graders and the Tamagawa Gakuen in Japan. The theme of this year’s Tamagawa visit is “The American West,” and there are an incredible amount of new and interesting activities to go along with this fun theme! The Tamagawa guests will be attending a “Howdy” Luncheon and the Grand National Rodeo, visiting the Gold Country and Yosemite, and joining various school activities, such as an art workshop making Native American dream catchers and a square dance hoedown. Many other American West theme activities and outings are planned, and the visit will culminate with a “Happy Trails” Good-bye Reception. Other grade levels also get involved in this exciting cultural exchange program. Kindergarten students will be holding “Getting to Know You” videoconferences to meet their counterparts in Japan and learning songs in Japanese to sing with the Tamagawa students. This year kindergarteners will also be producing a series of short digital video clips of their daily lives to share with students in Japan. Topics for this new component to the program will include: “Mom and I Make My Favorite Meal,” “How I Celebrated My Birthday,” “What I Do After School,” “My Classroom” and “My Home.” Also, several kindergarten families will be asked to videotape some activities in their life and share it via the web with the students in Japan. Second grade students will be sharing art projects this year, displaying work from our sister school at our annual Bucknall Art Show, while some of the Gr. 2 art projects will be displayed at Tamagawa. Gr. 8 classes will be participating in the “Population

Project” with the Tamagawa students, addressing the impact of the growing world population and the effect it has on the environment. They will also be hosting video conferences with Tamagawa students during the year. The entire sixth grade will be participating in the “Our Trees Project,” a multidisciplinary activity concerning the environment. Each sixth grader will email a buddy at Tamagawa to discuss issues of the environment, and there will be a series of videoconferences where students present information about environmental topics they have been researching. The Tamagawa students arrive in the area on October 28 to meet their email buddies. Students will hike together at Yosemite and then come back to San Jose to spend four nights with their Harker email buddies’ family. In May, the 28 Harker buddies will travel to Japan for a similar homestay with the family of the student they hosted in October. New to the Harker International Program this year is the addition of our sister school in India. The Neerja Modi School in Jaipur, India will be participating in this year's “Our Trees Project” with the sixth graders. They will be involved in an email exchange and participate in several digital video presentations on the web. In the coming year the Modi School will also be working with the Harker staff on the Population Project. We are looking forward to this new sister school relationship! —Bill Bost Director of International Programs billb@harker.org Editor’s Note: Watch for updates and photos of these exciting programs in the Harker News and on the web site throughout the year!

SPORTS Lower/Middle School Gr. 4-8 are gearing up for boys’ flag football and girls’ volleyball, and Gr. 4-6 have star ted swimming. Since the season has just star ted, there’s not much news to report yet. But watch for more on these programs and games in the next issue!

briefs squeaked by Harker last season, winning 4-3 in both matches. This year the Eagles, led by senior Ranju Kumar, junior Whitney Graves, and sophomores Sonia Rastogi and Emily Hsii, aim to earn the first ever WBAL tennis championship. Home matches are played at Blackford HS. Come and root the Eagles on to victory! Harker junior Whitney Graves was acknowledged as a Mercury News Honorable Mention Athlete of the Week in the Sept. 18 edition. She played number one singles in two tennis victories, winning each time 60, 6-0. Go, Whitney—congratulations!

MS girls practice for season, with games starting at press time.

Upper School The fall athletic season is well underway, and Eagle athletic teams are finishing up preseason and non-league matches, eager to begin Private School Athletic League (PSAL) and West Bay Athletic League (WBAL) play.

Not to be outdone by the varsity, the junior varsity squad, coached by Jo Mueller and alumni Alexa Bush and dominated by freshmen, has built a 5-2 record thus far this season. With one of the strongest entering classes from Harker's middle school, this group is poised to keep the strong volleyball

Mark Tantrum - all sports photos

Coach Kim Bush and her Eagle tennis team take their 5-0 record into their upcoming matches with perennial power Pinewood. Last year’s CCS semifinalist barely

Coach Smitty’s volleyball squad is also off to a fast start this season. They take a 6-1 record into their season opening match vs. league favorite Castilleja. With impressive victories over Sacred Heart Prep, Pinewood, Yerba Buena and Redwood Christian, the Eagles will also be vying for the league crown. Led by three-year starters, Rebecca Chang, Kari Saltzman and Jenn Poon, the experienced squad is poised to take a run at the league championship, with the hope of earning their third consecutive trip to the Central Coast Section (CCS) playoffs.

MS boys in flag football go through their paces with coaches recently.

Silicon Valley Aquatic Association

NEW SWIM PROGRAM!

The Intro to Swim Team Program is for students 5 and older who know how to swim and want to improve their skills while learning the latest stroke technique. Professional certified USA swimming coaches conduct each 40-minute session. Swimmers practice in groups and improve by working together in a team setting.

To sign up contact

2 days per week Mon. & Wed. or Tues. & Thur.: $100

is now offering an Intro to Swim Team Program at our Bucknall campus! Sept. 16 - Oct. 24, 5:30 p.m.

Silicon Valley Aquatic Association 408.227.5884 sjaoffice@aol.com

program headed in the right direction. Boys’ soccer, led by Coaches Lee Carter and Adam Gill has entered PSAL league play with a brilliantly played 1-1 tie with Woodside Priory. An early goal by Sahil Mehra was almost enough to earn the victor y, but a late Woodside goal sent the game into overtime, with both teams playing tenacious defense through two overtimes. The tired squads earned each other’s respect and are eager for the rematch later this season. The team will be playing for the Consolation Championship on Sept 21st at the Sacred Heart Prep Tournament. They currently sport a 3-3-1 record at press time. Leading the way thus far is senior Rishi Mandal, who scored a hat trick (three goals in

OR 3-4 times per week Mon. - Thur. : $160 Since the program has already begun, prorated rates are available if your child would still like to join!

one game) against Stuart Hall in the SHP tournament game. Also playing well for the Eagles are sophomore Kevin Busch and freshmen Jon Jenq and Naushad Godrej. With a young team, the future looks bright for Eagle soccer. Cross Country kicked off its season on Sept 14th at the RLS Invitational on the Monterey Peninsula. The team was led by junior Jennifer Shangkuan, who placed fourth among all runners, with many of the large powerhouse schools represented. It looks as if Jennifer is determined to return to the state championships again this season. The girls’ team placed 6th overall in the small school division, with the boys’ team placing 7th among the small schools. Coach Josh Small was ver y pleased with the effor t and determination of his entire squad. The team starts PSAL and WBAL competition in early October, with the goal of earning a spot in the CCS championships. Girls’ golf rounds out the fall sports season for the upper school, and although Coach Bob Dowling's

Middle School Performing Arts and Club MS students recently assembled to learn about all the extracurricular activities Harker has to offer, and hear “sales pitches” about the 18 clubs or performing arts groups for students to choose from this year. Performing Arts groups are MS Choir, Harmonics/Spring Musical, Performing Arts Workshops, Instrumental Music, Acting and Technical Theatre. Club options are Future Problem Solvers, Service Club, Comedy Club, Spirit, Math Counts, Creative Writing, Chess Club, Card Club, Axis and Allies, Book Club, Junior Classical League and Student Newspaper. There is something for everyone, from playing a musical instrument to comedy to solving problems, and we're excited to hear more about these activities over the coming year. Watch for photos and lists of this year’s clubs and groups in future newsletters!

Hawaii and Grand Canyon Educational Trips For MS Students Harker's 7th and 8th graders will be exploring new territories this year! The annual trips for these two grade levels have been updated and will now feature destinations rich with opportunities for students to learn about—and experience—the wonders of the natural world. The 7th grade will depart March 24, 2003, for a 6-day trip to the Grand Canyon, Zion Park, Bryce Canyon National Park and Hoover Dam. Their trip will include a float down the Colorado River and a mountain biking excursion in Zion National Park. The dates of this trip are March 24-29, 2003. The 8th grade will explore the natural wonders and historical sites of Hawaii, visiting the islands of Oahu and Hawaii. Some of the activities planned are visits to Pearl Harbor, Diamond Head Crater, Hawaii Volcano National Park, the

young team hasn't had any league matches yet, he is excited about taking a run at the league title. Led by returning CCS qualifier Jen Jenq, the young team will begin league play in late September against league rivals Notre Dame San Jose, Casillleja, and Mercy Burlingame. Although varsity football lost a close game to CSD 19-13, the Eagle gridders have played tough

Gr. 7 parents hear details about the new Grand Canyon academic trip at a recent meeting. Polynesian Cultural Center and Brigham Young University's Agricultural Research Center. The dates for this trip are Nov. 4-8, 2002.

contributions of these areas. Watch for more details and photos on the Parent Home Page and in the newsletter!

