Fall 2014 Now & Then At Wheeler

Now&Then @Wheeler

SSfall 2014

FEATURING — HIGHLIGHTS FROM OUR 125TH YEAR, WHEELERSTOCK, 2014 REUNION AND ALUMNI WEEKEND PLANS

Now&Then @ Wheeler Vol. 12 Issue 2 Fall 2014 Editor: Laurie Flynn Head of Institutional Advancement: Patricia McLaughlin Board of Trustees President: Meredith Curren Alumni Association President: Etienne Granito Mechrefe ‘95 Parents Association President: Pam Clancy Rotondo Cover: Scene from this year’s Middle School Play, performed outdoors at the old Pageant Grounds in 2014.

Photo by Steve Jenks Nondiscrimination Policy: The Wheeler School does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, sex, religion, national origin, sexual orientation or handicap in the administration of its educational, admissions, and financial aid policies, faculty and staff recruitment and hiring policies, athletics or other programs or activities administered by the school. www.wheelerschool.org www.facebook.com/wheelerschool twitter @wheelerschool and @wheelerwarriors LinkedIn: The Wheeler School Alumni Network Instagram: @wheeleralumni Published by the Office of Institutional Advancement The Wheeler School 216 Hope Street Providence, Rhode Island 02906 401-421-8100

Message from the Head of School — Dan Miller

“I can’t help but see each Wheeler anniversary as a reminder of the creative and decisive thinking that has shaped this school, set the course, and allowed for our success.”

photo by Vickers & Beechler

This past June, Wheeler celebrated its 125th Commencement, a notable milestone for any school. It was a joyful day for 81 wonderful graduates, their friends, and families, but also for a storied institution that has meant so much to so many. As I prepared my remarks for the ceremony, it struck that me that there have actually been a flurry of significant school anniversaries in recent years: the 100th Field Day; the 40th anniversary of co-education; the 35th year since the last boarding student graduated; the 30th year of Aerie; the 25th anniversary of the Hamilton School; the 20th for Breakthrough (Summerbridge) – to name just a few.

Like our own personal milestones, these are occasions for celebration and congratulation, but also for contemplation. They offer an opportunity for us to reflect, not only on the quick, and sometimes bittersweet, passage of time, but also on our evolution over many years, and the significant decisions we have made along the way. For me, I can’t help but see each Wheeler anniversary as a reminder of the creative and decisive thinking that has shaped this school, set the course, and allowed for our success.

I think first, always, of Mary C. Wheeler. Much can be said about the determination and foresight of this remarkable woman, but her bedrock priorities — that a school for girls should stress academic excellence, the arts, intellectual curiosity, and innovation and not the de facto glass-ceiling curriculum of a “finishing school” — was not only ahead of its time, but provided the institutional DNA that still guides us 125 years later. Other anniversaries mark more controversial moments in our history, most notably the 1973 move to co-education. It’s fascinating to speculate what an all-girls Wheeler might look like in 2014 given the long-term fate of so many single-sex institutions or how Miss Wheeler would feel about the change. I like to think she’d be thrilled by the energy, the “spirit,” the robust good health of her school, and by the series of other decisions made at subsequent crossroads in our history. Certainly all our recent anniversaries — of the founding of Aerie, Hamilton, and Summerbridge – reflect her signature creativity and boldness.

The first pages of this magazine describe our new Center for the Arts, a spectacular (and long overdue) facility befitting Wheeler’s wonderful programs and deep, historic commitment to the arts. Its cornerstone will read “2014,” and if it serves as beautifully as we hope it will, perhaps in the year 2064 it will warrant its own anniversary celebration. Only time will tell.

They’re On The Beam

Students, faculty, staff, and even a visiting alum Class Ambassador (Carrie Alexander ‘04), took the opportunity to sign two beams in this fun construction ritual this spring for the new Center for the Arts opening this fall.

Photos by Sue Palmieri (center) and Sloane DeAngelis Pilgrim ‘86

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Coming this Fall — A new Center for the Arts — including a complete renovation to the interior of Wheeler Hall to create a dedicated theater, plus a new classroom and assembly building and an improved campus entrance on Angell Street — all as a result of The Campaign for the 125th.

Left: A view from the Prescott Library during one phase of the wintertime concrete pours for the new assembly space.

Photo by Linda Tibbetts.

Below left: A hidden chalkboard from a long ago Middle School math class uncovered during the renovation of Wheeler Hall.

Photo by construction managers dck worldwide.

Watch your mail for news of the dedication of these new campus spaces!

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The 125th Commencement

School milestone marked with speeches & smiles

Quasquicentennial Commencement Address

by Mark Harris, Aerie Director I need to make two apologies and a request in advance: To those on my extreme left and right, at the edges of my peripheral vision, I am sorry for the lack of eye contact. Teachers are known for having eyes in the back of their heads, but not on the sides. And to our lovely Mrs. JoAnn Donahue, who said to me Wednesday, “I’m so glad it’s you that’s speaking. That means it will be short and funny.” I should have spoken to her then, but I just didn’t have the heart. And to the Class of 2008: Please stop congratulating my son Bart on my retirement.

INTRODUCTION Guests, colleagues, and near-graduates: Despite those generous introductory words from Mr. Miller, there is still that “elephant in the tent…” You’re thinking, “Hey- Graduating classes get college presidents, Hollywood producers…I get my 5th grade math teacher?” Or even worse, “I get my classmate’s 5th grade math teacher?”

You’ve no doubt trolled through the list of obvious candidates and been handed the stock responses: “John Kerry? Traipsing through the Ukraine.

Miley Cyrus? Problems with the dress code. Big Papi? Works Fridays. And you’re muttering, “A teacher? Did they try asking the Seekonk Water Commissioner? For a while I was as confused as you are. Then, however, the pieces began to fall into place. “Come on,” you’ve muttered, “Surely ONE big name was available- after all, this is MY graduation…” Sadly, you are mistaken.

This 125th Anniversary thing means it’s really NOT all about you and your accomplishments and your exciting futures. Looking BACK is what is done at quasquicentennials. Let me explain.

worked here for a long time. It’s been noted that I’ve been a Wheeler teacher for a third of Wheeler’s 125 years. Do the math: in just 41 more years I will have been here for half the school’s existence. Get it now? A few years after that, I will have worked at Wheeler for its entire existence. Skeptics can check with the Math Department. Oh, rightyour tuition just expired.

It’s apparently the custom, when a school hits a certain age, to dredge up an artifact or two, perhaps a living fossil of some kind, and carefully uncrate it for display. Since in buffalo years I actually am 125, I fit the bill. I’ve also

Now that we’ve demystified my presence, let’s clarify the message. Given the imperatives, this can’t really be a “grand finale.” Luckily, completing high school is not a crowning achievement. It’s not as though, years from now, your child will run up breathlessly and blurt “Dad,

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There’s another undercurrent. Quite by accident, I was privy to a mid-winter email exchange, mentioning spiraling construction costs and the need to cut a few barely noticeable corners. One was the speaker’s travel stipend: Perhaps it could be held to single digits. Trustees, you’ll be happy to know that even at $.14 a mile, we hit the target. So seniors, this speech saves enough for two nice seats in that performing arts center that will soon open for everyone. Except you, of course.

Another blow.

Finally, I hardly need to mention that it’s Friday the 13th. Lucky day. Well, at least you have the weather.

mom says that you graduated from high school. Is that really true?” Let’s all hope that your life story hasn’t peaked just yet! Graduation is a milestone, yes.

But you haven’t exactly been forged by fire. Jumping out of a nest is a similar accomplishment for a bird. Your real flights are yet to come. This is called “Commencement” for a reason.

Don’t get me wrong. Most of us agree that you are the center of the universe, at least for today. But extolling your virtues will have to wait, perhaps for a ceremony 4 years from now when you get better treatment. Giving you all sorts of life advice will have to wait, too. Luckily you are 18, so you know everything already. At least I did when I was your age. We have other matters to deal with, this being the 125th and all.

PROLOGUE One fascinating thing about human society is the power of groups. The power seems to come from a certain “magic” that a collection of like-minded people generates. Energy is produced that is somehow more than the sum of its parts. Like a star, where gravity brings dust and gas together and the mass reaches a fusion point, unlocking vastly greater energy.

That power is what makes sports teams so exciting and armies so terrifying.

The basic group is the family, the one we return to as the unit of identity throughout life. There are groups we belong to in succession: playgroups, Little League, Cosmic Ray clubs. The efforts of a few can bring a group together. Under the right conditions it takes on a life of its own, and becomes an institution. Like this one. You will attach yourselves to many institutions in your lives: universities, hospitals, pipefitters unions, law firms, professional bowling tours. The institutions you join and eventually shape, where you leverage your talents and dreams, will determine your generation’s contribution to the world.

Let’s look at this institution, a part of your story. Schools run on the energy of people, serve people. They also outlive people. They are bigger than those who run them or attend them.

When your class scatters in an hour or so, the school will somehow live on, and evolve. It’ll have that new building, serving the next generation.

In 1889 the Eiffel Tower opened. An artist who loved France began teaching four students in Providence. Two years later she had 43. A year after that there were 75, 15 of them boarders – Voila: an institution! A vision, some energy, and presto!

Now. Here’s the plan: I’m going to tell a story, the last story you’ll ever hear in school. It’s a ghost story, with magic mirrors and giants. It has 3 chapters.

At some point you’ll become aware that it’s over, so you’ll politely applaud and then return to concentrating on how not to trip in front of Mr. Miller with 800 pairs of eyes following your every move. For those of you who are re-thinking your choice of shoes, it’s too late.

I-MIRRORS I remember little of my 1966 graduation from Lowell High in San Francisco, in fact, almost nothing. There must have been a speaker, and an auditorium, and people in caps and gowns, but I have no memory of any of this. (I think this has less to do with the Sixties than with my being in my sixties.)

I do have, however, one crystal-clear memory, from a day two months later.

It was the day I left for college. I had chosen Brown, based on a coin toss and

an untimely first-quarter D in French.

The D was a wakeup call from a teacher weary of the wiseguy seniors in the back of the class, and that meant my West Coast school of choice was out.

Fate determines much in life, and that D quite likely was the key event that led me to Rhode Island. A neighbor was moving to Chicago and asked if I’d drive his Ford Thunderbird there on my way to the East Coast. With a couple of suitcases stuffed in the trunk I set out on a morning quite unlike this. The greens were greener-thangreen, the sky was brilliant blue, just like every day in California. I still see, in the rear-view mirror, my family lined up waving, just as I made the turn at the end of the driveway, and that’s it.

The image was gone. I was gone from

“I’m hoping you will navigate your trail better than I did. It took me years to realize that my past is something to build on, not pave over.

I’d like to have some of the detours back.” home, gone from family, and as I would soon discover, nothing would ever be the same. I never really returned to that home, because “home” changed forever with that fleeting glance backwards. I didn’t go back on breaks that year. The $80 fare on TWA was a bit stiff. By the time I did see Heather Drive the next summer, a fault-line had opened. It felt like their home, not mine. Later summers were spent in the Haight-Ashbury and near Seattle. Friends became my family of choice. With every return the canyon seemed wider. Times were changing fast. There were protests, and long hair, and the rock counterculture, and mounting intergenerational estrangement.

There’s another image from that T-Bird mirror. Somewhere along Interstate 80 in Nebraska, in the left lane, I dozed off at the wheel. I awoke with a jolt, careening along a grassy median strip in the center of the interstate. As I lurched to a stop I saw a big dust cloud

in that mirror and after a few moments a nearly empty road behind me.

Shaken, I got out and gave the T-Bird a once over. Not a flat. Not a scratch. Not a cop in sight. I eased back onto the highway, adrenaline pumping. I made it to Chicago, and from there Providence, without further incident. The sheer luck of the swerve, into a smooth grassy median, gave me an inkling that perhaps I was not guaranteed immortality.

I might just as well have snapped off the mirror at that point. There’s a 1967 film called “Don’t Look Back,” and I didn’t, adopting Bob Dylan’s rebellious half-sneer. At the age of 18 I fancied I would invent myself. Start from scratch.

Create a persona with no awkward branches in the family tree. My particular story was complicated by family conflict and political turmoil. Antiwar demonstrations did not sit well with a grandfather who was an admiral, whose 12 year-old daughter had watched Pearl Harbor burn one Sunday morning while he and his submarine were out at sea. The day he saw the hippie marching down College Hill was the day we stopped speaking. I imagine that the difference between principle and stubbornness lies in who tells the story; he must have been pretty stubborn because we never spoke again. Your relationship with your past may not be torn as abruptly, but you will surely be distanced, and soon. What you have the chance to do is look in the rear view mirror once in a while.

I’m hoping you will navigate your trail better than I did. It took me years to realize that my past is something to build on, not pave over. I’d like to have some of the detours back.

II-GHOSTS Your relationship with this institution is about to change drastically. It’s all moving to a shelf called “the past.”

From there your ghosts will appear. (continued on next page)

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Quasquicentennial Commencement Address continued — These flickering glimpses will be what you see when you visit, in person or in your mind’s eye. They will be layered upon the shadowy memories of other generations, which together provide the texture, the depth that give the place a lasting identity. Your ghosts, from the lab, the studio, the Union...Your senior art show, your dance number in Chorus Line, the mass reading from Hamlet in assembly, all are your ghosts, soon visible only to you. This place is never seen the same way by any of us. Your ghosts will be as different from mine, as mine are from Miss Wheeler’s.

This Wheeler spot, the Farm, is full of ghosts. For me there are a hundred softball games, the family of deer grazing over there in near-darkness, spied by my daughter as we left the Farroba classic in December. I stood on that hill one morning and saw a great grey owl, harassed by irate bluejays. It lazily spread its huge wings, and with an almost imperceptible flap, glided into the forest where now the tennis courts stand. I was trapped for days in that cabin over there during the Blizzard of ’78. Herman the Rooster used to attack my rear when I leaned over to pick tomatoes.

For you, there’s the goal that won it all, fall practices framed in brilliant orange, the three point buzzer-beater against the arch-rivals, holding a little kid’s

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hand for the Field Day march, Wheelerstock. For others, a stately row of model T’s from some sepia-tinted Pageant Day, the bus rides, the retreats. They say that George Washington rode by right there. The Seekonk tribe that gave Roger Williams shelter surely hunted here. Ghosts, accumulated over the ages. You’ll grow to treasure them, as you grow to appreciate just how fragile, just how fleeting, life really is.