Both of these trips will help the students learn about and understand the scientific and historical

The parent info meeting for this trip will be held Oct. 21 from 6-7 p.m. in the Saratoga Gym.

briefs, cont.

Mark Tantrum

SPORTS

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thus far this year. As is usually the case, the Eagles face much larger opponents but always put forth a great effort. With two first half touchdowns, the Eagles struggled in the second half with uncharacteristic penalties and turnovers. Matt Vucurevich's two touchdown runs weren't enough to carr y the Eagles to victory. Coach Dave Uppal has a very young squad this season, with

several sophomores playing on the varsity team. They are young and determined and will show great heart and desire as they continually get better. Speaking of young, the junior varsity football team is off to an outstanding 2-0 start. After the opening game pasting of Prospect, 31-0, the Eagles pitched another shutout a week later against CSD, 26-0. Led by the arm of Ben Shapiro and the legs of Allen Lin, Shethal Bearelly and Kevin Park, Coach Karriem Stinson's squad is looking ahead to a fine season. The defense, led by Brian Thurgate and Brian Lin, has not given up a touchdown in over ten quarters, dating back to last season. NEED WRESTLING SPACE! The Harker wrestling team is in search of a practice space this year. If you own some commercial property that our team could use, contact Jack Bither, athletic director, at jackb@harker.org or 408.345.9627. Thanks! —Jack Bither, US athletic director

Upper School New! US Eagle Adventures Harker is once again venturing outside of the classroom and is offering some great opportunities for our students to try something new. The most recent addition to our extracurricular activities is an experimental weekend program offering a variety of adventure trips such as kayaking, rock climbing and backpacking The Eagle Adventures program will help students grow by encouraging them to explore the natural environment and participate in positive risk-taking activities. Trips are designed to build selfconfidence and enhance a student’s high school years. The following trips are being offered at this time: Kayaking on Elkhorn Slough Oct. 5, 9:00 a.m. - 4:00 p.m. Pre-trip meeting: Sept. 25 Rock Climbing at Castle Rock Park Nov. 9, 8:00 a.m. - 4:30 p.m. Pre-trip meeting: Oct. 30 continued on pg. 10

continued from Pg. 9 Backpack Skyline to the Sea Nov. 15 - 18, Noon - 4:00 p.m. Pre-trip meeting: Oct. 30 Signups, brochures and information are available by contacting the dean’s office at kevinw@harker.org, and all trips are available on a firstcome, first-served basis. ■ The Harker 2001-02 US yearbook, "The Last Piece," was awarded a Gold Medalist Certificate from the Columbia Scholastic Press Association in their annual critique and contest held at Columbia University in New York over the summer. In addition, the areas of Coverage and Photography were awarded “All Columbian Honors.” Congratulations to our Yearbook Club, and advisor Chris Daren for producing such a fabulous yearbook for Harker and earning this award! Last year's yearbook staff: Yasmin Ali, Carmen Antoun, Anupreet Brar, Tiffany Duong, Victoria Duong, Meghan Fair, Matt Jones, Samana Khan, Anjali Khurana, Jessica Liu,

saratoga Jonathan Louie, Thomas McMahon, Mimi Mohan, Elise Nguyen,A my Patel, Palak Patel, Poorav Patel, Neha Rahan, Alexandra Thurston, Stephanie Tsai, and Humsa Venkatesh. ■ Harker Debate News Over the summer, Harker debate students attended debate camps around the country learning about the new debate resolution for the upcoming academic school year: That the United States federal government should substantially increase public health resources for mental health care in the United States. Students attended camps at the University of Kentucky, Dartmouth, Northwestern, UC Berkeley, Stanford, Iowa, Milton Academy and North Texas. Lincoln-Douglas students also attended camps to hone their skills for the array of value topics they will debate in the coming months. The Harker School joined 143 other high school speech and debate programs on the campus of Wake Forest University in WinstonSalem, North Carolina, over the weekend of Sept. 14 and 15. In the policy division of debate, Kevin Hwang placed 17th out of 234 varsity competitors, and

Stephanie Tung placed 18th out of 96 JV competitors. The varsity team of Kevin Hwang and Boris Kheyn-Kheyfets advanced to the field of 32 teams from an initial field of 117 teams after six preliminary rounds of debate. The JV teams of Varoon Bhagat/ Jerry Hong and Stephanie Tung/Linda Yen advanced to the field of 16 teams from an initial field of 48 teams after 6 preliminar y rounds of debate. Congratulations to all participants! Volunteer Harker parents have also been busy preparing for the annual Harker Invitational Tournament which will be held this year Sept. 28 and 29 on the Saratoga campus. Susan Lee, Anu and Dinesh Barman and Kathy Polzin have generously given of their time preparing committees for this fundraising tournament. Thanks to all of them for their tireless efforts! Watch for reports of this and other tournaments in future newsletters. ■ For the fourth year in a row, Harker students attended the National Junior Classical League Convention, held in June at the

Activities Update

Chris Daren

The 2nd Annual US Gym Jam was a huge success! Over 40 students packed the gym on the last Sat. night prior to the start of school to help decide the activities and events for the year. They brainstormed ideas, made commercials and talked about the coming year.

The Talon yearbook staff organized the first dance mixer of the year Sept.13th. Over 300 students attended making it the largest dance ever!

University of Kentucky. There were over 1,600 students in attendance with most states represented, as well as two provinces of Canada. “In this environment a finish in the top 20 is very good, top 10 is outstanding, and top five very remarkable,” explained John Hawley, JCL advisor and Harker Latin teacher. “Harker students

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garnered a whopping 30 awards in the top five, and the Certamen Team win was the highest finish for a California team in years,” he added. Congratulations to all the Harker participants! Some of the awards earned by our students included: In Level 1, Ivan Osokine placed 1st in both Dramatic Interpretation, Level 1 Boys and Latin Oratory. In Level 2, Sridhar Chadalavada placed 2nd in Reading Comprehension.

Holy Cow Batman! Look it’s a bird, it’s a plane…! Cowabunga! This year’s theme for the Homecoming spirit week at school is Superheroes, and each class has chosen to become a “superhero” for a day: Seniors - The Justice League (Superman, Wonder Woman, Batman etc); Juniors - Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles; Sophomores Super Mario Brothers; Freshmen - TBA. Each class will have a day to dress up and decorate the Dobbins patio in a class competition. Harker Day for the students is Oct. 15th, and the week culminates in a Homecoming rally and BBQ in the quad on Friday, followed by the Homecoming festivities at PAL. See you all at the game!

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AROUND In Level 3, Ethan Karpel placed 3rd in Mottoes and Quotations, Allison Kwong placed 3rd in Mythology, Anita Mazloom placed 5th in Dramatic Interpretation Prose Girls and Sheena Reddy placed 3rd in Roman Life.

John Hawley

At Level 4, Brian Biskeborn placed 1st in Reading Comprehension, Advanced Prose and 5th in Competitive Certamen Team. Catherine Kim, placed 2nd in three

categories: Latin Literature, Roman Life and Sight Latin Reading, Advanced Prose Girls. Elnora Hawley was the California Spirit Chair for the second year in a row. On another note, Catherine Kim was awarded a $550 cash prize for her performance on the Medusa Mythology Exam that students took in March.