Adjusting to a world of ghosts is hard.

Your November return to campus will feel slightly awkward, however warm and nostalgic. The senior room will look different. Those two seats in the

“You are leaving a little school that moved from good to great just in time for you.” auditorium will seem too plush for the school you remember. Your old teacher will seem distracted, because she, despite the bonds of affection between you, is on her way to teach a new cohort, assembling for a dose of Spanish or poetry or calculus. As much as she enjoys seeing you, that’s where she needs to be.

Some of you will come back regularly...

Some won’t make it back for decades.

Some of you will become parents of

Wheeler kids. Others will arrive for reunions from Maine or Singapore, and marvel at the changes. Every alum who returns is overwhelmed by ghosts, as you will be, because this school will never be the way it was when you were here.

III-GIANTS Sometimes, a ghost leaves tangible evidence of its presence, like dinosaur tracks, indelible marks that last beyond one generation. Such ghosts left something special for you, in 1914 or 1964 or 2003. These imprints come from the institution’s giants, who took ideas and brought them to life. Maybe a studio or chunk of land in the country. Maybe a jazz or AP science program. Maybe a library or MAT program. Maybe a lacrosse or apache race tradition.

One hundred and twenty-five years seems like a long time. But it’s really just four teaching careers strung together. Thirty-four Wheeler employees have been here for a quarter century or more. Among them are a disproportionate number of giants, on your left, on your right, behind me. When I look back at the school’s legendary figures, I’m amazed at how many are still around. You are the beneficiaries of their work. The reason for the abundance is simple: despite our history of innovation and quality, this school is better, way better, than it ever has been before. And when you return for a reunion or as a parent, it will be better still. Count on it.

Van Gogh painted “Starry Night” in 1889. I sometimes imagine that out here there is an impressionist sky you don’t see anywhere else. Just as the Greek gods placed Castor and Pollux in the heavens forever, I imagine that our giants are similarly enshrined. In place of Casseopia we have the sometimes “W,” sometimes “M” of Mary Wheeler.

Our 3rd-brightest night star is Capella, in Auriga, but I see a patch of darkness someday becoming the constellation “a cappella.” There is a cluster of stars in the shape of a bell. Perhaps there’ll be a judge’s gavel, a writer’s quill, a camera.

The pantheon is ever growing, as giants in turn take their places.

You’ll learn many lessons in the next 4 years. You’ll learn lots more in the next 47, I assure you. You will find joy and sorrow; you will know accomplishment.

You will learn to drive more slowly.

You’ll discover mortality and with that a profound sense of how precious time is. But an astonishing amount of what you know, as you look back, will have been learned right here.

CLOSING

Reactions to Mark Harris’ Commencement Address At times both hilarious and heartwarming, Harris’ talk was among the best in School history. Top: Members of the Class of 2014. Center: Head of School Dan Miller and Board of Trustees President Meredith Curren. Bottom: retired Headmaster William C. Prescott, Jr. with former trustee and alumni parent Ben Baker, both wearing vintage Wheeler ties.

Someday, you’ll tell a friend or colleague that you went to a great school.

Arguably, of all 125 graduating classes, you have the strongest claim. You are leaving a little school that moved from good to great just in time for you.

You’ll verify this indirectly, by contrast.

You’ll notice that your college singing group isn’t as good as this one.

You’ll join the campus radio station; by the end of freshman year, you’ll be in charge. You’ll land a role at your first audition. Your environmental science or biology professor will invite you to TA his course. You’ll already know that Art is important. Women are important. Passion is important. Respecting differences is important.

I’ve been lucky to be here. So have you. I began today by telling you that this isn’t just about you. That will be increasingly true, because that’s what adulthood is about. I hope that you figure that out more quickly than I did.

The evolution of this modest outpost of learning into a great school happened because lots of people leveraged their talents for a greater good. We have made history here. You will make history out there. Get moving.

So, on behalf of those who work here, I bid you farewell. We have high hopes that each of you will fare well. As you set off, buckle up, check your mirror, look for the blind spot. Remember where you came from. And glance back once in a while. We’ll be waving.

Graduation photos by Pam Murray

Quasquicentennial Commencement Speeches by the 2014 Co-Class Presidents on next page —

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THE 125TH COMMENCEMENT

Speeches by the Class Presidents

By Rye Carroll Gratitude. The state of being grateful, appreciative, thankful. I need to thank you. All of you. Every soul gathered here today and the hundreds more that have shaped who we are and have been a part of these thousands of moments that compose the people we now find ourselves to be. This has not been a short trip, nor is it one we could have made alone. So thanks to all of you who have made it with us.

In my time here there have been countless moments of joy and triumph, laughter and quiet, private moments and experiences shared with dozens of others. I am these moments. We are these moments.

We are the moments spent here, together, because who we are is built upon the foundation of every fraction of a second we spend on earth. We are time.

We are these moments that have come before and those that have yet to pass. Time is a funny concept and is as inextricably a part of who we are as is the light behind our eyes. I am time and these past seven years have been the best time.

And this is the beginning, we will walk off this stage and find ourselves instantly alumni. This year has passed faster than seems possible, as everyone older and wiser promised it would, but even faster have these past seven years left me. Silent and slightly star struck before you. But I’m not alone. I see all your faces here beside me, watching the ever approaching future coming to take our hand. Parents, aunts, uncles, grandparents, teachers, and friends, they are here with us too. Seeing how far we have come and how far we have yet to go. Because we are. Going.

To California, to Vermont, Tennessee, Minnesota, Massachusetts, Canada, Connecticut, Florida, points scattered across the map because we are going. And how exciting is that? We are standing on the precipice of whom we are and who we will be. And we will be incredible because that is what we are. We are dreamers and chasers, makers and givers. And we 8

will take this world, wielding the same tenacity with which we planned basketball tournaments and blood drives, hung Christmas lights and sold Hanukkah grams, organized book drives and food drives and toy drives. As always, the world is needing, balancing on its own edge and we are about to fall off together.

Today is salty, with tears and sweat. We are leaving a place that has been our world for this brief time and morphed us in ways that will last for all of time. But this day is sweet; for today we may reflect upon all that we have been given. A time for thank yous and laughs as memories, infinite in number and laughter, surge forward. I owe a great deal to this place, to all of you here today. Coming to Wheeler, to this place that encourages us to think for and beyond ourselves I finally found my voice. I learned how to dream without abandon because Wheeler is a dream that has come true; I learned to love stories because I love people, these people. I love how we love and continue to love.

How we hope beyond reason and dream without bounds.

You, the Class of 2014 are the most beautiful people I know. Alive and passionate and caring. Vibrant in a way that I had

“... go forward knowing that there is no problem too great for you to solve, no end to your laughter and love...� thought only stars could be, you take my breath away with the sheer joy that you are. That we are. Today, I ask you to say thank you to this place, to these people, to any and all who have impacted you for the better. Today, I ask you to always dream, with all your heart and far beyond infinity. All of you taught me what it is to laugh, and I hope you always continue to do so. You question and theorize, offer solutions with steady hands and I have no doubt you always will. Today, if you remember nothing else, I ask you to go forward knowing that there is no problem too great for you to solve, no end to your laughter and love, no bottom to your acceptance, and the sky is only our beginning.

See a list of graduates plus photos from the event at www.wheelerschool.org/ Graduation2014 and on the last page of this issue.

“Wheeler ... fosters thinking outside the wavelengths of accepted knowledge”

By Jacob Mukand Thank you, Rye, for your inspiring words and your support as my co-president.

I am honored to speak to the Wheeler community at this 125th commencement ceremony.

In 5th grade, I studied the intricacies of Hebrew verbs with my grandfather, Alan Corre, a professor of Semitic languages.

He taught me that a verb’s meaning is determined by a three-consonant root and a pattern of vowels. Verbs that have the same root convey similar ideas, but are differentiated by the vowel pattern of the type of verb, such as intensified verbs.

For example, the word “kafatz” means “to jump,” while the intensified verb, “kipetz” means “to leap.” The example my grandfather gave me was much more poetic and has remained with me with ever since. "Take the root l.m.d.,” he said.

“If you want the basic meaning of the verb, you get "lamad," which means to learn. But if you take the same root and use it for the intensified action, you get “limed,” which means to ‘teach.’" So, to teach is literally to "learn intensively."

I like to think that at some level my desert-dwelling ancestors ingrained into Hebrew grammar the educational ideal of teachers engaging with students as equals in the search for knowledge.

use that knowledge. Because our teachers at Wheeler are always learning, especially from students, every lesson is fresh with new ideas, stories and reflections. Wheeler teachers bring a contagious passion to the classroom, which inspires their students.

All of us can think of examples of this passion, whether it's Ms. Palmero's laugh and her love for literature or Ms. Lau's flair for historical story-telling, or my advisor, Mr. Kelly's insights into writing-and into life. To my teachers and to all those who support the Wheeler educational mission, thank you for teaching me and thank you for learning with me.

I am also grateful to my fellow-graduates, with whom I have laughed, learned, and discussed ideas both great and small. You are amazing, talented people who will do remarkable things. We are starting out our independent lives with incredible tools provided through an exceptional education. Perhaps the best lesson that Wheeler offers is to imitate our teachers and to never stop learning. As a result, we will keep our eyes, our ears and our minds open to new ideas. To always be learning, however, requires a jump, or rather a leap, of humility, the same leap that our teachers take by making dialogue the centerpiece of Wheeler's education.

We must recognize that we have a lot left

to learn and that everyone has something to teach us.

I remember sitting in the courtyard when two second-graders walked by and one looked up at the sky and said, "If black is not a color, then what color is the night sky?" First, one has to admire the question, which brings out the contradictions in different theories of color. The pigment theory holds that black is a color because it can be created by mixing other colors, for instance in a can of paint. The light and the reflection theories deny the colorhood of black because it is perceived by the human eye only in the absence of light or the lack of reflection of a specific wavelength of light. The other kid considered the question and, instead of merely jumping to an easy conclusion, he leaped to an answer that grandly unified all three theories of color. He briefly closed his eyes and said, "Maybe it’s a really dark purple." His redefined perception of black made it into a full-fledged color according to all three theories.

That kind of leap happens often at Wheeler, which fosters thinking outside the wavelengths of accepted knowledge, and encourages the leaps from learning to teaching and back.

Thank you, and congratulations to the Class of 2014.

The special thing about The Wheeler School is that its philosophy and its teachers make this ideal come to life.

In order to see teaching as "intensive learning," there must be mutual respect between student and teacher. This belief that everyone has insights to contribute, leads to the dialogue that defines a Wheeler education. I came here as a freshman, and felt immediately welcome because of this atmosphere. The dialogue of the Wheeler classroom not only leads to learning but also lays the foundation for lasting friendships. Every time I enter a Wheeler classroom I find a place where people appreciate and enjoy one another, a place where ideas flow and interconnect, bringing everyone a better understanding of what we are learning, why we are learning it, and how we can 9

2014 CUM LAUDE SOCIETY

Address Weaves School History Into Advice For All

By John Campbell Head, English Department

“Know Thyself”

“Know Thyself ”—these words were supposed to have been carved on the temple of the Oracle at Delphi and, along with their sister phrase “Nothing Too Much,” are often seen as the seminal maxims of Ancient Greek thought. The phrase interests me, here, though, because it captures so much of what I value about education—namely, the pursuit of meaningful self-knowledge. Given that high school presents us with such a rich and exciting time to pursue selfknowledge, the maxim “know thyself ” speaks powerfully to the work that we are engaged in at Wheeler and to which I have devoted my adult life.

To be an English teacher is to live a life dedicated to sharing, promoting, and— we teachers hope—inculcating, one’s love of language to one’s students. Of course, as I’ve already suggested, it is also to live a life devoted to the profound and moving beauty of intellectual discovery, of self-discovery, and (yes, it must be said) of close textual analysis. But, for me, the single greatest thing about being an English teacher, the chocolate-y, nougat-y center of this Tootsie Pop of a profession, is that it enables me to be there, either in the classroom or hovering over the page, when so many of you realize that thoughtful textual analysis, the careful close reading of a passage from Shakespeare or of the sestet in a Petrarchan sonnet, can lead—in ways that you hadn’t anticipated before—to meaningful and surprising flashes of self-discovery. And in that moment, that sweet, sweet, heuristic moment, your own life and practice as a student stands forever changed.

You will never again wonder, Why do I have to do all this stuff? Will I ever use this in the real world? Will my boss ever ask me what I think of Holden’s red hunting cap? You won’t be troubled by such questions anymore because you’ll understand, thanks to your MLA-citationbearing epiphany, that your interior life and your external, snow-shoveling life are even more deeply and mysteriously connected than you’d realized. You’ll 10

know—and it’ll be your own discovery— that to “know thyself ” is ultimately to live a richer, more informed, more dazzlingly integrated life. This is the life that Mary C. Wheeler wanted for her students one hundred and twenty five years ago; this is the life that all of us on Hope St. want for you.

“He studied Latin, like the violin, / Because he liked it…”

“He studied Latin, like the violin, / Because he liked it…”—I can’t think of two lines of poetry that have meant more to me in all the years I’ve lived among stanzas and spondees. I’ve loved these lines ever since I first read Robert Frost’s excellent narrative poem “The Death of The Hired Man”. They emerge from the depths of my consciousness at the most surprising times—in the middle of a class discussion, during lunch duty, at the deli counter. And, whenever I hear these lines echoing from the dark caverns of uncatalogued memory, I think I know exactly what they mean. “He studied Latin, like the violin, / Because he liked it…”—the notion evokes in my mind the sort of idealistic, energizing zeal that I’ve tried to bring to all of my work as a student and teacher, and makes me think, as I wait for my zip-locked slices of sharp cheddar, of the life philosophies of Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau.

Emerson and Thoreau, in their writings, their friendship, and their eventual personal and professional rifts, seem the very embodiments of two vital, yet disparate facets of American culture, wherein Emerson represents the powerful idealism that has inspired, and continues to inspire, many of America’s most important reforms and Thoreau, the Spartan pragmatism it takes to enact such idealism in the buzzing, cacophonous beehive of a democratic republic. In the more quotidian realities of my own life, I find, in the juxtaposition of these thinkers, a recipe for living. These two men and their contrasting styles remind me that, although enthusiasm and passion

are powerful and essential animating forces, it’s also important to live a life that puts food on one’s table and shoes on one’s feet.

And yet, as I returned to “The Death of the Hired Man” in preparation for these remarks, I was surprised to learn that I didn’t know the lines as well as I’d thought; if anything, my memory of them seems, upon studious reflection, instructively inaccurate. In the poem, Silas, the hired man mentioned in the title, has returned to Warren and Mary’s farm, where he’d worked for many years, “to die”. He’s come seeking his final resting place because, we’re told, the farm fills him with succoring nostalgia: Harold’s associated in his mind with Latin.

He asked me what I thought of Harold’s saying He studied Latin, like the violin, Because he liked it—that an argument!

He said he couldn’t make the boy believe He could find water with a hazel prong— Which showed how much good school had ever done him.

He wanted to go over that. But most of all He thinks if he could have another chance To teach him how to build a load of hay— Reading these words over as I prepared my notes, I had to laugh, for what I’d thought offered an instructive contrast of two competing views of education, the idealistic and the pragmatic, actually existed only in my misleading memory—and not on the page. In fact, in this passage, we see that Silas, whom I’d formerly only associated with the practical knowledge of haystack-ery, actually has a touch of the magician in him. He wants to teach Harold how to “find water with a hazel prong,” a practice that is also known as dowsing or, even better, well-witching.

Now I don’t mean to suggest that well-witching and studying Latin are equivalent pursuits, but it occurs to me that to do both you have to have a certain faith in the insubstantial, you have to desire a life that involves more than just the building of things you can see and

Some current and new members of the Wheeler Chapter of the Cum Laude Society pose at this year’s reception.

Photo by Ning Jiang

touch and feed to cattle. What I mean is, building a better haystack is as noble a pursuit as any, but it’s also more tangible and finite than what we might call the more ethereal, the more magical, and, yes, the less quantifiable orders of knowledge.

The privilege of the integrated education we receive at Wheeler is that it allows and encourages us to value both the earthy practicality of Silas’s haystacks and the supernal knowledge repped by the temple at Delphi; it teaches us to respect learning, all manner of learning, in other words, as much as we respect our fellow learners.

“The Spirit Giveth Life” Our school’s motto, “The Spirit Giveth Life,” comes from St. Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians. In the Vulgate bible, these words appear as “Spiritus autem vivificat.” “Vivificat” is an unusual verb; entirely unknown to the ancient Romans, it comes from ecclesiastical Latin and was probably first used around the 5th century. This Latin phrase, it is interesting to note, actually translates most literally to “the Spirit vivifies”. Although that phrase lacks the simple poetry of our motto—and looks a lot less impressive on a sweatshirt—the alternate translation reminds us that “to vivify” means not only “to give life to” but also “to animate[,] to quicken.”

And sitting out there, listening to these definitions, you’re feeling a flash of recognition right now—I know it!—because our school is an animated, life-giving, at times, even, frenetic place.

It is the kind of place where you might actually know someone who’s spent her Saturday morning cataloging lichen for the Envirothon before running back to Madden Gym to work the low post in

her varsity basketball game. And that’s why we love this place, because Wheeler is a school where you learn not only how to stoke the embers of your vivifying spirit but also how to rely on its fortifying heat. (Let’s face it: we’re very active people—and we don’t run on batteries!)

Individuality, Commonality, Awareness, & Opportunity

Individuality, commonality, awareness, and opportunity are the four pillars of our school’s mission statement.

Thus far, I’ve focused mostly on the issues of individuality and opportunity, on the ways in which students at our school become conversant with their inner selves through the many excellent brain-plumping opportunities the school provides. But I’ve said nary a word about how the school promotes the importance of awareness, of keen eyes and a thoughtful, open heart, or of commonality, a notion which simply asks us to remember that, for all our spiritrippling uniqueness, we’re all ultimately feeding our fires with the same fuel, oxygenating them with the same gentle breaths.

Our School Songs “Take up the Song” and “Arise All Joyously”—if the words carved on the walls of the temple at Delphi represent the seminal maxims of Ancient Greece, then certainly these two songs bear a similar relationship to the culture on dear old Hope St. They reveal a great deal about what our nourishing mother expects of her graduates, about what we expect of ourselves.

In Act 1 of Shakespeare’s The Tempest, Prospero, a powerful sorcerer, and his

daughter live their days in exile, stranded on an island in the middle of the Mediterranean. In his youth, Prospero, the former, rightful duke of Milan, had neglected the day-to-day needs of his duchy and squirreled himself away in his “library,” a place he mistakenly thought “was dukedom large enough” (1.2.130132). Of course, before the bookish young ruler had submerged himself in the treacly silence of vellum and onionskin, he’d ordered his younger brother, Sebastian, to tend to all those ducal tasks that might otherwise have detracted from his reclusive studies. Eventually, Sebastian decides that, if he’s to do the work of the duke, he might as well be the duke and he banishes his single-minded older brother to the aforementioned island.

It’s a shame that Prospero hadn’t been a student at Wheeler. If he had, he might have learned that the point of scholarship is not isolation; it’s to “take up the song.”

Had Prospero spent four or seven or thirteen years “sound[ing] the notes of freedom, / and lift[ing] a song of peace, / rais[ing] a cry for justice / and never let[ting] it cease,” then he would have known that the privilege of education, especially a liberal arts education, is that it awakens and informs a sense of empathy in the learned—a sense of empathy that should propel the well-educated out into the world at least as often it calls them back to their books for renewal.

Unlike Prospero, we at Wheeler, once we have claimed the “guerdon” of “true knowledge,” want to answer the call of our Alma Mater. We want to “Stand forth courageously, to “stand [and] face the light,” to “March ever onward scattering shades of night.” In short, a Wheeler student loves his, or her, studies not only because “knowing thyself ” can send an individual deeper and deeper into vast, swirling canyons of human intellect but also because an informed mind and a schooled heart makes every last, libertyquesting one of us a better person, a better neighbor, a better citizen.

A graduate of Wesleyan University, John Campbell joined the faculty nine years ago. He is a former advisor to The Spoke, and current Head of the English Department.

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MIDDLE SCHOOL PLAY

Wheeler Hall Renovations Prove Harking back to the days of old Wheeler Pageants at the Farm, Middle School play director Andrew Hall ‘89 proved that Shakespeare in the woods would be just the ticket for the cast of the magical A Midsummer Night’s Dream this spring. Oberon, Puck and Titania (below right) were surrounded by spring blooms and the Athenian teens, Hermia, Demetrius and Helena, wore costumes influenced by 1933 photos that student Maya Gabor found in the School Archives.

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Photos by Steve Jenks

WHEELERSTOCK

No Obstacle To Performing Arts

Every musical group from Lower, Middle and Upper Schools, was able to take the stage in glorious sunshine for the Performing Arts Festival, department head Lisa Brackett dubbed WHEELERSTOCK this May. Senior Sam Becker ‘14 recreated Jimi Hendrix’ electric guitar version of the National Anthem and peace, love and music flowed over all gathered.

Photos by Laurie Flynn 13

In And Out Of 1. A group of Wheeler students, faculty and alums diverted a ‘mama’ mallard and her brood from a nest near the courtyard — headed toward Hope Street — to a better home instead at the Wheeler Farm Pond this spring. Student photographer Keiran McDonough captured the moment on camera while Science Department head Chris Perkins (pictured) and Otter Brown captured the mom and her ducklings, safely transporting the family to their new home at the Farm.

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2. Lower School students reconnected with former students Lily and Sam Clurman who called in via internet from their home in Kenya several times this year.

The Clurman siblings answered lots of questions on topics such as learning to sing in Swahili, getting to school, sports and visiting volcanoes in the Great Rift Valley.

3. A record number of Seniors (32) gave the library a list of books important to them during their time here at Wheeler as part of the Prescott Library’s Senior Reads project, now in its fourth year. Visit http:// wheelerschool.libguides.com/senior-reads to see a list of all the titles recommended by the Classes of 2014 2011.

4. Twelve Wheeler Middle School students represented Wheeler at the 2014 Assn. of Independent Schools of New England (AISNE) MS Students of Color Conference this March. Students took part in leadership workshops as well as met their peers from the region. This year’s conference theme: Stories Matter: What’s Your Story?” Representing Wheeler were Tizi Chisholm, Jordan Bomba, Iris Cephas, Billy Lee, Albert Watkins, Sana Iqbal, Morgan Prescod, Vanessa Doherty, Maribel Ramirez, Ivan Ruiz, VanNashlee Ya and Nayda Ya. Wheeler will host the AISNE Middle School Diversity Conference next November with the theme &: Making The Connection.

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The Classroom 5. Congrats to the two Wheeler students who are the Rhode Island first place honorees in the American Mathematics Competition! AMC10A: Ava Jiang, and AMC12B: Dylan Gastel.

6. It has come be to known as “dumpling day” on campus, especially from those of us who walk through the Union and see stools filled with students earnestly making this Chinese dish in honor of the New Year. Often a Wheeler parent or two stops by to help, this year Ava and Winston Jiang’s father assisted as the students in Middle and Upper Schools formed the dumplings. Did you know Wheeler was the first school in RI to offer Chinese as a regular part of its language program?

7. Connecticut Governor Dannel Malloy admitted during his visit to accept the 2014 Hamilton School Life Achievement Award — presented for success despite the challenges of a learning difference — that had HE attended Hamilton as an elementary student, maybe he’d “have been President” and not ridiculed by classmates and teachers for failing spelling, being clumsy and having the label “mental retardation” applied. Malloy’s inspiring assemblies gave everyone who heard Malloy speak a boost about educational potential for all children.

8. Congratulations to veteran teachers Lupe Vivier (left) and Annie Funnell (right) who have been named to three-year terms in two master teaching chairs beginning this fall. Lower School Spanish teacher and Diversity Coordinator Lupe Vivier has been selected by the school’s faculty and staff as the Jason & Carly Siperstein Chair while Upper School English teacher and Class Dean Annie Funnell has been selected by the Upper School faculty to hold the Michael C. Brown Chair in Upper School Teaching.

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LOWER SCHOOL CURRICULUM

Place-Based Education is Alive and Well in Wheeler’s Fourth Grade

By Barbara Simpson, Fourth Grade Teacher Place-based education “is a vibrant approach to education that takes students out into the communities, to learn, to do and to grow as human beings. Students are given the opportunity to learn subject matter in deep and lasting ways and understand the places they live in.” (1)

Inspired by a 2008 visit from David Sobol, a proponent of the philosophy of place-based education, Lower School teachers were inspired to find different ways to make learning more relevant and meaningful to their students by using local history in conjunction with their social studies curricula. The fourth grade’s immigration and AfricanAmerican history units have been revamped to reflect this change, and the results have been exciting.

During the study of immigration in the winter term, one of Wheeler’s Aerie (enrichment program) rotations exposes the students to the forced migration of Africans to the Americas. The children learn of the triangle trade and Rhode Island’s major role in its perpetuation.

They discover that out of all 13 colonies, Rhode Island outfitted the most slave ships to the African coast, carrying over 100,000 slaves to the New World.

Unlike previous generations of students, Wheeler fourth graders are taught that slavery was not just a “peculiar institution” in the South. It was very much alive in the Northern colonies and then states, including Rhode Island. In February, 1784, slaves in the Ocean State started to be gradually emancipated. In 1800, there were still 384 slaves in the state census records. The last slave in Rhode Island died in 1859, two years before the outbreak of the Civil War. Even after the actual slave population in Rhode Island was diminished, the state’s economy was very dependent on the continued practice of slavery in the South and the Caribbean, as the manufacture of rum, farm implements, cotton cloth, the raising of horses and agricultural products, all 16

produced in Rhode Island and other New England states, were sold to slave owners.

Fourth graders learn that the northern states were inextricably linked to the slave states of the South.

Fourth graders take a walking field trip to the nearby John Brown House to learn about the slave ship Sally and the role the Brown brothers played in the slave trade. Returning to Wheeler, they walk along Magee Street – named after a slave ship captain – and through the Brown University quad to view University Hall – built by slave labor.

After March break, the students’ previous knowledge of slavery from the immigration unit augments their study of the lives of two slaves, Venture Smith and Phillis Wheatley, who were children when they were kidnapped in Africa and brought to New England in the 1700’s. During the month of April, the students read Something Upstairs, a mysterious ghost story written by acclaimed author, Avi. The setting of the story is the East Side of Providence, both in modern times and the year 1800.

One of the main characters, a teenage slave named Caleb, is haunting the house where he was murdered. During the course of their reading, students view actual runaway slave announcements and slave “for sale” advertisements from the Newport Mercury. At the conclusion of the book, the children visit the Rhode Island Historical Library, a few blocks away from the school on Hope Street, to interact with primary source Some fourth graders pose with their version of a Freedom Quilt, made during this year’s Slavery & Civil Rights unit.

The students learned how slaves communicated through quilt codes.

Photo by Megan O’Hara

documents that Avi may have used when researching the book, as well as view early 19th century newspapers on microfilm.

Using locations mentioned in the novel, students construct a model of areas of the East Side that relate to the story. Students also write their own versions of what happened after the book’s conclusion, answering the question, “What happened to Caleb?”

In the final days of school, the fourth grade teachers take their students on a walk to 15 Sheldon Street, the home Avi lived in while writing the story. Avi used his house as the home of the other main character in the story, Kenny Huldorf.

Along the way, students notice streets mentioned in the story, view the grave of Pardon Tillinghast on Benefit Street (which is similar to the name of the villain of the book, Pardon Willinghast), and look for the carved “X” that Moses Brown marked in the brick façade of the marketplace building on South Main in the course of the novel. Many students remember learning about slavery in Rhode Island, especially through the study of Something Upstairs, as a highlight of their fourth grade experience. Having a more intimate, immediate connection to slavery “in their own backyard” makes the students all the more prepared to learn about slavery in the North, South, and around the world when they are in seventh and eleventh grades at Wheeler.