â&#x2013; Computer Science Lecture Series The Harker Distinguished Lecture Series in Computer Science welcomes its first speaker, Dr. Sri Subramanian, on Wed., Oct. 9th. Dr. Subramanian, who graduated with her bachelors in chemical engineering from R.E.C., Trichy (India) in 1994, will be speaking on the topic of Zero Knowledge Proofs. During her tenure at Trichy, she fell in love with theoretical computer science, moved to the United States, and graduated with her PhD on secure e-commerce protocols from Ohio State University in 1999. Since then she has worked in the security industry on embedded devices, nonrepudiable databases and remote access appliances. Our Nov. speaker will be Professor Audrey MacLean, a consulting associate professor of management science and engineering at Stanford, where she also teaches

technology entrepreneurship. She has been listed by Business Week as one of the 50 most influential businesswomen in America and was featured by Forbes in a cover article on Angel Investing. Building on her own entrepreneurial success, MacLean has been instrumental in helping to launch and grow successful companies through her work as a mentor capitalist and as a professor of entrepreneurship. In her teaching capacity at Stanford, she is the lead professor for the Technology Venture Formation course in the Stanford Technology Venture Program in the School of Engineering. Professor MacLean will be holding an interactive, extemporaneous-style discussion with the students on technological entrepreneurship. The Harker Distinguished Lecture Series in Computer Sciences brings speakers to Harker to talk with students and faculty on computer science-related topics. If you would like to make a presentation or have questions, please contact US computer science teacher Robb Cutler at robbc@harker.org. We thank Robb Cutler for founding this great series and also thank all the distinguished speakers in this series for sharing their considerable knowledge with our students.

Singapore Delegation to Visit Harker On Sept. 26th Harker will be visited by Mr. Tharman Shanmugaratnam, senior minister of state for education, trade, and industry for the country of Singapore, who is on a research visit to the top schools in America. Minister Shanmugaratnam and his delegation are meeting U.S. educators to observe and learn the best practices in the top US schools, particularly in the areas of science and technology. Harker is one of their first stops. He will be accompanied by the counsel general of Singapore for the San Francisco embassy, Mr. Robert Chua,and lead a delegation which will include Mr. Wong Siew Hoong, headmaster of Raffles Institute, a top public high school in Singapore, and Mr. Poh Leong Joo, senior head of the higher education division of the Ministry of Education. We're honored to be selected as one of the schools visited by this delegation. We'll have a report of his visit in the next newsletter, so watch for it!

Mark Tantrum

In order to be eligible a student has

to earn a gold medal on the exam, be a junior or a senior in high school, write a short essay, and be recommended by a teacher of classical languages. This year Cathy earned one of only four per fect scores out of over 700 students who took the test.

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Community Service Update

Sun., Oct. 20 Aids Walk, San Jose

4th Annual US All-School Service Day Fri., Oct. 11th

This is a 10km walk for a great cause! Be at Harker at 8:00 a.m.— we’ll be back to Harker by 11:30 a.m.

A reminder to all parents that all of our 9th, 10th and 11th grade students will participate in this required day of community service,

• 2nd Harvest Food Bank • RAFT, Resource Area for Teachers • Georgia Travis Center (InnVision Villa)

“We make a living by what we get; we make a life by what we give.” —Sir Winston Churchill which accounts for 5 hours towards Harker's US community service requirement. Permission slips are due to students’ advisors October 3rd, and late permission slips will NOT be accepted. Students not meeting this deadline will not be able to participate. The theme for this year is, “We make a living by what we get; we make a life by what we give.” Each student will be volunteering at one of the following sites: • San Jose Family Shelter • ARIS, Aids Resources and Information Services • St. Vincent DePaul Society

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• Julian Street Inn (InnVision Villa) • Belmont Village of San Jose • The Humane Society of Santa Clara • Emergency Housing Consortium • Sacred Heart Community Center • Arastradero Preserve • Children's Recovery Center • Beginning Steps •The Winchester Convalescent Home • Hidden Villa • Lytton Gardens Senior Center • Terrano Gardens • Palo Alto Veterans Hospital • Westgate Rehabilitation and Specialty Services • SunnyView Manor Convalescent Home

Sept. 23-Oct. 4 Future Kits Donation Campaign Key Club, with the help of activities director Chris Daren, will be running a US class competition to gather a huge donation of supplies for impoverished schools in Mexico. Items such as #2 pencils (unsharpened), pens, notebooks/ notepads (lined 8 1/2" x 11" composition books/bound notebooks), rulers, small pencil sharpeners, blackboard erasers, colored chalk, crayons, drawing paper and books will be collected to complete the kits.

Changing of the Guard We heartily thank Jennifer Gargano, MS division head and former US math teacher, for the hundreds of hours she spent over the past two years organizing our US community service program. She has assumed new responsibilities this year as middle school division head, and

headlines

Harker Receives Extensive Local News Coverage The inaugural upper school graduation and the collective accomplishments of our students garnered articles in many local papers. Two of note were in the Mercury News and the San Jose Magazine. The Mercury News ran a full-color story on the cover of the Valley section about Harker’s inaugural graduating class. Their Mercury News reporter Katherine Corcoran visited Harker and interviewed some of our students, a few of whom were quoted in the article. The Merc photographer Anne-Marie McReynolds, who came out to shoot our Mountain

Winery rehearsal for the story, was, coincidentally, a Harker '91 middle school alumni (and Stanford grad)! It was a great story that covered a particularly historic event in Harker’s history and gave our hardworking first class of graduates some “ink” they truly deserved. That same month, Jenny Desai, managing editor of San Jose Magazine, informed us that, due to the inaugural graduation, they were interested in doing a feature piece about The Harker School in their September Education edition, which would cover the upper school expansion, as well as the history of

the school. The sevenpage, full-color article featured some beautiful photos by Chris Daren and Eugene Louie, as well as photos from the Harker archives. Many thanks to Chris Daren who was instrumental in helping pull these historic photos together for the magazine. Harker is a vital community of students, faculty, staff and parents who are hardworking, dedicated, talented, and in most cases, downright outstanding. It’s gratifying for Harker to receive this much-deser ved publicity. —Editor, Pam Dickinson Note: Additional copies of both articles are available from the Office of Communications (brandeet@harker.org)

we welcome Lin Ng, who has enthusiastically filled the position, while she is also serving as our fulltime sub and French intern. “Participating in and enjoying community service are par t of Harker’s overall philosophy,” said Ng. “But most of all, it’s fun! Everyone benefits, and it feels great!” Ng added that as Harker students participate in services that will greatly benefit the larger community, “they will gain valuable work and life experiences through opportunities that they may never have had before.” We welcome Ng to Harker, and we're looking forward to hearing about all the great community ser vice activities of our students. If you have questions about or wish to sign up for any of the upcoming community service activities, contact Ng at linn@harker.org or 408.345.9259. Visit her web page, which is linked from the Parent Home Page, and see what the current community service opportunites are. You can also view our new Special Commendation section where we post letters from community organizations praising the work of some of our students.

PERFORMING Laura Lang Ree, performing arts director, reported that over 100 members of The Harker Conserva-

Tamagawa welcome on Oct. 26, the Harmonics will don their cowboy hats and boots for the “Hoedown Medley,” a collection of traditional Western songs arranged by Susan Nace, musical director of the group. Monica MacKinnon, production director, said, “We have such a talented group of per formers. We are looking forward to an exciting performance year!”

The 2002-03 Harmonics are Taylor Alexander, Lauren Ammatuna, Debanshi The orchestra has started working on “The William Tell Bheda, Alix Briggs, Overture” for the Tamagawa assembly in October. “It's a Matthew Emery, very advanced arrangement that will sound rough for Zach Green, Marvin the first few weeks, but once people get their ‘chops’ Ho, David Kuo, Kriti back, it should be great!,” laughed Bob Scannell, Lodha, Molly instrumental music teacher. Newman, Josh Pinzas, Vani Pyda, tory joined together on Sept. 6 for a Max Rohrer, Natasha Sarin, Aseem kickoff to celebrate the beginning of Shukla, Varun Sivaram, Siobhan an outstanding performance year. Stevenson, Sarah Syrett and Elyse Trinh. The group had an informal ice cream social, and then announce■ New US Women's Vocal Ensemble ments were made concerning Cantilena is the elegant name of auditions for all programs, including an equally elegant, new women’s the Guys Gig vocal ensemble and vocal ensemble. the new all-female Cantilena, in Comprised of 12 enthusiastic addition to the Jazz Band, singers, Cantilena’s emphasis is on Orchestra and String Ensembles. classical choral music. This focus The Spring Musical, “Into the differentiates the ensemble from Woods,” was announced with the Show Choir which sings jazz auditions scheduled after first and Bel Canto, a larger ensemble, semester. New students later met to learn about the Certificate Program, an elite performing arts program where student can focus on one specific discipline of the arts— dance, music (vocal or instrumental), musical theater, theater, technical theater—during their four years at Harker. Currently, over 230 US students are performing in one of the arts programs. Breaka-Leg this year! ■ Harmonics Preparing for October Performance The co-ed middle school performing group Harmonics have been busy rehearsing for their first performances of the year coming up in the month of October. For Homecoming on Oct. 18, the Harmonics will join an all-Harker singing group performance of “The Star Spangled Banner.” In keeping with the Western theme at this year’s

Cantilena (n) a lyric vocal melody; used in medieval times to refer to any secular choral music. which sings a little bit of everything. The group has expressed an interest in Renaissance music, so for the first semester they will learn and perform songs primarily from that era.