1: http://www.ourcurriculummatters. com/What-is-place-based-education. php

photo by Pam Murray

Head Dan Miller presents Tim Clancy his diploma at graduation in June.

FOR THE FOURTH CONSECUTIVE YEAR, a graduating senior from The Wheeler School has been named by the U.S. Department of Education as a Presidential Scholar, one of the highest recognitions an American high school student can receive. Tim Clancy of Rehoboth, MA, was chosen as the male recipient from Massachusetts this year, an extraordinary distinction, as only one boy and one girl is chosen from each state. Presidential Scholar recipients have “demonstrated leadership, scholarship, contribution to school and community, and outstanding accomplishments in the arts, sciences, humanities and other fields of interest.” Each year more than 3,000 candidates are identified for possible inclusion in the selection pool.

“I am so proud of, and impressed by Tim,” said Head of School, Dan Miller. “He is an extraordinarily talented and accomplished young man, and the entire faculty and staff here at Wheeler are proud of how beautifully he represents the school.”

Clancy is the son of Kevin and Catherine Clancy of Rehoboth. An Eagle Scout, Clancy is also the recipient of a President’s Environmental Youth Award, a George Washington Honor Medal for community service and was a finalist for a National Merit Scholarship. He is an accomplished computer programmer, running his own gaming server; and created a greenhouse from recycled plastic bottles which he donated to local nonprofit, New Urban Farmers. He is a member of the Cum Laude International Honor Society and will attend the University of Pennsylvania in the fall.

Clancy joins the three previous year Wheeler students in earning this award: Max Saccone (Dartmouth) in 2013, Cybele Greenberg (Harvard) in 2012 and Sol Taubin (Princeton) in 2011. Alumni Mary Beth Woodcome Gordon ‘91 and Adrienne Gagnon ‘93 were also Presidential Scholars.

PRESIDENTIAL SCHOLAR

A Wheeler Senior Earns Prestigious Presidential Scholar Award For Fourth Consecutive Year

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Athletic Highlights 1. An exciting season for Varsity Boys Basketball (16-8) included a trip to the NEPSAC Tourney and Coach of the Year in NEPSAC Class C for the 2nd year for Sean Kelly ‘02. The team was also featured on Cox Online and via WheelerSchoolBroadcasting.org in its exciting 54-52 win over rival PCD at the Farm.

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2. Middle School Girls (pictured) AND Middle School Boys were undefeated in tournament play this winter.

3. Squash continues to build interest among students with both Girls and Boys teams playing against competitor schools such as Concord, St. George’s, Pomfret and others.

4. The Warriors shone at the State Indoor Track Meet this year. Lily Foulkes peaked and ran a huge personal record of 3:02.79 in the 1000 coming in fifth place and earning a spot at the New England Championship Meet. Yin Agbontaen ‘14 also ran a personal record in the dash with a time of 7.58. She made it to the final heat and came in 8th in the state. Ian Steller came in 9th in the 3000.

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Check out more highlights and scores at wheelerschool.org/athletics.

Also on facebook (wheelerathletics) and twitter (@wheelerwarriors)!

5. Kudos on another SENE title for Wheeler Golf which shot a 336 to earn the honor this past May. The team opened its season with a convincing 7-0 win over St. Thomas More.

6. Track and Field celebrated Nick Wignot’s SENE Championships in both javelin and discus this year. Wignot (third from right in photo) went on to become New England Champion in the discus with a 138’8” throw and then after graduation, won the Junior Olympic Regional Meet with a 152 foot throw. Wignot, a multisport athlete at Wheeler, began his track career as off-season conditioning for basketball.

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7. Girls and Boys Lacrosse teams enjoyed winning seasons with post-season play in the RI Interscholastic League. Boys were edged out in the Semifinals against South Kingstown while the Girls played a nail-biter Final against Lincoln that drew huge crowds of fans and ended up with a 13-12 loss in sudden death overtime.

8. Wheeler’s co-op Ice Hockey team (with PCD and St. Rays) grew in numbers and acclaim this year as they made it into D2 State Finals and saw senior captain Dylan Gastel honored by the RI Reds Heritage Society.

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FAREWELL TO MUSIC TEACHER DAN MOORE

The Maestro (Almost) Takes A Bow

By Ben Goulet, Lower School Librarian When music department member Daniel Moore began at the Wheeler School, the young teacher faced opposition almost immediately. It was against tradition. It did not meet the expectations of what made a great music teacher. Looking back now, Moore laughs, a signature chuckle of bemusement.

“Everyone was skeptical,” he said. “I was hired to replace a local pianist. [The administration] couldn’t conceive of anyone being a music teacher except a really good piano player.”

Thirty-seven successful years as a music teacher and, for many years, department chair has changed some minds. We met in his classroom on a sunny afternoon in April, a room with a massive table that takes up most of the space. Bookcases circle the room, each shelf full of handbells, organized by key. Moore is officially retiring this year, four years after transitioning to part-time. Although Moore taught all aspects of music to Lower and Upper School for decades, his legacy rests with the generations of students he taught how to “ring.” “[The late] Ted Tuttle (Assistant Head/ Alumni Director/College Guidance) took me under his wing,” he said. “He was a college guidance counselor at the time, but did some theater with the students.

One day he asked me: What are you gonna do with the bells?”

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Moore had no idea. His first couple of years was like that of many new teachers. He was getting a handle on the job, juggling the schedule, the meetings and the classroom. At the time, a parent volunteer was teaching handbells to the students and one day, Moore caught a glimpse of a class.

“I walked by the room and saw her working with the kids [with the handbells]. I stopped for a minute, I watched and something went ‘click.’ I saw it as a totally new way for me to teach music.”

To get a better understanding of how the bells could work in the classroom, Moore went to “summer school” at Westminster Choir College in Princeton, New Jersey. It was during these sessions that Moore, in his words, “developed a deep appreciation for the craft.”

Known to the public officially as the Wheeler Concert Handbell Ringers, Moore’s class is the best handbell ringer group in Northeast and they amaze crowds both here in Providence and on tours around the country. For many, the ringers are a major highlight of the Holiday Festival, this past 2013 festival being especially bittersweet, as it was Moore’s last as conductor. Did the students feel any extra pressure? Moore, in his characteristic modesty, demurred.

“I hope not,” he said. “I want them to perform beautifully every time they perform. It’s not about me.

It’s about them communicating their music to the audience. When that happens, it’s beautiful.”

He continued: “I think there was a huge round of applause.

We accepted the applause. I was moved by that, but not necessarily for myself, but I knew people were moved by how well they played.”

Beyond the technique of the ringing and the ability to read music, handbell ringing is what Moore calls “a visual art.”

The presentation is as equally as important as the technique.

There should not be any slouching or downturned heads. But not every performance is perfect, and Moore has learned how to balance both the tough love of high expectations and an understanding of how busy the students’ schedules can be. He knows kids get tired.

Yet, he is still amazed at his students’ dedication. They come in for extra hours to practice, have heart-to-heart conversations about performances that did not go as planned and work again and again on their communication as a group.

When I suggest that this dedication reflects his own, that the students are driven -- at least in part -- by his devotion as a teacher and their desire to make him proud. He does not budge.

“When you’ve got ten or more people standing at a time,” he said, “making it a united whole effort; that’s where the energy goes.

“Remember,” he adds, “By the springtime, I’m not standing in front of them. [By then] they own the music. They perform it without me.”

What will retirement look like for him after all these years as a teacher? Moore will work “very, very part-time” as a sales representative for a handbell company.

He’ll weave baskets. He conducts a community group of adult ringers in Wellesley Hills, a fun, social event.

He talks about composing and arranging, now that he’ll have the time.

“All of this music -- it’s all in my head,” he said, his voice fading into a long pause.

Then, as if in afterthought: “I’ll try to not annoy my wife. As much.”

And as soon as it vanished, the chuckle returns.

Top left: Alumna Michele Steckler travelled to Providence to surprise her former teacher. Above: Hands go up as Head Dan Miller asks for alumni ringers to make themselves known at the SRO Spring Concert in honor of Moore. At left: Wheeler Alumni Board President Etienne Granito Mechrefe ‘95, a former ringer herself, is among those present to celebrate Moore’s 37-year career.

What we love about Dan Moore: “Mr. Moore always managed to pull great sound out of a motley crew. . . I will never forget his patience and persistence in coaching me through the vocal challenges I faced senior year when playing Babe, the female ingenue in The Pajama Game.”

Michele Steckler ‘80

Facing page top: Moore and his family at the Spring Handbell Concert this year. Daughter Megan ‘95, wife Nancy, and son Jon ‘98.

Facing page bottom: Moore shows off one of the Wheeler handbells to students from a school in Colorado during the Spring 2014 Handbell Tour. Tour photo by Meredith Larson

“Singing with (Mr. Moore) for four years of high school hugely influenced my musical life. I benefited from the wide repetoire. . . became comfortable on stage, honed my harmonic ear and even learned to ring bells. I have continued to sing. . .write and record my own songs, too!”

Cynthia Flaxman Frank ‘85 “I came to chorus at Wheeler by accident! Signed up for art and ended up in chorus, but as a new student was too afraid to change... I give (Mr. Moore) complete credit for the fact that I am still singing in a chorus after all these years. Twentyseven years with the same group and currently its president.”

Virginia Lincoln ‘78

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FIELD DAY 100

Two Special Days, Old & New,

A 1920-21 Field Day headband saved by Leonore Grace (Smith) Jerrems ‘23 and handed down in a scrapbook to her granddaughter Leonore “Lee” (Martin) Neary ‘71 is probably among the oldest pieces of regalia preserved for this oldest of school traditions celebrating its centennial this May. While the rains poured on the planned date, a few days later, the campus gathered to run the traditional Apache Race in glorious sunshine. Purple Boys and Gold Girls prevailed, a fitting “tie” for this 100th Field Day. Photos below by Annie Funnell.

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COMMUNITY GIVING DAY

Highlight True School Spirit COMMUNITY GIVING DAY: A CELEBRATION OF ANNUAL GIVING Wheeler’s first annual Community Giving Day last February provided an opportunity to celebrate the important role of Annual Giving at Wheeler and Hamilton. The response was so warm, we’re already making plans for 2015! As a community, we shared the fun of coming together to spread the word about giving to Wheeler by explaining why we need Annual Giving and by thanking our generous donors.

Members of the Quasquicentennial Class of 2014 kicked off the day by sharing what makes Wheeler special for them on boards set up at the Community Giving Day Table in the Nulman Lewis Student Center. They also got into the spirit on social media by sharing pictures on Instagram and Twitter. The rest of the community quickly joined in by talking up the day on social media, and our parents even took the message to the streets during pick-up.

The day was a huge success, with 195 people contributing just over $50,000 in support of the school and surpassing our goal of reaching 1,000 donors by that date. A generous Wheeler supporter matched gifts made on the day, there was fun and excitement on campus about Annual Giving, and #wheeler125 was all over Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.

As part of this special day, we also wanted to ask our students what makes Wheeler special for them so we could share it with our donors. Here are a few of the things they said: • “Amazing teachers, programs and opportunities.”

• “The community is forgiving, loving, and one of, if not the best, around.”

• “It is a welcoming family for all.”

• “Wheeler is the place I will always come home to.”

• “Wheeler wants you to succeed.”

Now & Then @ Wheeler

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ART & HISTORY

New Children’s Book Uses Campus Models To Tell Founder’s Life Story

By Ben Goulet Lower School Librarian Her ideas are evoked in speeches, her name lauded in fundraising and her image towers over the courtyard in a detailed tile mosaic. It’s hard to imagine a time on campus when Mary C. Wheeler was just an afterthought, a mostly forgotten relic of the school’s distant past.

But when Upper School art teacher and Wheeler archivist Bob Martin arrived at the school in 1990, that’s pretty much how it was. There were no birthday celebrations of ‘Mary C’ and few recognitions or milestones highlighting the Wheeler School founder’s accomplishments. Although he didn’t know it in those first years of his career, Martin would play a large, public role in bringing Mary C. Wheeler back into the school’s collective consciousness.

It started with her biography. It intrigued him and he wanted to get closer to the source. He dug out the old letters from the late 1800’s, where former students of Wheeler told stories of meeting Monet in France. The letters led to the photographs; there’s Mary C. giving a lesson in Providence, holding court to a half-circle of girls; teaching them all how to paint.

That’s when Martin, a young teacher with a fresh MFA from RISD, had an epiphany.

“I saw what an amazing woman she was,” he said, “[and I realized] she was not really highlighted in our history.”

For Martin, that revelation kicked off a journey -- now two decades long -- of writing and researching Wheeler’s life and work. Her story also inspired him to take on one of the most daunting and complex art projects of his working life: a 32-page children’s book. + + + + + Bob Martin lays out the laminated pages, the huge galleys of his yet-to-bepublished children’s book. A project long 24

in the making, (he says the idea to tell Mary C. Wheeler’s life in a picture book came to him in the late 1990’s), he sees the book as a gift to future generations of students and as a way to keep Wheeler’s legacy alive.

Since Martin works in a realistic form, he typically has models pose for him and takes photographs of his subjects, pictures that he refers to later on during the process of drawing and painting. For his book, Martin figured what better “cast of characters” to use than the Wheeler community?

There’s Dan Moore, immortalized in a conductor’s pose. He chose Maisie Rapino (‘26) as his “young Mary” as a child.

Sherry Romanzi (’14) posed as Wheeler in her teenage years. Faculty members Mark Harris and Caroline Fields, and new alums Spike Sommers ‘14 and Sally Butler ‘14, all make appearances, as well.

Martin looked beyond Wheeler, too.

For the 1870 Prussian uniforms in one section, he used pop culture from his childhood as an inspiration, namely Colonel Clink from the television show Hogan’s Heroes. Archival photographs and other research helped Martin flesh out the life of times of Wheeler, both stateside and in Europe.

Using the computer program Photoshop, Martin layers his drawings -- mostly in pen and watercolor -- over and over again, blending in disparate pieces to complete the scenes. Some pages layer images twenty or thirty times. The artwork becomes a mashup of the old and the new, the real and the imagined.