Harker Conservatory Presents Bram Stoker's “Dracula” as 2002 Fall Play! • Adapted and directed by Jeffrey Draper, US theatre art • Fri., Nov. 22 and Sat., Nov. 23 at 8 p.m. • Special “Dinner & Show” event for the Nov. 23rd performance.

Bram Stoker didn’t invent the vampire, but he did create a tale full of gothic horror, romance and adventure. The story about the vampire that leaves Transylvania to hunt for fresh blood in Victorian England has ceaselessly fascinated generations of readers, theatergoers and filmgoers. A search of the word “vampire” in Google brought up over three million hits on Web sites around the world. There have been hundreds of vampire films and novels produced since “Dracula” was written in 1897. Each year there are at least two or three new films to keep vampires alive in popular culture (“Dracula 2000,” “Queen of the Damned,” etc.). We have “Buffy, the Vampire Slayer” as a hit movie and television show, and “Dark Shadows” was a gothic soap opera about vampires that ran on television for many years and remains a cult classic today. Ann Rice novels still sell extremely well, as does the original novel, which has never gone out of print. Bram Stoker wrote his novel about a historically accurate prince who ruled over territories that make up what is Romania today. Vlad Dracula was a tyrannical ruler who was responsible for the gruesome torture and death of over 200,000 men, women and children. The despicable deeds of the Transylvanian prince have for hundreds of years fueled the superstitious tales of peasants from Romania, Hungary, Russia and Germany. These tales were freshly translated and printed when Bram Stoker began his research in the 1880s. The Harker Conservatory will take on the telling of Bram Stoker's original story, but we will do it with a twist. Our production will explore the plot from an original angle, as we will be reversing the gender of most of the characters from the novel. We've all seen the story about the prince of death in his black cape and white fangs, surrounded by a harem of female vampires in flowing white material. The story plays much differently when we have a female vampire as queen to a group of vampires (male and female) who spend their time terrorizing the rest of the characters in the play. But at the end of the day (and well into the night) the story isn't about gender politics in Victorian England. The play is designed to be a frightening gothic horror story, and our job will be to provide the audience with an adventure including all of the blood, fear, and fun the stor y demands. See you at the theater! —Jeffrey Draper, “Dracula” director

Those enrolled in Cantilena for its inaugural year are Vivian Nguyen, Claudia Ruegg, Kalpana Sundaram, Jessica Travis, Daphne Karpel, Lisa Schwebke, Mickey Selbo-Bruns, Ilana Traynis, Rubina Chuang, Pia Pal, Kathy Peng and Kimberly Wong. Cantilena is under the direction of Susan Nace, a new faculty member in the Performing Arts department.

Mark Tantrum - all music photos

■ Conservatory Notes

arts

Harker’s new classical choral group, Cantilena

parent

Vucurevich, Angela Williams and Moshe and Rosy Zloof. Families who were very late “admits,” if you haven’t gotten a call from an Ambassador and you still have some questions or need advice from the perspective of a fellow parent, please contact one of our Ambassador chairs, Kathleen Santora at ksantora@yahoo.com, Sandy Berglund at bklvrs1050@aol.com or Susan Lee at carrot2001@aol.com.

LOWER & MIDDLE SCHOOL: Sandy Berglund, Becky Cox, Brenda Davis, Janie Fung, Sangeeta Mehrotra, Leslie Nielsen, Gayatri Patel, Kim Pellissier, Kathleen Santora and Karen Saunders. UPPER SCHOOL: Shyamoli Banerjee, Cherrie Blair, Violet Boyle, Kim Bush, Nancy Hartsoch, Susan Lee, Jacky Liu, Amanda Lundie, Kim Thurgate and Pat Vucurevich. Both groups meet monthly and provide leadership and guidance to our volunteer program.

Fri., Nov. 22 @ BKN – Grandparent’s Day Chairs Janie Fung, Debbie Gray and Kim Pellissier are gearing up for this longstanding Harker tradition when grandparents or much beloved adult friends, neighbors or family members are invited to spend an afternoon with their students here at Harker. As guests arrive on campus that day, they will be given a special gift, entertained at a gala student per formance, given the afternoon to tour the campus with their children and pop into the library to buy books at our annual Book Fair. Every student in grades K-6 can invite a special adult guest(s) on this occasion (though NOT parents!). Go to the Parent Home Page and provide us with the names of people your child would like to invite, or watch for the form coming home soon with your student. A corps of volunteers will be creating and mailing out invitations to those guests early in October, so we ask guests to RSVP promptly so our volunteers can plan accordingly. This event is totally fueled by the loving efforts of parent volunteers. If you would like to volunteer in some way for Grandparents’ Day, please email kim@pellissier.org. Sat., Nov. 9, 9 a.m. to 6:30 pm. @ STG Volunteers are needed to assist at Harker’s Junior Classical League Tournament. Still needed are two volunteers in the score room, several “floaters” throughout the day, 10-11 scorer/timers, five to assist with the carnival and one to assist with awards at the conclusion of the tournament. If you are able to help, please contact US JCL student Jason Shangkuan at jasonshangkuan@yahoo.com or John Hawley of Harker’s Latin Department at johnh@harker.org. Various Times Throughout the Year We periodically need volunteers to assist us stuff school mailings and materials (like a recent admission folder stuffing—thanks to those parents who helped!). Parents who have expressed an interest in helping with mailings will be contacted by this year’s mailings coordinator, Karen Saunders. These informal “assembly-line” mailing preparations are great ways to spend some time with other Harker parents, a great oppor tunity for new parents to make friends and an easy way to give a few hours of your time. Contact me if you have questions!

Mark Tantrum

■ This summer Harker parent Ambassadors at all grade levels did an outstanding job of welcoming our many new students and their families. This year’s Ambassadors are: Elsbeth Barlett, Grace Edvalson, Hannah Lewis, Pauline Shulman, Shankari Sundar, Kelly Delepine, Leslie Doherty, Pam Araki, Ernie Porter, Stephanie Casner, Janie Fung, Chris Gustafson, Charu Prakash, Jane Sowards, Vinita Belani, Debbie Hutchings, Sue Prutton, Jane Villadsen, Fran Axelrad, Shyamoli Banerjee, Lisa Mata, Janet Smith, Violet Boyle, Candy Carr, Ilene Levine, Alpana Agarwal, Brenda Chan, Brenda Davis, Nancy Davis, Rosalie Falconer, Priscilla Ng, Lynn Roberts, Stacey Steele, Nancy Madison, Lori Chaykin, Tricia Hoffman, Patricia Jones, Reena Bhargava, Cynthia Bruketa, Russ and Julie Grabeel, Marcia Hirtenstein, Joni Ho, Deepa Iyengar, Diane Nasser, Debbie Neubieser, Meena Ravuri, Monica Salinas, Karen Saunders, Paulina Wegrowicz, Theresa Awe, Anu Barman, Jackie Bohn, Ivy Chang, Malti Charlu, Kim Gudmundson, Carol Douglas, Marie Le, Jacky Liu, Kathy Polzin, Diane Reese, Sharad Singh, Sudha Sundaresh, Marilyn Tearse, Nancy Tepperman, Kim Thurgate, Ruby Vaswani, Pat

■ We also have grade level coordinator parent volunteers in grades K-8 who serve as liasons between homeroom teachers and room parent volunteers. We thank the following parents for agreeing to represent their grade level this year: Kindergarten-Marcia Hirtenstein; Gr. 1-Shankari Sundar and Lavanya Kling; Gr. 2-Tyra LaMar; Gr. 3-Debbie Gray and Roopal Mayor: Gr. 4-Kelly Delepine; Gr. 5-Pam Araki and Sarah Pennell. Gr. 6-Harleen Singh; Gr. 7-Brenda Davis and Lynn Roberts; Gr. 8Alexandra Swafford and Molly Grunbaum. Grade level coordinators will be bringing their room parent teams together soon to get acquainted and plan for the year.

Thur., Oct. 10, 8:15 a.m. @ STAR (94 San Tomas Aquino Rd.) MANDATORY meeting for grade level coordinators and room parents This meeting will provide creative ideas and veteran advice to room parents for our first round of holiday parties on Thurs., Oct. 31. MS parties will be 2:30-3:30 p.m., while Bucknall will have homeroom parties culminating with the joyful Halloween parade at 2:45 p.m. Parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles are invited to come watch as the ghosts, goblins, Harry Potters, and fairy princesses strut their stuff!

—Nancy Reiley Community Relations Director nancyr@harker.org or 408.871.6608 Parents enjoying 2002 Volunteer Breafast

Harker Archives

■ As the year begins, we introduce—and thank!—the members of our Parent Volunteer Leadership Councils!

UPCOMING DATES OF NOTE & VOLUNTEER NEEDS

Mark Tantrum

■ The Volunteer Breakfast on Aug. 30th at the Bucknall gym was a rousing success with lots of parents eager to sign up for volunteer activities this year.

volunteers

100%

participation

Advance Team starts campaign for 100% participation Welcome to Harker’s 110th year! We hope you and your family had a great summer and that you’re settling into another exciting academic year at Harker. Our focus for this year’s annual giving campaign is 100% participation, and we’re off to a terrific start thanks to the parents, faculty, staff, alumni and friends listed below who eagerly joined the Harker Advance Team over the summer. We are truly grateful to these folks for their enthusiasm and spirit, and for jump-starting our participation campaign!

Robert and Tamra Amick Mr. and Mrs. Elie Antoun Frances and Jonathan Axelrad Mr. and Mrs. Aniruddha Banerjee William and Edith Barnes Deanna Barnett Bill Bost Charles Cali Fred and Candy Carr Mr. Herbert Stanek and Ms. Huali Chai-Stanek Sheila and Sanjay Chatterjee Shyamoli Banerjee and Ajay Chopra Jeffrey Chu and Sandy Chun John and Rebecca Cox Robert Cutler and Heather Blair Chris Daren John and Christine Davis Family Michael and Susan Eckhardt Misael Fisico Mikhail and Eugenia Friedland Catherine Frye Mr. and Mrs. Yury Gaknoki Jennifer Gargano Joseph Gill Concepcion Grande Mr. and Mrs. Boris Gruzman Praveen and Reeta Gupta Bharat and Sangeeta Gupte Dr. and Mrs. Richard Hartzell John and Linda Heyes Mr. and Mrs. H. Jacob Ho

Don Hodge Christine Howkins Hopwood Su-Ling and Eva Hsu Wayne and Carol Johnson Mr. and Mrs. Sunil Joshi Mr. and Mrs. Jay Kamdar Kenneth Kang Cindy Kerr The Keyashian Family Mr. and Mrs. David Laws Hwa Yi Lee and Hyeon Suk Kim Dr. and Mrs. Jeffery Lee Mr. Kuang Lung Lee and Ms. Chiung-Lin Hsh Dr. and Mrs. Wen-Jung Lin Mr. and Mrs. Paul Lindars Tony and Jacky Liu Martin and Amanda Lundie Rhonda Mann Mary Ryan McCarthy Laura Miller Mr. and Mrs. Ambrish Misra Chad and Kisstopher Musick Samuel and Nimi Nagalingam Neil and Tina Najibi Mr. and Mrs. Howard E. Nichols Mike and Leslie Nielsen Mr. and Mrs. John W. Parker, III Pierre and Kim Pellissier Jow H. Peng and Ivy Chang Mr. and Mrs. Ian D. Pennell Raj and Usha Raghuram

Chris and Marcia Riedel Gordon and Tanya Ringold Miss Melanie Robinson Ms. Mary Rorabaugh and Ms. Karen Coates Joe and Blanca Rosenthal Howard Saltzman Mr. and Mrs. Mark Shapiro Lokesh and Nandita Sharma Venkatesh and Abha Shukla Robert Shwe and Myint Thein Janet Smith Dr. and Mrs. Ronald E. Smith Mr. and Mrs. Abraham Sofaer Mr. and Mrs. David H. Spiller Mr. and Mrs. Sundararajan Srinivasan Rita Stone Mr. and Mrs. Peter T. Sun Tom and Yuko Tiernan Mr. and Mrs. David N. Tompkins Fred Triefenbach Joey Tyndal Mala Umapathy and Murrali Rangarajan Sridhar and Kamini Vajapey Mr. and Mrs. G. Venkatesh Richard and Karen Walker Pat and Terr y Walsh Mr. and Mrs. Rick Wardenburg Ms. Cindy Wong Mr. and Mrs. Hansen Yao John Zetterquist

For more information on the campaign, please contact Amalia Keyashian, Director of Annual Giving, at amaliak@harker.org or logon to www.harker.org and click on ADVANCEMENT & ALUMNI. Here’s to celebrating our 110th year with your participation! —Kelly S. Parker, Development Director

Participate…and move your grade level percentage up!

Mark Tantrum

HATS OFF TO OUR 2002-03 Advance Team!

Welcome, Christine! We wish to welcome Christine Davis as our new Development Council co-chair for the 200203 For Our 110th Year Celebration, Let’s Give 100% Participation Annual Giving Campaign. She, along with returning co-chair Shyamoli Banerjee, will lead the Council in its fundraising efforts, with their focus on parent par ticipation. Since 1998 Christine, her husband John and son Cole have been members and passionate supporters of the Harker community. The Development Council was for tunate to gain Christine as a member for the 2000-01 Annual Giving Campaign, and since then she has been an active, enthusiastic and respected member of the Council. On behalf of the Harker community, we want to thank Christine for her years of service as a Development Council member and look for ward to having her “work her magic” as co-chair for the 2002-03 Annual Giving Campaign!

GOAL—$1.25 MILLION Thanks to the leadership of Harker’s Advance Team, our grade level parent participation to date breaks down as shown at left. 15

ALUMNI

update

Log On and Reconnect! If you attended The Harker School, Harker Academy, Palo Alto Military Academy, Miss Harker School, or Harker Day School, your warmest memories almost always involve the friendships you made with classmates and faculty. We want to help you reconnect with friends, plus pass along news about alumni events and your favorite faculty. The first step is getting our database updated with current addresses for alumni of all of these schools. Register on the Harker Web site at www.harker.org and click on the alumni tab to let us know what you are up to. The alumni office will also make an effort to connect any students who ask to locate each other via the web registration.

Alumni Events Coming Up - Save the Dates! Fri., Oct. 18th, 7 p.m.—Homecoming All alumni are welcome to our 2nd annual Homecoming! Join the entire school as we sing our Harker anthem and cheer on our varsity football team as they take on Valley Christian – Roseville. Festivities begin at 7:00 p.m. Contact us for free alumni passes! Fri., Dec. 20th 2:00-3:30—Alumni College Reception The Class of ’02 is invited to the first Alumni College Reception, an informal gathering to meet with our current seniors and faculty to give us an update on college life. Invites will be in the mail soon, but make your holiday plane reser vations to get you back in time for this great event.

’63

HD Steve Bitker was tracked down by the alumni office after former Harker secretary and current board member Mrs. Carley kept hearing his name as the sportscaster on KCBS. She was curious to find out if he was the same Steve Bitker who graduated from Harker. Mrs. Carley was right, and Steve registered on the Harker website! Steve received his BA in sociology from UC Berkeley. He is a radio sportscaster on KCBS and announces the Oakland A’s games on KFRC. Steve remembers, “The Harker environment, in general, was ver y peaceful and nurturing, and I find myself thinking back on it periodically, with very pleasant memories.” Steve is occasionally in contact with Craig Watkins and Helen Athey. He would love to track down classmate Nicole Hoagland.