In 2007, Martin recognized, in the age of digital photography, he needed to brush up on some skills. Returning to RISD as a continuing education student, Martin took a number of classes, including the art and technique of writing for children. It was the perfect chance to finally finish his children’s book.

“I brought this old, dusty manuscript,”

he said. “I figured it was done and just needed a little polishing.”

It needed much more. Every aspect of the book was critiqued, a process Martin remembers as being “very humbling.”

Here was the master teacher with twenty-plus years of experience, back in a classroom getting advice on color, perspective and narrative arcs.

But those early meetings made the book stronger and now, nearly three years later, it is almost complete (Martin earned a certificate in children’s book illustration from RISD this past spring). +

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After all these years, the story of Mary C. Wheeler still captivates him. He presents a slideshow about her every year to the Kindergarten class. He teaches a unit about her life and work in his art history class. He helped create (with Middle School art teacher Bob Sullivan) the intricate mosaic of Wheeler in the courtyard. In 2000, with Wheeler Communications Director Laurie Flynn, Martin curated a show in Mary C. Wheeler’s hometown of Concord, Massachusetts, displaying Wheeler’s painting and drawing.

What is it about her that keeps him coming back, again and again, to her story? He knows that interest in Mary C. Wheeler waxes and wanes with each generation and he openly wonders if, after he’s retired, someone will continue to highlight her legacy. But in its way, Martin’s investment in Wheeler’s story is personal, his chance to pay homage to what came before, to celebrate Wheeler’s almost uncanny prescience as an artist, school founder and teacher.

“When she came back to the United States [from France] and started an art studio for girls in 1882,” he said, “that model simply didn’t exist. She was a real pioneer.”

Clockwise from top left: Faculty member Dan Moore, Transition student Maisie Rampino and new alumna Sherry Romanzi ‘14, serve as models in the forthcoming children’s book about Mary Wheeler by Art Department Head Bob Martin.

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The Wheeler School gathering to celebrate founder Mary C. Wheeler’s birthday, May 15, 2014. Photo by Robert Martin, Head, Wheeler Art Department

Thank you to the students, faculty and staff of The Wheeler School who came together on Founder Mary Colman Wheeler’s birthday during our special Quasquicentennial Anniversary Year to pose for this milestone photograph.

Concept: Henry Bush, Ben Cohen, Anna Cornelissen, Owen Foulkes, Jamey Mayer, Dan Michel, Naomi Shimberg, Hanna Stowe and Dan Miller.

Photographer: Robert Martin Photo coordination: Laurie Flynn Time lapse video: Joe Scanlon Special assistance: Princess Bomba, Nicole Jennings ‘99, Sloane DeAngelis Pilgrim ‘86, Charlotte Stutz, Food Services, Institutional Advancement, Maintenance and Physical Education Departments, with Photo 3 students: Jack Pilgrim, Alex Tapalian, and Joyce Welch.

See the time lapse video at www.wheelerschoolbroadcasting.org

Great moments in 1889: While The Wheeler School existed for several years as an art studio program, its first formal graduation as an established school was held in 1889. We share our milestone with these others that were founded, incorporated or first appeared in 1889 — as cited from Wikipedia.

The Coca-Cola Company The Eiffel Tower Vincent Van Gogh’s Starry Night The Wall Street Journal Pizza Margherita The Moulin Rouge The jukebox

Great moment in 2014: A special pull-out section from a special day.

Massive efforts of Wheeler Parents Association lead to Clothing Sale milestone of $91,240.31. Yes, that’s a lot!

From the Big Blue Bug (thanks, alumni Goldman Family!) to RIPTA busses and every way in between, this year’s Sale drew crowds of shoppers. Head Dan Miller had ribbon-cutting honors and even our new Green Monsters at the Farm (below) helped make the Sale a success! Kudos to outgoing co-chairs Dana Salvadore Cazzani ‘82 and Chris Murphy for their steady hands at the helm of this major fundraising event!

Sale Dates: April 16-18, 2015

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Help fill us up for Sale 67! The first Donation Drop Off Day at School Gazebo is set for September 23, 7:30-9 a.m.

TOGETHER, THESE SPECIAL EVENTS RAISED MORE THAN

Hats Off!

Hats off to the entire Wheeler community for raising more than $245,000 through this year’s special Big Event Gala & Auction!

Satu The

rda y 6 , Ma Wh p.m., y 10 eele r Fa rm

As our Head of School Dan Miller said that night, “Wheeler has a margin of excellence that few schools can match.”

These events help us achieve that excellence for our kids.

Chairs, Big Event 2014 Jen Andruzzi & Judith Dickstein Remondi

To see photos from the evening go to www.wheelerschool.org/bigevent

Photos from top down: the cast of A Chorus Line; the co-chairs; Alumni Board member Harriet Fulton Dwyer ‘61 and husband Ned; auction bidding; the ever-popular dance party at the end of the evening and a one-of-a-kind amethyst, diamond and gold necklace made by artist & parent Maude Weisser especially for Wheeler’s 125th Anniversary.

$336,000 FOR WHEELER AND HAMILTON STUDENTS!

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ALUMNA ARTIST LOUISE HERRESHOFF

A NEW FIND FROM AN ‘OLD GIRL’ REVEALS AN ECCENTRIC LIFE TIED TO WHEELER, RHODE ISLAND AND BEYOND

By Bob Martin Art Department Head and Mary C. Wheeler Archivist An “old girl” is a term coined by Wheeler students circa 1910, in reference to students prior to 1900, many of whom were regulars at Miss Wheeler’s Studio, the all-girl art school started by Mary C. Wheeler six years before the birth of the school as we know it today.

This past winter, the Art Department prepared for summer renovations to the third floor of Wheeler Hall by cleaning out the storage areas above the Studio.

Combing through a dusty box of old student artwork, my interest was piqued

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as a few of the pieces dated back to Miss Wheeler’s tenure at the school. As a representative for the United States at three international symposiums on art education, Miss Wheeler lectured and showed examples of her curriculum, and this work must have been a part of those presentations. A small portrait in oil, signed “Herreshoff,” stood out, showing far more finesse and facility than most of the other student work.

The artist, Louise Herreshoff, was indeed an “old girl,” studying art with

Now & Then @ Wheeler

Wheeler in the 1880’s and early 1890’s.

She attended many of the first summer trips to France. She lived a long and fascinating life, as chronicled by James Whitehead in his 2003 book, A Fragile Union.

Born in New York City in 1876, Louise boasted two important family lines; her great, great grandfather, John Brown, led the 1772 burning of the British ship, Gaspee, in Narragansett Bay, and his family’s influence and support turned then Rhode Island College into Brown University. The Herreshoff clan made its fortune in shipbuilding, having designed and built the America’s Cup racing yachts for many generations.

Her mother died when Louise was three years old, and her Aunt Elizabeth stepped in, quickly becoming a surrogate mother to her niece. While the family expected Louise’s father to marry “Aunt Lizzie,” he instead married a 19 yearold socialite from New York City. The extended family wished Louise to remain in Providence under the care of Lizzie.

A heated exchange ensued, culminating with Lizzie’s threat of suicide should Louise be taken from her. Although not losing complete contact with her father, Louise did remain in Providence and was raised by her aunt. The family home was located on Charlesfield Street, next door to the John Brown House. She attended the Lincoln School in the early 1880’s, and showing an aptitude for art, found her way to Miss Wheeler’s Studio at 26 Cabot Street, originally located on the northwest corner of our current campus.

Louise traveled to France on many of the summer trips conducted by Miss Wheeler, and also remained in Europe on her own, continuing art lessons with Raphael Collin, a plein air painter employed by Wheeler. She enrolled at the Acadamie Julian for further instruction, an option not available to

the earlier generations of women, such as Miss Wheeler herself, who had to settle for private lessons. Louise’s talent was officially recognized in 1900, as her work was chosen for inclusion at the prestigious Paris Salon.

Upon her return to the United Stated in 1903, Louise lived once again with her aunt at the family home in Providence. She became engaged to a cousin with whom she had had an earlier romance, and was met by great disappointment when her fiancé broke off their engagement without offering a reason. Years later she would find that her family engineered the breakup, fearing that she would suffer a fate similar to her mother if she were to become pregnant.

She would eventually marry another relation, a distant cousin, Charles Eaton, in 1910. They moved to upstate New York, where Charles pressed to have Louise’s money deposited into a joint account. When she refused, Charles schemed to have Louise sign over her money to his name and then be committed to a mental hospital, all under hypnosis! She caught wind of the plan and immediately returned to Providence, her marriage lasting only three months.

Oddly, she kept her married name for many years, signing her artwork, “Louise Eaton.”

Louise traveled extensively with her aunt, painting prolifically along the way, until Lizzie’s death in 1927. Her aunt’s last wishes were to be interred in the family crypt at Mount Auburn Cemetery, sealed and preserved in a glass coffin. She also stipulated that Louise visit her several times per year. Louise kept up this bizarre ritual until a fault in the coffin allowed air

to enter, and the once perfectly preserved corpse began to rapidly decompose.

Louise had the crypt permanently sealed, but not before placing Lizzie’s favorite handkerchief over her face.

After the death of her beloved aunt, Louise stopped painting and fell into a deep depression. Eventually, through travel and collecting art, her life returned to a sense of normalcy, although she

Herreshoff ’s biographer, James Whitehead, came to Providence to pack up Alumni the artwork for removal, Profile and found a cache of her paintings hiding in the attic, obscured from view and covered by decades of dust. Cleaned and fully restored, her work can now be viewed at the Reeves Center at Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Virginia.

The collection reveals a fascinating evolution in her art. Her style changed drastically upon her return from Europe in 1903.

Her classically informed contours and plein air naturalistic light gave way to an explosion of color as she embraced the early Modernist strategy of divorcing color from realistic description.

She approached the landscape, still life, and portrait through bright and bold colors, applied with thick and gestural brushstrokes that functioned as expressive two-dimensional designs.

The School’s newly-discovered painting by Louise Herreshoff predates all of the Reeves collection, dating to the summer French trips of the late 1880s and early ‘90s. The model would have been posed outdoors in a garden setting and painted plein-air style, similar to the scene depicted on the photographic tilemural adorning the east face of Wheeler Memorial Hall.

The painting has been restored by Dimitri Efstathiou of the Circle Gallery in Medford, Massachusetts, and currently hangs on the second floor of Clark Alumni House on campus among other works by Wheeler alumnae.

The School’s newly-discovered painting by Louise Herreshoff predates all of the Reeves collection, dating to the summer French trips of the late 1880s and early ‘90s. did not return to her own work as a painter. During one of her many travels, she met a man, fell in love, and made plans to marry. Her family once again objected as her fiancé, 38 yearold Euchlin Reeves, was 28 years her junior, and they suspected his motive for marriage centered on money. The couple eloped to Barrington, RI, then bought a house on Benevolent Street on the East Side of Providence (right around the corner from Louis’ Diner on Brook Street). They traveled, collected art — rare porcelain their specialty — and eventually purchased the house next door to hold their growing collection.

Their “May-December” romance spanned for more than a quarter of a century until Euchlin’s death in 1967. Louise died only four months later at the age of 91. Euchlin had arranged to donate their porcelain collection to his alma mater, Washington and Lee University.

Now & Then @ Wheeler

Sources: Louise Herreshoff: An American Artist Discovered,

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MARTHA TANNER WEILLE ‘49: AFTER 65 YEARS, WHEELER MEMORIES REMAIN STRONG

By Lucy Friedmann ‘15

Having started as a student in 1935, Martha Tanner Weille ’49 remembers a Wheeler very different than the one that exists today. Still a liberal and progressive school, Wheeler provided Weille with an all-girls, boarding school education, even though she herself was a day student. “I always thought I was lucky to be a day student,” Weille, Alumni who celebrates her 65th Profile Wheeler graduation this year, remarks.

Regardless of interest, all students participated in the Studio Art program and the pageants that took place out at The Farm.

Weille can still vividly describe the bright blue uniform she had to wear everyday.

“But during World War II,” she recounts, “They couldn’t get the dye so we had to wear these awful dark blue skirts and gray sweaters.” Weille also remembers Cushing House, where she spent her kindergarten, first, and second grade years.

With the renovation of the beloved Wheeler Hall underway this past year, Weille remembers the building and all of its charm. “That place is full of memories,” she shares. “Graduation, daily assemblies and operas were all held there.

Even Pageants were there when it was raining at The Farm.”

Pageants played a major role in Weille’s campus life at Wheeler. “They took place in May,” Weille explains. “Across the road from the farmhouse, back in the woods, there was a big field. That is where we held the Pageants.” Pageant time of year was “always very exciting” for Weille, with the “flowers and bulbs coming up” and the “end of school” nearing. One year she even wrote the Pageant herself and based the storyline on the “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight” story from King Arthur’s time.

While more than half a century has passed, in many ways Weille’s school experience resembles that of a current Wheeler student. “Wheeler left me very interested in learning,” Weille explains. “It set me on a trajectory of being interested in learning new things.”

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Weille also remembers the school’s “tradition of excellence in art,” which still holds true today. She remarks that Wheeler was “unlike other schools in that way,” for it offered “wonderful opportunities to do things in art.” In addition, Weille credits Wheeler’s art curriculum with giving her the tools to “experiment with different media” and “the courage to take classes [later in life] at the New York Botanical Garden.” She also comments on the great teachers she had at Wheeler, who were all “very involved and eager for me and my classmates to do well.”

Weille’s Wheeler experiences were so important to her, she has been a donor to the School since 1958, and a consecutive year donor for 35 years.

After Weille graduated from Wheeler she went on to attend Radcliffe College, now part of Harvard College, in Cambridge, Massachusetts. However, she missed the tight-knit community that Wheeler afforded her. “Radcliffe had a larger student body [than I was used to] and was more impersonal. At Wheeler I benefited from the teacher’s close attention, especially in the science area.” Weille adds that Wheeler was much “cozier.”

Now & Then @ Wheeler

After graduating from college, Weille spent most of her life as a social worker aiding homebound elderly patients; she is now retired.

With her 65th Wheeler reunion approaching this October, Weille certainly has much advice to offer. In that light, she encourages current Wheeler students to “immerse themselves completely as possible in their school activities, with as much variety as possible” and “not to worry (so much) about getting into college.”