’65

HA Betty Kamas Taylor Simone received her BA in Biological Psychology from San Jose State University, lives in Pleasanton and is an agent for State Farm Insurance in Livermore. Betty wants to know if anyone is interested in having a 25-year 8th grade reunion in 2005.

’80

HA Eric K. Butler received his BSEE, MSEE from San Jose State, lives in San Jose and is a software engineer with IBM Almaden Research Center. He said he still remembers the 7th grade Yosemite trip.

’81

Jonathan Roberts received his BA from the University of North Carolina, Charlotte, and is currently a national project manager with Abtech and living in Annapolis, MD. HA Chuck Kamas received his BSEE from UC Santa Barbara, lives in San Jose and is an electrical engineer with Harmonic.

’82

Terry Walsh, Alumni Director 408.245.9205, terryw@harker.org

PA Richard Rackerby is living in Santa Rosa and is self-employed in oil tank sales. He would like to know the whereabouts of Chris Candee.

ber my surprise during the first week of school when Coach Gelineau would speak to me and address me by name. It felt good to be more than just a number in a crowd.” Anne would be interested in knowing how anyone in the class of 1974 (only 18 ninth graders) are doing.

PA Robert B. Mack lives in San Francisco and would like to hear from classmates who attended Palo Alto Militar y Academy between September 1962 and June 1967.

’67

HA Anne Walt Johl lives in Chandler, Arizona, and is a homemaker and the mother of five children. Anne explains why her memories of Harker are so special to her: “One of my all-time favorite teachers was Diana Olsen (now Diana Nichols). She made biology my favorite branch of science, and I even ended up marr ying a biologist. I learned to believe in myself and in my abilities as a student from her. I think it was the very first time I discovered that learning could be fun. Before I attended Harker, I was an average student who struggled with school and self-esteem. At Harker I learned how to study and succeed academically. Being in a smaller school where everyone knew each other helped me develop confidence. I still remem-

’74

Jeffrey B. Lease received his BS from Fresno State and his DC from Palmer West, lives in San Jose and is a doctor of chiropractic. He is in contact with John Mackey and Tyron Easter. Chris Lassettre attended the Culinary Institute of America, lives in Los Gatos and is the executive chef at Stacey’s Café. He is in contact with Travis Ma. Judie Eichenbaum attended National University and owns Going to Pieces, a quilt shop here in San Jose. Judie remembers classmates Shannon Poindexter, Jimmy Reid, Tyrone Easter, Klara Galluz and Elizabeth Sabatino. She learned to “tolerate plaid pleated skirts” while at Harker. Dana Lurie received her BA in sociology from San Jose State and lives in San Jose. Rosie Nijmeh-Habib took over her family advertising and printing company. She writes, “The academic foundation I received at Harker prepared me in a way I can

only appreciate now that I have my own children.” She fondly remembers playing Nancy in the production of “Oliver Twist,” and her favorite memories include teacher Mr. Near and friend Edith Maples. Troy Buckley is living in Long Beach, CA, and is assistant baseball coach at Long Beach State University. Calvin Gee sent an e-mail update. He graduated from Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo in 1994 with a BA in architecture and an MBA. Calvin notes that he lived with Tom Fenton during his sophomore year. He is a senior associate at an architectural firm in San Francisco. Calvin is married and the father of two sons. Calvin has “the fondest memories of living in the dorms, playing sports and going to Yosemite.” HA Christine Comanor received her BA from UCLA and her MBA from Cornell Johnson School, lives in Mountain View and is a strategic alliances manager with SGI.

’83

R. Todd Gafford received his BA from San Diego State and is a software developer and technical writing consultant. Todd remembers Sanjay Patel, Ashwin Patel, Kwambe Mask, Matt Douglass, Jon Finch, Tonya Scottie, Robbie Frankenburg, Karri Sakai, Vicki Ensey, Christine Troop, Denise Hobbs, Laurie Bredal, Tyler Arigoni, Marta, Lee and everyone else—oh, and, of course, Kim Gechman. On his experiences at Harker he replied, “The benefits are too numerous to write here. Let’s just say that my son hears me speak fondly of Harker and of my fellow classmates.”

’84

HARKER HISTORICAL LEGEND MN Manzanita Hall 1893-1919 MH Miss Harker School 1904-1959 PA

Palo Alto Military Academy 1919-1972

HD Harker Day School 1959-1972 HA Harker Academy 1972-1992 HS The Harker School 1992-Present

ALUMNI

update HA Karen Franz received her BA in geology from Claremont McKenna College and LLM from University of Leiden. She lives in the Netherlands and works as an information technology officer with the Permanent Court of Arbitration. Karen remembers, “getting caught in the locker cage in 6th grade was pretty hilarious; in fact, all of 6th grade was a riot!”

Chris Daren

’89

HARKER’S NEWEST ALUMS—Harker Alums from the Class of '02 (joined by one of their senior friends!) come to cheer on the Eagle football team this year before heading off to college! Kris Gruden Maley received her BA from Loyola Marymount University and is a real estate broker living in Basalt, Colorado. Kris remembers, “Coach Jack Bither was a dorm head who kept a close eye on me, along with Coach Marshall. Mrs. Kulp in sixth grade was so encouraging. Sixth grade was terrific, but seventh grade was magical. We had such an interesting mix of teachers that year. Ms. Murphy (passionate about science), Ms. Lerner (a bit eccentric, but made literature fun) and Mr. Warneke who let us listen to popular music like “Men at Work”…I loved living in the dorms 6th-8th grades. Dan Gelineau and the Nichols took a chance on me….I am grateful for every second they afforded me on campus.” Kris is in contact with Danielle Glosser and Joanna DeWit. She would love to know the whereabouts of Marta Marraccini, Matt Baker, Cailyn Kulp, Jon Finch, Laura Silver, Kelly Hodges and Marushka. She would love a 20-year reunion in 2004.

HA Angela Bouwsma lives in New York City. HA Christy Fraizer Bilings graduated from San Francisco State and is a teacher/cheerleading instructor with the San Juan Unified School District. Her memories include living in the dorms and closest friends Noelle, Allison, Mike and Jon. Christy would like to know the whereabouts of Allison Wharton, Mike Wong, Jon Mays and “too many to list.” She is in contact with Noelle Paulette.

’85

Allison Wharton attended Long Beach State and lives in Landover, MD. She is employed by the US Air Force as a computer graphics/ presentations specialist with the CSAF Briefing Team, Pentagon. Allison remembers the grammar and writing skills that Mrs. Offermann taught. “They have helped with the technical editing that I have done over the years. The dorm girls and Maggie were great. I chilled with Darren Wein at

the Los Gatos High School 10-year reunion.” She wonders whatever happened to the entire class, especially Kimani Irby, Christy Frazier, Noelle Paulette, Jessica Blue, Tom Sifferman and Jon Williams, as well as Melinda Hurst and Angela Morera. HA Aristomenis Capogeannis received his BA from UCLA and MBA from Santa Clara, lives in San Jose and is a marketing manager with Omniyig, Inc.

’87

HA Diego Martinez Velazquez lives in Guanajuato, Mexico, and is self-employed. He has fond memories of Mrs. Skapinsky and would love to be in contact with any of the guys in the boarding program during the years 1986 to 1988.

’88

Dani Snyder Guyette received her BA in psychology from Allegheny College in Pennsylvania. She is currently the director of Foundations Child Care in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.

Holly Ilena Faber received her BA in history from Wesleyan University, and her MD from Mount Sinai School of Medicine. She is currently a 4th year medical student starting a residency in Internal Medicine in Pediatrics at Strong Memorial Hospital in Rochester, NY. Holly remembers, “My favorite Harker teacher was Mrs. Sylvia Harp, with whom I had a one-on-one English class during my 8th grade year. I remember occasionally having class outside under the trees, on the lawn! I also remember fondly Mrs. Claudia Hatfield, Mrs. Flagg, Mr. Zetterquist, Mr. Near, Mrs. Tyrell, Ms. Rae, Mrs. Nielson, Mrs. Eknoian, Mrs. Parris and the late Mme Bager. My education at Harker was high-powered and stimulating, symbolized especially by my small classes with Mrs. Harp and Mrs. Hatfield during the 198889 academic year. My parents and I sincerely appreciated the flexibility of the administration and faculty in creating those classes, which allowed me to work at a level at which I was comfortable in math and English. In some ways my high school was less intense academically, if that can be believed! I look back on my studies at Harker and am very thankful for the extremely high quality of the teachers and courses. It was a great foundation for my education.” Holly is in contact with Karen Franz and would like to know the whereabouts of Marisa Deutsch. Varish Goyal received his BA from Duke University and his BS from Wake Forest Univiersity. He is currently working for Helixity. HA LaToya S. Redd received her BA in mathematics from UC Berkeley and her JD from UC Hastings College of the Law. She remembers, “Harker gave me an excellent education! Special thank you to Mr. and Mrs. Nichols! You helped me so much. I want to let

’90

ALUMNI them know that it definitely paid off!” LaToya is still in contact with Suzan Huang Grisanti. Kristin Sato received her BA from Scripps College and JD from Whittier Law School HA Billy Capogeannis received his BSME from UC San Diego and is currently a mechanical design engineer for Advanced Ion Beam Technology.

’91

Aviv Friedlander lives in San Diego, is married and has a son Ben born on 6/5/02. He would like to say hi to all the boarders: Darin, Miguel, Eric, Kerwin, Lee (Buddy), Dylan, Jack, Bobby, Paul, Holly and Dawn. Aviv also says, “I’m sorry, Mrs. Harp!” HA Jeff Lee received his BS in CS, and his BME and MSE from Johns Hopkins University. He is currently a software engineer for Novasonics. Jeff is in contact with Jenny Cu.

’92

Diana Eurich graduated with a BA in dramatic arts from UC Berkeley and is currently an English teacher in Berlin, Germany. Steven Pfaffle received his BS in CIS from the University of Oregon. He is a self-employed software programmer. HS Kelle Sloan attended Loyola Marymount and Santa Clara University. She currently coaches at Presentation High School and City Beach Volleyball club. “I will never forget Mr. Jack Bither, my math teacher. He was a great person! Then there were Mr. Pat Walsh and his family. Lastly there was Theresa Smith “Smitty.” Let’s just say I looked up to her the entire time I was at Harker. She was a great role HARKER HISTORICAL LEGEND MN Manzanita Hall 1893-1919 MH Miss Harker School 1904-1959 PA

Palo Alto Military Academy 1919-1972

HD Harker Day School 1959-1972 HA Harker Academy 1972-1992 HS The Harker School 1992-Present

update model and a kind caring person. Harker prepared me for what I would need with my future education. Harker is where I learned my study skills and habits. I have carried this through high school and into college. I would love to know what Lindsay Clark is up to. I will never forget the Carta brothers. I ran into Julio and Jon Carta about 4 years ago. I would like to know what they are up to as well.” Ramesh Srinivasan received his BA from San Francisco Conservator y of Music. He is currently a research analyst with Digital Century Capital. Ramesh is in contact with Sujay Jaswa, Joe Ferng, John Wang, Christina Yan and Aaron Jiminez. Andrea Mathers received her biology degree from UC Santa Cruz. She is currently a student at the School of Healing Arts studying to become a massage therapist and holistic healer. “I learned excellent study habits at Harker that got me through many more years of studying.” Andi is in contact with Tim Pence, Leila Nagel and Matt Sampson. She would like to know the whereabouts of Sejal Kaji, Amit Chadha, Ryan Ellison, Lance Tate, Joe Sabeh and Ashis Roy. Tala Banatao received her political science and mass communications degree from UC Berkeley. She is in contact with Lance Tate and Monika Pataye. HS Jack Lin received his BS from Carnegie Mellon University. He is currently a summer intern at Ricoh Research. Jack remembers, “It was the best time that a 7th and 8th grader could ever have, especially the dorm program. I was very sad to hear that the boarding program ended.” He would like to get in contact with Ben Chung, Howard Huang, Kai Yu, Ricky Consentino and all of the class of 1994!

’94

Amanda Posner is currently a student at Vassar College. Marcus Zachariah is currently a student at UC Berkeley. HS Andrea Lynn Turner graduated with honors in communications from UC Davis. She graduated from Davis in 3 years “because of my study skills learned at Harker.” She is currently an intern in Washington, D.C.

’95

It was reported to the alumni office

that Eun Jin Choi is now a senior at Brown University.

E-mail us a photo!

David Carlin is a senior at Santa Clara University studying mechanical engineering. David says, “I have yet to be challenged like Mrs. Harp pushed her English students.” He is in contact with Kofi Aqua-Arhin and would like to know “what happened to Phil Parker.” HS Erica Hahn is currently a student at Princeton University. She is in contact with Yasemin Denari.

’96

Jerry Lin is currently a student at UC Santa Barbara. Daniela Obregon lives in Sonora, Mexico. She learned lots from Mr. Holden, Mrs. Skapinsky, Mr. Ippolito, Mr. Muller, Mr. Near, Mrs. Nielsen, and Mrs Harp. Daniela says, “The wonderful teachers taught me to set myself goals and to always reach them. The diversity of cultures helped in my relationships with others, and the dorm experience gave me a taste of independent life.” HS Word came to the alumni office of some college athletes Harker has produced! Nate Jones is on the men’s volleyball team at UC San Diego, and Clinton Wu is on Princeton’s football team.

’97

Ashley Skipwith is currently a student at UCLA. She remembers “8th grade graduation, Washington DC, and the 5th grade dance per formance.” Ashley says of her experiences: “great education – developed my study skills which helped me in high school and college; diversity.” She is in contact with Sue Young and Nita Nyak and would like to know the whereabouts of Rachel Parker. (Note: the alumni office will connect you with Rachel who has also registered on our Web site.) Rachel Parker is currently a criminal justice major at University of Nevada, Las Vegas. “Mr. Pease was one of my favorite teachers. I loved his classes, and he was one of the teachers I’d actually seek out to talk to because he was also just a really nice guy. Being in the Traveling Ensemble was probably my favorite experience. I would like to know about Ashley Skipwith, Sonya Kleshik, Tiffany Rossi and Eiko Furukawa. I am curious to know if there are any Harker alumni attending UNLV.”

Electronically send the Alumni Office (terryw@harker.org) a photo (or mail one, though we can’t guarantee it will get back to you!) of what you’re doing these days, your family, etc. We’ll run them in our Alumni Updates! Thanks to Calvin Gee, ’82, for sending us our first one (above)! Is this a reunion year for your class? If you are interested in planning a reunion for your class, the Alumni Office can offer assistance in getting class lists, current addresses of classmates and faculty and photos. A good reunion time might be around the 52nd Annual Harker Family & Alumni Picnic on Apr. 27, 2003. Here are some reunion years coming up: 1998 - 5 yr 1993 - 10 yr 1983 - 20 yr

1978 - 25 yr 1973 - 30 yr

We can also pass on advice from the Class of ’82, who were quite successful locating unknown classmates and who are still working on getting connected with all of them. Contact us if you’re interested!

Mike Master is currently a student at Trinity University. He remembers Harker for “great teachers and lots of friends.” He said, “Harker gave me the opportunity to be fully prepared for high school work and college work as well.” Mike notes that he is not in touch with anyone! He would like to get in contact with Eleanore Cottarel. Philip Tseng is currently a student at UC San Diego. He is in contact with Jerry Chu and Jason Wang. He would like to hear from his dorm houseparent Carlos Velasco.