“Wheeler left me very interested in learning,” Weille explains. “It set me on a trajectory of being interested in learning new things.”

ALIX BERNSTINGLE SMULLIN ‘64: CONFIDENCE AND EXPANDED HORIZONS MARK WHEELER INFLUENCE

By Lucy Friedmann ‘15

Fifty years since her graduation, Alix Bernstingle Smullin ‘64, recentlyretired as Deputy Director of External Relations at the Harvard School of Public Health, still cherishes the education she received as a Wheeler student. Even after attending M.I.T. as an undergraduate and then Boston University for law school, she attributes her confident writing skills to Wheeler’s English program.

Smullin notes that Wheeler taught her the “ease of writing,” which she believes to be “one of the underpinnings of being successful.”

“Wheeler expanded my reading horizons,” Smullin confesses. Looking back, she sees 8th grade English as a real turning point in her literary career.

She was exposed to sophisticated and challenging assignments and became enthusiastically engaged in the class.

Nancy Porter and she would even unplug the clock to keep the teacher from stopping class!

However, Smullin did not just enjoy reading and writing. She remembers music playing a major role in her Wheeler experience. “[Every year] at Spring Fête,” Smullin reminisces, “the Glee Club would do a Gilbert and Sullivan operetta. It was always very good.” Spring Fête not only fostered her appreciation of music, but also her love of gardenias: “All sorts of things were sold at Spring Fête, including gardenias. I still love them to this day.”

Smullin also enjoyed participating in the plays that she and her classmates would put on for class parties.

“In the Upper School,” she explains, “the Social Service Club would raise money [for charity] by having class parties.” Each class would put on a skit.

“One year we did a spoof of Cinderella,” she recalls.

When it comes to Wheeler campus, Smullin fondly remembers Cushing House (then the Lower School), the playground with its fireman’s pole, and, of course, the Farm.

“During spring semester,” Smullin notes, “an option for sports was dance and at the end of the year a pageant would be held at The Farm.”

Although she admits that she was “not a great athlete,” she enjoyed participating in Field Day. She remembers leading the “march and exercise routine” for the entire Upper School.

As for her work career, Smullin has been at the Harvard School of Public Health for the past 20 years and retired at the end of June. She started at the School in the Development Office raising money primarily for the Center for Cancer Prevention and Department of Nutrition.

In the summer of 1998, she joined the Dean’s Office as Chief of Staff and became responsible for managing the Office as well as for being the interface between the Office and faculty, staff, and students. Smullin held that position until the fall of 2009, when she rejoined External Relations as Senior Director of Individual Giving and began managing the Individual Giving team. As Deputy Director, she has continued fundraising activities for specific areas of the School.

Her professional experience influences her personal philanthropy with Wheeler, too, as Alix has been a consecutive donor to the School for the past 25 years.

Attending Wheeler since her early childhood, Smullin has valuable insights to offer current Wheeler students: “You really have a fantastic opportunity at Wheeler to try a lot of different experiences, and for intellectual growth.”

She urges students to “get involved in extra curricular activities, form friendships that can be Alumni sustaining, and take full Profile advantage of what there is to offer.”

Looking back as she nears her 50th reunion this fall, Smullin stresses the importance of “enjoying this wonderful time of life.”

Alix recalls how she and Nancy Porter would even unplug the clock to keep their 8th grade English teacher from stopping class!

Now & Then @ Wheeler

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WANDA CATALA SHARIF ‘71: BEING A “FIRST”

By Princess Bomba, Director of Unity & Diversity Last fall, as Wheeler’s new Director of Unity & Diversity, I embarked on a multifaceted community-wide project to connect with and gain perspective from some of Wheeler’s unique alumni “firsts”: one of the first male graduates, the first Jewish students and one of the first students of color to graduate Wheeler.

It was under these circumstances that I had the honor to meet Wanda Catala-Sharif ’71, a retired Alumni elementary school teacher, Profile mother of five and grandmother of seven.

In the late ’60’s, Wanda was a pensive, Afrowearing teenager and a reluctant member of the Wheeler student body. Having matriculated to Wheeler from Hope HS because as she puts it, “my mother made me,” Wanda spent her commute to and from Wheeler perfecting the art of appearing to not be a Wheeler student.

She wore boots and jackets to cover her uniform and would not “confess” to her public school friends that she attended the nearby private school.

However, on campus, Wanda was a Purple-strong, Wheeler student. She fondly recalls the teacher who was regarded as “everyone’s go to person” and the teacher every girl had a crush on. Wanda describes her experience at Wheeler as academically positive with a seamless transition since she had always been in a college preparatory program of study. It was her social adjustment that was challenging. Being the only student of color in the Upper School and a scholarship recipient, Wanda was lonely and described her social interactions as “never ostracized, just never included.”

While she was friendly with many of the girls and participated in after-school enrichment activities with them, she was never invited to their homes and did not feel she had a close friend in the Upper School. She recalls that her need for an affinity experience propelled her to befriend an African American student in the 8th grade although Wanda herself, at that time, was a junior. The friendship was profoundly sustaining to Wanda but ended when school officials intervened, believing that it was essential for each girl to develop friendships within 32

their respective age and academic divisions. The severing of the friendship was difficult for Wanda and she characterizes that time as experiencing a “tremendous sense of loneliness.”

This high school experience influenced Wanda’s own approach to teaching and raising her children.

Despite urgings from her college counselor to explore other esteemed postsecondary institutions, Wanda elected to attend Spelman College and it was at Spelman where she met her husband, a Morehouse man. It was where she had the transformative experience of being taught by an African American teacher for the first time in her life.

Despite her school-day challenges, Wanda credits her Wheeler experience as the catalyst for who she is today. It influenced her life both personally and professionally. She stated with pride that “being at Wheeler forced me to get out of my box, away from my comfort zone and become curious to learn about the world.”

As a result, travelling the world continues to be one of her favorite activities. She also expresses her gratitude to Wheeler for helping her develop her identity, philosophy and her mission.

At Wheeler, she believes her ability to work with and become friends with all types of people was enhanced. She also firmly believes that Wheeler helped

Now & Then @ Wheeler

“We are all pioneers in our effort to globalize Wheeler and America.” her to understand that “in spite of our differences, we really are all the same.”

Last April, Wanda came from her home in Texas to visit Wheeler and share her experiences with students, faculty and administrators. Her inspiring and, at times, emotional meeting with some of today’s Middle and Upper School African American students (pictured below) was memorable. She encouraged the students to use their Wheeler education and experience to make the world a more welcoming place. She said, “I had an amazing education at Wheeler and it made me who I am today.”

In a note to me after her visit, Wanda writes: “Wheeler has always been progressive and innovative in its curriculum. However, it is great to see that progressiveness embrace the diversity that our students need to be successful in today’s world. I feel blessed and honored to have been one of the first to open doors for future African- American students at Wheeler. I encourage today’s students to work hard and stay focused in order to keep the door wide open for others yet to come. We are all pioneers in our effort to globalize Wheeler and America.”

DEBRA AARONSON LAWLESS ‘77: CAPE COD HISTORY COMES ALIVE IN LATEST BOOK

By Martyn Hollands Associate Director of Alumni Relations

Alumni Profile

Debra Aaronson Lawless ’77 (above) has just published her fourth book, Provincetown Since World War II - Carnival at Land’s End. The genesis of the book was her research, on behalf of the Chatham Historical Society, into Cape Cod artist and painter, Harold Dunbar. However, this research quickly extended beyond Dunbar and into the expansive and compelling story of Provincetown’s rich artistic history.

In the book Debra describes the artistic community of Provincetown from 1939 through today. Her snapshots of artists and writers, such as Tennessee Williams, Norman Mailer and Andy Warhol, to name a few, provide a wonderful insight into “the carnival of life in Provincetown,” as it transitions through various decades and world events.

Debra provides the same insight when she reflects upon her time at Wheeler, which was going through its own changes at the time. Debra remembers being in 8th grade and standing at the back of Wheeler Hall when Headmaster Hugh Madden announced the school was going coed. She points out that the ‘60s and ‘70s were times of upheaval in the world and Wheeler was permeated by that upheaval. One of the many things that Debra loved about her time at Wheeler was that the Wheeler environment gave her the opportunity to experience this new and changing world.

While she left Wheeler in 10th grade to attend boarding school in New York, Debra reflects fondly on her less restrictive time at Wheeler where her burgeoning love of art and art history was allowed to flourish.

A freelance writer living on the Cape, Debra earned a BA in history and classics from Stanford University and an MS in journalism from Boston University. She also holds a certificate in BU’s Genealogical Research Program.

Debra held a number of book signings over the summer at Booksmith/Musicsmith in Orleans, and at Where the Sidewalk Ends Books and Yellow Umbrella Books in Chatham. The book is published by The History Press (www.historypress.net).

Now & Then @ Wheeler

Debra remembers being in 8th grade and standing at the back of Wheeler Hall when Headmaster Hugh Madden announced the school was going coed. She points out that the ‘60s and ‘70s were times of upheaval in the world and Wheeler was permeated by that same upheaval.

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KEVIN GIL ‘12: PATH FROM CENTRAL FALLS TAKES GOAL-ORIENTED ALUM TO BRAZIL FOR YOUTH LEADERSHIP FORUM BUILT AROUND LOVE FOR A GAME

By Rebecca Greenberg ‘14

It is not an exaggeration when Kevin Gil ’12 says that for him, “everything started with Project GOAL.” Indeed, the opportunities to be a Wheeler student and a member of our community, to attend his dream college, and to plan an exciting career can all be traced back to his experience with this Alumni Providence-based nonProfile profit organization.

And this past summer, Project GOAL nominated Gil to attend a youth leadership forum during the FIFA World Cup in Brazil. From June 27 – 30, Gil was among 35 young people from 22 different countries in Rio de Janeiro to take part in the Future Goals Youth Forum on Football for Social Change, an event organized by streetfootballworld and held in cooperation with Sony. During the third week of the 2014 World Cup, the group explored how football has the potential to strengthen communities and create social change.

In New England, the mission of Project GOAL, shorthand for “Greater Opportunity for Athletes to Learn,” is to develop the academic excellence,

sportsmanship, and general well-being of motivated underserved students from area middle schools. Gil can claim the honor of being the first student to attend Wheeler through Project GOAL’s one-ofa-kind services.

Gil first heard about the organization as a sixth grader at Central Falls’ Calcutt Middle School. Though only in his first year of middle school, Gil was already academically driven and athletic, and these gifts enabled him to pass Project GOAL’s application process as well as its soccer trial. For the next two years, he travelled to the organization’s headquarters after school. For the first hour and a half, he would complete his schoolwork. During this study period, Project GOAL teachers and tutors helped the students develop efficient study skills and improve their performance in weaker subject areas. Next, the children would be directed to the soccer field, where they had the opportunity to be coached by committed athletes and sometimes even retired professional players. As Gil distinguished himself in both the academic and athletic portions of Project GOAL, the program was quick to provide him with the financial and administrative

Gil on the Wheaton Lyons soccer field where his home season begins August 29.

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Now & Then @ Wheeler

support—such as helping him register for the SSATs—that allowed him to apply to Wheeler. Gil was overjoyed to come to Wheeler for high school; he had fallen in love with the Wheeler campus and teaching style ever since an earlier visit as a sixth grader.

Of course, coming to Wheeler brought its own set of challenges. As Gil puts it, “it was weird, in the beginning, to sit next to kids whose parents were doctors when my own parents were unemployed.”

Though this contrast might have been initially daunting, any intimidation he felt was soon forgotten: “the kids were just so humble and accepting.” The true challenge in his transition turned out to be adjusting to Wheeler’s rigorous curriculum and substantial workload: “as far as academics go, Wheeler was just a whole other level. Teachers really cared.

They would actively come and help you.

The expectations were higher,” and, yes, “there was more homework.”

It was thanks to this new academic rigor, however, that Gil discovered his passion for English in Mr. Campbell’s class sophomore year. Initially, this class was among Gil’s most challenging courses: “I just want to put it out there that his class was not easy. At the time, I never did extremely well.” However, Mr. Campbell’s dedication to Gil’s writing—in addition to Gil’s hard work— soon achieved remarkable results. One day, Mr. Campbell handed back in-class essays and Kevin received a very high grade, one of the only students in the class to do so. This event marked a turning point in Gil’s academic career: “Until that time, I’d never had the chance to excel in a subject. There were always some kids who were good at math, some who were good at bio. But these same kids struggled in English, and I did not.” Thanks to Mr. Campbell, Gil realized he was “good at English.”

Alumni Profile

Gil on his summer visit for streetfootballworld to Brazil during the World Cup.

Gil’s ultimate challenge as a Wheeler Upper School student lay in learning how to balance such challengingly stimulating classes with the wealth of extracurricular activities also available to him. During his first year at Wheeler, his main focus outside of his classes was soccer, for which he would play varsity for all four years.

His unmatched presence on the field earned him a place in the All-League First Team as well as two Providence Journal “All State” selections. Later on, as he grew comfortable with Wheeler’s academic rhythm, he began to explore his passion for soccer off the field. As the co-president of Soccer Without Borders, Wheeler’s club version of the non-profit organization (started by Larkin Brown ‘06), he and other club members gathered school supplies, soccer gear, and sent them to various schools in Latin America. Gil also worked with co-head Hogan Vivier ’12 to organize soccer tournaments to benefit the cause.

Even as Gil became a prominent member of Wheeler’s community, he never forgot about Project GOAL, which had after all “got [him] there in the first place.” Indeed, he soon began to volunteer

at the program as both an academic tutor and soccer coach, even helping other Wheeler students to get involved. Says Gil, Wheeler’s participation “made a huge difference.”

Gil’s college experience is in many ways a fine-tuning of the skills and interests he developed at Wheeler. The transition to Wheaton College in the fall of 2012 was smooth: “I can tell you with first-hand experience that Wheeler courses prepare you so well. No Wheeler student should be worried about college academics.”

A distinguished member of Wheaton’s soccer team, Gil, now a sophomore, is the sports editor of the Wheaton Wire.

Indeed, the confidence in writing that Mr. Campbell had imparted in him has grown into a full-fledged passion: he plans to major in English with a minor in Journalism. Gil also enjoys the same warmth and community spirit he had felt at Wheeler as a caterer of Wheaton’s dining services and as a Residential Advisor, a position coveted by many Wheaton students since, he says with a smile, “as an RA you pretty much run campus life.”