ALUMNI Mark Your Calendars! All Alumni Fri., Oct. 18th Homecoming 2002 US Class of 2002 Fri., Dec. 20th, 2-3:30 p.m. Alumni College Reception Eric Wu is currently a student at UC Davis. He is in contact with Joyce Kan, Samatha Chao, Vincent Yao, Stavros Conom, Judy Jing and Christine Lee. HS Rachel J. Carlos attended St. Lawrence Academy. Her experiences at Harker “taught me to be a strong person and become a leader. I have held numerous leadership roles in high school like student body secretary, cheerleading captain, softball captain. At my current school, I owe a great thanks to Harker. I’m in NHS and many other clubs, and I’m so proud of my accomplishments. Next year I will attend St. Mary’s College of California. Harker put me on the best educational path, and I want to acknowledge them for it. Thanks a bunch!” I keep in touch with Brian Torcellini, Erika Banualos, Jackie Lou and Lindsay Caritini.

’98

’99

HS Shannon O’Neil is currently a student at St. Francis High School.

HS Preston K. Lin is currently a student at Fountain Valley School of Colorado.

’00

HS Julian Fest is currently living in Germany. He also attended Harker Upper School for one year and remembers teachers Ms. Moss, Mr. Carter, Mr. Barth and Ms. Bendall. “Looking back I understand how beneficial the Harker education is.”

’01

HS Christopher V. Nolte is currently a student living in Herrenberg, Germany.

HS Our first update has come to us via an e-mail sent to Kevin Williamson, US dean of students. Alexandra Thurston reports that she is very happy at Scripps College. She sent a description of the campus and all the activities offered to the students. “The school spoils its students beyond belief.” Alexandra would be happy to tour any students who plan to visit Scripps.

’02

update Middle School Class of 1982 Celebrates 20 Years The middle school class of 1982 celebrated their 20year reunion on Sept. 7th with a picnic at John D. Morgan Park in Campbell. Organized by Keil Albert, Liz Robertson, Tina Johnson Murray and Dana Lurie, the time and effort they spent trying to track down classmates certainly paid off, and 19 were able to attend. The event, which lasted well past the scheduled 4 p.m. ending time, was spent reminiscing about classmates and looking through displays of memorabilia—photo albums, yearbooks, student handbooks, “Oliver” scrapbook—and many pictures from their years at Harker. Liz Robertson put together six volumes of “1982 Reunion CD’s” complete with photos of classmates on the covers and all their favorite hits from the ‘80s! Classmates enjoyed seeing former secretary Mrs. Carley, teachers Mr. Near and Mr. Walsh and Harker staff Mrs. Walsh and Joe Rosenthal. Alex Stojanovic summed up the day in an e-mail message: “It’s really wonderful to see how each of us has followed a life path and developed careers, families, etc. Our Harker experience was more than half our lifetimes away—but it was great to see how easily we reconnected and how much Harker meant to us.” We received enthusiastic feedback from Jon Haag who expressed his delight at seeing former teachers and staff members after all these years. “Thanks to the teachers who came—that was cool. Especially Mrs. Carley—it was awesome to see her there, and I felt honored that she would come see OUR class.”

Keil Albert felt the reunion was better than expected and he thinks, “this group will now be getting together much more frequently.” In attendance were Tina, Keil, Liz and Dana along with Pauline DeVos – Aasen, Debbie Delizonna, Julie DollMcFate, Shivaun EnglishClark, Jon Haag, Chuck Kamas, Stacy Kofman, Kim MacDonald Sager, Michelle Magboo, Elizabeth Sabatino, Lars Norpchen, Alex Stojanovic, Michelle Buckner, Judie Eichenbaum and John Mackie. Tina Johnson Murray noted: “We’re still actively tracking down 2/3 of our classmates whom we’ve lost contact with over these 20 years. I guess it’s not surprising that they’ve traveled far and wide. During our planning, I was able to converse with many on the phone as we located them. For example,

Leigh Harrison moved to L.A. 10 years ago after college to become an actress and now works for the Capital Group, ‘a good company.’ Jim Reid is also down there finishing his residency in orthopedics. Then, there were the stories about the people we couldn’t reach directly: Richard Bevan-Thomas who is a urologist in Texas and Shannon Poindexter who had worked in the attorney general’s office in Tennessee.”

Although a number of the graduates from ’82 were unable to make this particular reunion because of prior commitments or the committee’s inability to make contact, the hope is that this event will spark continued “connecting” as classmates log onto the Harker Alumni site. Alumni Director Terry Walsh is eager to help other classes interested in putting together a reunion. Contact her at terryw@harker.org or 408.345.9205.

FROM

the archives

Famous Faces from Harker’s Past Margot Washington Did you know that the great, great, great, great grandniece of George Washington attended Miss Harker's School? According to the 1952 yearbook, “The Echo,” 4th grader Margot Washington was descended from George Washington's oldest brother, Samuel Washington. Mr. Washington had no children of his own, so the article states that, "All of the Washingtons of today are descended from George Washington's brothers and sisters. Except for her father, Lawrence Washington, Margot is the closest living relative of George Washington, who bears the name of Washington." Source: “The Echo.” Miss Harker’s School, 1952. (Palo Alto, CA) p. 12.

Sarah Ellen Polk Harker

Mrs. Harker was born in Indiana on October 28, 1845. That would have made her two years old when the family joined the Oregon Trail and she suffered the loss of her father. He died of pneumonia, after being exposed to bad weather while crossing a raging river. Sarah’s father’s name was Adam Polk. He was a cousin of President Polk. He came from Kentucky with his three sons to La Porte, Indiana, and served (it is believed) as foreman for her grandfather, Mr. Nathaniel Winchell. Sarah’s parents married in 1842 and had two children together, Sarah and her sister Caroline.

who violate these rules. There are now “No Stopping” signs on Rincon heading to the back loading zone. This actually means no parking: cars with drivers waiting in line are allowed, but you may not park along the side of the street next to the field.

Located in the gym kitchen, and open from 7:30 to 8 a.m. each school day, students can choose from such items as:

The City has also posted “Right Turn Only” signs at the exits from both the Bucknall Road main parking lot and the Rincon loading zone.

• Milk • Chocolate Soy Milk • Juice • Yogurt • Fresh Cut Fruit • Bagels & Cream Cheese • Bananas • Granola Bars • Nutra Grain bars

Please help us keep traffic moving safely by observing these city rules.

Traffic Alert for Bucknall Families The City of San Jose has posted two new signs near the Bucknall campus and has ticketed parents

PICNIC

Sarah’s daughters never married, but their much-loved students became their legacy. —Enid Davis Library Director and History Committee Chair

update

There's no place like home! The theme for Harker's 52nd Annual Family & Alumni Picnic on Sun., April 27th is “The Wizard of Oz,” and picnic coordinator Lynette Stapleton is already gearing up! Watch the Web and the newsletter for more news and for ways that you can get involved! For more information about the 2003 picnic, contact Lynette at lynettes@harker.org or 871.6612.

Years later Sarah married James Bartlett Harker, a native of New Jersey. He died the same year Catherine Harker opened her school. Sarah and James had three daughters: Catherine, Sara, and Caroline. Tragedy struck the family on June 18, 1893, when Caroline, the youngest daughter, committed suicide by drowning during a state of depression at age 22. Sarah Harker eventually left Portland, Oregon, where the family had settled, to work at Miss Harker's School. In 1902, Sarah's sister Mrs. Caroline Wellman joined her. Together, the Harker women put all their energies into Miss Harker's School.

US Attendance Reminders Please call the attendance line by 8:00 a.m. if your student will not be attending for part or all of the day OR if your child has to leave school for any reason during the day. Remind your student to sign in and out either in the Dobbins or Main Office. The attendance phone number is 345.9645 or 345.9247.

Pam Dickinson

Harker Archives - both photos

Morning Snack Bar Opening Sept. 30th at Bucknall! Now our Bucknall students can grab a healthy snack before school!

All items are 50 cents each and can be charged to the student’s account. Enjoy!

Sarah Ellen was the mother of Catherine and Sara D. Harker, the women who founded and ran Miss Harker's School for Girls in Palo Alto.

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NEWS

Jason Martin, Gr. 8, sold the most raffle tickets at last year's picnic and won a huge bag of goodies at the final awards assembly in June. Congratulations, Jason!

The Harker News is published monthly by the Harker Office of Communications. Current and archived issues are also available on the Parent Home Page on the Web site at www.harker.org. Editor: Pam Dickinson Asst. Editor: Terry Walsh Photo Editor: Chris Daren

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