He’s also writing a blog for Now & Then @ Wheeler

NESoccertoday.com which will chronicle his time with the Rhode Island Reds this summer. Fans can read about Gil’s summer season under Kevin Gil Player Diary at the site.

Gil’s goals for the future are in essence the crystallization of the Wheeler spirit, lying at the intersection between fulfilling his passion and giving back to the community that he loves. He plans to make a blog for Project GOAL that would showcase some success stories of its graduates as a way to raise awareness for the organization beyond the confines of Rhode Island, increase its funds, and, ultimately, expand its outreach. Of course, for this future sports journalist, this would also involve his two greatest passions: soccer and writing.

As to Gil’s words of wisdom, they are simple yet far-reaching, as relevant for high school students applying to college as they are for middle school students applying to Project GOAL: do what you can, but do it with all your heart. With a little luck, you’ll have results. After all, as Gil sees it, he’s “living proof.”

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Alumni News Class Ambassadors Thank you to the following alums who are serving as ambassadors for their class this year. Rob Glancy ‘01 said of the program, “I believe that (we) can serve as a liaison, between Wheeler’s Institutional Advancement Division & Office of Alumni Relations, and the greater alumni population, to leverage existing relationships and foster new ones. The goal being to keep Wheeler in the hearts and minds of alumni, and to foster renewed and continued connections with the school.”

Contact Martyn Hollands if you’d like to get involved for your class at martynhollands@wheelerschool.org Betty Ann Hacking Taylor ‘43 Constance Payan Danforth ‘50 Carol Graves Cimilluca ‘59 Claire Senecal Cabot ‘60 Harriet Fulton Dwyer ‘61 Laurie Wilkins MacDonald ‘78 Judith Alperin King ‘79 Ann Marie Petteruti Barone ‘80 Martha K. Murphy ‘80 Cristiana M. Quinn ‘80 Betsey Sullivan Robertson ‘81 Bianca F. Cioffi-Zaring ‘82 Cristina Del Sesto ‘82 Dana Salvadore-Cazzani ‘82 Lynne D. Bell ‘83 Leslie Molson ‘85 Donald M. Forman ‘86 Darlene A. D’Arezzo ‘87 Geoffrey O. O’Hara ‘87 Elizabeth Heaton ‘88 Amy Baumgartel Singer ‘89 Michael Malik ‘89 Sarah D. R. Daunis ‘90 Cameron O’Connor ‘91 Jennifer Johnson Titus ‘91 David Bedrick ‘92 Brian Franklin ‘92 Peter Pizzarello ‘92 Lichen Grewer ‘93 Andrew Wheelan ‘93 Jacqueline Jossi Caton ‘94 Frederick G. Sandstrom ‘94 Etienne Granito Mechrefe ‘95 Katherine Kraig Mumma ‘95 Emma Heffern ‘96 Taylor Reilly Joyce ‘96 Kerci Marcello Stroud ‘96 Michael Esposito ‘97 Christopher J. Freeman ‘97 Thomas L. Kraig ‘98 Brett M. Culbert ‘99 Nicole Brissette Jennings ‘99 Michael A. Reuter ‘99 36

Sara Zarrella ‘99 Nicole DeCesare ‘00 Megan Esposito Devendorf ‘00 Tara Mechrefe Cavanagh ‘01 Robin P. Glancy ‘01 Alexander B. Schoenfeld ‘01 Becci Weiss ‘01 Brooke I. Odessa ‘02 Eric Palmieri ‘02 Alexander R. Boeglin ‘03 Peter R. Brown, Jr. ‘03 David M. Culbert ‘03 Jason Siperstein ‘03 Carrie L. Alexander ‘04 Alexander Connor ‘04 Sabine Schaefers ‘04 Erica Kreuter Schecter ‘04 Bethany L. Crudele ‘05 Larkin Brown ‘06 Dean Hollands ‘07 Kelsey Whitaker ‘07 Kercofa Francois ‘08 Lindsay Leddy ‘08 Alexandra Carney ‘09 Victoria E. Frank ‘09 Caitlin Sprague ‘09 Ashley Vanicek ‘09 Lara Hollands ‘10 Dakota H. Whitworth ‘10 Caroline A. Frishman ‘11 Daniel M. Pickar ‘11 Valencia M. deSantos ‘12 Christina E. Frank ‘12 Jaclyn Chan ‘13 Alexander S. Graff ‘13 Yoo Hyeon Kim ‘13 Kate C. Mancosh ‘13 Megan Pelson ‘13 Michael Schiavone ‘13 Samuel Shwartz ‘13 Margaret R. Chaquette ‘14 Lewis C. Lee ‘14 Lucas Radoccia ‘14

WheeConnect Is Coming

A new mobile app for Wheeler Alumni!

We continue to work to connect you to the wider network of Wheeler alumni across the globe. Watch as we debut our improved Evertrue alumni mobile app, dubbed WheeConnect, this fall! It works with Linkedin to connect you to each other. It’s free in the app stores.

What a gift, what an even greater legacy!

Introducing the Mary Colman Wheeler Society MEMBERS Lorita Dewart Aarons ‘47 Katharine Howland Aldrich ‘36 * Maggie Moore Anderson ‘00 Mr. & Mrs. Benjamin B. Baker Mr. Adam Singer & Ms. Amy Baumgartel Singer ‘89 Suzanne Spaulding Berry ‘51 Joan Murdough Boucher ‘50 Deirdre G. Byers ‘65 Mr. Bruce D. Campbell Polly Carpenter ‘73 Cynthia Chace ‘70 Mrs. Margaret Fobes Church * & Mr. George Church * Mr. and Mrs. Edward M. Cimilluca (Carol Graves ‘59) Tracey & Don Clarke ‘88 Mary Freeman Clifford 1923 * Eliza G.C. Collins ‘56 Barbara Schulze Condon ‘31 * Ann K. Cote Dr. Marlene Cutitar ‘79 Constance Payan Danforth ‘50 Mr. & Mrs. Scott A. Davis Dr. & Mrs. Charles Denby II Michele (Sczerbinski) Diaz ‘86 & Rob Diaz Deborah DiNardo ‘74 Mrs. Albert DiNardo Bette Waterhouse Drayton ‘34 * Marian Dunlop 1929 * Harriet Fulton Dwyer ‘61 Madame Edith Erlenmeyer * Mrs. Emma Esposito Mr. John P. Eustis II Jennifer R. Flather, CDR USN (Ret) ‘82 Mr. & Mrs. Bruce E. Fleming Roslyn Smith Foster ‘36 * Harriet Gilbert 1923 * Lillie Giles 1913 * Robin P. Glancy ‘01 Hope Drury Goddard ‘32 * Leigh McCarthy Gossage 1922 * Joan Loosley Griswold ‘47 Anne Carter Grosvenor ‘41 * Dorothy Hatch 1913 * Margaret Hamilton Hatch 1902 * Helen H. Hatch 1899 * Elizabeth White Hughes ‘31 *

Dorothy Ferguson Humphrey ‘33 * Edith DeMott Hutchison ‘40 * Eleanor E. Iselin ‘48 Linda Ryan Jones ‘60 Stacey C. Kaplan ‘76 Mr. William N. Keene Marilyn Peck Kenyon ‘41 Margaret Elliot Knopf de Esteban ‘55 Mr. & Mrs. Howard G. Lewis Marianne & Alan Litwin Jane Matteson Love ‘32 * Lenore MacLeish ‘48 * Louise N. Makepeace ‘42 * Mara Fulton McClure ‘66 Lynne Hill Middleton ‘60 Edith Swanson Middleton ‘50 Dan & Joanna Miller Olga Lindol Miner 1914 * Mr. Rowly Morgan * Mrs. Joan B. O’Hara Virginia H. Osborn * Eleanor Peck 1918 * William J. Piccerelli Dr. and Mrs. Peter A. Pizzarello Katharine Post ‘40 * Hollace Jones Reid ‘68 Eloise ReQua 1920 * Emily Hewitt Rhinelander ‘83 Mr. & Mrs. Edward S. Rising Mary Cameron Ritchie ‘41 * Elizabeth Wood Roorbach ‘44 * Elizabeth Shepard ‘69 Lucy Gardner Shepard ‘64 Mary Howe DeWolf Shepherd ‘34 * Cindy Wolfson Sipkin ‘72 Margaret Sloan ‘60 * Mr. Barry R. Sloane & Dr. Candace Lapidus Sloane Robin Squibb ‘63 Ellen Shumway Stuart 1897 * Frances Easton Tufts 1920 * Theodore F. Tuttle * Mrs. Judith Villani * Bobbie Letts Villard ‘37 * Mr. & Mrs. Stephen G. Waters Nancy Parker Welbourn ‘42 Mary Colman Wheeler * Nancy Thom White ‘72 Mary Eliot Winsor 1927 *

Did you know that our School founder gave The Mary C. Wheeler School to the care of her Board of Trustees through a gift in her will? With this act of generosity, Mary Wheeler ensured that her life’s mission of educating young women would continue long after she was gone.

It is with this amazing “first gift” in mind that we dedicate and re-name Wheeler’s Heritage Society after our Founder, as the Mary Colman Wheeler Society. This is a fitting tribute for a woman who was always future focused, at a time when we celebrate her vision, her legacy, and the future of the Wheeler School.

And like Miss Wheeler, we honor our other future-minded, generous alumnae/i and friends who also made, or plan to make, gifts to our School in their will or estate plans; we recognize them with Miss Wheeler in the Mary Colman Wheeler Society. (See list of current members.)

Have you named Wheeler in your will or estate plan? Or, are you thinking about making a charitable donation to Wheeler as part of your own legacy? We would love to celebrate you and your generosity. Please contact Michele Sczerbinski Diaz ’86, Director of Leadership & Planning Giving at (401)528-2132 or michelediaz@wheelerschool. org. She welcomes your call or email to personally assist you with your membership in the Society.

Photographed at age 32. From the biography Mary C. Wheeler: A Leader In Art and Education by Blanche Wheeler Williams

*Indicates member is deceased

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WHAT A DASH IT WAS: REMEMBERING BARBARA PECKHAM MOTTERN ‘60

By MaryAnn Schafer

Barb in her nursing days.

Barb in her racing days.

Barb in her “dog and pony” days.

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It’s said that when we die and our names are inscribed on gravestones or noted in obituaries, that it’s not the years you should focus on, it’s the dash between them, because the dash IS the life lived between birth and death. Barbara Peckham Mottern had one helluva dash and “dash” is an apropos word for her style! She was the petite youngest of three siblings having two older, bigger brothers.

She was born with the innate desire to keep up and be the best and she never settled for less then being the best all her life.

Barb knew Jackie Bouvier Kennedy in their high school days; Her Aunt EDP toured the world with Grace Vanderbilt; she grew up in a house with staff & formal gardens, and, she raced down Hurry Hill Rd. on roller skates laughing as the bearings burnt out; she rewired the headmistresses room in the college dorms so that when the lights went on, so did the fire alarm; she was invited to audition for Juilliard with her clear alto/mezzo soprano voice.

Barb married her first love, Edward Mottern, and they moved to Florida where they set down new roots and built up a thriving automotive business. That wasn’t enough to keep her busy though, so she became an EMT, Paramedic and then a Registered Nurse. As a Head Nurse she met another young nurse, Linda Lowe, and they became fast friends and co-conspiritors in many escapades including sailing, snorkeling & showing horses. She inspired Linda to go on in Nursing to become a Clinical Nurse Specialist in Cardiology and from there on to become a Nurse Practitioner in Cardiology.

Dogs had always been a part of her life and she became a licensed Professional Handler showing breeds such as Boxers, Great Danes, Dobermans, Basenjis, Borzois to Championships all around the country and abroad.

It was through the dogs that she met and formed a lifelong friendship with Emi Mangels, a fellow handler. They toured the dog show circuit together in their motor homes. Emi also had Morgan horses & Barb, rekindling her childhood love of horses, soon had Morgans of her own, breeding and showing them under

her Thunder Alley Morgans prefix. It was not unusual for Barb & Emi to roll into a horse show in their motor homes, set up exercise pens for the show dogs then go set up the stalls for the Morgans. Barb enjoyed showing in many diverse classes, including English Pleasure, Park Saddle & Harness, Western Pleasure, Hunter & Carriage. Emi’s twin daughters, Jolynn & Suann, showed their mother’s Morgans as well as Barb’s, and through Barb, both girls became interested in Nursing and went on to careers in that field.

She had a great love of the water and earned her freedom to enjoy it when, as a child, she could swim the mile from shore to a dock and back. After that her parents never worried about her and the water.

Good thing, as she loved to swim, snorkel, fish & sail. She won fishing tourneys, helped friends sail a catamaran they’d purchased home from Puerto Rico, and fished and fished and fished!

She & her husband raced sports cars on the SCCA circuit, driving at such tracks as Daytona, Sebring & PBR (Palm Beach Raceway). When not racing, they would work as marshals taking up flagging duties and helping out wherever needed.

Retirement didn’t slow Barb down one bit. She continued riding/training/ competing her Morgans, showing her German Shepherd, Doberman & Standard Poodle, as well as her friends’ Boston Terriers & Cairn Terriers in Breed Shows as well as Obedience & Rally Trials. She volunteered her time each week helping her friends and any comers to learn the ropes of showing dogs in competition. Her love of the water continued as well as she went day fishing as well as deep sea fishing. An addition to her time on the water was going on cruises with her friends, and, as with everything Barb did, it became a passion.

One of Barb’s favorite sayings was the quote by Hunter S. Thompson that goes: “Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming ‘Wow! What a Ride!’”

What a ride it was, what a dash. Au Revoir Barb, Au Revoir. Your life has inspired oh so many dashes.

Class Notes

IN MEMORIAM Diana Tree MacDonnell ‘44 2/5/2014 Mary Maxson Winquist ‘46 2/12/2014 Jean Makepeace Jeffrey ‘47 4/12/2014 Susanne Stevens Culbertson ‘48 11/23/2013 Florence Wells Frisbie ‘48 3/27/2014 Ellen Swann Leupold ‘50 11/9/2013 Margaret Cummings Perkins ‘52 2/17/2014 Barbara Peckham Mottern ‘60 5/11/2014 Dorothy Woodbridge Dash ‘72 3/27/2014 Melissa Butler Solms-Baruth ‘72 4/23/2014

1956

Yasuko Taya Hudson writes, “Recently, we visited Hawaii, the Big Island, for my birthday. It was our first trip to go there. The scenery, the nature, was beautiful! The turtle at the beach was so cute, splashing the sand to its body with its “hands,” that it seemed to me like welcoming us. Also, the volcano activity was very interesting.

We made a new friend during our stay in Hawaii for eight days. This couple was originally from Lithuania, Russia.

They kindly invited us to their lovely home. The garden was just like a botanical garden of Hawaii, overlooking the ocean. My husband is a historian, so we had a good conversation over the luncheon. I was touched by their warm kindness, good nature, and their culture. This was one of the highlights of this trip. This year, we are celebrating our 50th wedding anniversary. Best wishes to you all.

Greeting and hello from us!”

1971

Allison Argo’s documentary “Parrot Confidential” premiered on PBS on November 13th. The film documents parrots and the bittersweet world they share with humans.

1984

Coach Martyn Hollands ran into Evan Lederman at the National Soccer Coaches Association convention in Philadelphia.

1968

Amy Gordon released a new book, Painting the Rainbow, in March. Set in the 1960’s, it is about two cousins who discover letters from a Japanese boy named Kiyo. Their discovery helps them uncover secrets that have been held in the heart of the family since World War II.

Congratulations to Jennifer Orr who was recently appointed as the Executive Director of Integrated Marketing at Town & Country Magazine.

1986

Carley Roney was one of the keynote speakers on March 14th for The Women’s Summit at Bryant University!

Roney is a past commencement speaker at Wheeler and founder of The Knot.

What do these students from the 1930s have in common with students from 2014? See page 12. continued on next page — 39

Class Notes

Katherine Kraig Mumma writes, “Pete and I welcomed our third child, Catriona Clare Mumma (photo below), on March 6, 2014.

Cate is already adored by her big brother, Harry (5.5), and sister, Josie (3.5).”

1988

Jeremy Duffy (above right) has plans to convert an old warehouse on Kinsley Avenue into the home of Isle Brewers Guild, where craft brewers would produce and sell their own creations.

Photo from The Providence Journal

Bonnie Thompson Yezukevich (photo below) ran the Boston Marathon to support at-risk and underserved children and families by raising money for Wediko Children’s Services, a nonprofit committed to helping children succeed in school, at home, and in the community despite the obstacles and challenges in their way.

1996

Congrats to Melissa Mann as the alum who took part in our first VIRTUAL FIELD DAY from the furthest point: Campinas, Brazil.

Andrew Hirsch’s (above third from left) newly-public company BIND Therapeutics got to ring the opening bell at the NASDAQ MarketSite in Times Square in early Spring.

1995

On March 3, 2014, Adam Brodsky, along with Dana and Harper, welcomed Brody Matthew Brodsky to their family.

1998

Wheeler connection to Super Bowl XLVIII: Alum and cinematographer Marshall Rose directed the photography for the muchtouted Seinfeld Reunion which was also a promo for a web series called “Comedians In Cars Getting Coffee.”

1999

Lucy Baker’s book The Boozy Baker is featured on ModCloth’s “Fab Foodie Gifts” Check it out here http://www.modcloth.com/store/ modcloth/gifts/fab-foodies 40

2000

Congratulations to Brent Lang who recently joined Variety as a New Yorkbased Senior film and media reporter.

2002

Fallon Tibbetts, daughter of Andrew Tibbetts and Lindsay Jones, shows her Wheeler spirit!

Max Brodsky’s “E:60 Presents: Dream on Boston’s Strongest” recently aired on ESPN. It was an hour-long special telling several stories from the Boston Marathon Bombings. Max produced the central feature on Marc Fucarile.

2005

Jaeke Morgan Donahue, with partners, opened up The Deli at 66 Broadway in Newport, RI. Check it out at www. thedelinewport.com

2010

During her studies abroad, Cathleen Williams (below) poses in front of a storefront, wearing a tailor-made “dejellaba” (traditional Moroccan dress), “blegh” (traditional slippers) and the Hand of Fatima earings (Fatima was the daughter of the Prophet Mohammed).

2007

Lexi Kriss (right in photo below) produced a tv segment for The Rhode Show featuring current Wheeler student Max Levine, who made the Top 10 at this year’s National Geographic Bee.

2003

Zach Green and Laura Healy welcomed baby Isaac (below) to their family on December 22nd.

continued on next page —

2009 — Allyson Even Earns Fulbright Allyson Even graduated from UPenn, summa cum laude in May 2013, and then accepted a Fulbright English Teaching Assistantship in Mexico. She spent 10 months in Zapopan, Jalisco, Mexico, teaching 600 students ages 12-16. During this time, she put together a cultural exchange project in which the students from Mexico communicated with several schools in the United States, including Sra. Callender’s Spanish class at Wheeler.

Since completing the Fulbright, Allyson has accepted a position as an 8th grade history teacher in the Rio Grande Valley in Texas as a member of Teach for America.

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Class Notes Ian Horne (at right) has been starting goalkeeper at Colorado College, where he has completed his sophomore year.

Over the summer he plays cricket for the Colorado Springs Cricket Club — having learned the game years ago at Wheeler Summer Camp!

2011

Wheeler lacrosse star Priscilla Tyler (with ball above) helped lead her Amherst team to a victory over The College of New Jersey (8-5) to advance to the final four of the Division III Championships.

2013

Erika Entezary (below) has been filmed in a commercial for a hair product called Viviscal. Watch for her!

2012

Chris Anselmo is the composer of one of 10 plays selected for the 2014 NY Musical Theatre Festival. FABLE was written as Chris’ Senior Project at Wheeler. Learn more about how to support Chris here: http://www.nymf. org/tickets/2014-events/fable/ While out getting pizza in D.C., Jeff Fleming (at right below) ran into Vice President, Joe Biden, happy to pose for a photo. Jeff is a student at American University.

Snail mail, email, social media?

Stay connected with Wheeler! @wheelerschool, @wheeleralumni 42

Alumni Events Stay informed at www.wheelerschool.org/alumni

Enjoy private tours and lectures at two national exhibits in Washington, D.C. this September 18-19, 2014.

Total Art: Contemporary Video This is a woman-focused show that does not “tokenize” its artists National Museum of Women in the Arts Thursday, September 18 Mary C. Wheeler Lecture & Reception Catherine Little Bert, Bert Gallery American News Women’s Club Thursday, September 18 Degas/Cassatt Exhibit This exhibition focuses on the peer relationship between Mary Cassatt and Edgar Degas National Gallery of Art Friday, September 19 Due to heavy public interest in these exhibits and the special nature of these private events, space will be limited.

More than 62,000 visitors viewed the Degas/Cassatt Exhibit in its first month.

Contact Martyn Hollands at 401-5282109 or email at martynhollands@ wheelerschool.org for more information.

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Alumni Events Celebrating the 125th Anniversary at Rialto, Boston, MA

Front row (Left to right): Judy Salvadore ‘81, Kara Orr ‘81, Heidi Brown ‘75, Jill Stanzler-Katz ‘75, Debra DeLuca ’73, Jody Adams ‘75, Tom Feldman ‘87, Christine Medeiros Silverman ‘85, Michele Sczerbinski Diaz ’86, Cristiana Quinn ‘80, Dana Salvadore-Cazzani ‘82, Sloane DeAngelis ’86, Darlene D’Arezzo ’87, Chris Cobleigh ‘87 Back row (Left to right): Dan Miller, Line Lewis ‘70, Monica Strauss Vangel ‘74, Rob Glancy ‘01, Sue Clegg ’85, Pamela Aaronson Hamilton ‘85, Leigh Feldman ‘85, Meredith Cohen Fried ‘85

At right: Tom Feldman ‘87 and Chris Cobleigh ‘87 At left: Meredith Cohen Fried ‘85, Christine Medeiros Silverman ‘85, Leigh Feldman ‘85 and Pamela Aaronson Hamilton ‘85

Boston In-College “meet up” at Picco, Boston, MA

2014 Class Gift BBQ Left to right: Martyn Hollands, Chris Dwyer ‘11, Ross Frank ‘13, Jackie Chan ‘13, Alex Graff ‘13, John Snyder ‘12 and Hogan Vivier ‘12 44

2014 Class gift co-chairs Yin Agbontaen ’14 and Lewis Lee ’14 with Head of School Dan Miller. The class of 2014 celebrated 100% participation in their Annual Giving efforts.

Campus Wheeler Workshops, Providence, RI

Dana Salvadore-Cazzani ‘82, Taylor Reilly Joyce ‘96 and Nicole Brissette Jennings ‘99 enjoy a printmaking class led by young alum Rosa Congdon ‘11

Below left: Providence alumni take part in a hands-on cooking workshop led by chefs from Dante’s Kitchen owned by Lisa Altieri ‘85. Below right: Wheeler Alumni President Etienne Granito Mechrefe ‘92, Grant Brown ‘01, Melissa Leach ‘85, Kimberly Newman ‘82, Lisa Altieri ‘85, Maria Renzulli Gould ‘85 and Rob Glancy ‘01.

Reunion & Alumni Weekend October 17 - 18 See inside back cover for schedule highlights!

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Alumni Events New York Metro Club at Ginger Man, New York City

Head of School Dan Miller, Math Teacher Kathy Johnson and Lower School Head Dana Hahn were the featured guests at April’s NY Metro Club gathering.

Center left: Dana Hahn, David Jacober ‘99, Kennon Kay ‘01 and Michael Jacober ‘01. Center right: Robby Elliott ‘07 and Robin Alexander ‘06 show their Wheeler spirit.

Bottom left: Kathy Johnson and Jason Sherwin ‘05.

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Alumni Events Boston Metro Club at The Clink, Boston , MA College Counseling Director Amy Baumgartel Singer ‘89 helped represent Wheeler at the April Boston Metro Club event.

At left: Zach Berk ‘97, Sarah Joines ‘98, Lee Greenwood ‘97, Alumni Board member Michael Esposito ‘97 and Darlene D’Arezzo ‘87.

Center left: Brendan Sweet ‘07, Kelsey Whitaker ‘07 and Claudia Willett ‘07 with Alan Duda.

Bottom: Carly Siperstein ‘06, Clare Orenstein ‘06 and Amy Singer ‘89.

Wheeler Celebrates College Graduations for Class of 2010!

Lara Hollands, Ben Mirza, Nathaniel Morris, Sam Feinstein, Irv Adu-Gyamfi, Sarika Subramaniam, Dakota Whitworth, Drew Manville and Head Dan Miller.

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THE 125TH ANNIVERSARY CLASS OF 2014 Alexander Mark Adrain Yin Igie Agbontaen Bryan Alvarez Charles Anthony Andrews II Zooey Alexandra Arnold-Conner Nathan David Balcom Lillian Grear Barker Nicholas Edward Beal Samuel Elliot Becker Lucy Louise Boogaerts Jesse Saul Brenman Sally Isabel Butler Rye Amber Carroll Margaret Rose Chaquette Yanghui Chen Seth David Chernick Gregory Maino Clancy Timothy James Clancy Honor Nikole Davis Mariana Langhammer DeBare Travis Lincoln DeLong Stephanie Lillian Devine Christina Anne Drumm Barrett Randolph Easton Phoebe Dill Finn Jeffrey Edward Gagnon Dylan Alexander Gastel

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Christopher Robert Gemma Rebecca Alix Greenberg Margaret Rose Hanna Aneesh Mathias Heintz Shannon Adele Holley Emily Rose Horowitz Nathan Daniel Housberg John Hastings Cardon Hughes Michael Melkon Janigian Caroline Bonheur Jones Layla Kazemi Sara Kazemi Lilian Kong Rose Kooper-Johnson Gabrielle Sara L'Archevesque Eunbyeol Lee Lewis Collins Lee Clifford Lawrence Charles Lezark Harrison Andrew Liggett Ruoshu Liu William Emerson Lupica Niamh Maddock-Hallaren Adam Samuel Marcuvitz Amanda Marie Marderosian Holly Katherine Marshall Declan Michael McManus Catherine Honorah Metcalf

Daniel Stefan Michel Matthew Steven Monacelli Elizabeth Marie Morrocco Jacob Alan Mukand Charles Alden Nickerson Kristen Marie Nowak Nicole Theresa Nowak Jonah Winston Laffey Parker Jessica Joan Pitocco Lucas James Radoccia Elizabeth Sherrerd Romanzi Adrian Ballard Roop Jacob Alexander Rubin Kathleen Lilla Sai-Halasz Elijah Brewster Schmidt Spike John Sommers Ezra Julian Stark Ian Tang Benjamin Joseph Kwiatkowski Tauber Jessi Leigh Turgeon Wilson Avery Tyler Tamara Livi Upfal Samuel Robert Usher Meghan Matson Wales Ava Margaret White Nicholas Robert Wignot Mengxiao Wu

There’s no such thing as a virtual hug.

That’s why we have Reunion!

Reunion & Alumni Weekend October 17 & 18 Join us this year! All Alumni Welcome!

• A new format for Alumni-Student Roundtable based on Affinity Groups • Alumni Art Show in Wheeler’s new Center for the Arts • 4’s & 9’s Cocktail Reception • Alumni Night • Fall Fest at the Farm (free fun for the whole family) • 4’s & 9’s Saturday Brunch • Half-Century Club Dinner See more, register and connect at www.wheelerschool.org/alumniweekend

Parents of Alumni: If this publication is addressed to your son or daughter who no longer maintains a permanent address with you, please notify the Alumni Office of the new mailing address.

Non-Profit Org. US Postage

PAID Office of Institutional Advancement The Wheeler School 216 Hope Street Providence, Rhode Island 02906-2246

The final Upper School assembly in Wheeler Hall was occasion for a giant “selfie.” Come this fall, student assemblies will take place in the newly-constructed Center for the Arts.

Photo by Amy Baumgartel Singer ‘89

Providence, RI Permit No. 1023